REcipro-types

THE NEW STANDARD GALLERY

Recipro-Types - Joe Wilson

Thursday 12th April to 1st May, 2018

Solo Exhibtion

236A Riley St. Surry Hills. NSW 2010

In conjunction with:

Main Gallery, Isak Applin & Carl Baratta, Around the Mountain Again.

List of Works

Folded Table, 2018. Steel, enamel. 62 x 150 x 7cm

Folded Seat, 2018. Steel, enamel, timber. 79 x 57 x 3cm

A glass, 2018. Glass. 18 x 8 x 8cm

Spirit Level (Perpendicular), 2018. Found object. 80 x 6 x 2cm

Post-Painting (Handle With Care), 2018. Timber, enamel, chroma-key velvet. 27 x 33 x 7cm

Ramp (Automated Installer), 2018. Timber, carpet, wheels. 80 x 61 x 61cm

Reciprocity (Audio of Labour), 2018. Edition of 2. Digital sound file. 01:01:05

Door Way, 2018. Timber, brass. 200 x 70 x 4cm

Moving Image, 2018. Timber, acrylic, canvas, wheels. 88 x 59 x 4cm

Press Release

Sam Ramsden, Director, The New Standard Gallery.

Living and working in Sydney, Joe Wilson is an artist hard to pin down. His Practice has gone through various stages, from early landscape paintings to more conceptual exhibitions, such as Painting Etc. in 2017, for which Wilson created a body of works that point to the absence or recent departure of painting. It is often the case in Wilson’s work that the action is in the absence.

Before TNSG’s upstairs was converted to a second show room, it served as a stock room as well as a space for entertaining. The addition of one wall, rising above the bannister to form the border of a project space, was much with Joe Wilson in mind.

This conversion and repurposing acted as the jumping off point for Recipro-Types. The works in this body highlight elements of the space’s former use, while symbolising different stages in its development. These objects, before their abstraction, can be found in any gallery across the globe. The show veers off into different directions, exploring space itself and the illusion thereof in Door Way, and questioning where an object ends and an artwork begins in works such as Post Painting (Handle With Care)

In Reciprocity (Audio of Labour), Wilson records the trip to purchase a memory stick, onto which the recording is then loaded. The creation of the work acts as both the process and the end-result, though it is ultimately hidden from the audience behind the plastic cover of a memory stick.

The magic of Wilson’s work lies in the obscure borders between art and object – a table frame, collapsed on itself and hung as a painting; a packing crate, becoming more than the painting that is hidden inside (Post Painting (Handle with Care)), or a flattened stool that resembles a space probe lifting off.

One of the most labour intensive works is Automated Installer, which serves almost as a stepping stone in the history of the space. A small, wheeled ramp, covered by floral carpet, leads from floor to wall. Like a library ladder the ramp wheels only sideways, as if to help lift paintings onto the wall. The floral pattern lends the work an air of homeliness, like a living room arrangement, reminding of the space’s prior use. Again, the work oscillates between feigned practicality and art.

In Joe Wilson’s work, it is often impossible to pinpoint where an artwork begins, both physically and, more elusively, in its process. At what point does Audio of Labour turn from chore to artistic practice? The patch of wall framed by Folded Table is as much part of the work as the table frame. The viewer is challenged to find what is hidden behind seemingly simple objects, because it is precisely in these spaces that the work blooms. - SR