Caves

CAVES X CATHEDRAL CABINET
The Exterminating Pencil Volume 4: Letters of love, hate, war & peace curated by Caspar Connolly - Spread between two sites Cathedral Cabinet (Cathedral Arcade) and CAVES Room 5, Level 8 - 37 Swanston Street, Melbourne (Nicholas Building)

Looking back to a time in history when the processes of drawing and text-based mark making, or writing, were not yet separated. The word γράφειν (“graphein”) was used to describe both the act of mark making and its material, graphite. Graphite, an elemental form of carbon derived from the word γράφειν, held no etymological distinction between the acts of writing or drawing. This exhibition attempts to scaffold those indistinguishable etymological beginnings. Graphite becomes a metaphor for drawing as a language; this implied connection encourages new material enactments of how we create language.

This group show explores the works of artists who reconsider the alphabet through the use of graphite on paper. These pieces offer new interpretations of the visual rhetoric of images. They focus on and critique the formal elements within text, employing text in drawing as a method to investigate systems of language production. This investigation allows for new dialogues that emerge from everyday lettering such as love, hate, war and peace. The artists explore the space between language and drawing, the grey area. Grey represents the colour of graphite and serves as a symbolic flag for the unfinished.

Alphabet drawing is a Beautiful and Challenging form of Discovery and Each person who Forms it’s Grip may Harness powers of Interdisciplinary and Jurisdiction through the Kiss of the Lead yet Most Never feel the Oscillation of its Potency which can be a Quest for Rejuvenation and Fiction, Those Unpracticing its Value Will rest at X and those who pickup the pencil from case and place it’s lead upon the White rectangle be reaching for life Z.
Text by: Maggie Kontev