Gallery: Heidi Museum of Modern Art

  • Less is More: Minimal and Post-Minimal Art in Australia  [withdrawal]

    Less is More: Minimal and Post-Minimal Art in Australia [withdrawal]

    01/09/2012 withdrawal of ABC art: red cube from the exhibition upon receiving the exhibition’s catalogue and reading the curatorial premise for the work’s inclusion, where I gave reasons for the withdrawal that include:

    [The curatorial essay mentions] my art (with reference to Floor plan: Empty, except) within the context of Robert Morris’ essay. Not only is this misrepresentative of the place from which my art stems, but I hadn’t even read his notes on Sculpture at that time! Not until some years later. 

    The text in my art is not narrative. It does not tell a story about Jack and Jill running over a hill that exists externally to the sculptuation it is in. If it were narrative, it would not read the way it does, often stilted, chopped, awkward, blocky, non eventful, monotonous, etc. […] The text is not a bad nor a good story — it’s not a story at all. It functions as a spatial aspect of the sculptuation, that’s all. So people walk away disappointed with my art, with the conclusion I’m a bad writer. But the text has nothing to do with being a writer.

    Gail Hastings, excerpts from email to the curator, 31 August 2012

  • Notes towards contemporary post-minimalism [withdrawal]

    Notes towards contemporary post-minimalism [withdrawal]

    Several ideas stemming from Minimalism, though controversial in the 1960s, are now widely accepted as part of the landscape of contemporary art: for example, the artwork can be fabricated by someone other than the artist; it can comprise modules or units used singularly or repeated, and its governing concept is more important than any craft or technical skills.  Minimal artists dispensed with plinths, frames and other distancing devices, thereby activating real space with their works and more directly addressing the viewer. Heide curator Sue Cramer talks with artists Janet Burchill, Gail Hastings, John Nixon and Kathy Temin about the reworking of Minimalism within contemporary art today. The evening will begin with a film viewing, wine and cheese.