Hours of operation

Stupid As
Curated by Alex Gawronski

Installation view of Stupid As, curated by Alex Gawronski, featuring work by Ronnie van Hout and Salote Tawale, presented at Gertrude Contemporary 2024. Photo: Christian Capurro
Installation view of Stupid As, curated by Alex Gawronski, featuring work by Ronnie van Hout and Salote Tawale, presented at Gertrude Contemporary 2024. Photo: Christian Capurro

20 April -
2 June 2024

Gertrude Contemporary

21-31 High Street, Preston South

Artist talks & opening event: 
Saturday 20 April, 3 – 6pm

Generally, in our daily lives we do our best not to be, or to appear, stupid. Despite this, or maybe because of the unspoken normal/ising imperative it suggests, artists are one of the few groups who have openly embraced the generative possibilities of stupidity. Many artists in fact have seen stupidity as an affective force, embracing failure, mistakes, elisions, satire, parody, slapstick, mimicry and the absurd as part of a much wider assault on (common) 'sense.’

Dr Alex Gawronski is a contemporary artist working across multiple media as well as a writer and independent gallerist. He has a particular interest in the implications of galleries and museums as cultural sites of spatial and socio-political contestation. Gawronski’s PhD, No New Utopia: The Crisis of Art as Critique Under Globalisation was awarded by the University of Sydney in 2006. Gawronski has exhibited widely nationally and internationally, including at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, and Carriageworks as part of The National. He operates the artist run initiative ethan frome (ex-KNULP) in Eora Sydney.

Artists

  • Hany Armanious
  • Alex Gawronski
  • Ronnie van Hout
  • MP Hopkins
  • Sean Kerr
  • Cescon & Donovan
  • Del Lumanta
  • Michelle Nikou
  • Jelena Telecki
  • Justene Williams
  • Salote Tawale
  • The Estate of Quinto Sesto
Public Program
Audiences attend Gertrude Open Day 2023. Photo: Machiko Abe

Gertrude Open Day 2024

Open DaySaturday 20 April, 1amGertrude Contemporary

Join Gertrude on Saturday 20 April for a day-long program of workshops, studio tours and artist talks. All events are free and no bookings are required. 

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Installation view of Stupid As, curated by Alex Gawronski, featuring work by The Estate of Quinto Sesto, presented at Gertrude Contemporary 2024. Photo: Christian Capurro

In Conversation: Mark Feary and Alex Gawronski

Artist TalkSaturday 20 April, 5amGertrude Contemporary

Join Gertrude Artistic Director Mark Feary and curator Alex Gawronski in conversation on Saturday 20 April at 3pm on the occasion of the opening of Stupid As at Gertrude Contemporary. 

The discussion will be followed by the exhibition opening celebration, held from 4 – 6pm, and forms part of the broader Gertrude Open Day program. 

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Essay
Installation view of Stupid As, curated by Alex Gawronski, featuring work by Alex Gawronski, presented at Gertrude Contemporary 2024. Photo: Christian Capurro

Stupid Gertrude Essay

The list of art that critically engages stupidity is practically endless and well documented. As a result, this essay does not speak to individual art works or the intentions of the artists in the exhibition. Instead, it focuses on the paradoxically serious, but stupid, macro-structures that frame art today. These structures condition the knowing or unknowing stupidity of contemporary artists: the stupidity endemic to the global domination of capital, and the current accelerated stupidity and bankruptcy of Western global geopolitics. These wider interlinked lenses affect us all, whether we acknowledge it or not.

By Dr. Alex Garwonski

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Gertrude Contemporary

Wurundjeri Country
21-31 High Street
Preston South VIC
Melbourne, Australia

Opening hours:
Tuesday–Sunday 11am–5pm

Gertrude Glasshouse

Wurundjeri Country
44 Glasshouse Road
Collingwood VIC
Melbourne, Australia

Opening hours:
Thursday–Saturday 12–5pm