Paper/Rock/Scissors
West Space
15-19 Anthony St Melbourne
July 19 – August 11 2007
Curated as a group effort by the 10 or so committee members of West Space, this group show is a perfect example of successful democratic process and a playful interpretation of a somewhat literal curatorial premise of three inanimate objects.
Each committee member was asked to suggest a couple of artists whose work they thought would fit well with either rock paper or scissors as a starting point. The committee then employed a casual voting system to chose the final twelve artists in the show. One of the impressive and interesting aspects of the final result is that these chosen artists range not only across genres and mediums but also across generations to create a diverse yet unified result.
In the main gallery space the viewer encounters a somewhat sparse and considered group of objects responding to each theme. Louise Hubbard’s untitled chair work sits quietly by the entrance with a pair of nail scissors skewered precisely and almost humorously through the centre of the 60’s (after Kosuth?) yellow plastic seat. Along the far wall leans Peter Burke’s wire framed text pieces, reminiscent of both newspaper headlines outside the corner milk-bar and word games reiterating the 3 word schema of rock paper scissors in a literal yet somewhat witty tabloid repartee around the prompt ‘paper.’ Joining these two works in the main space are Ash Keating’s rocks, melted black plastic lumps of waste retrieved from the Holden factory floor, arranged in a ritualistic ring with an almost totemic pile in the centre, suggesting that most things, even the humble rock these days is made from petro chemicals.
Along the wall leading to the second space are five mounted paper based works; four exquisite-corpse-esque collaborative collages responding to paper by Damiano Bertoli and Tony Garifalakis and one pencil drawing by James Lynch. Here we see the re-visited themes of Superstudio’s Continuous Moment and the occult reversed and re-interreted in the Bertoli/Garafilakis works and in the middle Lynch’s drawing depicting a complex yet painstakingly concise depiction of scissors cutting up sets within sets, hinting at the tangled web of deconstructing the self and some of the tiniest grey lead writing known to man.
The Third room, dubbed the Rock room, shows the angry smashed cardboard instruments of Jarrad Kennedy chucked in the corner comically in front of Lyndal Walker’s photographic series of faux female rock stars hung like posters on a teenagers wall and opposite Jessie Anguin’s printed hardcover books of ‘I shot Ricky Swallow’ complete with a little spot to sit down and read them in peace. This room illustrates how old work can be given a new lease of life when re-arranged amongst fitting neighbours and tied together with a good strong theme.
Finally, the small room at the back of West Space houses the more sentimental and obsessive works in the show. Nicholas Jones’ ‘The Age 1903’ from 2006 is a meticulously carved copy of a 100 year old large format compendium of the Age. Sitting on a low wooden pew rather than a plinth, this work addresses our human attachment to paper in the book form and questions whether scissors improve or destroy it as an object. Opposite, Elizabeth Gower’s three pre-existing works using junk mail catalogue images of scissors cut and arranged carefully on drafting film sit silently and wisely as a well- rehearsed homage to the obsessive marriage of scissors and paper and the puzzling commitment to repetition and arrangement in her practise. Masters student Andew Huxton’s paper ship sailing on a paper sea is the final flat hand in the game of rock paper scissors at West Space, the silent winner of a democratic process of decision making, a simple game where no-one can argue with the result.
Sunday 5 August 2007
"Do it", Review by Jared Davis
A project conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist
VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne
June 14 – July 7 2007
Review by Jared Davis
Ripe with spatial idiosyncrasies, the Margaret Lawrence Gallery at Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts has played host to numerous exhibitions that pay conscious heed to its unique structure, atypical to that of common ‘white cube’ exhibition spaces. Entering the current show Do it, an exhibition conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist, one is overwhelmed by a collection of art that is seemingly incongruous in its disparity. Whilst these works are all of considerable aesthetic and conceptual difference they remain unified in their origins of conception: from the mind of one artist to the practice of another, that is, a practitioner conceives a set of instructions for the creation of an artwork and another practitioner ‘does it’. An intriguing method of artistic practice, indeed one that is loaded with an immense array of permutations surrounding the nature of art, as well as raising notions of authorship, gesture as concept, concept as gesture and the discrepancies of interpretation versus the author’s intent.
Acoustic ambience, place and its physicality are investigated in Kate Neal’s practical application of Mike Kelley’s instructions to ‘record in a place with a colourful or weird history’ for no less than half an hour. Neal chose to produce a field recording of Victoria’s You Yangs Regional Park, an area with a rich sonic environmental atmosphere, and the place in which convict William Buckley and fellow escapees ate the last of their food rations following their escape from detention in 1803. Through its playback via a compact disc and small stereo in the gallery space, the viewer/listener experiences a compressed simulation of the true physical sonic environment that Buckley would have engaged with in his vulnerable uncertainty over two-hundred years earlier.
Interpreting a set of eccentric instructions attributed to Andy Warhol, Ace Wagstaff has created a quirky colourful art object out of polystyrene, dyed paddle-pop sticks, mushrooms, toy plastic bugs and insects, a model skull, a suspended wooden cube and a model skeleton arm, all doused frenetically with fluorescent silly-string. A mix of neo-psychedelia with primal expressionism, Wagstaff’s work is an energetic reinterpretation of the found object, one that aligns itself fittingly with a vogue aesthetic appreciation for colour that is interspersed throughout the work of many emerging Australian contemporary artists.
A slightly secluded crevice within the gallery space complements and coalesces with the voyeur of Santina Amato’s video work. Instructed by Elizabeth Presa to ‘be the woman with the pale blue eyes that Vito Acconci desires’ in his 1973 piece Theme Song, Amato’s video features her strewn across the floor, filmed with a camcorder placed at ground level beside her. The camera’s static motionlessness is cold, whereas its closeness to its subject is intrusive, if not forthright. Throughout the film, soundtrack exists solely as the dialogue of Vito Acconci’s voice (lifted from Theme Song), being monotone, visceral, candidly sleazy statements, and Amato’s slight responses, being unabashed and softly complacent of Acconci’s Svengali-like persona. Dark and yet surreptitiously feminist, Santina Amato presents a haunting investigation of female/male sexuality, as well as undermining the fine line between intimacy and intrusion.
Do it is an exhibition that features tremendous disparity with regard to each individual artwork’s conceptual breadth, nonetheless, its underlying idea creates a ubiquitous cohesion that truly validates it as an outstanding investigation into the practice of art-making. Through the dual-authorship of each of the works, issues of language and interpretation arise, with the pertinence of considering how the resolved artworks differ in their conceptual implications from those intended by the initial artists within their linguistic instructions. Furthermore, this process allows for the possibility of interpretations that exist within the sets of instructions unbeknownst to the instructors themselves, to be played upon and further articulated. Do it is truly an exceptional foray into the sensibilities and interests of an impressive palette of international and Australian artists.
VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne
June 14 – July 7 2007
Review by Jared Davis
Ripe with spatial idiosyncrasies, the Margaret Lawrence Gallery at Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts has played host to numerous exhibitions that pay conscious heed to its unique structure, atypical to that of common ‘white cube’ exhibition spaces. Entering the current show Do it, an exhibition conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist, one is overwhelmed by a collection of art that is seemingly incongruous in its disparity. Whilst these works are all of considerable aesthetic and conceptual difference they remain unified in their origins of conception: from the mind of one artist to the practice of another, that is, a practitioner conceives a set of instructions for the creation of an artwork and another practitioner ‘does it’. An intriguing method of artistic practice, indeed one that is loaded with an immense array of permutations surrounding the nature of art, as well as raising notions of authorship, gesture as concept, concept as gesture and the discrepancies of interpretation versus the author’s intent.
Acoustic ambience, place and its physicality are investigated in Kate Neal’s practical application of Mike Kelley’s instructions to ‘record in a place with a colourful or weird history’ for no less than half an hour. Neal chose to produce a field recording of Victoria’s You Yangs Regional Park, an area with a rich sonic environmental atmosphere, and the place in which convict William Buckley and fellow escapees ate the last of their food rations following their escape from detention in 1803. Through its playback via a compact disc and small stereo in the gallery space, the viewer/listener experiences a compressed simulation of the true physical sonic environment that Buckley would have engaged with in his vulnerable uncertainty over two-hundred years earlier.
Interpreting a set of eccentric instructions attributed to Andy Warhol, Ace Wagstaff has created a quirky colourful art object out of polystyrene, dyed paddle-pop sticks, mushrooms, toy plastic bugs and insects, a model skull, a suspended wooden cube and a model skeleton arm, all doused frenetically with fluorescent silly-string. A mix of neo-psychedelia with primal expressionism, Wagstaff’s work is an energetic reinterpretation of the found object, one that aligns itself fittingly with a vogue aesthetic appreciation for colour that is interspersed throughout the work of many emerging Australian contemporary artists.
A slightly secluded crevice within the gallery space complements and coalesces with the voyeur of Santina Amato’s video work. Instructed by Elizabeth Presa to ‘be the woman with the pale blue eyes that Vito Acconci desires’ in his 1973 piece Theme Song, Amato’s video features her strewn across the floor, filmed with a camcorder placed at ground level beside her. The camera’s static motionlessness is cold, whereas its closeness to its subject is intrusive, if not forthright. Throughout the film, soundtrack exists solely as the dialogue of Vito Acconci’s voice (lifted from Theme Song), being monotone, visceral, candidly sleazy statements, and Amato’s slight responses, being unabashed and softly complacent of Acconci’s Svengali-like persona. Dark and yet surreptitiously feminist, Santina Amato presents a haunting investigation of female/male sexuality, as well as undermining the fine line between intimacy and intrusion.
Do it is an exhibition that features tremendous disparity with regard to each individual artwork’s conceptual breadth, nonetheless, its underlying idea creates a ubiquitous cohesion that truly validates it as an outstanding investigation into the practice of art-making. Through the dual-authorship of each of the works, issues of language and interpretation arise, with the pertinence of considering how the resolved artworks differ in their conceptual implications from those intended by the initial artists within their linguistic instructions. Furthermore, this process allows for the possibility of interpretations that exist within the sets of instructions unbeknownst to the instructors themselves, to be played upon and further articulated. Do it is truly an exceptional foray into the sensibilities and interests of an impressive palette of international and Australian artists.
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