My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble

After 2step, minimalpop, Painted Objects, Double Exposure, and A Bit O’ White, MY EYES KEEP ME IN TROUBLE is the sixth touring group exhibition produced by TEAM CCNOA, CCNOA Brussels, Belgium. The exhibition premiered in April 2007 at Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem (NL) and will travel this June to the Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, Sydney (AUS) and in August 2008 to The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand. The exhibition is curated by the German artist and curator Tilman and will feature the work of thirty Belgian and international artists. The Sydney presentation will coincide with the Sydney Bienniale and the public art works, part of the exhibition in Christchurch, will coincide with SCAPE, the 2008 Biennial of Art in Public Space.

MY EYES KEEP ME IN TROUBLE is the title of a song with lyrics and music by blues legend R.L. Burnside. The seemingly innocent yet conscious title of this blues song triggered the idea to form or formulate a dialogue between the different positions and concerns of a number of artists whose practice revolves around the idea of non-representational, reductive or concrete art as the essential approach towards art-making.

The thoughts of Josef Albers on the 'reductive' – 'to open the eyes' or 'the eye is thinking' – immediately came to mind. These ideas, deeply grounded in the history of non-representational art or more precisely of reductive art, and their ongoing influence on artists today, the crossovers with other art movements and even the resurgence of the idea of the 'concrete' are the givens for this exhibition project.

My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble will open on Thursday 5 June, 6 - 8pm, at the Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, and continues until 1 August.

Image: Daniel Argyle, Flatpack, 2008