Peter Cripps ~ a very elegant solution.

Peter Cripps installation ~ Photo: Julie Clarke, 2010

PETER CRIPPS: TOWARDS AN ELEGANT SOLUTION
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art

Julie Clarke © 2010

Moira Corby and I went to see the Peter Cripps: Towards an Elegant Solution, exhibition/installation at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art this morning. The installation, in three parts will be held from: June 8 – 27, June 29 – July 11 and July 13 - 25. The sculpture above, placed central at the back of the first room contained 62 boxes crafted from plywood ~ the odor of the freshly chiseled wood filled our nostrils as we passed through what we perceived as a doorway and the back of the boxes, equally beautiful revealed different wood grain panels. I figured that the number of boxes directly corresponded to Cripps' age, since he was born in 1948. If this is so, then the boxes, one for each year of the artist’s life, form a limen between outer and inner space, and the doorway reveals the rear wall of the gallery covered in material reflective of the color of the boxes. What might these empty boxes mean? I read the void (and they weren't empty if you looked closer and noticed the shadows) as a space of potential ~ shadows as memory, and yet they could simultaneously represent things left undone. On viewing this work, Moira expressed a desire to embellish the boxes after the style of Joseph Cornell ~ but I liked that the boxes were empty, save for the different colors formed by the shadows. This emphasis on shadow, optics and reflection was evident in the second room in which small cut mirrors were a primary feature of the freestanding sculptures ~ and on the wall, the most delicate, feathery shadows cast from refined and tiny sculptures. Reflective surfaces featured strongly in the large wooden draftsman's boards in room one, where visitors bodies becomes distorted and animated as they moved by. But Moira was correct in her first impressions about Cornell, for Cripps had installed in the next room six elegant boxes, each held a bent steel polygon ~ a pentangle, hexagon, triangle, square and below them a white area of small stamped images repeated over and over again. What became increasingly obvious in viewing these works was Cripps's attention to detail and his precision of execution. The most fascinating part of the installation was in the third and final room, which contained tables of discarded, or were they found objects ~ some fused together to form small sculptures, placed side by side with pages taken from a newspaper. All the tables were covered with white Tulle or netting that suggested, in some small way these ephemeral things needed protection. I recognized some of the discarded objects (now made precious), such as the can of old fashioned furniture polish, cardboard school cases with handles, other objects that one might usually find in a garage. But then, I'm remembering my own childhood here (and I am of Peter's generation), for the garage almost always contained old tin pots, rusted paint tins, yellowed newspapers left on the ground after an oil spill, rags and car parts that looked alien once they were dislocated from their functioning place under the car's hood. I detected a sense of nostalgia in this particular work as though it referred to a time in Cripps's life that he needed to preserve and which could not, did not belong in those empty boxes shown in the first room of the installation. I was unaware of this artist before today ~ of course I'd heard his name, but couldn't recall his work. That probably says more about me than a reflection of the quality of his sculptures. When I first saw the works I thought they were too minimal, too particular to the artists life for me to access, but when I began to engage with the artworks in the space, I realized that this seemed to be the artist's concern ~ to speak about spatiality and temporality ~ the quality of our knowing and understanding of things ~ his sculptures, just there, in their ultimate 'isness'. His strategy was for me a very elegant solution! I look forward to seeing the next installment.