Organisation Ten Cubed Key Features Characteristics/ Mission Staff roles Ten Cubed was established in 2010 as a ten year project to acquire and support the work of ten outstanding contemporary artists in depth. In 2013 the gallery was opened to exhibit the collection. Ten Cubed is a philanthropic, not for profit organisation. There is no entry fee (as is the case with many other private galleries). In addition to running a series of artist curated exhibitions, the gallery also houses over 170 works from the collection in our purposedesigned storage and viewing rooms. In 2015 Ten Cubed s mission was extended to collect an additional ten international artists. Ten Cubed was founded and is owned by Executive Director Dianne Gringlas and her sister-in-law Ada Moshinsky who is Ten Cubed s conceptual curator. Ten Cubed employs three staff members, director Gina Lee, manager Elsa Holmes and assistant manager Emma Soloman. A private collection open and free to the public. Mission: To bring private art to the public and to have the collection on show as much as possible. Small organisation. Staff take on multiple roles. Gallery Space Ten Cubed gallery space is a renovated old terrace shop front on Malvern Road in Glen Iris. The building has been transformed into a state of the art atrium gallery space that is two storeys high. On the top level there is a mezzanine office/lounge area and a collection storage facility. Lighting: Installed is an advanced Erco exhibition lighting system on suspended tracks that allow for computer controlled individual lux adjustment of lights. Positioning and filters are altered manually and accessed using a scissor lift. Only one exhibition space. Privately owned building.
Conservation and storage Marketing/ promotion The gallery has purpose built storage and viewing racks so most of the collection can be kept onsite. If not at the gallery, works in the collection are on loan or, as Ten Cubed is a private collection, at the home of the Executive Director. Ten Cubed staff take standard precautions when handling the works including wearing white cotton gloves. Visual checks are conducted to ensure works remain undamaged. When not being exhibited works are properly wrapped or hung on the racks or on the wall of the storage room. The storeroom is temperature controlled however as Ten Cubed is a new building there is no need for humidity or pest control at this stage. These precautions may have to be considered as the building ages. Discussion: Conservation of Digital Media Ten Cubed has a number of digital video works in the collection however no formal conservation policy has been put in place for digital files at this stage. Video works in the collection include DVDs and digital files received on media players. Future Proofing: As most media technologies become obsolete overtime, how to conserve digital works becomes an important question. Making a copy: are copies of digital works allowed to be made? Ten Cubed has a website featuring up to date information about our artists, exhibition and events. Social media pages including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are updated regularly. Ten Cubed also advertises exhibitions in printed media and listings such as Art Guide and Art Almanac. Press releases are sent to journalists also and our exhibitions have been reviewed in a number of publications. Most of the collection is kept at the gallery. No formal conservation protocol. Temperature is regulated.
Collections policy Collection Loans policy, Outreach/offsite projects Exhibitions Curatorial process Commissioning To collect ten outstanding artists in depth over ten years. All acquisitions are at the discretion of Dianne Gringlas and Ada Moshinsky. Ten Cubed s selected artworks come from mid-career and emerging artists represented by commercial galleries. In 2015 Ada and Dianne announced their commitment to expand the Ten Cubed project and collect an additional ten international artists. The ten artists chosen for the collection are: Alasdair McLuckie, Daniel von Sturmer, Tim Silver, Pat Brassington, David Rosetzky, Jonathan Delafield Cook, Anne-Marie May, David Wadelton, Noel McKenna and Alexander Knox. The first international artist selected for the collection is Liu Zhuoquan. Ten Plus: Additional works are collected by Ada and Dianne from artists outside of the chosen ten. Ten Cubed encourages the loan of individual works in the collection or complete exhibitions particularly to public galleries and organisations. Solo exhibitions for Ten Cubed artists are scheduled and enabled by Ten Cubed Staff. Occasionally Ten Cubed holds group shows of works curated from the collection. Ten Cubed presents solo exhibitions curated by the artists themselves. Artists choose from their work within the collection and may supplement work they feel is appropriate to the exhibition. Artists are asked to respond to the Ten Cubed gallery space when curating their exhibitions. If the artist is unable to curate the exhibition (for example Jonathan Delafield Cook was overseas during the planning and install of his exhibition) the manager or director will take on the role of curator but will need final approval from the artist. Ten Cubed does not commission artworks at this stage however site specific works have been created by Ten Cubed artists for particular exhibitions. Dianne and Ada have ultimate control of all acquisitions. Artists work is collected in depth. Small private collection Each chosen artist s work is collected in depth. At least ten works from each artist are acquired for the collection. Mission to have the collection seen as much as possible. Most exhibitions held at Ten Cubed are solo exhibitions. Artist are asked to curate their own exhibitions.
Education Ten Cubed is committed to providing free education programs as part of its mission. Current Exhibition So Far works from the Ten Cubed collection Pat Brassington Alasdair McLuckie David Rosetzky Daniel von Sturmer Jonathan Delafield Cook Anne-Marie May Tim Silver David Wadelton Featuring selected works from the collection, Ten Cubed s first group show is a celebration of the half-way point of the Ten Cubed project. The intention of the exhibition is to showcase the work of the eight Ten Cubed artists who have been exhibited at the gallery so far. As each of the artists have previously had solo exhibitions at Ten Cubed, So Far was put together to remind the viewer of those past exhibitions while also recontextualising the works to be seen as a coherent and particular collection. The theme of works in space was used to guide which works were chosen and how they were presented in the show. The Ten Cubed team believe it is important for artists to have control over how their work is exhibited and request that whenever possible, the artists will curate their exhibitions. For the unique situation of a Ten Cubed group show, the artists were consulted about which works would be included, how those works would be displayed and in some cases, asked to oversee the installation. Showcasing new works that had not been previously exhibited was also a priority for this exhibition, as well as choosing works that were representative of each artist s overall practice. Anne-Marie May s striking new acrylic mobile was acquired by Ten Cubed in 2014 but the artist felt the work did not fit with the concept of her 2015 Ten Cubed exhibition and therefore the work is exhibited for the first time at Ten Cubed in So Far. The mobile suspends from the ceiling and has been spot lit to create an abstract colour shadow on the wall, changing shape as the work moves slowly. Tim Silver s Untitled (Blow Up) video work, acquired in 2015 is an extension of the concept of his previous work exhibited at Ten Cubed in 2013. A large LCD screen was purchased and mounted on the feature wall of the gallery. The wall was painted black to blend with the black background of the film and the black frame of the screen. The black wall is also a reference to Tim s 2013 exhibition where the top half of the ceiling was painted black. Jonathan Delafield Cook s charcoal Lotuses were positioned in a diagonal upward line to highlight the movement in the drawings and to give the impression of them floating away or being suspended in space.
The addition of Pat Brassington s The Pressings, a series of dream-like, menacing and surreal digitally manipulated pigment prints bring colour to the exhibition, as does David Wadelton s Land of Opportunity. David s vibrant oil painting depicts a familiar real estate sales image of a Victorian weather board home but is plastered with perfect pop lipstick lips held up to a crisp, clean glass of water and a bright red no bugs symbol, humorously alluding to an aspirational suburban lifestyle. Ten Cubed has acquired a number of Daniel von Sturmer s video works and was hoping to exhibit one in So Far however due to the limited space available and the artist s wishes to only exhibit video work in particular and controlled settings, five framed prints were chosen. The archival pigment prints were acquired in 2014 and depict the shadows of a series of everyday objects and as is the case with Daniel s extended body of work, call into question the visual order of things. The window is always an important consideration for any Ten Cubed exhibition as it draws visitors in off the street. Alasdair McLuckie was asked to paint the wall around three new digital collages acquired in 2014. Alasdair had framed his Cosmic Love collages in neon orange and purple to contrast the sepia monochrome tone of the works. He created a graphic pattern for the wall using the intense colours of the frames. Finally, David Rosetzsky s Half Brother, a film dealing with themes of identity, subjectivity and human relationships was selected by David to include in the show. A high quality projector was mounted from the ceiling to project onto the back wall of the gallery, allowing the film to be seen clearly throughout the space. The film s ambient sound was isolated to the back end of the gallery using the existing Crestron sound system installed when the gallery was built in 2012.
Past Exhibitions David Wadelton 26 June 26 September 2015 Ten Cubed s eighth solo exhibition featured the photography and oil paintings of David Wadelton. David Wadelton established his reputation as a pop influenced photorealist style painter, however David s more recent photographic works evoke the feeling of an earlier era. His black and white 30cm format photographs create a mood of nostalgia. Through these works, David claims he is interested in documenting our social history and has an eye for suburban vernacular detail. The gritty reality of his black and white photographs is offset by his real estate themed series of oil works that demonstrate idealised symbols of an aspirational suburban lifestyle. Ten Cubed staff met with David and his representing commercial gallery Tolarno to determine how our exhibition could best present his work. We wanted to maintain this mood of nostalgia while also demonstrating the relevant and contemporary aspects of David s practice. As David Wadelton s photographs and paintings are of Melbourne vernacular and suburban architecture, it was a curatorial decision to respond to the long and narrow Ten Cubed gallery space and to position the works at eye level to give the impression of walking down a suburban street. The colour and black and white works were separated to opposite sides along the two long walls of the gallery. The work 784 Northcote Houses comprising of postage stamp sized black and white images of Northcote architecture presented in a grid was positioned at one end of the gallery and bookended with a moving projection of each image contained in the work at the opposite end of the gallery. David s Milk Bars of Melbourne works were positioned forward in the gallery. The painting Contemporary Flair, Central Location was placed in the window for visual impact. To create a live interactive element and showcase both David s extended practice and a retrospective of his work, a screen with David s Northcote Hysterical Society blog was displayed at the far end of the gallery. Visitors were able to view or contribute to the blog from a wireless keyboard.
David Rosetzky 27 May 6 September 2014 In 2014, Ten Cubed s gallery space was transformed to exhibit the work of video artist David Rosetzky. Ada and Dianne, Ten Cubed s conceptual curator and executive director, had been collecting David s still photography and video works for a number of years and were confident in their choice to collect his work in depth and position him as one of Ten Cubed s artists. David was excited at the prospect of curating his Ten Cubed exhibition and kindly contributed many hours to the process and set up. Although Ada and Dianne usually ask the artists to select work from their existing collection for the exhibition, David explained he had been working on a particular video work during his time as artist-in-residence at Monash University Prato Centre in Italy. With complete faith in David s art, Ada and Dianne agreed to acquire and exhibit this new work as the centrepiece of the exhibition. The work, Incomplete, open 2013/14 consisted of two different cuts of the same film and was projected on either side of a floating screen suspended from the ceiling of the main atrium space in the gallery. A beautiful soundtrack also accompanied the film. Inspired by the sculptural works of conceptual artist Sol Le Witt, Incomplete, open features Italian musicians choreographers and performers. David saw an opportunity to premier this work in Ten Cubed s gallery space creating an immersive exhibition. To achieve this outcome, the gallery, usually flooded with natural light, had to be transformed. To accompany the main video work, David selected a series of still photographs from the collection along with a second video work, Heart forever to exhibit in the smaller back section of the gallery. The planning of this exhibition required many meetings and negotiations with David and his representing commercial gallery, Sutton. To present the work required acquiring additional audio visual equipment and a budget for the exhibition needed to be negotiated. Although the natural light that fills Ten Cubed gallery enhances most exhibitions it became quite a challenge to overcome in order to black out the space. Black vinyl was used for the windows and door and the skylight shutters were kept permanently shut for the duration of the exhibition. Two new projectors were purchased and installed to achieve high quality images. The projectors had to be installed on long titanium arms so that the projection could reach the screen without compromising the image quality. A screen was purpose built and hung from the ceiling. The screen had to be made from opaque material as the images were to be projected on both sides. The projected images were carefully adjusted so that they filled the entire screen but did not bleed light over the edges. As the accompanying sound track was an integral component to the work, David consulted audio visual professionals to install two speakers positioned either side of the suspended screen and set up all the remaining audio equipment in a hidden cavity above the gallery entrance. How the public would view and interact with the work was a strong priority for David and Ten Cubed s manager. Three custom built unfinished oak benches were created to seat visitors in an optimal viewing position.