Ry David Bradley

Ry David Bradley @ Evelyn Yard, Apr 28 – May 28

26 April 2016

Ry David Bradley has solo show, Unvalley Valley at London’s Evelyn Yard, opening April 28 and running May 28.

The press release talks about the thrill of being seen and performing, gaining an audience versus the fear of total transparency. Melbourne-based Bradley has made a new series of digital portraits that “combines the clichés of 20th century abstraction with WWII techniques for naval camouflage” hiding the subjects that have been imaged on live video app. Periscope, a smart phone software that lets you see the world through other peoples eyes, as they experience it.

In an age where the question around privacy and its privilege is being both desired and contested, for this Bradley will leave the surfaces unfixed and available to manipulate in a parallel editing programme by the viewer in this particular series for Unvalley Valley, which, as a title rhymes somehow with the wave-y painting process Bradley often works with.

See the Evelyn Yard website for more details.**

Ry David Bradley, Where Do You Want To Go Today (2015), installation shot.Courtesy the artist and Brand New Gallery
Ry David Bradley, Where Do You Want To Go Today (2015), installation shot. Courtesy the artist and Brand New Gallery.
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Artissima Fair @ Oval, Nov 6 – 8

4 November 2015

Artissima international fair of contemporary art focusing on art curation and collection returns to the Oval in Lingotto Fiere Torino from November 6 to 8.

The fair, which garnered attention from the international art market for its innovative research for over 20 years, will invite critics, curators and collectors to award six prizes—five from past editions as well as the Reda-Artissima Prize for exploring “the language of photography”.

This year’s fair brings a long list of talent, including Luca Pozzi‘s site specific installation ‘Wilson Tour Majestic’ at MEF Museum, Evan Roberts solo show with new pieces from the fence series, and a group show fromwith Brand New Gallery with Ry David Bradley, Ryan Conrad SawyerGraham Wilson and Letha Wilson.

There’s also a solo show by Hayv Kahraman for The Third Line, Hannah Perry with Seventeen, shows with Julie Bena, Daiga Grantina and Jo-ey Tang for Galerie Joseph Tang, and three solo shows in Torino’s magnificent Palazzo Capris with Tabor Robak, Michael Armitage, and Paul Kneale.

See the Artissima website for details. **

Luca Pozzi, 'Wilson Tour Majestic' (2015) @ Artissima. Courtesy the artist.
Luca Pozzi, ‘Wilson Tour Majestic’ (2015) @ Artissima. Courtesy the artist.

 

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Graham Wilson + Ry David Bradley @ Brand New, Sep 23 – Nov 7

22 September 2015

Two solo shows, Graham Wilson‘s I Clocked Out When I Punched In and Ry David Bradley‘s Where Do You Want to Go Today?, is on at Milan’s Brand New Gallery, opening September 23 and running to November 7.

New York-based artist Wilson’s Clocked Out When I Punched In is not fully revealed yet, but features, as Rachel Valinsky describes in the press release, “an array of works that relate to the life of the studio and the valuation of artistic labor.”

Meanwhile, Melbourne-based artist Bradley will be presenting new digital paintings and sculptural modifications for Where Do You Want to Go Today?.

See the Brand New Gallery page for details.**

1500_1000-580x469Ry David Bradley, ‘Flowers for Ukraine’ (2014). Photo by Christo Crocker. Image courtesy Alana Kushnir.

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Tabularium @ Slopes reviewed

8 September 2014

Examining information dissemination and the archive on and offline, Tabularium exists as a physical exhibition and a website. Curated by Alana Kushnir and taking its name from the 78 BCE Roman building storing tablet legal documents, it builds on the ongoing project collating and preserving publications not available in a digital format yet drawing from, or reflecting on the internet. The original Roman Tabularium was closed to the public but the works on show at Melbourne’s Slopes gallery examine the modern archive as a public resource, actively created, modified and consumed on a daily basis.

Slopes is a space that exists in a transitional state – sitting in the back of a building currently being renovated into apartments, it will close once these renovations are complete. Right now though, it’s a white cube punctuated by a ceiling open to a rickety-looking wooden catwalk and its designated ‘slope’ (a remnant of its previous use as an underground carpark) jutting into the gallery. It’s a perfect place to present Tabularium, where the remnants of a utilitarian past and pre-ordained non-gallery future mean that the space itself is positioned within the fluctuating lifecycle of the archive.

Tabularium (2014) @ Slopes exhibition view. Photo by Christo Crocker. Image courtesy Alana Kushnir.
Tabularium (2014) @ Slopes exhibition view. Photo by Christo Crocker. Image courtesy Alana Kushnir.

The destruction of tactile documents, from the legendary burning of the Library of Alexandria to the recent loss of museum artefacts in Syria to civil war, are examples of how physical objects of knowledge and information can be lost, but the intangible online one is just as prone. Both Ry David Bradley’s ‘Flowers for Ukraine’ (2014) and Jon Rafman’s ‘Annals of Time Lost’ (2013) examine said extinction. Bradley inserts an abstracted flower into the Ukraine Wikipedia page, printing a copy to record the incursion. Presented along with a large-scale reproduction of the plant, its documentation continues to offer an IRL version of the page that exists long after editors have figuratively ‘deflowered’ the online one. Rafman’s video work, meanwhile, draws from the London’s National Gallery collection to produce juxtapositions of anime characters and old master paintings, building a new archive informed by the personal narratives of its creator.

The archive as physical property is examined within Lawrence Lek’s ‘Memory Palace’ (2014) video, taking its audience on a virtual tour of an imagined Tabularium space in which server racks and monitor screens take the place of inscribed tablets. Katja Novitskova’s knife-like ‘Shapeshifter X’ and ‘Shapeshifter V’ (2013), are made from circuit board wafers and presented within acrylic cases. The circuit boards do not disclose their originally intended use and any information encoded within them is lost. Instead, the museum aesthetic of their presentation prompts the audience to consider them as historical objects used in the distant past.

Alana Kushnir, 'Tabularium Archive' (2014 – ongoing) (updated list available [here] [https---docs.google.com-document-d-1C8hqwpkFZiecHtsWu4FIQsGLwSS7A2NxoZkRxMfzzTM-edit?usp=sharing]). Photo by Christo Crocker. Image courtesy Alana Kushnir.
Alana Kushnir, ‘Tabularium Archive’ (2014 – ongoing) (updated list available [here] [https—docs.google.com-document-d-1C8hqwpkFZiecHtsWu4FIQsGLwSS7A2NxoZkRxMfzzTM-edit?usp=sharing]). Photo by Christo Crocker. Image courtesy Alana Kushnir.

Other works, also including Tom Penney, Heman Chong and Anthony Marcellini, continue this exploration of documentation and archive construction. Eloïse Bonneviot’s ‘My Forensic Steps 2’ (2014) print on silk presents written instructions on the process of crime-scene documentation within the gallery, then subverts the objective output of those rules through a first-person game hosted on the Slopes gallery website. This subversion continues within Rachel De Joode’s print, ‘Hanging Marble’ (2014), rough marble reduced to two dimensions and exuding an oppositional strength and suppleness, a perfect representation of the way knowledge flows and changes within the archive.

Surrounded by these works in the gallery sits Tabularium Archive, a library of books on a server rack that capture the internet in some way, yet exist only within a physical reality. They’re digital ‘ghosts’ of texts from Kushnir’s personal collection, which fade in and out of view from within the space, reflecting on their status as information not available through online archives. Both the books and the works within Tabularium examine the spaces between the original Tabularium’s static information collection and storage, and the data flows of our current realities. Kushnir and the artists involved have built a modern Tabularium – an evolving space which sets nothing in stone. **

Exhibition photos, top-right.

The Tabularium group exhibtion is on at Melbourne’s Slopes gallery, running from August 21 to September 13, 2014.

Header image: Tabularium (2014) @ Slopes exhibition view. Photo by Christo Crocker. Image courtesy Alana Kushnir.

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