ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF LOOKING FOR THE PLOT IN ART
On page one they search the room for figures in the work of art, its characters. Unable to find any they check under a couch that has a Missing book and behind the curtain for ‘hidden’ characters. Still, no one.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF LOOKING FOR THE PLOT IN ART
On page two they discover the couch has moved. They wonder who could have moved it if there are no characters. Perplexed, they sit on the couch for a while, then decide the answer must be on page three.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF LOOKING FOR THE PLOT IN ART
On page three both the couch and Missing book have disappeared. Here, they strongly suspect they have missed something integral in the work of art — its plot, for instance.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF LOOKING FOR THE PLOT IN ART
On page four they dread, without finding the plot, they will never reach the conclusion. They decide to backtrack through a margin’s passageway to search, again, page one for some clue in the Missing book.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF LOOKING FOR THE PLOT IN ART
Everything is in place as before, except the Missing book. Either the work of art is dodgy or, if reason prevails, this is not page one but page five. Confident in their understanding, they at last see the denouement’s door.

Missing
Four Sculptuations

by Gail Hastings
with a foreword by Richard Shiff

Format: E-book
Pages: 52; xi, 43
Dimensions: Viewing device
Publication date: 26 Apr 2014
Publisher: Pigment Publisher
Place: Sydney
Language: English
ISBN: 9780646915937

Space of a five page plot

Specifications
Space of a five page plot is made of watercolour and lead pencil on paper.

The work comprises ten components with an overall measurement of 55 x 538 x 1.85 cm when aligned on wall, framed. Individually, each watercolour is 36 x 27.6 cm unframed and 55 x 46.6 x 1.85 cm framed. The artwork is part of the book Missing: Four sculptuations by Gail Hastings, pages 26-36.

Edition
Space of a five page plot is in an edition. The edition includes:
  • Corner caretakers, 2014
  • Space of a five page plot, 2014
  • Missing, 2014
  • The distance of doubt, 2014
    • Exhibitions, events & artist pages
    11/04/2014 Exhibition: To Do, The Commercial, Sydney
    26/04/2014 Missing: four sculptuations by Gail Hastings, Apple Books, Available in 51 countries

    Bibliography
    Crabb Annabel, Review, 2014, http://gailhastings.com.au/book/missing/, accessed 23 October 2016.

    Quiet art, like the work of Gail Hastings, chooses instead to inhabit that moment and furnish it with humour.
    Am I missing something? — the timeless fretful self-interrogation of the enthusiastic but apprehensive gallery-creeper — becomes, in Missing, the shape of the artwork itself.
    It’s funny, because everyone recognizes this tendency in the civilian art-lover; this scrupulous and obedient hunt for scraps of meaning hidden here and there by the artist, failure to spot any of which might constitute a serious inadequacy.

    Parker Philip Isobel, ‘The pure potential of a page’, The Art Life, 2014, .

    ‘Missing’ is a (virtual) object — namely the book itself — but it is also a state of being, or rather a state of being displaced. […] The Missing books that are embedded in each sculptuation — virtualized and synecdochic — trap the viewer within a looped mise-en-abîme. Their presence turns each work into a hall of mirrors.

    Rowell Amanda, ‘Afterword’, Missing: Four Sculptuations by Gail Hasting, Pigment Publisher, Sydney 2014, pp.xiv-xivi.

    Shiff Richard, ‘Foreword’, Missing: Four Sculptuations by Gail Hasting, Pigment Publisher, Sydney 2014, pp.v-vi.

    The ‘copy’ exists in two different modes, two different kinds of spaces, two different realms of experience. The copy-as-original can be virtual, like an electronic signal, while the copy-as-edition becomes material, like printouts from a master code. Or, the copy-as-original can be materially based, while its replications exist virtually, like photographic scans, whether disseminated or not. No matter how we figure what a copy is, it extends the scope of our experience. We realise that our consciousness exists somewhere between the virtual and the material; or, more to the point,
    it must exist as both. Actual and virtual are equally real, like an object and its image, an event and its dream. 

    Human events are dreamlike — to use Gail Hastings’ term, our situation is a sculptuation, from which we negotiate a physical world and a conceptual world. The physical world is the sculptural; we can bump against it. The conceptual world is the situational; we imagine or formulate our situation in order to delineate a purpose in life and chart its prospects. 

    Related Works
    Works in ‘Missing’ include
  • The distance of doubt, 2014
  • Missing, 2014
  • Space of a five page plot, 2014
  • Corner caretakers, 2014

    • Holdings
    Gail Hastings’ studio
    Space of a five page plot is available for acquisition. Please enquire about viewing the artwork.

    Later artwork

    Earlier artwork

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      I acknowledge the Kulin Nation’s Yaluk-ut Weelam clan of the Boon Wurrung people as custodians of the lands, waterways and skies where I live and work. I pay my respect to their Elders past, present and emerging, and to Elders of Australia’s First Peoples other communities who may be visiting this website.
      Gail Hastings

      @ Studio Gail Hastings 2024