Contemporary Painting, conceptual painting understands the gesture not as a singular event but as a strategic intervention into the history of art, reflecting conditions of art, producing situations that show art in a light that is constantly new and changing.

—Dale Frank

Exhibition Dates: 4 September – 4 October 2014

Painting does not take its own legitimacy for granted.

Contemporary Painting, conceptual painting understands the gesture not as a singular event but as a strategic intervention into the history of art, reflecting conditions of art, producing situations that show art in a light that is constantly new and changing.

Painting is essentially conceptual, by positioning a work within a particular set of external references,  it self-referentially and self-critically addresses its material qualities as well as the symbolic grammar of its own formal language. This means that this gesture essentially derives its critical force from the structural self-inquiry of a medium-specific art practice. It takes it to another level. Painting as conceptual practice, first by what it is not and what it opposes. The significance of such a strategic intervention in the field of art distinguishes it sharply from the normal understanding of the historical validity of the work of art. 

Today a strategic reading of Painting is strictly anti-historicist: it does not believe in the exhaustion of things, in the linear genealogy offered to us by art criticism, always ready, unconsciously or not, to follow the demands of the market in search of new products, but neither does it believe in the order of a homogeneous time without breaks, such as art history likes to  imagine.

This conceptuality, however, only exists as a potential. Consequently, we differentiate between a progressive type of painting, one that recognises and develops this conceptual potential, and a more conventional painting that relies uncritically on a traditional understanding of the medium. In order for the conceptual potential to be activated, a painting must produce its own justification by means of continuous formal self-scrutiny and the creation of contextual relations.

It is not enough, in order for there to be painting,  it is still necessary that it be worth the effort, it is still necessary that [the painter] succeed in demonstrating to us that painting is something we positively cannot do without, that it is indispensable to us. 

The medium-specific approach to painting is still possible in artistic practice and in critique. All it has lost is its status as self-evident. Since painting is realised today within the horizon of conceptual practice, it must be grounded in a context that is no longer its own. That means, on the one hand, that an appeal to the specifics of the medium as its sole justification is no longer possible. Painting can no longer just be painting. Today it is also necessarily a form of conceptual art, and as such it must be judged, and hold its own, in relation to conceptual practices in other media.  But this also means that painting can take strength precisely from the fact that by way of an immanent intimate dialogue with its own history and conditions as a medium it arrives at a strategic self-justification within a broader wider world. Forcing Painting potentially into a more enthralling, adventurous and critically engaging approach than any other media.

—Dale Frank, 2014

Dale Frank is one of Australia’s foremost contemporary painters. Recently, Frank was included in the 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Dark Heart at the Art Gallery of South Australia, curated by Nick Mitzevich. In 2013, his work was featured in Personal Structures at the Palazzo Bembo as part of the official program of the 55th Venice Biennale.  A major solo retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 2000. He has been included in three Biennales of Sydney (1982, 1990 and 2010) and he was selected for the important survey exhibition, Contemporary Australia: Optimism at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2008). In 1983, Frank was included in the exhibition ‘Panorama della post - critica: critica ed arte’ at the Museo Palazzo Lanfranchi in Pisa along with Thomas Lawson and Anselm Kiefer. In 1984 Frank was included in the Aperto section of the Venice Biennale and ‘Junger Europaischer Maler (Young European Painters)’ section in the exhibition, ‘Europe-Amerika: 1940 to the Present’, at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne. Frank’s paintings are held in every major public collection in Australia as well as museums worldwide, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and the Kunsthaus, Zurich. A major monograph on Dale Frank’s work So Far: the Art of Dale Frank 2005-1980’was published in 2007. Dale Frank has been represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery since 1982.

 

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Dale Frank History For Lease 1, 2014; varnish, oil, lighter fluid on iridescent plexiglass  ; 180 x 140 cm; 160 × 120cm (unframed); enquire
History For Lease 1, 2014
varnish, oil, lighter fluid on iridescent plexiglass
180 x 140 cm; 160 × 120cm (unframed)
Dale Frank History For Lease 2, 2014; varnish, oil, lighter fluid on iridescent plexiglass ; 180 x 140 cm; 160 × 120cm (unframed); enquire
History For Lease 2, 2014
varnish, oil, lighter fluid on iridescent plexiglass
180 x 140 cm; 160 × 120cm (unframed)
Dale Frank When you touched my face it was like Christmas in August, 2014; varnish, oil, turpentine on 4mm glass
; 218.5 x 178.5 x 8 cm; 200 x 160 cm (unframed), 220 x 180 cm (framed); enquire
When you touched my face it was like Christmas in August, 2014
varnish, oil, turpentine on 4mm glass
218.5 x 178.5 x 8 cm; 200 x 160 cm (unframed), 220 x 180 cm (framed)
Dale Frank She really wanted one of those Chinese Crested dogs but she’d have to get rid of her boyfriend first, 2014; varnish on 6mm glass; 218.5 x 178.5 x 8 cm; enquire
She really wanted one of those Chinese Crested dogs but she’d have to get rid of her boyfriend first, 2014
varnish on 6mm glass
218.5 x 178.5 x 8 cm
Dale Frank How I live now 2, 2014; scraped 200 x 200 cm varnish painting on glass; 134 x 104 cm; (framed); enquire
How I live now 2, 2014
scraped 200 x 200 cm varnish painting on glass
134 x 104 cm; (framed)
Dale Frank How I live now 1, 2014; scraped 200 x 200 cm varnish painting on glass; 134 x 104 cm; (framed); enquire
How I live now 1, 2014
scraped 200 x 200 cm varnish painting on glass
134 x 104 cm; (framed)
Dale Frank After a few drinks she would always tell how she slept with Sam Worthington at school but the numbers just did not add up, 2014; varnish on glass (4mm); 218.5 x 178.5 x 8 cm; enquire
After a few drinks she would always tell how she slept with Sam Worthington at school but the numbers just did not add up, 2014
varnish on glass (4mm)
218.5 x 178.5 x 8 cm
Dale Frank Grabbing his crotch she said you remind me of someone, 2014; varnish on iridescent perspex; 218.5 x 178.5 x 8 cm; 200 × 160cm (unframed), 220 x 180 cm (framed); enquire
Grabbing his crotch she said you remind me of someone, 2014
varnish on iridescent perspex
218.5 x 178.5 x 8 cm; 200 × 160cm (unframed), 220 x 180 cm (framed)
Dale Frank Foreplay is just not to be trusted, 2014; varnish on 4mm glass; 218.5 x 178.5 x 8 cm; enquire
Foreplay is just not to be trusted, 2014
varnish on 4mm glass
218.5 x 178.5 x 8 cm
Dale Frank He just knew he had said the wrong thing, 2014; varnish on iridescent perspex; 218.5 x 178.5 x 8 cm; 200 × 160cm (unframed), 220 x 180 cm (framed); enquire
He just knew he had said the wrong thing, 2014
varnish on iridescent perspex
218.5 x 178.5 x 8 cm; 200 × 160cm (unframed), 220 x 180 cm (framed)
Dale Frank He had been told 11 was his lucky number but he didn’t believe it, 2014; varnish, turpentine on glass 4 mm; 218.5 x 218.5 x 8 cm; 200 x 200 cm (unframed), 220 x 220 cm (framed); enquire
He had been told 11 was his lucky number but he didn’t believe it, 2014
varnish, turpentine on glass 4 mm
218.5 x 218.5 x 8 cm; 200 x 200 cm (unframed), 220 x 220 cm (framed)
Dale Frank 24, 2014; varnish on glass 4mm; 218.5 x 218.5 x 8 cm; enquire
24, 2014
varnish on glass 4mm
218.5 x 218.5 x 8 cm
Dale Frank Yass 2, 2014; varnish on glass 4 mm ; 150 × 150cm (unframed), 170 x 170 cm (framed); enquire
Yass 2, 2014
varnish on glass 4 mm
150 × 150cm (unframed), 170 x 170 cm (framed)
Dale Frank Yass 1, 2014; varnish on glass 4 mm ; 150 × 150cm (unframed), 170 x 170 cm (framed); enquire
Yass 1, 2014
varnish on glass 4 mm
150 × 150cm (unframed), 170 x 170 cm (framed)
Dale Frank Every time I glance it’s just not me, 2014; varnish, lighter fluid on anodised perspex; 218.5 x 218.5 x 8 cm; 200 x 200 cm (unframed), 220 x 220 cm (framed); enquire
Every time I glance it’s just not me, 2014
varnish, lighter fluid on anodised perspex
218.5 x 218.5 x 8 cm; 200 x 200 cm (unframed), 220 x 220 cm (framed)
Dale Frank The door had been left unlocked so he could leave the next morning as if he was never there, 2014; varnish, turpentine, lighter fluid on perspex; 218.5 x 218.5 cm; enquire
The door had been left unlocked so he could leave the next morning as if he was never there, 2014
varnish, turpentine, lighter fluid on perspex
218.5 x 218.5 cm
Dale Frank Ambition 25 + Regrets 10 + Death 21 = 56, 2014; varnish on plexiglass with 56 green bottles and 21 coins; 200 x 260 cm (unframed), 220 x 280 cm (framed); enquire
Ambition 25 + Regrets 10 + Death 21 = 56, 2014
varnish on plexiglass with 56 green bottles and 21 coins
200 x 260 cm (unframed), 220 x 280 cm (framed)
Dale Frank 99, 2014; varnish on perspex; 220 x 280 cm; enquire
99, 2014
varnish on perspex
220 x 280 cm
Dale Frank Sitting in his new twin cab ute in the Barrington Tops National Park he took the whole bottle of pills, 2014; varnish on anodised plexiglass; 200 x 300 cm (unframed), 220 x 320 cm (framed); enquire
Sitting in his new twin cab ute in the Barrington Tops National Park he took the whole bottle of pills, 2014
varnish on anodised plexiglass
200 x 300 cm (unframed), 220 x 320 cm (framed)