On April 7 2011 the gallery opened to the public with a group exhibition. The show had no curatorial premise, but prior to the opening I had endeavoured to make the entire exhibition program for 2011 very particular in format – anonymous. All artists invited to exhibit were asked to do so anonymously and I similarly, the director, would remain unidentified. All the artists I approached were keen to experiment with the format. So the first show and its promotion only featured date and address.
On the opening night however, things got a little tricky. What resulted from the anonymity were divisions of exclusivity and inclusivity. There were those familiar with the artists who could talk quite freely with them about the show, then there were those unfamiliar with the artists who were curious but remained outside a visible clique. Moreover, the gallery started getting attention because of the anonymity and this was something that started to escalate, with attention placed almost exclusively on the idea of the gallery rather than the content/art. Result of this, and despite all the 2011 artists agreeing to show anonymously, I decided it’d be best to pull the plug on the format.
presented by Iakovos Amperidis
Iakovos Amperidis / Lisa Kelly / Anna John / Sach Catts
7-24/4/11