SCAF – Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation

Image: AR-MA: Trifolium (concept sketch), 2014
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation
Image courtesy AR-MA

New technologies lead to new visual practices in SCAF’s 2014 Programme
Media release November 2013

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Australia’s leading not-for-profit space for contemporary culture, announces exciting developments for 2014 with a schedule that features creative practitioners working at the cutting edge with new technology.

The second iteration of Fugitive Structures, opening in March and based on the concept of temporary built structures, was awarded through competitive tender to emerging and mid-career architects.

Designed by experimental architectural practice AR-MA (SCAF Project 20), Trifolium uses advanced computer design to fulfil a conceptual brief – developed by Dr Gene Sherman (Executive Director, SCAF) in partnership with BVN Donovan Hill – of a built structure that uses the most progressive technology currently available. A thermally formed, robotically trimmed Corian exterior envelope and 250 laser-cut cylindrical, black mirror-polished stainless steel interior panels are linked by digitally fabricated fixings to form what Dr Sherman describes as ‘an innovative structure based on state-of-the-art technologies offering functionality as well as a futuristic aesthetic.’ Trifolium has the flexibility to be a meeting place, an auditorium or a stage for the Foundation’s many events. This technologically advanced structure will take shape in the gallery’s Zen Garden and will remain until October 2014.

To complement the Zen Garden pavilion, multi-disciplinary architectural firm Tomahawk // Archer Breakspear has designed Poly (SCAF Project 21), a series of itinerant forms that allow gallery visitors to ‘design’ their own environments in the internal exhibition space. Poly builds on the interactive theme that proved so popular with SCAF’s 2013 presentation of Olafur Eliasson’s The cubic structural evolution project, 2004, which encouraged visitors to construct a model city from 130,000 white LEGO blocks. Visitors will be able to move the Poly forms to create cubby-like enclosed spaces or collaborative groupings, which will be used periodically for the Foundation’s Culture+Ideas series of conversations, film screenings and events.

Later in the year, in an exhibition presented in association with the National Art School Gallery (SCAF Project 22) and simply titled Home, Taiwanese artists Chen Chieh-jen and Chien-Chi Chang will explore multi-layered contemporary notions of what the concept implies. Once thought of as a fixed dwelling, ‘home’ is now often seen in the context of separation, loss and alienation. Magnum photographer Chien-Chi Chang, based in Austria and the US, first showed The Chain, a series of photographs of Taiwanese mental asylum home inmates chained in pairs, at the Venice Biennale in 2001 where it created a sensation.

The installation and video work of Taiwan-based Chen Chieh-jen considers the social and economic dislocations encountered in modern life and comprises a sound piece linking the Taiwanese experience to an Australian context. The exhibition will investigate what constitutes the very notion of home and how that notion can shift over continents and time. The project will be accompanied by a specially commissioned short story by Man Booker Prize nominee, Deborah Levy.

Home opens at both Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation and the National Art School Gallery 24 May 2014 and runs through to 2 August.

Collection+, SCAF’s popular exhibition series will return in 2014. The third exhibition in the four-year program (SCAF Project 23) takes as its starting point works by Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak, curated by Jasmin Stephens featured in Gene and Brian Sherman’s extensive private contemporary art collection, which currently numbers more than 800 pieces. The first two Collection+ exhibitions focused on Chiharu Shiota and Sopheap Pich and included artworks borrowed from collectors based in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart, Phnom Penh, Paris and London.

Exhibition dates:

Fugitive Structures 2014
AR-MA: Trifolium
SCAF Project 20
21 March – 13 December 2014

Fugitive Structures 2014
Tomahawk // Archer Breakspear: Poly
SCAF Project 21
21 March – 3 May 2014
21 August – 6 October 2014

Home
Chen Chieh-jen and Chien-Chi Chang, Taiwan
Presented in association with the National Art School Gallery, Sydney
SCAF Project 22
24 May – 2 August 2014

Collection+: Pinaree Sanpitak
curated by Jasmin Stephens
SCAF Project 23
17 October – 13 December 2014

Interview bookings and press enquires: Michael Young, 0410 408 492
Image requests: Sophie Holvast, 02 9331 1112 / sholvast@sherman-scaf.org.au