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In defence of Australian Minimalism: Guy Stuart's Lock-Span, 1969

— Thursday 1st May 2014

07 Lock Spam as an Upright
An essay by Robyn Dold, Public Programs Manager, National Gallery of Victoria (in 2014)

"This essay will discuss a major project of Stuart’s early career, and how it relates to Lattice full of holes and the NGV’s holdings of Stuart’s work. Lock Span: A Large Project for Aluminium Casting, April 1969, was the second solo show of the young Stuart’s career, as well as his second solo show in two months at Melbourne’s prominent Gallery A (fig. 3). The exhibition comprised a model, drawings and photographs, which together proposed an enormous sculpture, possibly for installation in a prominent position in Melbourne’s central business district.

This reading proposes that Lock Span engaged with and critiqued international avant-garde artistic practices, particularly those of American Minimalism, in a way that asserted the critical value and independence of art produced on the periphery."

Click here for the fully illustrated essay on the NGV's website.

Since its establishment in 1984, the Charles Nodrum Gallery’s exhibition program embraces a diversity of media and styles - from painting, sculpture & works on paper to graphics and photography; from figurative, geometric, gestural, surrealist & social comment to installation & conceptually based work.