MATE­R­I­AL

Anna Schwartz Gallery is excit­ed to present MATE­R­I­AL, an exhi­bi­tion fea­tur­ing new and recent works by five emerg­ing artists: Nico­la Blu­men­thal, Britt d’Ar­gav­ille, Beth Maslen, Aden Miller and Stephanie Pile. Curat­ed by gallery artists Rose Nolan and Stephen Bram, MATE­R­I­AL recalls acclaimed artist John Nixon’s tra­di­tion of men­tor­ing the prac­tice of peers and asso­ciates. Through var­i­ous medi­ums, these artists have cre­at­ed dynam­ic, spa­tial com­po­si­tions as an explo­ration of objects­ – both found and constructed­­ – to exam­ine how mate­ri­al­i­ty is often cat­e­go­rized with­in a set of pre­de­ter­mined con­di­tions. ​“These phys­i­cal mate­ri­als are essen­tial in trans­form­ing abstract ideas into con­crete forms, pro­vid­ing the foun­da­tion­al ele­ments with which each artist con­structs their visu­al lan­guage,” says Nolan and Bram.

Employ­ing mate­ri­als such as ply, fab­ric and found objects; and tech­niques includ­ing, sewing, print­ing and paint­ing, col­lec­tive­ly, these artists attempt to inter­rupt the view­ers’ asso­ci­a­tions or recog­ni­tion in the aim of return­ing to a space of ​‘not-know­ing’. As the cura­tors explain: ​“This notion of ​‘not-know­ing’ rep­re­sents a state of curios­i­ty, open­ness and free asso­ci­a­tion where the artist embraces uncer­tain­ty and the poten­tial for discovery.” 

Nico­la Blumenthal’s whim­si­cal Sil­ver Objects, 2024, resi­t­u­ates a tableau of ready­made objects in rela­tion to a large re-pur­posed grey plinth. In her essay On Mea­sur­ing Dis­tance: The Field, art his­to­ri­an and crit­ic Helen Hugh­es says: ​“It’s also amus­ing that so much of the stuff in Sil­ver Objects is not reflec­tive, rare sil­ver, but absorp­tive, insti­tu­tion­al grey, often read­ing as ​‘neu­tral’ if not invisible.”

Britt d’Argaville’s archi­tec­tur­al site-spe­cif­ic instal­la­tion Earth­quake, 2024, includes pho­tog­ra­phy, chip­board and resin. Often engag­ing the spectator’s body, this work fea­tures a col­li­sion of index­i­cal­i­ties and sculp­tur­al entan­gle­ments, dis­ori­en­tat­ing the view­er into a lim­i­nal space or a psy­chic happening. 

Beth Maslen’s works Mater­nal Fig­ures 12, 2023/2024 and Mater­nal Fig­ures 11, 2024 reorder pre-con­ceived visu­al and asso­cia­tive con­nec­tions. As the artist says: ​“Like a con­stel­la­tion or dia­gram, dis­parate ele­ments of imagery – swans, chan­de­liers, an array of shoes, a car under­go­ing repair, coa­lesce toward fig­ur­ing the sym­bol­ic moth­er in form and feel­ing; in par­tic­u­lar hold­ing asso­ci­a­tions that relate to myself as an artist and my rela­tion­ship with oth­er female artists, both famil­iar and not. In this way it presents a vision of lat­er­al and lit­er­al sup­ports; those who make us while we are making.”

A sense of repose is expe­ri­enced in Stephanie Pile’s spa­tial com­po­si­tions made from tex­tiles. Her approach, which is process dri­ven, exam­ines the infer­ence of mean­ing and emo­tion­al qual­i­ties found with­in the mate­r­i­al. Pile’s con­struc­tions resem­ble a par­tial land­scape or mind map, allud­ing to a space of bod­i­ly con­scious­ness. ​“I seek to give pri­ma­ry val­ue to sec­ondary mate­ri­als. I am attract­ed to mate­ri­als and process­es that demand a direct tac­tile engage­ment, result­ing in work that main­tains an evi­dent con­nec­tion to the body.”

Aden Miller’s work Syzy­gy, 2024 evokes a sense of motion and opti­cal dis­so­nance through his seem­ing­ly spon­ta­neous com­bi­na­tion of found, pur­chased and waste mate­ri­als. Miller’s restruc­tur­ing of these objects cul­ti­vates a new van­tage point, yield­ing a ten­sion between what we think we recog­nise and what we actu­al­ly perceive.

In this exhi­bi­tion, these artists ren­der a sense of unpre­dictabil­i­ty; a type of decen­tral­iza­tion medi­at­ed by space, mate­r­i­al and ref­or­ma­tion. A new exchange is formed between sub­jec­tiv­i­ty and objec­tiv­i­ty, and between the known and unknown. ​“The inter­play between the con­crete prop­er­ties of mate­ri­als and the open-end­ed pos­si­bil­i­ties of not-know­ing is inher­ent­ly pos­i­tive and dynam­ic with­in this dia­logue,” accord­ing to the cura­tors. ​“It high­lights the pro­gres­sion from inquiry to insight, where the manip­u­la­tion and explo­ration of mate­ri­als nur­tures experimentation.”

MATE­R­I­AL at Anna Schwartz Gallery from 10 August – 14 Sep­tem­ber, 2024


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CURA­TO­R­I­AL STATE­MENT

‘…not-know­ing is cru­cial to art, is what per­mits art to be made. With­out the scan­ning process engen­dered by not-know­ing, with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing the mind move in unan­tic­i­pat­ed direc­tions, there would be no inven­tion.’ Don­ald Barthelme, Not-Know­ing, 1997

Over the past year or so, we’ve put togeth­er this group of works through an infor­mal, social process of look­ing, talk­ing, and reflect­ing, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on con­nect­ing with a younger gen­er­a­tion of artists. With­out real­iz­ing it, we found our­selves organ­i­cal­ly com­pil­ing a poten­tial exhi­bi­tion list as we vis­it­ed dif­fer­ent shows, dis­cussed the works that res­onat­ed with us, and shared our enthu­si­asm for par­tic­u­lar pieces. This intu­itive approach to exhi­bi­tion-mak­ing was guid­ed by our instinc­tive respons­es to the art­works we encoun­tered and a grow­ing sense that these works shared a con­nec­tion. Our inten­tion has been to bring these art­works from their orig­i­nal, dis­parate set­tings into the pris­tine space of Anna Schwartz Gallery to encour­age dia­logue between these new works and the gallery’s his­to­ry, as well as among the artist’s works themselves. 

MATE­R­I­AL in part, is inspired by the lega­cy of our dear friend, John Nixon, who includ­ed our works in exhi­bi­tions in spaces pre­vi­ous­ly occu­pied by the gallery. He would con­sis­tent­ly curate young artists into exhi­bi­tions with estab­lished fig­ures or with ambi­tious themes. We are inter­est­ed in con­tin­u­ing this prac­tice of exhibit­ing emerg­ing artists in a con­text that invites crit­i­cal engage­ment and con­ver­sa­tion and car­ry­ing on John’s tra­di­tion of pro­mot­ing the work of a younger generation. 

In the con­text of art, the term ​‘mate­r­i­al’ encom­pass­es a broad spec­trum of mean­ings that reflect its mul­ti­fac­eted role in the cre­ative process. Pri­mar­i­ly, ​‘mate­r­i­al’ in this exhi­bi­tion refers to the tan­gi­ble ele­ments and process­es uti­lized by the artists such as ply, fab­ric, found objects, and sewing, print­ing, and paint­ing. These phys­i­cal mate­ri­als are essen­tial in trans­form­ing abstract ideas into con­crete forms, pro­vid­ing the foun­da­tion­al ele­ments with which each artist con­structs their visu­al lan­guage. Beyond its phys­i­cal­i­ty, ​‘mate­r­i­al’ also sig­ni­fies the the­mat­ic and con­cep­tu­al con­tent that informs and shapes each art­work — the sub­ject mat­ter, the nar­ra­tive, and the sym­bol­ic or metaphor­i­cal lay­ers embed­ded with­in. ​‘Mate­r­i­al’ can also extend to the his­tor­i­cal, cul­tur­al, and social con­texts that influ­ence and enrich the mak­ing of art, reflect­ing the broad­er envi­ron­ment in which each artist oper­ates. This mul­ti­fac­eted under­stand­ing of ​“mate­r­i­al” under­scores its role in bridg­ing the tan­gi­ble and the con­cep­tu­al, sit­u­at­ing each art­work with­in a com­plex inter­play of form, con­tent, and context. 

On the oth­er hand, in art you also have to say what you don’t know, what we don’t know. This notion of ​‘not-know­ing’ rep­re­sents a state of curios­i­ty, open­ness, and free asso­ci­a­tion, where the artist embraces uncer­tain­ty and the poten­tial for dis­cov­ery. It is with­in this realm of the unknown that cre­ative explo­ration suc­ceeds, invit­ing artists to ques­tion, exper­i­ment, divert, and invent. The inter­play between the con­crete prop­er­ties of mate­ri­als and the open-end­ed pos­si­bil­i­ties of not-know­ing is inher­ent­ly pos­i­tive and dynam­ic with­in this dia­logue. It high­lights the pro­gres­sion from inquiry to insight, where the manip­u­la­tion and explo­ration of mate­ri­als nur­tures exper­i­men­ta­tion. This engage­ment not only enhances tech­nique but also deep­ens the con­cep­tu­al and the­mat­ic lay­ers of each artist’s work. It exem­pli­fies how mate­r­i­al and not-know­ing inter­sect to encour­age a cre­ative process that is both intel­lec­tu­al­ly and emo­tion­al­ly enrich­ing. So it is through this lens, that the explo­ration of ​‘mate­r­i­al’ in all its facets, and the embrace of not-know­ing are seen as com­ple­men­tary forces that dri­ve Nico­la Blu­men­thal, Britt d’Argaville, Beth Maslen, Aden Miller, and Stephanie Pile to invent. 

Rose Nolan and Stephen Bram
August 2024