About the exhibition
Papercuts illustrated a shift in contemporary practice of the 1990s to early 2000s towards model making and miniatures, digitalisation and objects carefully constructed by hand. This return to the materiality and sometimes to the ephemeral nature of the object in contemporary art was exemplified by artists working with paper—not as a surface for imagery, but as the matter of three-dimensional objects.

Curator Natasha Bullock positioned the exhibition as engaging both with the everyday and with post-conceptual practices. Paper cut-outs by Sangeeta Sandrasegar and Kate Cotching could be seen as an extension of drawing, adding the dimension of silhouette to play with light and sculptural qualities. Damiano Bertoli’s cardboard chandelier The Diamond Age, 2002, referenced both the classical baroque and minimalism, and, in the artist’s words, the ‘dynamic geometry inherent in both forms, and their capacity to exploit the theatricality of their respective contexts (church and white cube)’.

Exhibition Catalogue
Papercuts

MUMA Online Exhibition Archive
MUMA’s online archive is expanding. We welcome your feedback and input. Please contact muma.communications@monash.edu with any information that could help enrich the archive for future audiences.