EXHIBITION TWO

Clem Baker-Finch | Doctor of Philosophy | Photography & Media Arts

This series of exhibitions brings together the work of students completing their studies in the Graduate research program at the ANU School of Art. The work they present in these exhibitions at the School of Art Gallery is characteristically diverse, involving a spread of disciplines and thematic concerns, but shares the commitment to excellence in art practice and art theory that is fundamental to our School.

This research project is an investigation into how some of the strategies deployed by conceptual artists around the 1970s may or may not translate into present day practices and technologies.  The outcomes are represented here by two bodies of work: the first consists in series of advertising signs, attending to the nature of photography, appropriation, and the place of the everyday in conceptual art.  The second body of work explores the systematic drawings and prints of Sol LeWitt, how computer technology may intervene and how that intervention may affect the work’s reception.

Clem Baker-Finch trained in mathematics and computer science and has had a long career as a researcher and teaching academic in those fields.  More recently he turned a casual interest in art into something more serious, completing a Graduate Diploma at the ANU School of Art in 2006 before moving on to this project.  Clem’s working modes include photography, digital processes and electronic means.  He has had several exhibitions, including Canberra Contemporary Art Space and he has twice been selected for inclusion in the Domain Public Art Project, Canberra.