Null is Not an Object - Mary Cherry Contemporary
Image courtesy of Mary Cherry Contemporary and the artist.
Mary Cherry Contemporary is my pick for best named gallery in Melbourne. It’s just fun to say. Currently on at the Collingwood space is Jen Valender’s solo show Null is Not an Object. The exhibition feels intimate and meticulous, each work key in telling a wider story. It’s an homage to Valender’s early job as a cinema projectionist- a return to working intimately with celluloid film.
The first work you encounter when walking into the space, Deaf Pixels, is projected low on the wall. It’s a film introduction to the exhibition, as well as the artist on her own terms. This (along with the opportunity to speak with Valender), grounded my experience of the exhibition. Having previously profiled the artist’s work at Spring1883 I was curious as to what I would encounter here, given the short time span between two full solo showings. There was no rehashing (though the fringe does return). This was an exploration of light, film, and cinema.
In talking to the artist, I learned about what a film leader is. The blank film reeled through the projector is a cornerstone of the exhibition. Leader is abundant and a material throughline. Past the initial projected work, the room feels divided into three parts, three colour stories. Mirror Mirror: Intervals in Gold is grand as the titular colour would suggest; reflecting both sunlight and the opulence of a golden age of cinema. It was staring at these pieces that I was reminded of my first trip to see a Marilyn Monroe film in theatres. It was in stereotypical red velvet cinema chairs, with a Wurlitzer rising up to play the opening theme that it clicked for me that the movies were once a suit and tie event. Mirror Mirror brought me back to that feeling. (I am not geriatric, just spent my summers with grandparents who were avid patrons of the Stanford cinema).
Looking up, on the window ledge you’ll find Pink Intermissions trimmed in fringe. Pieces of intermission ads, Valender makes full use of their transparency. Looking up and through them, you only catch glimpses of what they once were, forced to focus instead on the whole. Intentionally they play with the natural light of the space, placed to project their vibrant colour through the gallery on a sunny day. In Valender’s own words:
"I think the two things that make this show special for me are the use of the film leader and natural light. Film leader has a poetic quality of anticipation, like an orchestra tuning up, where the potential experience to follow it is unknown and infinite. The suspension of this feeling in the artwork was the starting point for this show. As was implementing natural light, where the experience of the artworks installed on the windowsill change throughout the day and with the weather. On a brilliant sunny afternoon shades of raspberry, from the Pink Intermissions series, are cast across the gallery walls. As I was creating the works I kept thinking about the different definitions of “projection" — to project light; to protrude physically; to capture a psychological projection — and how they could be embedded in the work."
Null is Not an Object is an exhibition that plays with materiality and nostalgia for past times and past selves. The show even has celebrity cameos- I didn’t expect to see Nic Cage in Collingwood, but look at Cage Study with Leader (blue) and you’ll find him.
Null is Not an Object is at Mary Cherry Contemporary until the 4th of October.