THE DASH

14.11.14 - 28.11.14

Studio 2D, 119 – 121 Kippax Street, Surry Hills

Palmer Art Projects & GÆMS are pleased to present their collaborative curated exhibition The Dash supported by SOMA STUDIOS and their upcoming series THE EXO.

THE DASH is group exhibition featuring selected artists from New York, New Zealand and Australia whose works respond and correspond to Bertie Blackman’s new album of the same name, itself created in response to David Bowie’s CHANGESONEBOWIE.

Each of the artists presented addresses the role of artist, at times is best understood as that of the voyeur, the silent watchers capturing and re-presenting what they observe.

While several artists deal with the cult of celebrity and the never ending spotlight, such as David Gamble’s 1987 photographs of Andy Warhol’s apartment taken the day after his death. Others like Alice Couttoupes photographic visions of ‘Critical Whiteness’ explore the experience of seeing, to have one’s vision obscured, and what it means to see without permission.

New Zealand artist Scott Gardiner’s landscapes appear both familiar and otherworldly, trapped in a man-made structure – the vision is a subtle musing on the meaning of life and death.

This theme is more recognizably evident in Juan Ford’s ‘The Emissary’ from his 2007 exhibition ‘Inverted World’. Depicting a highly realistic floating human skull with gum leaves flowing from its mouth. The relationship between human death and regeneration is explored through a hyper realism that also explores the relationship of the viewer to the problems of painting and as he states it’s “would be executioner, photography”.

The original CHANGESONEBOWIE cover was shot by Tom Kelley, who took the famous nude calendar photographs of Marilyn Monroe in 1949. Linking back to Monroe, THE DASH features photography by Elliot Goldstein with a candid shot of a Bert Stern Marilyn set with a bouquet of white lillies, as well as an original Bert Stern photograph of Marilyn Monroe. Rockstar shots of New Yorks Artist, Muse and Collector Natalie White, standing nude in a corridor, by the renown photographer Olivier Zahm, editor of purple mag, add to a timeless Warhol­esque pop and bravado.

A potentially false bravado that, like Bowie’s vision of dystopia, is carried throughout the exhibition.

 LIST OF ARTISTS

ALICE COUTTOUPES – BERT STERN – BERTIE BLACKMAN – DAVID GAMBLE –DINA BROADHURST – ELLIOT GOLDSTEIN – ELIZABETH WATERMAN – JAMES POWERS – JUAN FORD – NATALIE WHITE – OLIVIER ZAHM – OLIVER WATTS –SAM MITCHELL-FIN – SCOTT GARDINER – WILL COOKE