Tuesday - Friday 11pm - 6pm
Saturday 12pm - 4pm
Level 1, 137 Flinders Lane, Melbourne 3000

BERNIE ALIBRANDO & PASQUALE BATTISTA Greenpoint, Brooklyn N O V E M B E R 13 - 24 Opening Night: Wednesday 14 Nov 6.30 - 8.30PM
PASQUALE BATTISTA
Pasquale Battista New York 2 Video still		Pasquale Battista Weilding & Grinding Video still
BERNIE ALIBRANDO

Bernie Alibrando Stairs		Bernie Alibrando Malonies		Bernie Alibrando Rooftop
Bernie Alibrando Polanaise		Bernie Alibrando Bike		Bernie Alibrando Flag

At first glance Melbourne and Brooklyn are an unlikely pairing. Yet both are frequently cast as the poor cousins to their brash, ballsier relatives Sydney and New York. And both assert their pre-eminence as havens for innovative arts and culture. Bernie Alibrando and Pasquale Battista are two Melbourne natives who transplanted themselves into the foreign soil of Greenpoint, Brooklyn and thrived. The resultant photographs and installations reveal their unique insights into the New York burrough. They also manage to move beyond the particular, to present universal truths about burgeoning cities and the alienation that dogs urban dwellers. Both artists present possibilities denied: a closed door, a barred path, a chained bicycle. Greenpoint is a semi industrial neighbourhood quickly becoming populated by the fringe dwellers pushed out of Manhattan and the more affluent Brooklyn neighbourhoods. It is a space in flux.

Pasquale Battista has created two installations coupled with video and sound. His is the artist-as-voyeur and his works function as peepholes. In his first installation we are drawn into the construction of a building, unfolding one step, one floor at time. He mimics the process through his installation. As viewers we are compelled into an ongoing exploration until finally we find ourselves engulfed in the construction - ourselves constructing others' experience of the installation. "I wanted to make the building structure self-referential - to have a building site outside the video. A space that is visually orientated towards screens."

In his second installation a closed door offers only a peephole view into what lies beyond. This opens into another room, and then another. He is referencing Marcel Duchamp's cheeky happening wherein the French Dada artist invited a group to an exhibition opening. Upon arriving they discovered that the closed door was the exhibition and the audience had been co-opted into the artwork. Battista's fascination with industrial spaces and construction sites is enduring. He notes: "The building site is a universal thing - it doesn't matter how old or new a city is, it is continually changing."

Alibrando is best known to Melburnians as the vivacious founder of "Walk to Art" and for her long involvement with commercial galleries and the young members program of the National Gallery of Victoria. What few know is that she is an accomplished photographer in her own right. It was while living in Brooklyn, and shooting the works present in this exhibition, that Alibrando developed her art walk concept. The move to New York was also prompted by challenging relationship developments. These photographs represent the resolution of the challenge. "Brooklyn was my muse, my freedom. To a degree I'd been trapped, whether through fear related to relationships or through fear of being good at what I did. It shocked me that on the first morning my creative expression was liberated. I couldn't keep a lid on it anymore."

Both artists transport us - to Brooklyn and to a mind-state which contracts and then expands. The journey is emotional and, in the case of Battista's installation, physical. This is an exhibition that compels us to travel. Greenpoint, Brooklyn reminds us that good art conveys a universal understanding of place and person. Bernie Alibrando graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Photography) from the Victorian college of the Arts. While in New York she worked with Silverstein Photography gallery - the city's pre-eminent photography space. She currently runs her own arts consultancy and "Walk to Art" tours. Pasquale Battista holds a Bachelor of Media Arts honours degree. He is a working video-based artist who incorporates film and sound into his installation projects.

Belinda Scherri