Gianni Wise, “Edifice”, 2007 (install view, Large format inkjet photography, plaster, 5 ply, tubular steel) Photo: BlauGrau Gallery, Sydney

Gianni Wise, “Edifice”, 2007 (install view, Large format inkjet photography, plaster, 5 ply, tubular steel) Photo: Ryszard Dabek

2000 | Edifice, BlauGrau Gallery, Sydney
Solo. Large format inkjet photography, plaster, 5 ply, tubular steel.
Most of us associate images of severe concrete housing with the eastern block and remnants of Stalinist-era totalitarianism. Nevertheless Wise reminds us that these uninviting structures exist in our own backyard and securely within our own culture. Here they represent the flip side of Sydney Olympic gentrification. Through photographs and sculpture (sic) the artist depicts images of life at the economic, social and spatial periphery of urban existence. At the same time, this housing indicates Modernism’s compartmentalised dream; a place for everyone and everyone in their place. Today these environments stand as monumental edifices, representatives of a brave new world long lost yet in-erasable.

Gianni Wise, “Edifice”, 2007 (detail). Photo: Ryszard Dabek

Gianni Wise, “Edifice”, 2007 (detail). Photo: Ryszard Dabek