Arc Biennial of Art 2009

The Armoured Forest

Enter the new forest and experience something ancient but also a strange sense of the future. A major new installation by emerging Brisbane artist Simone Eisler.

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Apocalypse: Seven Histories into Futures

A major new installation by Melbourne artist Irene Barberis.

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Opening night

Saturday November 7th 6–8pm
Shed E Howard Smith Wharves

To be opened by Dr Christopher Heathcote and Vernon Ah Kee

A giant transparent inflatable, long lengths of darkened handwritten walls, a silicon Chapel, light-lines and tapestry of light, a fountain-font and a hanging cube of 40 glassine drawings make up this new installation.

This is an installation where early Catacomb art an its connection to the roots of early Christian art, along with a most important analysis of it by the art historian Max Dvorak has been a major stimulus and influence. In the first and second century catacombs, a new art and a re evaluation of expression occurred. The minimalist,
reductionist aesthetic which Western Art now values so highly, began, to my mind, in the dank, dark passages of the underground funeral chambers of the early Christians. These caverns explode with contemporaneity; white walls, geometric and architectonic red and green linear structures with free-floating paired back images of representational figures.

“The wholly earth-bound problems of antiquity ceased to occupy men’s minds and their place was taken with eschatological considerations. With this change of heart came new ideas and re-evaluations of man’s emotional life — all radically different from the naturalistic ideals of antiquity which had striven so hard to embody the forces of nature. Now the whole purpose of painting had changed. In the catacombs it was not used to portray forms of physical perfection, men of heroic stature, or memorable historic deeds, rather to lead man to prayer and an awareness of heavenly things… These figures had already been reduced to their essential material elements, were now transposed, beyond the limitations of earthly things, into a sphere of free, unlimited and timeless spaciousness. Space was thus transformed from a physical phenomenon into a metaphysical concept and therefore, at the same time, from an interpretive to a constitutive element of pictorial invention.The visionary representations of the catacombs are not presented within the confines of a terrestrial setting, but in ideal space where everything that is tangible, measurable or subject to mechanical
correlation has lost both powers and significance.”

So the context for this installation is the cavernous unused area of Shed E, a place connected to the river and separated from the major flows of the Brisbane population, just as the Roman catacombs were separated from the city and below the general hustle and bustle of life.

The book of ‘The Apocalypse’, or ‘Revelation’ describes the end of the world and events leading and culminating in the passing of earth’s time into eternity. It is a highly visual and graphic book focussed on and investigated by theorists and artists for millennia in many media, be it the catacombs of the first and second century, the windows and tapestries of the thirteenth century, the frescoes and paintings of the fifteenth century, or the movies and computer games of the 21st century. This exhibition explores the meanings which the apocalypse has for us today, and draws together or conjoins seven historical and contemporary perceptions (theories and methods) of the Apocalypse and and its representations.

Dr. Irene Barberis

There is a small catalogue which accompanies the works in Apocalypse: Seven Histories into Futures.

The artist is like a gardener, arranging her materials into an installation of sorts, balancing the natural line with the geometric, and the different textures and colours. Art and the garden are two human constructs that have a lot in common and some artists in particular highlight and delve deeper into the connection. Simone Eisler’s work is about collecting specimens, growing them, connecting them, developing new hybrids, planting them in new configurations and eventually making a garden that encompasses all levels of life — avian, plant and marine. Like Derek Jarman’s famous garden at Dungeness in Kent, Eisler’s garden is less an artistic garden and more an artwork in its own right.

The seeds for Eisler’s work go back to her childhood spent playing in her father’s veterinary clinic and shed full of his collections and experiments. She spent many a day as a child dissecting animal testicles and ovaries, playing with the rich source of man made objects she found and generally trying to understand how everything works. I would classify Eisler as an artist who compiles art — an artist who makes the bigger image from lots of small parts. She’s not interested in the large imposing smoothly finished sculpture. I am again reminded of Derek Jarman when he said ‘if a garden isn’t shaggy, forget it’. For Eisler if a sculpture isn’t rough and ready and showing its construction then she’s not interested. Also she’s not interested in a self sufficient sculpture as a spatial concept; she is more interested in sculpture and sculptures as three dimensional drawing

Therefore it was not surprising that the smaller installations would grow into bigger statements as she wrestled with larger issues. Her gardens have now become forests in order to house her exploration into the adaptions and hybridity of all life forms. Whilst she has used a wide array of materials in the past she has concentrated in recent times on hard or tough materials from animals and fish — such as scales, skins and horn. She transforms these materials into new fantastical creatures, plant forms, and anthropomorphic clothing vessels.

All of this is not without a conceptual framework. Like many people today Eisler is strongly interested in climate change and the future of the planet. Her focus is on how species adapt to change and, in this particular work, how they develop protective armour to survive. This armour becomes omnipresent especially with the introduction of metal — the wood of trees morphs into metal and ghostly dark birds carry metal balls like bloated testicles and innards.

The world that Eisler creates is dense, baroque and fairytale Gothic but look more closely at the works and you will find some positive signs. The birds carrying the metal balls (sinkers) could also be carrying gifts — carrying lungs back to the sea and therefore reversing the evolutionary process of human emergence from the ocean. The cloaks of oyster shells and fish scales remind us that the original role of the materials was as a safe home and protector and now as a human vestment they silently speak of our need to join together with the animal kingdom.

Eisler’s work is finally an art about transformation. The materials she collects come with a story and a memory, sometimes visible and more often than not unheard except in the private conversations between the artist and the donor of the objects. The artist refashions the objects, maintaining their histories and literalness but adding further
levels of meaning in co-joining them with other materials and working them into recognizable images — cloaks, flocks of birds, plants living on logs of wood etc. In an Eisler installation we are not in some future world nor in the past, but are actually experiencing fragments of a culturally constructed vision of the past and future and in the end this leads us to a world transformed but timeless.

Kevin Wilson

Simone Eisler is represented by Gallerysmith, Melbourne.

Click here to see the interview!

The artists involved in the in_sect project have been busily working away exploring the collaborative elements of knitting as well as exploring new directions for their work. Their studio is wherever they find themselves. Currently they have a small installation of their work at Shed E during the Shih Chieh Huang show.

This workshop took place on Sunday October 11th. The artist invited parents and children to make a long snake like creature using thin plastic painters drop sheets. This is a very simple workshop that involves box fans and the simple construction method of hand tying the plastic together to extend the length of the sculpture. A very enjoyable and fun workshop for children and adults alike.

This workshop took place on Saturday the 10th of October and was a collaboration between Brisbane City Council and Reverse Garbage. Shih Chieh Huangt collected materials from Reverse Garbage and also invited participants to bring a cheap battery toy to disassemble.

The workshop was a joint collaboration between Brisbane City Council, Artworkers Alliance and Reverse Garbage.