Fader

Fader is a new installation-based work by Ryszard Dabek which that has arisen from time spent on research leave in Europe during 2007. It consists of a series of large archival inkjet prints, a looping video and a low level sound work. It is part of a broader project that concerns itself with an investigation and re-versioning of 20th Century utopian aesthetics as manifest in specific architectural spaces. These spaces range from the starkly utilitarian to the overtly monumental. The work in Fader draws upon the abandoned utopian architectural projects of Mid 20th Century Warsaw while engaging the material detritus of the era. It proposes a fractured dialogue of sorts, between the short-lived aesthetic dictums of socialist realism and the formalist approaches that followed in its wake. Far from the gleaming surfaces of historically sanctioned “Modernity”, a confused and compromised model is brought into play. A haunted idea of the modern is evoked, stalked not only by the past but also by its uncertain future. Within this work, photography is engaged as a model for looking and as a kind of guiding hand through which to navigate the many absences the work concerns itself with. Ultimately, however, the implied veracity of the photographic image is sidelined by a more slippery and open system of re-presentation.

Fader opens on Tuesday 5 August, 6 - 8pm, in the Sydney College of the Arts Galleries, and continues until Saturday 30 August.
Gallery hours: Tuesday to Friday 11am - 5pm, Saturday 11am - 4pm