Gertrude Contemporary Art Space

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200 Gertrude Street

Fitzroy, 3065

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Dying in Spite of the Miraculous

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free

Bookings & Enquiries: http://www.melbournefestival.com.au/

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Presented by Melbourne International Arts Festival and Gertrude Contemporary
Dying in Spite of the Miraculous

Featuring work by seven major international artists, Dying in Spite of the Miraculous reveals the shadowy outlines that bleed between worlds, where artists become inseparable from their haunting of a site or a story. Co-curated by the Festival and Gertrude Contemporary, the exhibition explores film’s potential as an allegory for the interplay between real time and the illusory, as actors blur their characters with themselves, and sites resonate with accumulated history.

Combining the intrigue of real life events born from trauma and psychosis with ritual and magic, Dying in Spite of the Miraculous presents a restless fusion of the celestial and the real. Bas Jan Ader and Jeremy Blake both disappeared, presumed drowned, while exploring sadness and psychosis in their work. The myths and superstitions surrounding occultist Aleister Crowley and killers Jean-Claude Romand and Charles Manson are the subject of works by Joachim Koester, Saskia Olde Wolbers and Justin Lieberman. Joachim Koester and Ulla von Brandenburg investigate a curious collection of architectures, from the ghoulishly muraled rooms of Crowley’s magical community in Sicily, to Le Corbusier’s failed utopian experiment Villa Savoye. Jeremy Blake’s video work summons the spectres of the Winchester Mystery Mansion built by Sarah Lockwood Pardee, as a gift to the ghosts that haunted her. In all of these works the celestial coexists with the out-take and the certain becomes ethereal.

Working in collaboration with architect Johan Van Schaik, Gertrude Contemporary’s two gallery spaces will be transformed into a dematerialising labyrinth, mirroring the way the works blur the distinction between self and subject.

Jeremy Blake (USA) presented work in the 2000, 2002 and 2004 Whitney Biennials, and his work also features as the abstract sequences in the film Punch Drunk Love.

Ulla von Brandenburg (Germany) has exhibited widely including in the 2009 Venice Biennale, the 2008 Torino Triennale and at Tate Modern, London.

Bas Jan Ader (Netherlands) exhibited at Museum of Modern Art, New York, ‘Prospect ’71’ Dusseldorf, and in numerous solo exhibitions.

Joachim Koester (Denmark) was a 2008 finalist for the Hugo Boss Prize and exhibited for the 2005 Venice Biennale Danish Pavilion.

Justin Lieberman (USA) has exhibited at galleries and museums in New York, Israel, Paris, Milan, Brussels, Switzerland, and London.

Mel O'Callaghan is an Australian born, Paris and Berlin-based artist whose film, video, photographic and sculptural installations have been exhibited in Australia and overseas.

Saskia Olde Wolbers (Netherlands) was the winner of the Beck’s Futures award in 2004 and the Baloise Prize at Basel Art Fair 2003 and has exhibited extensively internationally.

Official Opening
Fri 8 Oct at 6pm

Exhibition
Fri 8 Oct - Sat 6 Nov
Tue - Fri 11am to 5.30pm
Sat 11am - 4.30pm
Closed Sun & Mon
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