A century of being driven to abstraction

ART historians will quibble but Terence Maloon is sticking to his guns: this year, he insists, is the centenary of abstract art.

ART historians will quibble -- some may even fulminate -- but Terence Maloon is sticking to his guns: this year, he insists, is the centenary of abstract art.

Maloon, co-curator of Abstraction, a showcase of 10 local artists at the Australian National University, acknowledges the art movement's centenary date is disputed, but says that this year is the most accurate guess.

"The abstract movement was a revolution that happened on a very broad front," he says. "But because there is evidence pioneer Wassily Kandinsky incontrovertibly made paintings in 1911, 2011 emerges as our best bet for a centenary."

The dates, however, are largely irrelevant. What is important, he says, is acknowledging the longevity, and the evolution, of the genre that spawned some of the 20th century's greatest artists.

Abstraction, on display at ANU's Drill Hall Gallery, features 10 artists -- five painters and five sculptors -- whose works encapsulate Australia's contemporary take on the 100-year-old movement.

"[Abstraction features] some of the best artists in Australia. Some of them are much more successful in the kind of expected ways, and others are fabulously obscure to the general public," Maloon says.

Sculptures, such as the hauntingly utilitarian works of co-curator Paul Selwood and Michael Buzacott, occupy the same space as the vivid offerings of Sydney-based colourist Virginia Coventry and Romania-born painter Aida Tomescu in the exhibition.

"[Selwood and I] were so sick of the way mixed exhibitions were put together, which is always about some spurious way of creating variety," Maloon says. "These artists are in the mature phases of their career, and I think for them to just be shown with their peers is something special; it's really something that hasn't been done."

The intimacy of the exhibition, which also features sculptors Paul Hopmeier, James Rogers and Jan King and painters John Peart, Roy Jackson and Allan Mitelman, is one its strengths, Maloon says, adding that the ANU show is something of a countermeasure to larger, globetrotting exhibitions, such as Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso in Paris coming to the Art Gallery of NSW in November.

"I think there is a trend now that really goes for spectacle and giantism," he says.

"We wanted something more civilised."

Keeping Abstraction on a human scale -- in size and theme -- is as important as the works themselves. "The amazing thing about this generation of artists is that their work has a very explicit relation to the body.

"There is a human size here; you can measure yourself against it. There is a real muscular feel; a physicality to it that is manifest. You can feel it," Maloon says.

Abstraction is at Australian National University's Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra, until September 25.