SYDNEY.- What might happen if you took away time, so a 24-hour day passed in just 18 hours? What are you left with once 260 volunteers have spent five years erasing a magazine by hand–page by page? These questions about our relationship to time, and how it might be spent and measured, represent one line of enquiry within Taking it all away, an exhibition of works drawn from the Museum of Contemporary Art Collection that is on display this summer.

Taking it all away: MCA Collection presents works that speculate upon the continued importance of Minimalism and conceptual art, the processes of erasure and abstraction, and the social impact of art.

The exhibition includes work by Gordon Bennett, Christian Capurro et. al. (featuring Chris Bond), Peter Cripps, Gail Hastings, Robert Hunter, Rose Nolan and Stuart Ringholt. It presents recent works acquired by the MCA Foundation, along with artworks drawn from the MCA Collection.

Exhibition highlights include Christian Capurro’s erased magazine, which passed through the hands of 250 people over five years and Stuart Ringholt’s 18-hour clock, which explores not only the potential impact of time being taken away but also cosmology and our place within a vast universe.

In different ways Peter Cripps, Gail Hastings and Robert Hunter explore how art activates our senses of spatiality and temporality, requiring not only our occupation of space but also our input of time and contemplation. Through mirrored surfaces, subtle painted grids or objects to walk around, these works map out the interaction between gallery and spectator.

Gordon Bennett’s soft ground etchings featuring black squares directly reference the origins of abstraction, while Rose Nolan’s banners recall the radical aesthetics of Constructivism’s political slogans. Yet hers are a call to arms of a more individualistic nature, in which party ideology is pared down to personal anxiety.

Natasha Bullock, MCA Senior Curator said ‘If there is a link between the diverse works by the artists featured in Taking it all away it is in their exploration of the dynamics of space and time, set against the complexities of modern life.’

The museum dedicates this exhibition to the memory of artists Gordon Bennett and Robert Hunter, who both sadly passed away during its development.

Taking it all away: MCA Collection is being exhibited on Level One North & South until Sunday 22 February 2015. Admission is free.