As Many Structures As I Can: Works from the Chartwell Collection

Detail of Bill Culbert's Light Plain, installed in As Many Structures As I Can, 2013.

As Many Structures As I Can: Works from the Chartwell Collection

Where

The Dowse Art Museum
When

19 October 2013 - 26 January 2014

As Many Structures As I Can, curated by Emma Bugden at The Dowse Art Museum, featured works from the Chartwell Collection and explored the systems and structures used by artists to generate their work. From painting, sculpture, performance and photography, the artworks featured are built by the rules of their own internal logic.

The title of the show was taken from a video work by Richard Maloy which shows building blocks made of butter being reworked endlessly until the material collapses into a formless abstraction of texture and colour.

Artists included: Fiona Amundsen, Steve Carr, Bill Culbert, Selina Foote, Gavin Hipkins, Sara Hughes, Simon Ingram, Emily Kame Jngwarreye, Richard Killeen, Laresa Kosloff, Richard Maloy, Gabriella Mangano, Silvana Mangano and Michael Parekowhai.

A long gallery corridor with a dark concrete floor, which has a single black bench placed in the centre foreground. At the other end of the corridor hangs masses of identical ceiling lights, which slant upwards at one end giving a tilted effect. They shine downwards and reflect light onto the floor below.

Bill Culbert, Light Plain, 1997.

A close up detail of one of the light fixtures as described in the image above. The light is black, circular and has a single glowing white bulb in the middle.

Bill Culbert, Light Plain (detail), 1997.

Multiple long strips of photographic glossy paper are pinned to a gallery wall, with their ends hanging loose and curling upwards. The strips have small photographs printed on them, with multiple photos being repeated in a line. Photographs include a close up of a sunflower, blue sky and people, but are too small to see clearly. The overall effect is of a colourful grid.

Gavin Hipkins, The Gulf (Teen), 2000-2001.

Steve Carr, Screenshots, 2011.

The image shows the corner of a gallery room. On the left is a series of giant cuisenaire rods stacked on top of one another, all in different colours, to form four individual oblong works. On the right is a visually similar artwork, a canvas painted with long colourful horizontal strips with white inbetween.