Gertrude Contemporary presents the inaugural River Capital Commission, a new annual commissioning initiative, developed in partnership with and through the generous support of River Capital, a Melbourne-based investment firm with a commitment to investor and community success. This new partnership will enable Gertrude to work with leading artists or collaboratives to commission a major new project to be presented as a flagship exhibition within its artistic program.
Brendan Van Hek, signage, 2019, found neon, steel cable, metal rack, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney
For the River Capital Commission 2019, in their first major collaboration together, Consuelo Cavaniglia & Brendan Van Hek will produce and present ‘an unreliable narrator’. The exhibition holds the task of working in collaboration as a key conceptual anchor: exploring the nature of duality from both a spatial perspective in terms of the gallery architecture, and the alignment of two intellectual perspectives, two approaches to the development of narrative, and two distinct artistic practices. It is from this process of attempting to synergise these perspectives, or rather, to concede their differing viewpoints and embrace such pluralism, that the exhibition adopts its title, ‘an unreliable narrator’. Working across two gallery spaces and an expansive atrium at Gertrude, the exhibition is conceived as a single work, unfolding as a series of repeated scenarios; like versions of the same story, told and retold from slightly divergent perspectives. Each of these scenarios will present variations to the narrative – be it through form, material or scale – setting forth a collection of propositions without necessitating a delineation of hierarchy or authority.
While Cavaniglia’s practice holds concerns for the perception and understanding of space – personal, psychological, architectural and environmental – and how we both exist and appear to exist within spatial environments, Van Hek’s practice is embedded within and informed by personal narratives, cultural politics and the proposition of and dismantlement of fictions. Both artists share an astute attention to refined production, material austerity and the cognitive and perceptual effects of colour and light, respectively explored principally through sculpture and installation. ‘an unreliable narrator’ will envelop all of the public spaces at Gertrude, creating an immersive environment that amplifies and calls into question the architecture of the building and collapses the delineation between the internal realm of the gallery spaces and the external public environment.
‘an unreliable narrator’ opens at Gertrude Contemporary on Friday 2 August from 6-8pm and will run until 21 September 2019.
Consuelo Cavaniglia is represented by STATION, Melbourne & Sydney; and Kronenberg Mais Wright, Sydney.
Brendan Van Hek is represented by Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney.
