SUMMER STUDIO

13 – 15 January 2011

Helen Grogan

Rather then leave the gallery empty over the holiday season this year, Melanie Jayne Taylor and Helen Grogan were given the keys to Blindside and, starting from scratch, asked to have an exhibition ready in four and a half weeks, a duration far exceeding the usual two-day installation time. The public are invited to view the results that both highlight and fracture the boundaries between idea inception, exploration, creation and presentation.

Helen Grogan has developed artworks within and specifically for the Blindside exhibition space through the Summer Studio Program. The process has been steered by the vigorous application of a single task. This task has been formulated through identifying and distilling reoccurring desires in Helena’s artistic process, particularly her approach to the dramaturgy of space and viewing.

Task: to make an occurrence apparent through a system or procedure transparent to the viewer.

Helen works as an artist and curator in Australia and Europe with a trans-disciplinary and cross-contextual approach to contemporary art. She has studied philosophy and contemporary dance, including the Specialised Choreography program at the School for New Dance Development (NL). She is currently completing her Masters in Art Curatorship, at The University of Melbourne. Helen often works collaboratively with artists and theorists, using strategies related to practical philosophy.

This project is the first time Helen will exhibit autonomous work since departing from contemporary dance in 2005. Post-mortem of the collective gaze recalls and restructures systems of registration prevalent in her previous work for contemporary performance. I miss you so much I want to put you in my home (outside/inside) achieves the set task with a simple minimal action designed for one viewer at a time.

Special thanks to Dr. Elisabeth Boender, Michael Spurrier and Julian White.