David Noonan’s Ges­tures in Time

Sophie Knezic
Frieze

The artist’s solo show of tapes­tries at Anna Schwartz Gallery in Mel­bourne are invo­ca­tions of an erst­while era

In his essay on the ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry Ger­man his­to­ri­an and writer Max Kom­merell, the Ital­ian philoso­pher Gior­gio Agam­ben explores the nature of ges­ture, under­stand­ing it as a form of expres­sion close­ly tied to spo­ken lan­guage. Ges­tures are a phys­i­cal imprint of a person’s attempt to make them­selves under­stood, but also expres­sions of an inner, silent dia­logue. In oth­er words, beyond nec­es­sary com­mu­ni­ca­tion, ges­ture has an inher­ent self-reflexivity.

David Noonan’s new series of six jacquard tapes­tries com­prise moody black and white images of life-sized fig­ures, excised from their orig­i­nal pho­to­graph­ic sources and set into new con­fig­u­ra­tions. Each of the char­ac­ters is cropped into a dis­lo­cat­ed ground, their idio­syn­crat­ic ges­tures con­vey­ing a sense of absorbed intro­spec­tion. In one image a fig­ure stands immo­bi­lized, her eyes closed as she faces the sun, lost in a pri­vate rever­ie. In anoth­er, a woman stretch­es out her arm in a light stand­ing twist, head fac­ing the cam­era with her eyes obscured by dark, vel­vety shad­ows. A third tapes­try focus­es on a cos­tume assis­tant adjust­ing a performer’s skull­cap, his eyes shut and hands clasped togeth­er, almost in sup­pli­ca­tion, whilst lean­ing towards her.

The body lan­guage of these fig­ures sug­gests a moment of arrest, a pause in action before a series of move­ments recom­mence. Most of the fig­ures, who would seem to be mime artists, actors or dancers, are clad in leo­tards or vests, their faces accen­tu­at­ed through stage make up and spot light­ing. Drained of colour, the stark tonal con­trasts of the images height­en the sense of dra­ma, the pale fig­ures inverse­ly sil­hou­et­ted against lus­trous black grounds. Yet, the back­grounds are not the audi­to­ri­um inte­ri­ors one might expect but abstract fields of enlarged brush marks, inky splotch­es and cray­oned lines – as if the fig­ures had been dis­placed into an over­sized Ab Ex paint­ing by Robert Moth­er­well or Franz Kline.

For sev­er­al years Noo­nan has pro­duced col­laged images com­posed from a mis­cel­lany of sources: books and mono­graphs on the­atre, stage design and dance from the 1960s to the 90s. The anony­mous fig­ures often have a retro allure, their gar­ments and svelte bod­ies index­es of a bygone era of under­ground avant-garde per­for­mance. While Noonan’s ear­li­er work focussed on cos­tumed fig­ures and masked faces screen-print­ed onto earthy tex­tiles such as Bel­gian linen or jute, he cre­at­ed these grayscale tapes­tries in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Flem­ish weavers. Void of the warm tones of nat­ur­al fab­rics these images are aus­tere: both more for­bid­ding and less oper­at­ic than pre­vi­ous works. The mono­chrome also evokes the tex­ture and tones of ear­ly Xerox pho­to­copies. At times, the stark­ness of the white sec­tions dis­rupts the illu­sion of col­laged ele­ments: it’s as if the imagery was con­struct­ed from three-dimen­sion­al layers.

These trans­fix­ing, mer­cu­r­ial fig­ures seem to both resist and court being looked at – a para­dox that lies at the heart of ges­ture. As Kom­merell not­ed, ges­tures speak first­ly of the subject’s rela­tion to them­selves: only by virtue of this do they become com­pelling for oth­ers. Noonan’s com­po­si­tions cap­ture this enig­ma – of phys­i­cal expres­sions that are simul­ta­ne­ous­ly elo­quent and mute, pub­lic in com­mu­nica­tive func­tion yet inter­nal and deeply private.

For Agam­ben, his­tor­i­cal epochs vary in their breadth of ges­tur­al lan­guage: like oth­er forms of lan­guage, some have been lost over time. Noonan’s deploy­ment of vin­tage pho­tographs fil­tered through the super­an­nu­at­ed tech­nolo­gies of pho­to­copy­ing and mechan­i­cal weav­ing folds into this cul­tur­al read­ing as sal­vaged frag­ments from oth­er worlds. His tapes­tries are invo­ca­tions of erst­while eras, the lex­i­con of bod­i­ly ges­tures their distillate.

frieze​.com

Filter

Su san Cohn | Pre­sent­ing the 3rd Engel­horn Jew­ellery Lecture

Ear­rings are for Lis­ten­ing. An Engel­horn Lec­ture at Die Neue Samm­lung3 March 202411amDie […]

Read More

Vivi­enne Shark Lewitt | 18th Ade­laide Bien­ni­al of Aus­tralian Art: Inner Sanctum

18th Ade­laide Bien­ni­al of Aus­tralian Art: Inner Sanc­tum1 March to 2 June, 2024Art Gallery of […]

Read More

Natal­ie King | Cura­tor of the first Tim­or-Leste Pavilion

The first-ever Tim­or-Leste Pavil­ion, which coin­cides with the 25th anniver­sary of the nation’s independence […]

Read More

Maria Madeira | 60TH Inter­na­tion­al Venice Biennale

Kiss and Don’t Tell 20 April – 24 Novem­ber 2024 Tim­or-Leste Pavil­ion at 60th […]

Read More

MIKE PARR | SUN­SET CLAWS | PART 2

An exhi­bi­tion in 3 parts Part 2: Mem­o­ries of Under­de­vel­op­ment 16 — 25 Novem­ber 202 […]

Read More

Intro­duc­ing | Grace Dav­en­port Selth | Direc­tor of Anna Schwartz Gallery

Anna Schwartz is excit­ed to announce the appoint­ment of Grace Dav­en­port Selth as Director […]

Read More

Lim­it­ed places avail­able. Peo­ple enter at their own risk and in com­pli­ance with gallery […]

Read More

Amri­ta Hepi | Plan­e­tary Gestures

Plan­e­tary Ges­tures26 Sep­tem­ber – 3 Novem­ber 2023Walk­er Street Gallery and Art Cen­tre Plan­e­tary Ges­tures is an […]

Read More

Daniel von Sturmer | Elec­tric Light (facts/​figures/​haydens)

Elec­tric Light (facts/​figures/​haydens)23 Sep­tem­ber – 7 Octo­ber 2023Hay­dens Gallery Elec­tric light (facts/​figures) con­tin­ues Daniel von Sturmer’s […]

Read More

LAU­REN BRIN­CAT | BENEATH THE SUR­FACE, BEHIND THE SCENE

Beneath the Sur­face, Behind the Scene­Un­til 22 Octo­ber 2023 Hei­de Muse­um of Mod­ern Art, Melbourne […]

Read More

MIKE PARR | SUN­SET CLAWS | PART 1

An exhi­bi­tion in 3 parts Part 1: Dirty Blan­ket 28 Sep­tem­ber – 8 Novem­ber 2023 Anna […]

Read More

MUT­LUERKEZ | AUDI­TIONS FOR AN UNWRIT­TEN OPERA

Audi­tions for an Unwrit­ten Oper­aUn­til 8 Octo­ber 2023 Staatliche Kun­sthalle Baden-Baden The exper­i­men­tal exhi­bi­tion format […]

Read More

ANGEL­I­CA MESI­TI | TREMBLEMENT

While explor­ing the cor­ri­dors of the Coupole at Galeries Lafayette, I was cap­ti­vat­ed by three […]

Read More

AMRI­TA HEPI | BANKSIARRR

Amri­ta Hepi with Vanes­sa Mor­ris Dis­cussing Straight torque, twin series on Banksia, RRR Amri­ta Hepi joins […]

Read More

Vivi­enne Shark LeWitt | Sine Proprio

Sine Pro­prio7 Sep­tem­ber – 10 Decem­ber 2023Castle­maine Art Muse­um The wind blows where it will […]

Read More

The vast and uncom­pro­mis­ing prac­tice of Mike Parr assumes mul­ti­ple forms through a con­fla­tion of draw­ing, print­mak­ing, sculp­ture and performance.

Half Way House, 2021 dual-chan­nel video, 16:9, 4K, colour, sound 3 hours 18 min­utes Per­former: Mike Parr. Cinematographer […]

Read More

DAVID NOO­NAN | VIVI­ENNE SHARK LEWITT | JEN­NY WAT­SON | Thin Skin

Jen­ny Wat­son White Horse with Tele­scope, 2012 syn­thet­ic poly­mer paint on rab­bit skin glue primed cot­ton 20 […]

Read More

Lau­ren Brin­cat | Per­for­mances on the Quay

Per­for­mances on the Quay 25 — 27 August 2023The Opera House Podi­umPre­sent­ed by MCA & Sydney […]

Read More

Emi­ly Floyd | Cir­cles of dialogue

Cir­cles of dia­logue 15 August — 5 Novem­ber Latrobe Art Insti­tute This exhi­bi­tion takes as its […]

Read More

DAVID NOO­NAN | VIVI­ENNE SHARK LeWITT | JEN­NY WATSON

Thin Skin,Monash Uni­ver­si­ty Muse­um of Art (MUMA) 20 July – 23 Sep­tem­ber, 2023 Thin Skin […]

Read More

ROSE NOLAN | CEN­TRAL STATION

All along­side of each oth­er, 2023 Cen­tral Sta­tion, Syd­ney, Aus­tralia. The pub­lic art­work All alongside […]

Read More

Night­shifts at Bux­ton Contemporary

night­shifts 26 May – 29 Octo­ber 2023 Bux­ton Con­tem­po­rary night­shifts con­sid­ers the impor­tance of […]

Read More

Su san Cohn | Pieces of Peace | Per­for­mances | NGV Mel­bourne Design Week

Su san Cohn​’s exhi­bi­tion Pieces of Peace at Anna Schwartz Gallery from 20 May […]

Read More

Re-Invent­ing Piet. Mon­dri­an and the Con­se­quences | Joseph Kosuth

On view at Kun­st­mu­se­um Wolfs­burg, Ger­many until 16th July 2023, Re-Inven­t­ing Piet. Mon­dri­an and […]

Read More