Agatha Gothe-Snape: The Outcome is Certain

MUMA Agatha Gothe-Snape, EVERY ACT OF READING PERFORMS THE WORK, 2018–19Addressing the fluid nature of how we read and understand contemporary art and culture, Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) presents the first large-scale exhibition to survey the work of Sydney-based artist Agatha Gothe-Snape in The Outcome is Certain on display until 9 April 2020.

Agatha Gothe-Snape’s work is characterised by colour, text and a minimal aesthetic. Informed by an economy of materials, her practice has developed a distinct poetic matrix of interests, outputs, collaborators, palettes, motifs and technologies over the last ten years.

Ever evolving, her body of work draws on the artist’s literacy in and experimental approach to the fields of performance and visual arts, while considering the formal, social and ideological frameworks in which they are based. With works that range from ephemeral gestures to monumental outdoor works, Gothe-Snape moves easily between conventional and non-conventional methods of art production.

The Outcome Is Certain will bring together key works from Gothe-Snape’s oeuvre from 2008 to the present that have only previously been shown alone or in group exhibition contexts. Alongside performance, wall drawings, PowerPoint presentations, sculpture, works on paper and collaborations with her close circle of artist-peers.

The exhibition will feature two major new artworks, with one drawing on Gothe-Snape’s recent experimentation with virtual and augmented participatory environments, alongside works pivotal in her practice to date.

Gothe-Snape and MUMA’s Senior Curator, Hannah Mathews, have a long working relationship established over ten years. They draw on long-term conversations to present an exhibition that navigates the various threads that pass through Gothe-Snape’s practice.

She brings our attention to architecture and its metaphors; digital technology and its ability to capture and erase; the western art canon and its contention; the gendering of form and voice; the temporal and material perspectives of performance and its echoes; and the importance of observation, improvisation and collaboration (elements at the core of her practice).

With a minimalist aesthetic, underpinned by an attention to audience and embodied space, Gothe-Snape is able to bring the notion of simplicity to some of the most complex and ambiguous ideas.

“As is evident in this exhibition and the accompanying publication, Gothe-Snape is a creative force to be reckoned with. She has an insatiable curiosity and dedication to experimenting. Ever present, and always doing,” says Charlotte Day, Director MUMA.

At Monash University’s Caulfield Campus, Gothe-Snape’s 2015 permanent public artwork, The Scheme Was a Blueprint for Future Development Programs, commissioned by MUMA, was developed by Gothe-Snape in conversation with various members of the University faculties.

Agatha Gothe-Snape (b.1980, Sydney) has achieved significant recognition and acclaim exhibiting both in Australia and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth (2019), the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2019), Frieze, London (2017) and Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2017).

Major biennials include: Gwangju (2018), TarraWarra (2018, 2016), Sydney (2016), Performa, New York (2015), Berlin (2014) and Melbourne Now (2013). For The National: New Australian Art, she was commissioned to make a work that links the biennial’s three venues over its three iterations (2017, 2019, 2021), culminating in a major work to be presented in the 2021 exhibition.


Agatha Gothe-Snape: The Outcome is Certain
Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), 900 Dandenong Road, Caulfield East
Exhibition continues to 9 April 2020
Free entry

For more information, visit: www.monash.edu for details.

Image: Agatha Gothe-Snape, Trailer for EVERY ACT OF READING PERFORMS THE WORK, 2018 – 19 (composite video still) – courtesy of the artist and The Commercial, Sydney