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‘Vivienne Binns: On and through the Surface’ is the first retrospective of artist Vivienne Binns’ multifaceted practice. A partnership between the MCA and Monash University Museum of Art, it brings together over 100 artworks spanning six decades alongside a rich selection of archival materials.
The main design intervention is a series of steel armatures that occupy interstitial zones within the Level 3 galleries of the Museum of Contemporary Art. The armatures are designed to hold the delicate archival content, tracing 60 years of work by one of Australia’s important feminist artists.
In its concept, the design extracts the grid overlay present in Binns’ ‘Surfacing in the Pacific’ (1993) painting. This painting sits within the major sightline established along the gallery spine.
In its form, the armatures are an abstraction of these grid forms - thin, lithe lines of steel replacing the painted lines. As the visitor approaches the painting the abstracted grid is able to be read more clearly.
In its siting, the forms weave through the in-between, under-utilised pockets of the gallery spaces forming windows across rooms.
In its construction - as a zero-waste project - the armatures are designed to transform into deskcases for on-going use by the gallery and the plywood panels have been salvaged and repaired from the previous exhibition in the same gallery.
Photography: Hamish McIntosh