I WAS HERE
Fremantle Arts Centre, WA
22 July – 16 September 2017
Alex Seton, I Was Here 2017, Bianca Carrara marble and ink, 75 x 180 x 2 cm each
In Fremantle Arts Centre’s exhibition I WAS HERE, the world is flipped upside down, long held beliefs are disproved and fact replaced fiction as seven artists grapple with what’s real, imagined, or forgotten over time. Comprising photographic and sculptural works, I WAS HERE is a fascinating commentary on history itself and our relationship to the past.
Anna Richardson curated the exhibition, featuring Robyn Stacey (NSW), Tom Buckland (ACT), Alex Seton (NSW), Amy Spiers (VIC), Yhonnie Scarce (VIC), Kate McMillan (UK), and Wanda Gillespie (NZ).
Seton has contributed three works to the exhibition. Left Turn at Alberqueque (2017) is a stop-motion video work depicting the artist gradually chipping away at a limestone tunnel. The title of the work makes reference to the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, who, emerging from the earth at any given site, would declare where he had made a wrong turn.
I Was Here is a work in marble exploring the act of making and the ways in which humans attempt to apprehend history through the objects we create. Two large sheets of Bianco Carrara marble lean against the wall, one inscribed with the words ‘I Was Here’, the other bearing the inkblots that are the traces of this act.
Proof of Absence (2017) is composed of three pieces of limestone, which were pulled from beneath the sea off the coast of Vanuatu. They form part of a body of evidence assembled during the ‘undiscovery’ of Sandy Island, thought to be West of Vanuatu in the Coral Sea until its existence was disproved in 2013. The work reminds us that history itself is malleable, subject to errors and change.
Also on at FAC is Island, a solo exhibition by Ian Strange. Strange and Seton previously showed alongside one another in the 2014 Adelaide Biennial: Dark Heart, at the Art Gallery of South Australia.