Field Notes is a symposium presented in association with IN-Formalism. It will feature contributions by art historians and theorists, essayists, artists and performers who have each made a significant contribution to the evolution of abstract non-objective art in Australia. Contributors are invited to present 20-minute informal papers, performances and screenings that will extend aspects of the exhibition IN-Formalism.

Speakers: Dr. Ann Stephen, Nigel Lendon, Prof. Ian McLean, Geoffrey Barnard, Stephen Jones, Angela Goddard, Prof. Julian Goddard, Biljana Janic and Dr. Shane Haseman

Performances by: Kraig Grady and Terumi Narushima, Agatha Gothe-Snape and Brian Fuata, Amanda Stewart, Ian Andrews and Garry Bradbury

About IN-Formalism

IN-Formalism witnesses the evolution of abstract non-objective art in Australia from 1968. The exhibition surveys the key generations of artists who have contributed to the ongoing language of abstract art. The exhibition presents these works alongside a wide range of artefacts in design, textiles, advertising, architecture, urban design, film and performance.

IN-Formalism reveals the influence this art-form had in our times.

IN-Formalism runs 18 May 2019 - 30 June 2019

EVENT SCHEDULE

10.00am : Symposium commences

10.05am : CLOCKS & CLOUDS by Kraig Grady and Terumi Narushima
Clocks and Clouds present totally acoustic performances feature specially retuned vibraphone and pump organ. These unique instruments - with a pure 151 limit harmonic tuning - explore the beauty of room resonances via ancient sacred scales and multi-dimensional geometries. It is not uncommon for an audience to experience the sensation of harmonics sweeping through space due to the way in which sound waves from the instruments interact with the environment.

Kraig Grady, an Anaphorian now living in Australia, composes almost exclusively for acoustic instruments of his own making or modification tuned to just intonation. Often his work is combined with his Shadow Theatre productions.Terumi Narushima is a composer and performer specialising in microtonal tuning systems. She is also senior lecturer in music at the University of Wollongong. 

10.25am : TRAFFIC WITH THE WEAK by Dr. Ann Stephen
The Conceptual art of Ian Burn and Mel Ramsden grew out of frustrations with the discourse of painting in the mid-1960s. Their conversations led to diagrams on flimsy paper and bland photographs which have a modesty and traffic with the weak. As such, is not its most enduring challenge to nurture ways of being in the world that sidestep mastery and control?

Ann Stephen is an art historian and Senior Curator, Art, The University of Sydney. She is editing a collection of Ian Burn’s writing.

10.45am : JOURNAL by Geoffrey Barnard
This paper examines the radiophonic realisation of the composition Journal (1969) by David Ahern (1947-1988), the notational schemes employed, its production and unique mode of dissemination by the Australian Broadcasting Commission.  The status Ahern held internationally as a musician (composer and performer) is also considered, particularly in regard to his relationship with such composers as Karlheinz Stockhausen (West Germany) and Cornelius Cardew (England).

Geoffrey Barnard will explore the genesis of the radiophonic composition Journal (1969) by David Ahern (1947-1988) and the status as a musician (composer and performer) Ahern held internationally at the time.

11.05am : LIGHT CONSTRUCTION by Dr. Biljana Janic
The piece 'Light Construction' is a site-specific light installation produced for the 'IN-Formalism' exhibition. This work is a composition created in accord with the shadows cast by infrastructure on the wall. This work is related to a number of previous projects that used light to deconstruct or re-imagine spatial relations within exhibition contexts. This presentation will revisit a selection of these works to consider the (de) constructive potentials of light as a material.

Biljana Jancic is a Sydney based artist who primarily works with large-scale spatial interventions that respond directly to architecture and socio-historical contexts of spaces. She studied Painting at Sydney College of the Arts, where she completed a PhD in 2012. 

11.25am : NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING by Nigel Lendon
The myth of the artist as social isolate is a myth. Every work of art emerges out of some kind of collaborative process. Nobody looks at a work of art without some implicit or explicit understanding of the sociocultural relations of its production. However understanding the social relations of its reception – the site of production of meaning and value – is seldom discussed. Even art that professes to be self-referential is engaged in a social process. Recent collaborative works with the artists Emma Beer, Lucina Lane and Mel Ramsden will serve to illustrate these aspects of his recent work.

Nigel Lendon is an artist, writer, and curator who lives in Wamboin, just outside Canberra. He was one of the younger artists to be included in The Field exhibition in 1968. In the 1970s he spent two years in New York, and was a member of the Art & Language group associated with The Fox. Following his return to Australia, he taught at Sydney College of the Arts and the Canberra School of Art. Honorary Fellow at the School of Art at the Australian National University.

11.45am : LUNCH BREAK

12.30pm : UNTITLED IMPROVISATION by Wrong Solo (Agatha Gothe-Snape and Brian Fuata)
Untitled Improvisation is a twenty minute structured improvisation. 

Wrong Solo is the collaboration between visual artist Agatha Gothe-Snape and performance artist Brian Fuata. They have exhibited and performed internationally: The Guest House, Gwangju Biennale of Art 2018, Gwangju; Cardinals, with Shane Haseman, Performa Biennial, New York (2015); and nationally: No Dance, Campbelltown Arts Centre (2009); Cruising with Wrong Solo, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2010); Destine Variations, for Endless Circulation Tarrawarra Biennial, Tarrawarra (2016); I am branch...Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne (2017); Various titles, Horsham Regional Gallery, Victoria (2017). 

12.40pm : WENDY PARAMOR AND NORMANA WIGHT: WOMEN IN AND OUT OF THE FIELD by Angela Goddard
Wendy Paramor and Normana Wight were two of many women artists working through various modes of abstraction and Minimalism in Australia in the second half of the 1960s. This paper will reflect on Paramor’s and Wight’s inclusions in The Field exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1968, and the reception and collecting of their works from this period.

Angela Goddard is Director of Griffith University Art Museum and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, Griffith University. She joined the University in June 2015 after fifteen years at QAGOMA, seven of these as Curator of Australian Art. Angela is also a Board Member of Shelia: A Foundation for Women in Visual Art.

1.20pm : AC4CA PERTH bu Professor Julian Goddard
Julian Goddard presents overview of the history of AC4CA (Australian Centre for Concrete Art) in Perth  -  the use  of concrete art in civic space .

Previously Dean of the School of Art at RMIT and before that Head of the School of Art and Design at Curtin University,  Julian Goddard is a Professor in the College of Design and Social Context at RMIT. The founder of the Australian Centre for Concrete Art. Goddard’s work as a Professor, writer, artist and curator specialises in the aesthetics of the everyday. He has curated over 200 exhibitions and published widely on Australian Aboriginal and Concrete Art through  books, book chapters, articles, papers and many catalogue essays. He was also co-founder and Chair of The Bureau of Ideas (2003 – 2017), an international forum promoting the public discussion of art, design, architecture and philosophy through forums outside conventional academic institutions. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Worawa Aboriginal College, Melbourne.

1.40pm : I ALWAYS WANTED TO MAKE ABSTRACT PAINTINGS: BENNETT POST-BASQUIAT by Professor Ian McLean
Gordon Bennett’s reputation as a leading postcolonial artist was established on the back of his often frenetically expressive, figurative and richly allegorical work. However, in the last decade of his life he turned towards a type of geometric abstraction. In speculating on why he made this shift, this paper explores the continuities and discontinuities of his late style.

Ian McLean is Hugh Ramsay Chair of Australian Art History at the University of Melbourne. He has published extensively on Australian art and particularly indigenous art.

2.00pm : PHILIPPA CULLEN AND INTERACTIVE ART IN AUSTRALIA by Dr. Stephen Jones
Jones will talk through a short series of videos of Philippa Cullen’s ground breaking use of the theremin in her dance performance

Dr. Stephen Jones is an Australian video artist of long standing. He worked with the band Severed Heads in the 1980s and 90s. He has curated a number of exhibitions of video and related arts and worked in the commercial post-production industry as an engineer. Currently he provides technical support and conservation for artist's video and electronic art and is building a digital archive of Australian Video Art. His book, Synthetics: Aspects of Art and Technology in Australia, 1956-1975, was published by MIT Press in 2011.

2.30pm : AFTERNOON BREAK

2.40pm : PERFORMANCE: FROM VOICE TO TEXT by Amanda Stewart
Amanda Stewart presents a short programme of her poetry and vocal works to complement her work, 'observer/observed' which appears in the current IN-Formalism exhibition at Casula Powerhouse.

Amanda Stewart is a poet, author, vocalist and sound artist. She has created a diverse range of publications, performances, exhibitions, film and radio works, locally and internationally, working in literature, music, broadcasting, sound poetry, theatre, dance and new media environments.

3.00pm : NEO FORMALISM by Dr. Shane Haseman 
New approaches and attitudes to abstraction and formalism in contemporary art

Shane Haseman is an artist, writer, academic and occasional curator. He has exhibited extensively over a twenty-year period both nationally and internationally, most recently: Buxton Contemporary (2019); Heide Museum of Modern Art (2017) Performa Biennial, New York (2015); and ACCA (2011). Shane is co-director of KNULP Gallery and Lecturer in Art History and Theory at the National Art School.

3.20pm : CLOSING PERFORMANCE by Dr. Ian Andrews and Garry Bradbury
Ian Andrews and Garry Bradbury utilise a variety of redundant technologies and home constructed equipment to make music from vinyl records and other objects. The equipment used includes modified turntables and home-built cartridges and styluses. These are used to play a variety of objects ranging from cut up and re-assembled collage records to metal discs.

Dr Ian Andrews, is a Sydney based media artist and theorist working with generative sound, video and text in installation formats.  Andrews has exhibited his works nationally and internationally.

Garry Bradbury is an Australian electronic musician active in Sydney's experimental music scene since 1979 where he was an early member of the pioneering post punk / industrial band Severed Heads. He has performed and had his work published within Australia and internationally.

3.40pm : END OF SYMPOSIUM

Image (L-R): Wendy Paramor 'Triad', 1967. Bengitj Ngurruwuthun 'Majka', 2014. Jacky Redgate ‘Untitled (4 parts)’, 1989.