Before & After Science: The 2010 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art

Venue: Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Dates: 27 February – 2 May 2010
Cost: Free

 

Blinded by science

These days, we tend to think of art and science as opposing or at least contradictory forces. We regard science as the source of ‘hard facts’ about our world; whereas art is more of an esoteric pursuit, often removed from the realities of life. Science has stripped away much of the mystery surrounding the world.

But it wasn’t always so. Until the 18th century, alchemy, magic and astronomy were the prevalent systems of knowledge for many cultures; and people used these disciplines to make order of their world.

Today, despite the ascendancy of science and rationalism, the mysteries that exist at the edge of reason still creep into our everyday lives. While the dominant thinking works to suppress our engagement with the non-rational and unknowable, there is an alternative narrative through the history of art and natural philosophy, loosening the grip reason holds on our understanding of our world and our place within it.

Before & After Science explores this contested territory, taking inspiration from acts of transformation: the humble into the precious; the old into the new; and the mundane into the magical. The twenty-two artists and groups participating in this exhibition revel in the mutability of matter and the capacity of art to go boldly beyond the realm of what is real. Together, they draw on speculative strategies to illuminate the overlooked, repressed, and intangible.

The exhibition assembles 22 of the nation’s most innovative and exciting contemporary artists and artist groups, to present an amazing and unsettling vision of our world, where mystery and the unknowable wrestle with order and reason.
Independent Melbourne curators Sarah Tutton and Charlotte Day have selected cutting-edge new works which, through their use of media, theme or narrative, change the humble into the precious, the old into new, and the mundane into the magical.

James Morrison, Worm blood dripping (detail) 2009–10m, papier mache and ink, 198 x 82 cm.
Courtesy the Artist and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney.

Installation and sculpture using traditional and non-traditional materials feature strongly alongside collage, film and painting to create an extraordinary exhibition experience. Many works are being displayed for the first time in this exhibition and all have been created since the 2008 Adelaide Festival.

The exhibition’s ideas even extend into the political realm, hypothesising that sensitivity to other ways of knowing can provide a constructive counterpoint to the increasing uncertainty and corresponding dogmatism that is fast becoming the condition of our times.

Among the artists included in the exhibition are Hany Armanious, Doreen Reid Nakamarra, Nicholas Mangan, Louise Weaver and Simryn Gill.

David Edwards