Slow Dance
West Space
Shay Minster
Opening: Thursday February 18, 6-8pm

Image: Shay Minster

Exhibition runs from February 19 to March 13, 2010

Free Artist Talk: Thursday March 11, 12.30-1.30pm Gallery 3

“The Slow Dance exhibition examines the tragic comedy of the human condition. Appearing familiar and amusing at first, the project explores the suppression experienced when a personality is radically altered through the manipulation of their environment. A clown motif – drained of its usual high colour and its joyous free dance restricted – flails about in a futile attempt to fulfill its intended purpose. Stuck in endless repetition, Slow Dance confronts, in an absurd manner, the existential vacuum”.

Addition and Erasure
VCA- Margaret Lawrence Gallery
Opening Thursday 18 February 6–8pm
Exhibition runs from February 19 to March 20, 2010

Artists/participants: Luke Beesley, Michael Farrell, Doug Heslop, Helen Johnson, Margaret Mahem, Peter O’Mara, Simon Pericich. Curators: Luke Beesley and Doug Heslop

Image: Luke Beesley

“This project will represent a collaboration between a number of artists and poets and will engage a between space – ‘addition and erasure’ – as a conceptual beginning for an artwork. Addition and Erasure includes participants and works that locate language and/or text somewhere between contemporary art and poetry, as a strategy for illuminating the question or place of the author, reader, spectator or critic; and as a way of challenging easy categorisation. Some of the questions the exhibition aims to raise include: Is text a limited medium? How can poetry exist alongside contemporary art practice?  Where might the gallery and the page meet? Can they be made identical? More specifically, perhaps: Can ‘poets’ and ‘artists’ be critiqued in a single breath?”

Wordless
Vivian Cooper Smith
C3 Contemporary Art Space - Space B
Opening Wednesday February 3, 2010

Image: Vivian Cooper Smith

“Wordless is a collection of photographic images that examine a life without anchors, without precedents and without hope in eternity. It examines life in the dark, without the illumination of understanding and description. It is a meditation on losing a faith and unbelieving in God.

Vivian Cooper Smith grew up the son of missionaries in Bangladesh. After finishing school and a Fine Arts degree in Perth he moved to Melbourne 10 years ago. He works as a photographer and graphic designer and has exhibited widely both locally and nationally”.

Secret History of the Working Men’s College
RMIT Project Space
Group exhibition
Opening Thursday February 5, 2010

Artist’s inlcude:
[Anon], Rhett D’Costa, Richard Harding, Kate Just, Nick Pantazopoulos, Spiros Panigirakis, Drew Pettifer,  Jon Riethmuller, Jonas Ropponen, David Sequeira , Glenn Walls

Image: Drew Pettifer

“Secret Files from the Working Men’s College highlights some of the talent that over time has been fostered and released from the School at Art of RMIT University. Gallagher brings together artists who reflect on gay lifestyle through the subtle inclusion of queer content into their art practice. This exhibition is part of the Midsumma Festival’s Queer City”.

Canadian Pharmacy
Neon Parc
Group exhibition
Opening Wednesday February 3, 2010

Image: Stephen Bush

Canadian Pharmacy is a group art exhibition that brings together 18 artists and collaborations from Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The show includes artists works from the following: Dan Arps, Hugo Atkins, Stuart Bailey, Stephen Bush, Gabrielle De Veitri, Danielle Freakley, Ian Haig, Greatest Hits.