Thing

Beware the Material World

The Art Gallery of Western Australia has a strong tradition in the collection and display of craft and design. Central to this engagement have been the three Triennials held at the Gallery over the late eighties and nineties.

Thing beware the material world extends this legacy by bringing together a range of works which challenge our perceptions of what design is and can be. A bold exhibition of furniture, lighting, sculpture and photography from across the globe, it celebrates the human impulse to shape and re-shape the world around us. Thing will include works made from a range of processes including hi-tech machining, creative recycling and delicate handcrafting. Instead of focussing on style, Thing will open up a consideration of the material forces and design imperatives that have brought these objects into being.

Thing will include a range of stand-out design objects by makers such as Khai Liew, Borge Morgensen, Emile Galle, Walter Burley Griffin, Robert Prenzel, Korban/Flaubert, Robert Foster, Finn Juhl, and more. Such work will be juxtaposed against those pushing the technical possibilities of modern technology and materials by makers as diverse as Jeroen Verheoven, James Angus and Michael Cooper. Contextualising this stream of objects are other works that implicitly critique common design agendas that seem to celebrate a one-dimensional and highly class-based notion of 'the good life'. This will include work by Atelier Van Lieshout, Ricky Swallow, Richard Giblett, Miles Collyer, Max Pam, and Christian de Vietri.

The show will be accompanied by a colour catalogue with an essay by exhibition curators Melissa Harpley and Robert Cook.

Thing will also present works purchased for the Peter Fogarty Design Collection over the past five years. The Peter Fogarty Design Collection was initiated in 2004 in order to collect works by Australian craft and design artists previously unrepresented in the State Art Collection.