EXHIBITIONS / MODERN EQUIVALENCE

18.11.2010 to 11.12.2010

There is more than one way to tell a story, and most stories have more than one possible ending. Peter Burgess is known for having a way with words, but in his solo show, modern equivalence, the artist uses simulacra of everyday objects to construct narratives that pose more questions than they answer.
Burgess has taken an old wooden matchbox, a parcel tied with string and a plastic bag filled with rubbish and reproduced them as perfect monochromatic replicas. Either actual size or smaller, all have been conceptually condensed; distilled until they become purely symbolic representations.
What do a matchbox, a parcel and a bag of rubbish have in common? For Burgess, they are linked by their role in history: the Sydney fires of 1910-20, attributed to the Wobblies; the parcel bombs left in London tube stations in 1973; the rubbish bin which exploded outside Sydney's Hilton Hotel in 1978. These mundane domestic objects all have the potential to instill terror. Or not. That's the thing about potential. Anything could happen.
In his 2D work, Burgess puts a contemporary spin on photographic history's notion of Equivilance. His digital prints mimic the iconic cloudscapes of seminal photographers Minor White and Alfred Stieglitz, but they are actually representations of explosions: a new image of the sublime, perfect for our 'age of terror'.
What you see isn't what you get. It's the space between, a dark liminal zone brimming with potential, where all the
action is.

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