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Papers by James Paull

IN-Formalism , 2019

Essay for the exhibition IN-Formalism at Casula Powerhouse Art Centre, New South Wales, Austral... more Essay for the exhibition
IN-Formalism
at Casula Powerhouse Art Centre, New South Wales, Australia May 18 to June 30 2019

To survey the art of Lynne Eastaway is to experience a painter’s conversation with traditions tha... more To survey the art of Lynne Eastaway is to experience a painter’s conversation with traditions that have demanded of us different ways of seeing. Artists, particularly those attuned to genealogies of the non-objective, will witness a literature of correspondences animated by her experiments in colour, modular configuration, and intimately crafted explorations of material. The fact that, in Australia at least, such correspondences allude to what has largely been a subterranean history in the visual arts will not be lost. When thinking of Eastaway, the invocation of a secret past seems doubly apt for in a fundamental sense her conversation records something of the outsider, having arrived relatively late at non-objective painting. More to the point, a private history lies secreted within her surfaces in that, for all their apparent centredness, measure an enduring tension.

In May 2013 an exhibition of Laurie Scott Baker’s graphic scores was held at SNO. The scores are ... more In May 2013 an exhibition of Laurie Scott Baker’s graphic scores was held at SNO. The scores are works that he produced during the 1960s. Collectively, they document a period in which Scott Baker’s immersion in improvisation and experimental music coincided with his interest in graphics as well as concepts such as indeterminacy.

An exhibition held at Sydney Non-Objective (SNO) Gallery in 2015 documents a largely bygone genre... more An exhibition held at Sydney Non-Objective (SNO) Gallery in 2015 documents a largely bygone genre, whose significance can be summarized along the following lines:
that across two decades of activity there emerged an international language that successfully challenged the hegemony of staff notation by reinstating the interpreter as an active, indeed equal participant in the musical process. Just as importantly, the language by which balance between composer and interpreter was established escaped the stifling modes of ideological determinism evident in early postwar trends, such as the avant-garde movement of serialism and technological developments in electronics like musique concrete. By deepening an identifiably post-Cagean aesthetic, compositional processes became open-ended, allowing for interventions that enabled the musically untrained to participate in the making of musical events. Not
dissimilar to the notion of the ‘expanded field’ in relation to sculpture, graphic scores helped enable music to migrate into different fields of creativity such as language, media and painting.

Books by James Paull

Ruark Lewis is today acknowledged as one of Australia’s most intriguing yet elusive contemporary ... more Ruark Lewis is today acknowledged as one of Australia’s most intriguing yet elusive contemporary artists. Lewis has exhibited and performed extensively since 1987 including the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, the Art Galleries of New South Wales and South Australia, the Berlin Poetry Festival and the Sprengel Museum, Hannover. Recently two major surveys in Sydney chronicled the artist’s output over a period of thirty years. Exhibition curator James Paull worked closely with Lewis on these shows recording interviews, unpacking the archives and planning the creation of new works. This has been an opportunity to catalogue the artist’s output, as well as to examine the plethora of models and prototypes and all the planning documents of his major projects.

Book Reviews by James Paull

Patterns in Translation - R. Buckminster Fuller: Pattern Thinking by Daniel López-Pérez, 2020

Where to begin with Buckminster Fuller? Perhaps the documentary The World of Buckminster Fuller (... more Where to begin with Buckminster Fuller? Perhaps the documentary The World of Buckminster Fuller (1971), directed by filmmaker and Fuller's son-in-law, Robert Snyder. Fuller's original voice narrates the entirety of the film, an uninterrupted commentary held in balance with the film's juxtaposition of remarkable images. These range from Fuller's signature inventionsthe geodesic dome, tetrahedron hand-models transformed to become an octahedron and then icosahedron, the Dymaxion Map, the Montreal Expo Dometo the terrestrial and finally cosmic. Close-ups of waves and white foam, distance shots of Earth recorded by orbiting spacecrafts. Such images unfolding synchronously with Fuller's voice form an ever-evolving pattern of transition. Nowhere is this more evident than in a closing sequence when Fuller's silhouette transforms into shadow before merging with varied domestic and public geodesic structures.

IN-Formalism , 2019

Essay for the exhibition IN-Formalism at Casula Powerhouse Art Centre, New South Wales, Austral... more Essay for the exhibition
IN-Formalism
at Casula Powerhouse Art Centre, New South Wales, Australia May 18 to June 30 2019

To survey the art of Lynne Eastaway is to experience a painter’s conversation with traditions tha... more To survey the art of Lynne Eastaway is to experience a painter’s conversation with traditions that have demanded of us different ways of seeing. Artists, particularly those attuned to genealogies of the non-objective, will witness a literature of correspondences animated by her experiments in colour, modular configuration, and intimately crafted explorations of material. The fact that, in Australia at least, such correspondences allude to what has largely been a subterranean history in the visual arts will not be lost. When thinking of Eastaway, the invocation of a secret past seems doubly apt for in a fundamental sense her conversation records something of the outsider, having arrived relatively late at non-objective painting. More to the point, a private history lies secreted within her surfaces in that, for all their apparent centredness, measure an enduring tension.

In May 2013 an exhibition of Laurie Scott Baker’s graphic scores was held at SNO. The scores are ... more In May 2013 an exhibition of Laurie Scott Baker’s graphic scores was held at SNO. The scores are works that he produced during the 1960s. Collectively, they document a period in which Scott Baker’s immersion in improvisation and experimental music coincided with his interest in graphics as well as concepts such as indeterminacy.

An exhibition held at Sydney Non-Objective (SNO) Gallery in 2015 documents a largely bygone genre... more An exhibition held at Sydney Non-Objective (SNO) Gallery in 2015 documents a largely bygone genre, whose significance can be summarized along the following lines:
that across two decades of activity there emerged an international language that successfully challenged the hegemony of staff notation by reinstating the interpreter as an active, indeed equal participant in the musical process. Just as importantly, the language by which balance between composer and interpreter was established escaped the stifling modes of ideological determinism evident in early postwar trends, such as the avant-garde movement of serialism and technological developments in electronics like musique concrete. By deepening an identifiably post-Cagean aesthetic, compositional processes became open-ended, allowing for interventions that enabled the musically untrained to participate in the making of musical events. Not
dissimilar to the notion of the ‘expanded field’ in relation to sculpture, graphic scores helped enable music to migrate into different fields of creativity such as language, media and painting.

Ruark Lewis is today acknowledged as one of Australia’s most intriguing yet elusive contemporary ... more Ruark Lewis is today acknowledged as one of Australia’s most intriguing yet elusive contemporary artists. Lewis has exhibited and performed extensively since 1987 including the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, the Art Galleries of New South Wales and South Australia, the Berlin Poetry Festival and the Sprengel Museum, Hannover. Recently two major surveys in Sydney chronicled the artist’s output over a period of thirty years. Exhibition curator James Paull worked closely with Lewis on these shows recording interviews, unpacking the archives and planning the creation of new works. This has been an opportunity to catalogue the artist’s output, as well as to examine the plethora of models and prototypes and all the planning documents of his major projects.

Patterns in Translation - R. Buckminster Fuller: Pattern Thinking by Daniel López-Pérez, 2020

Where to begin with Buckminster Fuller? Perhaps the documentary The World of Buckminster Fuller (... more Where to begin with Buckminster Fuller? Perhaps the documentary The World of Buckminster Fuller (1971), directed by filmmaker and Fuller's son-in-law, Robert Snyder. Fuller's original voice narrates the entirety of the film, an uninterrupted commentary held in balance with the film's juxtaposition of remarkable images. These range from Fuller's signature inventionsthe geodesic dome, tetrahedron hand-models transformed to become an octahedron and then icosahedron, the Dymaxion Map, the Montreal Expo Dometo the terrestrial and finally cosmic. Close-ups of waves and white foam, distance shots of Earth recorded by orbiting spacecrafts. Such images unfolding synchronously with Fuller's voice form an ever-evolving pattern of transition. Nowhere is this more evident than in a closing sequence when Fuller's silhouette transforms into shadow before merging with varied domestic and public geodesic structures.