Exhibition Floorsheet | Watch this space!

Image: Graphic representation of Trevor Richards’ painted wall in the City of Fremantle Collection gallery

Watch this space! integrates 15 screen prints published by the Australian Centre for Concrete Art (AC4CA) with a new painted wall work designed by senior Fremantle artist and longstanding AC4CA group member Trevor Richards.1 Each folio of 7 and 8 prints produced in 2004 and 2011 systematically records a sequence of painted wall works realised by the artists and their associates in Fremantle and Perth between 2002 and 2011. Each print references a completed wall project across the city and the subsequent sale of the limited editioned print folios helped to directly fund successive wall projects and promote the group’s legacy across Australia.2 The local manifestation of Concrete Art practice in Australia has one of its ‘origins’ in Perth, activated amongst others by WA academic Julian Goddard, and follows an established international network of intergenerational makers who sustain and advocate to promote an emphasis on the material basis of art making and ‘singular focus on purity, non-representation and the process of construction’. 3 In Fremantle, these enterprising undertakings made good underused and derelict concrete and brick walls in the CBD. Public spaces negotiated collectively by the group were transformed, emblazoned with sophisticated, subtle and often dazzling pared-back designs.

Site specific designs ‘belonging to the architecture’, of various scales and complexity, located art in public space to interact directly with the fabric and feel of the street. The activities of the group also introduced senior national and international artists to WA audiences, including luminaries such as John Nixon and David Tremlett. The contrasts in Fremantle, with the aging built environment, 1. Wall work designed on behalf of AC4CA 2. Both print folios have been exhibited previously at One Place After Another, PICA 2014

was attractive to the AC4CA membership.

The group enjoyed highlighting the tension between Fremantle’s conservative heritage architecture and its community of progressive creatives. Over the decades painted walls would invariably be revitalised with new works and significant sites would become regular and active ‘blank canvases’ for the membership.

Several key AC4CA sites in Fremantle are associated with the dead space of car parks.

The old Fremantle Gas and Coke Co. building in Cantonment Street, a site adjacent to a shopping centre carpark, would carry three compelling artworks over 18 years. Another site in Leake Street would be harnessed to stage important painted works by minimalist stalwart John Nixon, one of which in silver stripes, is extant today. Probably one of the most significant artworks in Fremantle involved the repainting of the ‘brutalist’ Queensgate Parking Station in Henderson Street in 2003, with a design conceived by local artist Alex Spremberg.

Endorsed by Fremantle Council, the building’s owner, the complex paint job transformed the city skyline, creating a massive painting in blue, orange and yellow. The project was heralded across Australia for recasting the role of the local eyesore. The colour scheme would subsequently gain disapproval from business leaders and followers of the Fremantle Football Club, who recognised the colours of their cross-town rivals. Later the painted carpark would be returned to grey with the sale of the prominent council asset to developers in 2018.

Curated by André Lipscombe

3 & 4. Julian Goddard, Australian Centre For Concrete Art, http://www.ac4ca.net/

The Australian Centre For Concrete Art (AC4CA) is a self-funded, not for-profit organisation initiated in 2001 by gallerist and academic Julian Goddard and a group of artists living and practicing in Fremantle, WA. The group’s stated objectives were to ‘establish a national and international foundation which promotes artistic activities relating to the guiding principles of the international movement known as Concrete Art’.

Since its inception the AC4CA has grown into an international network of artists, holding regular collaborative exhibitions in and outside Australia and continuing to foster public wallworks. The cross-generational and international composition of membership attests to the currency of the group’s interest and the nature of Concrete Art. The AC4CA has managed to evolve in a way that reflects its opportunities and possibilities while staying true to the initial intention of supporting and presenting neo-Concrete Art in the public domain.4 AC4CA in Fremantle has been focused upon appropriating walls in the public realm of the CBD to promote the practice of Fremantlebased artists who share a similar ‘neo minimalist’ ethos to produce artworks that enliven the urban space yet promote no direct social or moral position. The membership has collaborated to produce 16 wall paintings in WA, mostly in Fremantle, details of which can be found at ac4ca.net/photography This exhibition acknowledges the important contribution to AC4CA by senior artists Julianne Clifford (1953-2019) and John Nixon (1949-2020).

Artists represented in the AC4CA print folios include; Trevor Richards (WA), Jurek Wybraniec (WA), John Nixon (NSW), Jan Van der Ploeg (NL) Helen Smith (WA/NSW), Alex Spremberg (WA), Daniel Göttin (CH), Julianne Clifford (WA) and David Tremlett (UK)

Acknowledgements The Curator would like to thank Trevor Richards and Alex Spremberg for design contributions for the painted wall commission and AC4CA for assisting with this exhibition.

Special thanks to FAC exhibition team for installation of the painted wall: Damian Capone, Phoebe Clarke, Minaxi May, Phoebe Tran and Hansdieter Zeh. The City of Fremantle Art Collection, established in 1958, is the largest municipal collection in WA with over 1,500 works.

The Collection’s focus on Fremantle artists and Australian prints celebrates the enduring importance of the visual arts to Fremantle.

Images above: John Nixon, Leake Street Fremantle 2003, 2004, screenprint edition 3/20, AC4CA Project 6 2003 - 2009, 56 x 75cm, no. 1068.2. Helen Smith (1963-), Pearse Street Fremantle 2003, 2004, screenprint edition 3/20, AC4CA Project 5 2003 - 2008, 56 x 75cm, no. 1068.5. Photography by Bo Wong

All prints were produced by AC4CA, are from the City of Fremantle Art Collection and listed chronologically by project date. All prints are printed by Mark Nilsen and James Bryans

1 | Trevor Richards (1954-) Market street Fremantle 2002, 2004 screenprint edition 3/20 AC4CA Project 2 2002 56 x 75 cm no. 1068.4

7 | Daniel Göttin (1959-) Pakenham Street Fremantle 2004, 2004 screenprint edition 3/20 AC4CA Project 8 2004-2008 56 x 75 cm no. 1068.1

12 | Jurek Wybraniec (1958-) Cantonment Street Fremantle 2009, 2011 screenprint edition 2/20 AC4CA Project 14 2009 - 2010 53 x 75 cm no. 1307.8

2 | Jan Van der Ploeg (1959-) Cantonment Street Fremantle 2002, 2004 screenprint edition 3/20 AC4CA Project 3 2002-2009 56 x 75 cm no. 1068.3

8 | Alex Spremberg (1950-) Henry Street Fremantle 2006, 2011 screenprint edition 2/20 AC4CA Project 9 2006-2010 53 x 75 cm no. 1307.5

13 | Jan Van der Ploeg (1959-) Henry Street Fremantle 2010, 2011 screenprint edition 2/20 AC4CA Project 15 2010 53 x 75 cm no. 1307.7

3 | Jurek Wybraniec (1958-) Coogee 2002, 2004 screenprint edition 3/20 AC4CA Project 4 2002 - 2003 56 x 75 cm no. 1068.7

9 | Julianne Clifford (1953-2019) Pearse Street Fremantle 2008, 2011 screenprint edition 2/20 AC4CA Project 10 2008 -2009 53 x 75 cm no. 1307.1

14 | David Tremlett (1945-) Cantonment Street Fremantle 2010, 2011 screenprint edition 2/20 AC4CA Project 16 2010 53 x 75 cm no. 1307.6

10 | Daniel Göttin (1959-) Gladstone Street East Perth 2008, 2011 screenprint edition 2/20 AC4CA Project 11 2008 53 x 75 cm no. 1307.2

15 | Helen Smith (1963-) Alvan Street Subiaco 2011, 2011 screenprint edition 2/20 AC4CA Project 17 2011 53 x 75 cm no. 1307.4

4 | Helen Smith (1963-) Pearse Street Fremantle 2003, 2004 screenprint edition 3/20 AC4CA Project 5 2003 - 2008 56 x 75 cm no. 1068.5 5 | John Nixon (1949-2020) Leake Street Fremantle 2003, 2004 screenprint edition 3/20 AC4CA Project 6 2003 - 2009 56 x 75 cm no. 1068.2

11 | John Nixon (1949-2020) Leake Street Fremantle 2009, 2011 screenprint edition 2/20 AC4CA Project 13 2009 53 x 75 cm no. 1307.3

6 | Alex Spremberg (1950-) Henderson Street Parking Station Fremantle 2003, 2004 screenprint edition 3/20 AC4CA Project 7 2003-2019 56 x 75 cm no. 1068.6 FAC would like to acknowledge it operates on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk people and that we respect their spiritual relationship with their country. We also acknowledge the Whadjuk people as the Traditional Owners of the greater Walyalup area and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still important to the living Whadjuk people today.

This program is available on FAC’s website and can be requested in alternative formats such as large print, electronic, hard copy, audio or braille via artscentre@fremantle.wa.gov.au