AROUND THE GALLERIES Dan Rule
Published: The Age, A2, August 14, 2010.

WHAT Nicholas Mangan: Nauru, Notes from a Cretaceous World
WHERE Sutton Gallery, 254 Bunswick Street, Fitzroy, 9416 0727, suttongallery.com.au 

Nick Mangan’s ongoing study of the tiny Micronesian country of Nauru assumes an almost funereal guise in his new exhibition at Sutton Gallery. Comprising an installation of coral limestone coffee tables, an ink-on-paper drawing and a stunning video work, Nauru, Notes from a Cretaceous World unearths the tale of a once-wealthy phosphate nation’s demise. But while essentially functioning on a level of documentation and record, it’s Mangan’s poetic presentation of evidence – his relics, artefacts and vistas of a broken down island state – that affords this body of work such poignancy. The drawing takes the form of a topography of the island, though the entire interior is left blank, rendered barren and void as if erased. The 14-minute video work captures photographic fragments of this blank world; an almost lunar landscape of coral rock spires, vacant expanses and crumbling infrastructure. The airport’s one runway remains conspicuously unused; communications satellites sit tattered, rusted and torn; beaches are empty but for the relentless pounding of the surf. It is a decaying economic empire. Footage of the dismantling of the once iconic Nauru House plaza on Collins Street acts as the final nail. Mangan’s tables – a reference to a scheme put forward by late president Bernhard Dowiyogo to turn the nation’s mined rock pinnacles into coral coffee tables in a bid to stimulate the Nauruan economy – seem to resonate with both hope and an almost cruel sense of derision. While an attempt to make something out of nothing and reclaim some sense of national identity, they also show the depths to which the supposed minnows are forced to dredge – not forgetting the “Pacific Solution” – to survive in a brutal global economy. Tues to Sat 11am–5pm, until August 28. 

WHAT Steven Asquith: Storm Concepts
WHERE Utopian Slumps, 33 Guildford Lane, city, 9077 9918, utopianslumps.com 

Steven Asquith’s Storm Concepts seem to represent an exchange between history and methodology. While rooted in an altogether dissimilar aesthetic, materiality and palette, the thought behind the Melbourne artist’s series of 14 new drawings seems genuinely contiguous with the landscape tradition. Creating his “clouds” via raw gestures of blackboard enamel spray paint, only to render their expanse with meticulous layers of colour pencil and Posca pen markings, Asquith’s works are cacophony of synthetic tones and textures. Streams of multicoloured rain fall amid lashings of polluted fluorescence; swarms of black clouds entrap webs of fragile colour. The resonance here is psychological as much as it is geographic. Indeed, while one could dismiss his use of materials as a kind of “dude-ist” affectation, Asquith’s spray pack and Posca pens aren’t chosen lightly. When we consider the contemporary realities of the polluted, synthetic, urban landscape, these materials seem far more relevant than paint and brush. Wed to Sat noon–6pm, until August 28. 

WHAT Up Close: Carol Jerrems with Larry Clark, Nan Goldin and William Yang
WHERE Heide Museum of Modern Art, 7 Templestowe Road, Bulleen, 9850 1500, heide.com.au 

This extensive survey of late Melbourne photo-artist Carol Jerrems – alongside Sydney photographer William Yang and American contemporaries Larry Clark and Nan Goldin – makes for an incisive study of the places and company we keep. Known for her prolific output throughout the 70s before her untimely death from a rare form of liver disease in 1980, Jerrems’ intimate photographs of Australian sub-cultures possess a rare spontaneity and presence. There are many highlights. Her 1973 Redfern Life series stunningly captures her uncropped, unedited process, as do the quietly expressive domestic portraits from her 1974 publication A Book About Australian Women. Also engaging is the collection of books and publications from the Australian music scene, which includes a couple of wonderful portraits of Daddy Cool’s Ross Hannaford. By comparison, Larry Clark and William Yang’s collections are a little under-whelming, but the real star of the show here is Nan Goldin. Her 700-strong slide installation of saturated, wonderfully imprecise snapshots The Ballad of Sexual Dependency is an at times amusing, frequently moving window into her world of friends and lovers on New York’s Lower East Side. Unobscured by clear technique or stylisation, it is the photographic medium at its most direct and immediate. Tues to Sun 10am–5pm, until October 31. 

WHAT Still Vast Reserves
WHERE Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, 200 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, 9419 3406, Gertrude.org.au 

The second chapter in Gertrude’s latest artist exchange program – the first of which was held at Rome’s Magazzino D’Arte Moderna – Still Vast Reserves sees a host artists negotiate ideas of the body and its relationship to social and public space. While Benjamin Armstrong’s phallic glass and wax sculpture, Marco Fusinato’s visual score, Fernanda Gomes’s delicate series of micro-installations and Tom Nicholson’s photo work make for some interesting asides, it’s a video work by Laresa Kosloff that lights up this extensive group show. Roller Disco (2005) is a joy, eschewing a Central Park roller skate dance jam by the removing any trace of sound or colour, and slightly shifting of speed and ratio of the moving image. The results are genuinely engaging, more often hilarious. By nullifying the agent that brings the dancers together, we’re left to silently observe a kind of context-less, boisterous activity, giggling people darting and rolling every which way. Tues to Fri 11am–5.30pm, Sat 11am–4.30pm, until August 28. 

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