Gavin Hipkins THE PAVILION

Gavin Hipkins’ recently opened show The Pavilion (fig. 1.) at Ryan Renshaw Gallery presents a 40-part series of photographs that, in their refined aestheticism, hold a presence that moves beyond the bounds of the ‘photographic document’.  Put together as one work, the artist elaborates that the work is aimed as a reflection on the fascist movement and the post-war state of quiet discordance (personal conversation 16/09/2011). Engaging with the legacy of minimalism, the artist’s approach to arranging and hanging the work reflects tile-like patterning of Carl Andre, with each photograph acting as part piece of the greater display. The stretching rectangular form of the work runs the length of the gallery space and holds within the photograph ‘borders’ a section of the white wall behind. As reference to the Soviet film, ‘In Spring’ by Mikhail Kaufman, the work depict cloud forms, staged on pared-back green and blue hues, and flicks between frames of imagery, returning to the clouds at intervals, as can be seen in the mentioned film.

                                    

                                  Fig.1. Gavin Hipkins, The Pavilion (2011).

There is a sense about the work that interacts with ideas of ‘interruption’ and ‘sequence’: stilled frames ‘break’ between the cloud prints, depicting flat panels of mid-grey as well as photographs of Styrofoam orbs, treated to resonate accordingly with the colour of the clouds with the sole exception, however, being the artist’s selective use of brilliant red. Calculated and empowering to both the ‘interruption’ and ‘sequence’ of the work, these injections of red are insistent, working to halt the eye as well as to will it onto the next red panel.  This progression of viewing is not unlike the 2001 work by Hipkins, The Gulf (Teen)(fig.2.), which had the greater impression of a downward, or ‘falling’ movement/sequence.

                                  Fig. 2. Gavin Hipkins, The Gulf (Teen) (2001).

Comparatively, The Pavilion has a sense of perpetuity, of being hovered in a state of ominous calm. The familiar Styrofoam shapes are disrupted as ‘subject’ of the photographs through the artist’s manipulation of focus, scale/depth, and tone; they are no longer recognizable hemispheres, they shift to into the unfamiliar, almost molecular, toying with notions of representation and re-presentation of the familiar within photography.  The shift beyond the ‘represented’, or ‘documented’ here occurs, and in having occurred, presents the work as pertaining to omnipotence, of things higher, or greater than the sum of its parts. The contained white space of the wall now holds added import; a serene pause, encapsulated- it harkens back to continuity of form exemplified by the work, which there – in a larger sense – abuts the artist’s intention. Forming a treatment of each photograph as a segment of the greater whole produces reading of the work that links back to the suggestion of ‘nation’. It forms a continuum, or pavilion wherein a nation is often housed, mourned, or celebrated – each photograph then transforms as a segment, and each owning only to one another, silent, unspoken ties.

By Dana.

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Sources:

Images:

Fig. 1. Gavin Hipkins, 2011, The Pavilion, image, viewed 17^th September 2011
Source:
<http://ryanrenshaw.com.au/>

Fig. 2. Gavin Hipkins, 2001, The Gulf (Teen), image, viewed 17^th September 2011
Source:

<http://www.chartwell.org.nz/Collection/ArtworkDetails/artwork/509/title/the-gulf-teen.aspx>