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.
Wednesday 20 June 2007
Andrew Atchinson "Island Drawing", Review by Alex Martinis Roe
ANDREW ATCHISON
ISLAND DRAWING
TCB art inc. June 6 - ? 2007
Feedback, Static and the Malfunctioning TARDIS
Andrew Atchison’s Island Drawing does some new work with the artform of drawing and self-reflexively gives us a four dimensional discussion of drawing as content. This Island Drawing is a map of Atchison’s spatial experience and memory of an island he visited on holiday. Multi-media elements cluster on the floor, forming an island to contemplate from a distant shore. On an island of pot plant vegetation, two wood veneer monitors sit facing away from each other. Each displays a low-fi video of the island landscape.
ISLAND DRAWING
TCB art inc. June 6 - ? 2007
Feedback, Static and the Malfunctioning TARDIS
Andrew Atchison’s Island Drawing does some new work with the artform of drawing and self-reflexively gives us a four dimensional discussion of drawing as content. This Island Drawing is a map of Atchison’s spatial experience and memory of an island he visited on holiday. Multi-media elements cluster on the floor, forming an island to contemplate from a distant shore. On an island of pot plant vegetation, two wood veneer monitors sit facing away from each other. Each displays a low-fi video of the island landscape.
LINE: The 1st Dimension: Drawing as diagramatic
Drawing can be seen as similar to mapping. Rather than being defined by a use of materials, it is perhaps more interesting to look at drawing practice as that of notation. Mark making in response to sensory perception is the traditional model of what constitutes drawing as a particular domain of artistic research. Atchison adapts this idea of mark making in order to frame his investigation within ‘drawing language’. The resulting notations of his spatial/temporal understanding have an immediacy that is distinctly intuitive. Although observational, this drawing has no claims to objective representation. The video elements clearly position us behind the eye of the artist. The movement of the camera follows the orientation of the artist’s body. One of the Nature Videos is not only a notation: it describes the artist’s body exploring the island’s geography. The isolation of the landform enforces a cyclical exploration of its shores. One always ends up at the same point of beginning. Atchison stands at the centre of the island and turns 360 degrees holding the camera at eye height. The video loops continuously so there is no narrative beginning or end to the island’s perimeter. This could be seen as an extension on the idea that drawing reflects the world, pointing out that drawing and what it describes are always engaged in an inseparable feedback.
SHAPE: The 2nd Dimension: Drawing methodologies as content
On the wall there is what Atchison calls a TV drawing of the island. Wood veneer contact covers a foamcore ‘TV’ and inside is a drawing of the Island surrounded by mirrors reflecting the image endlessly within this small space. The edge of the drawing repeated recalls the division of the night sky in a star chart format. Little stars drawn around the island deepen the sense of there being a planetarium within the TV. This drawing inside the TV is made using a well-known formula. Atchison revives the primary school art project where you colour paper in rainbow crayons, paint it black and then scratch out a multicoloured line drawing. The TV drawing gives us this formula as stars waiting to be illuminated out of a night sky. Recalling a magical moment in childhood, this drawing immortalises the memory of the island holiday as a new celestial body. The stars are like dots and the island a new join-the-dots constellation. Here is the new TV Zodiac!
DEPTH: The 3rd Dimension: Drawing as memory.
TV Drawing is a discussion of TV broadcasting as a notational drawing practice and also a site of collective memory. Are our memories framed like TV programs and vice versa? Memories play in our heads on a loop: always the same snippet. Repeating out of context they distort becoming our own immortalised fables. TV can be seen as our culture’s production of its own distorted memory. What happened yesterday is broadcast today via a reductive snippet: framed, partial, discoloured/hypercoloured. The island is foregrounded via the loop and the star constellation as an isolated realm. The rugged landscape and blustering audio track of the wind is hauntingly different to our colonised holiday locations. This uncanny otherworld that Atchison has drawn is parallel to the de-contextualised realm of memory.
TIME: The 4th Dimension: A new appreciation of the static as temporal.
‘A homemade TV work, for gazing at but without sound or movement.’[1]
Atchison’s drawings give us insight into notational practices (whether that be drawing, television or memories of a summer holiday) as a kind of TARDIS.[2] Like Doctor Who’s vehicle for space/time exploration Atchison’s wood veneer TV is malfunctioning. It begs that we look deeper into the static and find a new constellation of stars in a formation which recalls our island of looped memories.
Alex Martinis Roe 2007
[1] Artist’s statement
[2] The TARDIS is a time machine and spaceship in the BBC’s ‘Doctor Who’. It is an acronym for ‘Time and Relative Dimensions in Space’ (which coincidently sounds like a futurist description of drawing). One can be transported to any point in time and space on board the TARDIS. Its interior is much larger than its exterior, which can blend in with its environment. Doctor Who’s TARDIS was a damaged and stolen model which suffered from malfunctions.
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