EXHIBITION LAUNCH + ARTIST TALK | THINGS THAT ARE REAL: ALVARO BARRINGTON X DEAN CROSS

EXHIBITION LAUNCH + ARTIST TALK
THINGS THAT ARE REAL: ALVARO BARRINGTON X DEAN CROSS
SATURDAY 3 JUNE, 5-8PM

Our 5th annual exhibition pairing of an early-career local artist with a celebrated international artist presents THINGS THAT ARE REAL: ALVARO BARRINGTON X DEAN CROSS.

Following a series of breakthrough presentations (2021 Primavera, MCA, 2022 Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery and Carriageworks 2021- 2022), this project will feature a major new commission by regional NSW-based artist Dean Cross. A Worimi man, born and raised on Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country, Cross’s work enacts First Nations sovereignty through expanded contemporary art methodologies.

Cross will present alongside Alvaro Barrington, whose prolific work is also informed by a commitment to personal heritage and community. Barrington was born in Venezuela to Grenadian and Haitian parents, and raised between the Caribbean and New York by a network of relatives. Remarkably, his first solo exhibition was held at MoMA PS1 (NY) in 2017, and recent major exhibitions include an acclaimed solo show at South London Gallery (2021) and Mixing It Up: Painting Today, Hayward Gallery, UK (2021).

Building upon the success of Cement Fondu’s past ‘pairing’ exhibitions, Things that are real: Alvaro Barrington x Dean Cross will be the most ambitious of this series to date, creating an unprecedented level of cultural and artistic exchange. The project facilitates a dynamic and hybrid engagement model, with the artists exchanging works-in-progress and ideas during a remote, development phase and collaborating together in Sydney when we host Barrington for an extended, creative install period. This rich exchange of culture, ideas and methodologies will embrace risk- taking, experimentation and innovation.

PROJECT SPACE | REMY FAINT

Cement Fondu has commissioned Remy Faint to create a new installation in the Project Space, extending his approach to expanded painting and complementing our main gallery exhibition Dean Cross X Alvaro Barrington.

Emerging artist Remy Faint is already making waves fresh out of art school. His practice is motivated by the desire to expand languages of painting by examining its global histories. While often exploring the potential of silk as a painting and sculptural device, he references objects and materials specific to his Chinese-Australian heritage.

ARTIST OPPORTUNITY | PROJECT SPACE CALL OUT

EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

COSMIC BEINGS

EOIs for this Project Space have now closed.

Cement Fondu is proud to nurture artistic experimentation, risk-taking and innovation, and we invite you, our community, to play an active role.

We are delighted to invite you to submit an EOI to present a new commission installation in our Project Space during our exhibition program for COSMIC BEINGS. A commission fee and production budget is provided.

The Project Space is curated to complement Cement Fondu’s main exhibitions and focuses on live, experimental, social, immersive and evolving exhibitions. It also hosts activations such as workshops and performances.

The space is for artists at all stages of their careers who want to expand their practice and explore new ways of working while creating high-quality outcomes and experiences.

EOI Theme – Cosmic Beings
We are currently requesting EOIs that respond to the themes of Cosmic Beings, a group exhibition presented at Cement Fondu 5 August – 24 September 2023.

Since 2020, humanity has been tasked with profoundly re-evaluating its existence due to coinciding yet unrelated global events: the devastating impacts of the global pandemic and era-defining advancements in the exploration of space. While the world struggled to comprehend the unknown biological aggressor attacking its populations at an unprecedented scale, space tourism took off for the ultra wealthy, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched, gazing further afield and back in time than ever before, and NASA renamed UFOs as UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) and announced an official study on their existence.

Amid the ongoing repercussions and roll-out of these events, Cosmic Beings reimagines the proposition that an alien invasion is the only thing that could unify the human race. When COVID invaded, it was widely speculated – and hoped – that humanity might be forced to rise above its differences against this new common enemy. Life was imitating art through a terrifying storyline reminiscent of science-fiction.

The pandemic instead served to highlight and heighten inequalities that already existed along geographic, cultural and racial lines and created new divisions within communities and families between the vaxxed and unvaxxed.

Inviting alternative narratives, the artists in this program draw on ancient wisdoms and new enlightenments that look beyond the Earth to expand the scope and scale of human consciousness. Dispelling the problematic rhetoric of ‘alien invader’, the show instead envisions hopeful possibilities for unity, empathy and equity on Earth by contemplating ourselves as cosmic beings.

Offering – New Work Commission
Artist fee $850
Production fee $750
Activation/Workshop fee $400
1 day of dedicated install support
Access to available CF audiovisual
Curatorial guidance

Apply
Please email the following to hello@cementfondu.org
1 Page CV
1 Page Proposal Outline including: concept, installation description, AV requirements, activation idea if applicable (i.e. performance, talk, workshop)
3-5 images of recent, related work
Artist website URL

Palimpsest Scoring | Enter & Shoeb Ahmad

Palimpsest Scoring | Shoeb Ahmad & Enter

April 15, 2-5pm

FREE RSVP

 

A palimpsest is a page from a written manuscript which has had its text effaced and written over, but still bears traces of its earlier form.

Indigenous Musicologist Dylan Robinson deploys the idea of re-written palimpsest page ‘as a metaphor to envision listening to layered histories and agencies in soundscapes.’ This framework for deep listening, attuned to lineage & subjectivity, is part of a resonant theory for sound which ‘considers intersubjectivity between listener, music, and space.’*

In dialogue with our current exhibition Linger, Dash, Talk, Cement Fondu is proud to host an afternoon of performances – imbued by history, place & dialogue – by musicians and sound-artists Shoeb Ahmad, and Enter (Nadeem Tiafau Eshraghi.)

Brisbane / Meanjin based artist Enter is a Sāmoan/Iranian artist and community organiser, whose work navigates human conditions, offers experiences of sense and connection, and presents new rituals for contemporary lives. Excitingly they’ll be presenting their first ever hybrid live / DJ set. 

With a rich and extensive background in Australian music, Sia Ahmad has been creating idiosyncratic sounds over the last decade and more. Using guitar, keyboard, voice and electronics, she works both as singer/composer and improvider, when performing as Shoeb Ahmad, as well as collaborative projects.

Performances run from 2-5pm, all are welcome, free RSVP. Refreshments provided.

 

 

*Dylan Robinson, (2020), Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies, p58, 81. 

WORK WITH US | Business & Operations Manager | Applications open now

BUSINESS & OPERATIONS MANAGER

Applications Close: Wednesday 5 April 11:59pm

Looking for a rewarding career challenge within an ambitious and innovative art space? We have a newly created opportunity for a Business and Operations Manager to join Cement Fondu’s team.

The Business and Operations Manager will play a vital role in Cement Fondu’s next phase, working closely with the Director to generate new funding and philanthropic support and enhance the organisation’s running day-to-day.

We are seeking an experienced arts manager with a resourceful and innovative outlook who is excited to take on this new challenge. This ego-free team player will think big yet understand that no job is too small, possessing the confidence and agility to work as a collaborative leader within a small, evolving team.

Days: Tues-Fri 10am-5pm (+TIL evening and weekend hours for key events)

4 days: $62-72,000 + Super

HOW TO APPLY

Please download the full job description and email the following to Josephine Skinner, Director, Cement Fondu at jobs@cementfondu.org:

● A curriculum vitae (CV) of no more than 3 pages

● A statement addressing the Selection Criteria of no more than 2 pages

● Include full contact details, phone number and postal address in your CV and covering email.

● Provide all attachments as PDFs.

ARTIST TALK | with Troy-Anthony Baylis, Steven Lindsay Ross, Dennis Golding

While Sydney WorldPride ended over the weekend, Linger, Dash, Talk continues until April 23.

Join us this weekend at Cement Fondu for an artist and curator walk through of the exhibition and our Project Space exhibition the Queer Black Advocates. ⁠ ⁠

From 2-4pm Saturday March 11, join artist Troy-Anthony Baylis, Project Space curator Steven Lindsay Ross, and Cement Fondu’s First Nations Curator-Producer Dennis Golding on a guided tour of the space, and intimate panel discussion & artist talk. ⁠ ⁠

Expect to hear about Baylis’ newly commissioned reference-heavy Immediacy Paintings, Ross’ work with archival material from the Australian Queer Archives,  and the rest of Linger, Dash, talk from co-curator Dennis Golding.

All are welcome, RSVP recommended.

PROJECT SPACE | THE BLACK QUEER ADVOCATES

Steven Lindsay Ross is a Wamba Wamba queer man with bloodline connections to the Wiradjuri, Mutthi Mutthi and Gunditjmara peoples. Continuing his research surrounding archival material of Sydney’s Queer and Indigenous communities, we’re proud to host The Queer Black Advocates in our Project Space to accompany Linger, Dash, Talk.

Ross writes,

“This is a celebration of black queer advocates and allies, people that survived and thrived through colonialism, empires, frontier wars, stolen land, diseases, churches, guns, starvation, disconnection, rape, sexualisation, homophobes, transphobes, bashings and anything else they could throw at us.

The artists in this space responded to the fire with art and love, absorbing the ire of society, the glares and the stares, and made pieces that spoke of love, of spirit, ancestors and kin, and Country.

Bronwyn Bancroft’s AIDS campaign series took the fears and concerns stirred by the grim reaper AIDS ads of the 80’s and crafted messages of care and support, embracing her queer friends and family in community and solidarity.

The playing card series teased the community’s love of card games, invoking memories of long nights with family and mob, laughing and carrying on. They mashed those memories with street comics, catching us hook, line and sinker. Playful and cheeky, like our people, like our community.

Fucking Angry Gays (FAGS) screamed our anger, our outrage, but left us with hope. There is always hope, plastered around the streets, in alleys.

Black queer advocates weren’t graphic designers, they were community artists, Kooris, Murris, Ngoongars, Goories, embedded in community, from Country. They knew the power of connection and the real meaning of sticking together, support and love. Always love.

Always Was. Always Will Be.”Through his work as a curator, producer and writer, Steven Lindsay Ross honours and showcases, in his words, “the stories of First Nations queer mob in as many places and in as many ways as possible.”

Ross’s work with archives highlights a time when black queer people were largely excluded from mainstream queer culture, and a broadly heteronormative society. Honouring these community artists, he both recognises their contribution and calls forth the power of talking to community as they would talk to each other, without being filtered or mediated.

Artworks have been supplied and used with the permission of the Australian Queer Archives. With special thanks to Nick Henderson.