PERTH.- Saturday 1 February will see the Art Gallery of Western Australia open IMPACT, its new exhibition of contemporary art acquisitions, and open the Gallery doors until 7pm during February.

AGWA Director, Stefano Carboni, said, “The last month of summer is such a wonderful time in Perth with FRINGE WORLD and the Perth Festival in full flight. We want to encourage those Western Australians out in the city to also connect with their State Art Gallery and its Collection, and hope that many people take advantage of the extended hours.”

Several ground floor and first floor galleries, home to the Your Collection displays, A Private View: Modern Masters from the Kerry Stokes Collection and IMPACT, will stay open until 7pm. Only the Centenary Gallery will close earlier. Guided tours, pop-up music performances and a chilled rest area will make the Gallery a relaxing space to retreat to in the month of Feb.

Featuring the work of 25 Australian and international artists, IMPACT showcases a selection of recent acquisitions to the State Art Collection with a focus on video works, together with sculpture, paintings and works on paper.

“IMPACT is a compelling selection of recent contemporary acquisitions to the Collection,” Stefano said. “This exhibition provides the first opportunity for local audiences to enjoy many of these works acquired over the last few years and it’s an excellent complement to a night out at FRINGE WORLD or the Perth Festival.”

The exhibition brings together internationally renowned filmic artists such as Jesper Just, Hale Tenger, Michael Snow and Richard Grayson with Australian artists engaging with sound and moving image aesthetics such as Gabriella and Silvana Mangano, Angelica Mesiti. The material and conceptual differences within the filmic works are considerable and include video projection in the space such as in Michael Snow’s work, the documentation of performance, as with Grayson’s Messiah and the ambiguous visual poetics of Jesper Just’s Sirens of Chrome.

The filmic works variously deal with psychological, emotional and physical states that reflect on ways of being, doing and seeing. Marco Fusinato, Heath Franco and Stuart Ringholt individually engage with performative roles that channel socio-cultural critique and personal catharsis through extreme explorations of soundscapes.

Moroccan artist Mounir Fatmi ‘s sculptural installation Save Manhattan 01 poignantly reflects on the tragic events of 9/11 and eloquently counterpoints the visual poetics of Turkish artist Hale Tenger’s Beirut that meditates on another terrorist event.

Perth-based artist Jurek Wybraniec’s paper work series wryly comments on the language of popular culture with built images derived from the internet and Ricky Swallow’s early turntable work offers his version of real life break dancing around Melbourne city locations.

The works in this show offers a range of representations, both aural and visual, of various states of enacted and imagined existence, whether reflective, confronting, compressed or insightful. Its selection of works avoids being prescriptive or definitive, but rather liberal and flexible in its interpretation of different manifestations, providing a compelling viewing experience.

The Gallery will open 10am to 7pm from 1 Feb to 28 Feb, 2014 except Tuesdays, when it is closed all day as usual.