Iconophilia’s musings on the dubious nature of advice given to the ACT Government has got me thinking about the most recent addition to the ACT arts family, the Belconnen Arts Centre.
Whilst the facility has been open for some months now I only recently ventured over to ‘that’ side of town to see it for myself. Unfortunately, for all its good intentions and years of planning, I am immediately aware that the centre appears to have been let down by a lack of practical advice.
Rather than being a hard-working, adaptable, no-fuss space for all forms of creativity the centre is instead an earnest caricature. It appears that more attention has been paid to procuring ‘cool’ furniture and fixtures than constructing practical facilities, and the strange, out of place details tell the tale. Take for instance the still-vacant artist’s studios: there are no work benches, sinks or exhaust fans in sight, only wide desks and reading lamps, but most bizarre is the fact that each ’studio’ is completely carpeted. An odd choice and one that will very quickly become a complete waste of money.
The custom-built gallery is even more depressing. What I first take as being a light and airy space is actually incredibly clunky and a victim of architectural whims. There are four sides to the gallery: one is nearly completely glass, overlooking the lake. The next is curved outwards. The third is slanted, tipping forwards at the top, and the fourth is interrupted by two doors. Along the wall runs a hanging system, symbolising an expectation that the exhibitions will be only of artwork that is either framed or on canvas – experimental or interdisciplinary art forms need not apply.
The two workshop rooms resemble a cross between an Ikea catalogue and the boardroom of an edgy advertising firm. I get the feeling that the furniture and fixtures here may not last much longer than the first few groups of excitable school kids, but at least the floor is concrete.
On the positive side, the building looks like a million bucks (well, 9 million actually), the staff are friendly and helpful and the natural light and lake views make the most of this less than glamourous part of Canberra. I just cannot understand why it seems no one stopped to check what functional and durable creative spaces require: what do artists want out of a studio? what do art galleries look like? How can you provide for a variety of artforms?
Did anyone ever stop and ask the artists?
What do you get when you take a toilet, a shower, an bathtub and a sink and add two thousand litres of water? A cracking great art installation, that’s what.
The indomitable Nicholas Folland has descended onto Canberra with his own brand of melodrama and tragic beauty. His new installation without reason opens at Canberra Contemporary Art Space this Friday, and I can barely contain my excitement. Folland is quite possibly become one of my favourite Australian artists, and being asked to write the short catalogue essay for the show sent me into a completely unprofessional dither. I managed to pull myself together, and the results are below. I hope it wets your appetite for the show, because you’ve really gotta see this for yourself. CCAS closes for the Christmas break on December 19, but the show continues next year from 18 January to 13 February.
Someone’s left the water running. In the bath, the sink, the toilet too. The bathroom is flooded. So much so it threatens to set adrift, the floor keening with a sickening tilt.
Beneath a single light bulb in a darkened corner a domestic bathroom is exposed as a victim of its own incapacity. Come alive by mysterious means, or perhaps as the result of human carelessness, this familiar, homely scene is now threatening and distorted. Melancholic strains of Greig’s Holberg Suite Opus 40 join the rushing of water in an inescapable aural assault.
In the half-light, the effect is one of tragic theatre. Like a helpless witness before a bleeding wound the onlooker is struck by the palpable urgency of the situation. The pulse quickens, alarm sets in. Tidiness, order and safety are lost as the self-made sanctuary of the home is thrown into chaos.
In a nation where water is a rare commodity, this dramatic outpouring smacks of decadence. Confronted with such loss the emotions move from shame to anger, before giving way to panic. Water, with its dual power to give life and to take it away, is ultimately one of nature’s most uncontrollable forces. Rushing forth unchecked it heralds disaster and calamity.
Here the bathroom, that symbol of modernity and feat of human engineering, is overcome, unable to manage the torrents surging through it. It is as though this human system has been reclaimed by nature, reverting to the organic forms it emulates: the river, the waterfall. We have appropriated nature, and in turn, nature appropriates us. A piece of suburbia transformed into a wild landscape.
On the fringe and in the darkness a canary keeps a lonely watch, his fragile figure dutifully monitoring the danger of our situation. His persistent, joyful song is in direct contrast to his fragility and disposability, bringing to mind all small creatures who are martyrs for the human cause. As long as he keeps singing we know we’ll be okay.
Two maps presented on the wall offer similar comfort. These deep expanses, Indian Blue #2 and Pacific Blue #2 are in fact meticulous representations of the open sea. To map the ocean seems an attempt to order the inorderable, a well-intentioned yet futile task. Yet for all their seeming absurdity, the regimented grid lines offer clarity and consolation. To a traveller lost they become a whispered promise of survival, a suggestion that there are those who have gone before. The maps, as romanticised objects, conjure idealistic notions of exploration and survival, of conquering the unknown.
Raft #2 becomes a manifestation of our vulnerability. Our attempts to separate ourselves from nature, to extract ourselves from the natural order of things, have failed. Despite our best efforts we are still fragile. Despite our warning systems, despite our mappings and explorations, and for all the constructed facades we brandish against our fallibility.
As much as it may represent our shortcomings, the bathroom floats in precarious balance; a fragile offer of survival against the present catastrophe. It is at once our hope and our undoing.
On Wednesday I scooted off to Patron’s Day at the ANU School of Art in honour of the 2009 Graduate Exhibition. I look forward to each year’s grad show in pretty much the same way as kids look forward to Christmas. The quality of artwork here is often the best you will find anywhere, made by artists who are not yet jaded and spitting with cynicism, or soured by art-world realities and egos. How fortunate we are here in Canberra to have one of the country’s finest art schools (possibly the finest, if some of the stories I hear about other schools are true) in our very own backyard.
I shook off the waves of nostalgia I always get when walking the art school’s creaky floorboards and breathing its (probably toxic) paint-heavy air, and got down to the business of discovering great new art.
As is the annoying way of writers, I am going to break the entire show into a few completely generalized statements, and say that on the whole the workshops were disappointing (glass, photomedia, ceramics and sculpture here’s looking at you), others offered some nice surprises (printmedia, gold & silversmithing, furniture, textiles) and the clear standout of this year was the painting department. It is interesting how these things ebb and flow from year to year – last year there were slim pickings from the painting graduates, and a wealth of treasures from photomedia, but for now the tides have turned.
As a result, the standouts for me are all painters. Keep your eyes out for the following hugely promising graduates:
EMMA BEER: dark and domineering large-scale abstracts. Weighty applications and a muted palette pack an eloquent punch, bring a lump to the throat.
NATALIE MATHER: Cattapan meets Arkley for a stroll through the sun-bleached suburbs. Fresh-faced forays into the construction of space and place proving that home is where you paint it.
CHRIS CARMODY: cheeky opportunist in Canberra’s own ‘Arte Povera’ tradition. Gathered detritus, a love of books and a keen eye for detail combine to prove that art is everything and nothing all at once.
JONATHAN WEBSTER: a peddler of diminutive and unlikely beauty. Move in closer to find a plethora of re-appropriated treasures and delicately drawn line. Thin on paint but high on glitter and alphabet spaghetti.
DANIEL VUKOVLJAK: draws dividends from the boon that is the ANU inkjet research facility. Icons of art history meet heroics of comic book culture in seductively graphic digital collage mash-ups.
I highly suggest you get along and check out the show. Either head to the School of Art TONIGHT to be one of two thousand people attending the grand opening, or pop in before the exhibition closes on December 13. For those of you who tend to be swept off your feet by incredible artwork that you really can’t afford (note to self), then be sure to leave the cheque book at home. If you can afford it, well, come on down!
As the silly season descends on us, and I begin to suffer from cultural exhaustion (when you have had it up to the eyeballs with art, theatre, music, dance and pretty much anything credible and creative, and just want to vegetate on the couch reading Who Weekly and watching Neighbours), Uselesslines becomes notably less informative and interesting.
In the coming weeks, if I can hold it together, I promise a full wrap-up of The Year That Was in art. For now, a taster. I present to you my top five worst exhibition titles of 2009 (and please note, this is not necessarily a reflection of the quality of exhibition itself):
Soft Sculpture at the National Gallery of Australia
‘Soft’ as in a pushover? Well I actually though it was quite good.
Misty Moderns At the National Gallery of Australia, courtesy of the Gallery of South Australia
The perfect name – for a swatch of fabric in a furniture store maybe.
Korean Dreams at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Sounding rather more like a dubious website than a civilised exhibition of Korean artwork
the idea of [(n)t+f(n)(q)] at the Australian National University
I’m sorry, I gave up on mathematics in primary school and this looks more like an equation to me. Try giving that a plug on the radio.
Fibre, Naturally at the Belconnen Arts Centre
If this was a cereal, great! As an exhibition title…hmm.
Here it is, that time of the year when students everywhere are freaking the hell out. Art school assessment is a cruel and unusual beast. It may take varying forms at different institutions, including, but not limited to: displaying your artwork, writing about your artwork, speaking about your work and responding to a barrage of challenging questions about your work in front of hard-nosed lecturers and guest assessors.
Before you begin hyperventilating (I am at the memory of it alone), let me run you through some ways in which you can make it as painless as possible…
- If permitted, find out who will be on your panel of assessors. This will avoid any surprises, be they nasty or pleasant.
- Once you have prepared a spiel about your work (see earlier post for more help with this), present it to a friend, your mum, the guy at the corner store, as a rehearsal. Do this at least twice. Encourage them to ask you some hairy questions about the work.
- DO NOT spend the night before your assessment desperately trying to come up with three more paintings, sculptures, whatever. It will be painfully obvious, and no amount of caffeine (or stronger) will make up for a lost night’s sleep. Make do with what you have already done.
- Either the day before, or the morning of the assessment presentation, try and spend a quiet moment in the space where the assessment will take place. If you can, sit and look at your work thinking about what you would like to say. Public speaking coaches often say that it is far easier to speak in a familiar space than when you arrive in a space for the first time.
- Wear neat, comfortable clothing but don’t feel as though you need to get ‘all dressed up’. You will regret this when your false eyelashes decide to fall out part way through your presentation, or you faint because your jeans are too tight.
- Be friendly when greeting your assessors. Ask them how their day has been going so far. Smile. This will trick your brain into thinking it is amongst friends.
- Don’t be afraid to admit to your panel that your are feeling nervous – sometimes it can actually help to say it out loud.
- While presenting, stop and take a deep breath as often as required. This will ensure you are speaking slowly, and prevent you passing out.
- Speak from the heart – if you are honest about your work and your processes you will be far more eloquent than if you try to say merely what you think your panel wants to hear.
- When an assessor is speaking to you, look them in the eye and focus carefully on what they are saying. Assessors who have followed your progress throughout your degree, or who are just really lovely, will be dropping hints on things you can elaborate on and giving you the opportunity to make yourself sound as good as possible.
- When asked a difficult question, try saying it back out loud before you answer to buy yourself some precious thinking time. Don’t be afraid to tell the questioner ‘I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean’ or ask them to rephrase.
- NEVER answer with ‘I don’t know’. If you are truly stuck, you can palm a question off with ‘that’s an interesting question, I’m not sure if I’ve ever thought about it that way before’.
- If you get emotional (which is more common than you think, either because your artwork deals with personal issues, or because you get stressed) apologise and continue as best you can. Whatever you do – DON’T run out crying.
- Always thank the assessors for their time when you’re finished, breathe a huge sigh of relief, and administer beer/chamomile tea as necessary.
Good luck to everyone with their end of year assessment!
Here at Uselesslines the year of Sidney Nolan continues…
Once upon a time, in the outskirts of Canberra, a new gallery was built in the heritage grounds of Lanyon. It was the Nolan Gallery – opened by the man himself, after he donated a large collection of his early paintings to the Australian People. The idyllic rural setting of Lanyon, with its historic homestead, appealed to Nolan as an ideal location for a gallery devoted to his works. He was, by all accounts, thrilled with the arrangement.
For 26 years the gallery chugged happily along, but in 2007 it was suddenly declared that the Nolan Gallery was unfit to house such an important and valuable collection. There were problems with humidity control, the ACT Government said, and security too. It was agreed that the collection would be temporarily moved to the safety of the Canberra Museum and Gallery (CMAG), in the city, while the necessary changes were made to the Nolan Gallery.
CMAG took to their new charges immediately – hanging them proudly within the Permanent Collection galleries. The Nolan Gallery sat patiently in waiting, shut off from the tourists of Lanyon, a ‘temporarily closed’ sign tacked optimistically to the door.
Just last week came a new decree: the Nolan collection would now be permanently housed at CMAG. The ACT Chief Minister reaffirmed: the Nolan Gallery was not suitable, and besides, it had only had a few hundred visitors a month. He let slip that he had already allocated a budget to build a new gallery space for the collection within the existing CMAG building.
Nolan’s widow – Lady Nolan, who has been advocating the return of the works to Lanyon ever since they were first removed, is devastated and outraged. She maintains it was her husband’s wish for the works to be displayed at the Nolan Gallery, that he only gifted them to the Commonwealth with this end in mind. Her pleas and demands continue to be met with patronizing response – as if she would know little, if anything, about what was best for the Nolan legacy in Canberra. At her wit’s end, she has been quoted: “If the Nolan Gallery is not to be returned to its former use…I will insist that the works on loan be returned to me forthwith.” She is threatening to not only remove works from the public sphere but to relocate them to her home in the UK.
What is really going on here? That the Nolan Gallery has been deemed unsuitable begs the question – why not make it suitable? Why spend money making CMAG fit to house these works, and not the home they were originally intended for? Why go against the wishes of an Australian cultural icon, to risk losing treasures of Australian art? Is this just a sneaky way to bolster the appeal of the Canberra Museum and Gallery, an organisation who at times struggles with purpose, direction, and poor visitor numbers itself? And what does this mean for Lanyon – one of the region’s prime tourist attractions, the Nolan Gallery a former jewel in its crown?
Whatever the real motive, the Nolan debacle demonstrates the Government’s complete lack of respect and/or understanding of artists and their legacies. What’s more, as pointed out by Betty Churcher when interviewed on ABC local news, it sends a warning to potential benefactors: an example of how quickly their wishes and intentions can be cast aside by those wishing to fulfill private agendas.
More and more frequently these days, it feels as though Canberra is growing in reverse, heading backwards.
As the city grows, you expect things to grow with it – but instead of more shops, restaurants, bars and venues opening more and more ‘for lease’ signs are popping up. Some places have been vacant for longer than I care to remember. Canberra’s situation is not unique, and it’s certainly not as bad as some.
During my first ever trip to Newcastle earlier this year I was amazed, like the majority of first-time visitors, by the number of vacant buildings throughout the main streets of the city. It was a veritable ghost town.
Delving a little deeper I realised this was not strictly the case. Scattered throughout the stretches of unused real estate, hidden within the shells of heritage structures, were exciting little shops, cafes and galleries; earnest realisations of creative endeavours. I was at once thrilled and thoroughly confused. How could these tiny, left-of-centre ventures afford such prime commercial spaces? And if they could afford it, why couldn’t anyone else?
What I had yet to realise was that these weren’t feats of squatting or happy coincidences in a freak local economy. These small businesses were bright tiny flowers in the harsh soils of a garden lovingly planted and tended by Renew Newcastle.
read more…
The most recent issue of Realtime Magazine features an incredible article by Gavin Findlay – Here Be Dragons: Canberra Performance Then and Now Part 1. Findlay explores the phenomena that was the Canberra arts community of the 80s to mid 90s, with particular focus on performative, cross discipline work and the legendary Splinters Theatre of Spectacle. The entire thing has me reaching for the tissues and wishing I was born ten or twenty years earlier.
Findlay asks:
It is the loss of such artistic power that makes it important to examine why and how Canberra gave rise to such a flourishing: what were the conditions that supported it? Could such conditions be created again?
Do yourself a favour and read the full article here. Part 2 of Findlay’s article will be in the upcoming Realtime.
Canberra is about to give up one of its best and most interesting young artists to the bright lights of Sydney. He has resisted as long as possible, but now Owen Lewis is making the move. Goodbye Owen we will miss you!
To bid him adieu, I thought I would revisit a work from his exhibition Shit Wreck!, held in March of this year. In the show, Owen uncharacteristically delved into photography. The series, entitled Bushwhacked, completely blew me away.
One image I found particularly haunting. A young woman, in colonial dress, turns toward the viewer. Her expression is pained, exhausted, wary yet determined. Specimens of Australian flora and discarded feathers hover strangely about her face and throat. Too oddly positioned to be decorative, they instead seem to weigh upon her, crowding and oppressive.
Having been hungrily researching my own genealogy I was especially drawn towards this loaded image. My thoughts couldn’t help but turn to the lives of my matriarchal forbearers, having been plonked here by convict ship, etching out an existence for themselves and their families in harsh isolation.
The plants and feathers bearing down upon the figure seem to represent the nature of the entire country. Strange and beautiful, yet with the power to bring souls undone.
Earlier this year I took down some thoughts about this body of work as a whole:
‘In Lewis’ view it is Australia the island; a strange and unknown land on which we are all marooned. A foreigner of sorts, the castaway must confront harsh realities that are completely at odds with the romanticised Australia. Here the colonial settler appears as an alien apparition against a backdrop of an ancient world and ominous spiritual forces that he cannot understand.’
I hadn’t realised that this photograph, which I subsequently purchased, was perhaps an early manifestation of ideas I went on to deal with in my exhibition Borderlife. It’s funny the way images creep up on you like that. Lying dormant in your consciousness until you one day realise what an impact they really made.
Let’s admit it, some of us are pretty sloppy when it comes to conducting ourselves at exhibition openings. Whether you’re new to the art world, or an old hand who’s gotten a little lazy, there’s no time like Spring to brush up on some exhibition opening etiquette:
Proximity to Artwork
As soon as you step over the threshold of an exhibition space you really need to have your wits about you. One reason many people feel anxious about visiting galleries is because they are deathly afraid of treading on something, knocking something over or any number of other faux pas. And so they should be, but being aware of the potential for these things to happen is half the battle, and you can avoid most accidents by observing the following golden gallery rules:
a) Never walk backwards. If you want to take a step back from a work of art to get a better view, turn around and watch where you’re headed.
b) Never lean on walls. It’s all too familiar – the opening speech starts, the audience gets bored, and someone leans right onto the middle of a still-wet painting.
c) Leave backpacks and big bags at home, or stashed well out of the way. There’s a good reason why surly security guards in all the major galleries make you cloak your stuff.
d) Bear in mind that that nice big sculpture might not be okay for your small child, lap dog, pet ferret or doddery grandmother to climb all over. Keep a watchful eye on your dependents.
In my experience, small children aren’t the only ones who need to be told ‘look with your eyes and not your hands’.
Drinking
Just because there are free drinks at an opening does not mean they need to be consumed with wild abandon. Yes, you heard me right. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a relaxing drink, but just know thyself. If you are a two-pot screamer then one pot should suffice. Exercise particular caution if you aspire to one day exhibit or work in the host gallery. When you get overly merry at an opening the potential risks are many and varied. Apart from the obvious possibility of damaging artwork (or yourself), bear in mind that there is nothing fouler than those people at openings who stumble around with teeth grey from red wine, slurring and hiccuping in the face of strangers.
Particularly amazing to me is the sheer number of people who put their drinks down on either
a) plinths
b) av equipment (such as on top of a data projector)
or
c) the artwork itself
Don’t do this.
Extra politeness points for returning your empty glass to the drinks table for collection, rather than stashing it under a chair, behind a door, or in a bush.
The Cheese Platter
Around the cheese platter is the place you’ll find the most shockingly bad manners at an exhibition opening. One notable gallery in Canberra even had to employ ‘cheese police’, who would organise the crowd into a line and then dole out crackers to them like a depression-era soup kitchen.
We’ve all seen it: folks crowd around like vultures over a carcass, grabbing and fighting for best position and stuffing their faces with wedges of cheese as large as can be managed. Yes, cheese and crackers can be delicious, and yes, it’s free, but before joining the vultures ask yourself: am I really that hungry? Am I really this desperate for a piece of cheese? Wouldn’t it be better to pop into the store on the way home and buy a wedge of brie and box of crackers all for yourself, to be enjoyed while lounging around reading a good book? Yes, it would.
Mouthing Off
An exhibition opening is more often than not a crowded space filled with people speaking at the loudest possible volume. Speaking loudly isn’t a problem, so much as who or what you’re potentially speaking about. The art world is one in which you never know who someone might be. That unkempt man who looks like he stumbled in off the street might turn out to be a visiting dignitary (I made this mistake myself). The person who you turn to to say ‘horrible show, isn’t it’ will probably turn out to be the artist. Always give people the benefit of the doubt, and if you can’t say anything nice, then an opening is probably time to shut your trap and not say anything at all.
And lastly – know when to leave. Having successfully navigated the evening without offending anyone or breaking anything tis’ far better to make an early, tasteful exit than to be scraped off the floor by disdainful staff at quarter to midnight.
