A L E X G A W R O N S K I

Escape Artist (Vertical Horizon) 2009

Alex Gawronski: Escape Artist (Vertical Horizon), 2009

The Institute of Contemporary Art Newtown (I.C.A.N.) Sydney

(Plywood, timber, MDF, enamel paint, brackets, PVC chain)

A false floor is constructed in the gallery. Opened in this floor is an equally faux manhole; the gallery is thus transformed into an urban archaeological zone. Meanwhile, visitors are left to search for the ‘missing’ artwork in the hole in the floor, the gallery being otherwise ‘empty’. The work therefore is as much about absence as it is about narrative possibility. At the same time, the installation combines references to the supposedly incompatible terrains of formalist abstraction and slapstick humour. The deep ‘bottomless’ space under the gallery is equally the shallow focal space of the artwork itself. The hand-made museum stanchions further frame the work as art while figuratively preventing the audience from ‘escaping’ to where the artist has implicitly gone. The contextual reality of the gallery as a narrative arena is everything.

Exchange Value 2009

Alex Gawronski: Exchange Value, 2009

‘Between Site and Space’ (Part 2) Artspace Sydney; curated by Reuben Keehan, Artspace and Hisako Hara, TWS in conjunction with Asialink and the Australia-Japan foundation

(Timber, plywood, rope, brackets, glass $1000 AUD + $1000 AUD in Yen)

A rustic water-carrying device constructed of timber and plywood. Presented in each suspended wooden bucket are, respectively, my artist’s exhibition fee and materials allowance; one in Australian one dollar coins and the other in Japanese Yen. The weight of the bucket’s contents are falsely equalised; all cultural exchanges in the globalised world are haunted, no matter how subtly, by the spectre of globalised capital the value of which is the same in each context.

Knowing You/Knowing Me (# 2); Knowing You/Knowing Me (JANUS; Local Version) 2009

Alex Gawronski: Knowing Me/Knowing You (detail), 2009; Knowing Me/Knowing You (JANUS; Local Version) (detail) 2009

‘Mirror/Mirror’ The Institute of Modern Art (IMA) Brisbane 2009; University of Sydney galleries 2010; Samstag Gallery Adelaide 2010; curated by Dr Ann Stephen

(Laser-cut mirror perspex, eyelets, wire rope)