New exhibition 'Oscilloforms' explores links between contemporary art and its historical precursors

Curated by Cūrā8, Oscilloforms features works from artists Su Baker, Sadie Chandler, Yuna Chun, Richard Dunn, Craig Easton, Lewis Gittus, Deven Marriner, Carol Cheng Mastroianni, Rohan Schwartz, Anne Scott Wilson, Karina Utomo and Mimi Zheng.

Oscilloforms interrogates how the diverse and multifaceted nature of twenty-first-century art is underpinned by historical influences of reduction, expansion, abstraction and referentiality.

The exhibition’s title ‘Oscilloforms’ describes this web of interrelations and the attempt to understand the entangled and disparate natures of contemporary artforms.

Rather than viewing these developments as a historical progression, Oscilloforms acknowledges them as a complex series of mutually informing interactions and adaptations.

The artists presented in Oscilloforms navigate this diverse terrain in their own unique ways, employing a broad spectrum of material and conceptual approaches. This curated exhibition considers their works as testament to myriad ways in which reductive, non-objective and materially expanded artforms can serve as dynamic vehicles for filtering diverse interests, experiences and perspectives.

Unlike its twentieth-century precursors, this is art that actively and playfully blurs once rigid demarcations between abstraction and representation.

In a special collaborative sound performance at 6.15pm on Friday 24 May, extreme metal vocalist Karina Utomo and sound artist Lewis Gittus will present low-frequency connections between black metal, Gothic horror tropes and the unfathomable depths of fractured sonic ambience.

ABOUT PROJECT8 GALLERY

Project8 is a contemporary art space in Melbourne’s CBD committed to expanding aesthetic languages of speculative poetic and material innovation through curated exhibitions and related events. The gallery also promotes exchange, collaboration and partnerships between Australian, Chinese and international artists, researchers and communities actively engaged in contemporary art and discourse.

Project8 is supported by a Collaborative Research Agreement between Arts@Collins International Gallery Pty Ltd and The University of Melbourne.

EXHIBITION INFORMATION