Power Objects

17 August – 20 September, 2024

Opening: Saturday, 17 August, 4-6pm

151 Melville Rd, Brunswick West, Wurundjeri Country

Burchill McCamley (Vic)

CAConrad (USA)

Gloreen Campion (Maningrida, NT)

Taylor Davis (USA)

Olivia Koh (Vic)

Aodhan Madden (France)

Power Objects brings together the works of seven artists connected by their deep attention to form and material, and the urgency of this attention as a mode of being ecologically, cosmologically, and politically situated. What is the value in paying attention? Blink and you’ll miss it, unless that blink is paused and extended into a perpetual moment of inward reflection. Going inward is always a form of going outward anyway, with a different spatial sensibility. The exhibition is a celebratory, transformative way of holding onto things that are already over: species extinction, the death of parents, industry closure. As poet CAConrad writes, “To / desire / the world / as it is / not as / it was.”

The exhibition’s title refers to a text by art historian and critic Michael Brenson, about the work of Taylor Davis: “It seems permanently, ontologically askew. And what is its logic anyway? Maybe this meticulously sawed and milled black walnut construction is not about rationality but about fantasy, or in equal parts availability and alarm." Power Objects are obstacles commanding influence, if only momentarily, but undeniably.

Catalogue essay

Documentation by Christian Capurro.

  • Aodhan Madden, Lake of Nitrogen, 2024. Silk, cotton.

  • Aodhan Madden, Lake of Nitrogen, 2024. Silk, cotton.

  • Aodhan Madden, Lake of Nitrogen, 2024. Silk, cotton.

  • Aodhan Madden, Lake of Nitrogen, 2024. Silk, cotton.

  • Austramax, Kerosene Pressure Lantern Model 3/300, circa 1950s. Chrome plated brass, stainless steel, glass, rayon silk, kerosene, metholated spirits. 

  • Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, Grace (Simone Weil Project), 2021–22. Silkscreen, synthetic polymer paint on canvas.

  • Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, Force (Simone Weil Project), 2021–22. Silkscreen, synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 

  • CAConrad, Poems from Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return, 2024 (Wave Books). Laserprints on foamcore. 

  • Olivia Koh, Offerings (altar/table), 2024. Eathernware, aluminium, steel, plastic. 

  • Olivia Koh, Offerings (altar/table), 2024. Eathernware, aluminium, steel, plastic. 

  • Gloreen Campion (Rembarrnga), Tasmanian tiger (djarnkerrk), 2024. Pandanus (Pandanus Spiralus) with ochre pigment and PVA fixative. 

  • Taylor Davis, Duck Goes Out, 2005. Silver lamé, Sweet Timothy hay bale, canvas, zipper. 

  • Taylor Davis, Duck Goes Out, 2005. Silver lamé, Sweet Timothy hay bale, canvas, zipper. 

  • CAConrad, Poems from Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return, 2024 (Wave Books). Laserprints on foamcore. 

  • CAConrad, Poems from Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return, 2024 (Wave Books). Laserprints on foamcore. 

  • CAConrad, Poems from Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return, 2024 (Wave Books). Laserprints on foamcore. 

  • CAConrad, Poems from Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return, 2024 (Wave Books). Laserprints on foamcore.