Review: Brainstorm at the Plimsoll Gallery

On opening night, Brainstorm has a carnival feel to it.  Visitors thread through the exhibition on the way to Dark Park in the adjacent former shipping yards. The Plimsoll Gallery exhibition, curated by John Vella, is part of the official Dark Mofo program, and manages to both mimic the aesthetics and themes of the winter festival, but hold its own as a separate exhibition.  It’s dark, novel, and entertaining.

From the art school’s tunnel entrance, I follow a deep growling sound coming from the wood yard.  I’ve always thought it bizarre that the gallery’s adjacent courtyard garden and other surrounding areas are never used, particularly considering the current popularity of site-responsive art, which is why Brainstorm appeals to me almost immediately. The exhibition spills into the adjacent wood yard, the art school’s delivery bay, and gallery storeroom.

 

Andrew Harper, Fort Evil, 2016. Image credit: Gerrard Dixon     

The wood yard, with its high brick fence and metal bars, forms a cage around Andrew Harper’s breathing, growling, anthropomorphic Fort Evil. It’s a raw collage of materials, mostly a mishmash of roughly nailed wood and corrugated iron, with sharp wooden ‘teeth’ from which a small doll hangs.  The artist later tells me that for OH&S reasons, visitors can’t enter the yard, but the distance and walls between the work and viewer only increases the mystique.  I’m also told that the doll, toilet bowl, corrugated iron and many of the other materials were found in the yard and automatically incorporated into the structure.  I can’t help but think that it’s a list of materials that should probably be found in a tip, rather than a university workspace.

For the exhibition, the Plimsoll’s floor to ceiling windows have been levered open so that the garden becomes a seamless extension of the usual gallery space.  Onto the pond, Scot Cotterell has projected text, which breaks into nonsensical syllables on the uneven leaf-covered surface.  The group of visitors surrounding the small pond call out words as they pick them: “climate!”, “fires!”, “scientists!”, “meaningful!”  Distracted, I worry about the resident fish.

At this point I start to get a little irritated at the lack of artwork information.  I can pick Harper’s installation, and Amanda Davies’ self-portraits are easily identified, but the ‘guess the artist’ game I play with my companion quickly tires.  There’s a growing aversion to didactic texts in contemporary art spaces, partly because of the difficulties in label placement when it comes to darkened spaces or installations, but it’s also an ideological move.  Later, someone told me there are artist flyers underneath Cotterell’s stack of ‘mindfulness colouring books’.  The blind experience is evidently intentional, but I do wonder if the lack of, or limited attribution, is fair to artists.

Scot Cotterell, Shitstorm (Compromised Version), 2016.  Installed on the building facade top level from 0200hr 08.06.16 until 0700hr 10.06.16.  Image credit: Scot Cotterell.

One of Cotterell’s other works received a great deal of attention when it was controversially removed from its original location - the top windows of the art school – and partially installed in the Plimsoll Gallery. The artist stated it was “removed with urgency due to student and bureaucratic request,” primarily “due to student wellbeing and institutional public safety concerns around decency and offence.” The subsequent (and surely inevitable) media attention was therefore a bit of an own goal for the university, plus the drama made an interesting work even more so.  I’m wary of wading into the cesspit of rumours that currently surrounds the incident, but apparently a small number of painting and/or printmaking students took offense at the corflute boards in their studio windows, which scream in fluoro ink: ‘your work is shit’. Interestingly, the boards did not face the students, but instead faced outwards towards the half-constructed Federal hotel, the disused shipping yards, and Dark Mofo’s Dark Park.  The aesthetic is akin to the hate signs of the Westboro Baptist Church, but while the message, repeated over and over, can be seen as derogatory, it can equally be interpreted as a form of self-talk.  I don’t know a single artist who isn’t plagued by self-doubt.  On my desk at home, there’s a drawing by David Shrigley’s that reads in bold: “your work is terrible and you are an imbecile”.  It’s followed by “they said” in tiny writing.  It’s a good reminder that everyone has an opinion.

David Shrigley, Your Artwork is Terrible and You are an Imbecile, 2013.
Copyright: David Shrigley 

I’m entranced by Pat Brassington’s enigmatic Chambre Vide.  The raised curtain of slightly translucent red plastic is deliciously shiny.  A self-ordering line of viewers walk slowly and quietly around the work in a clockwise direction, each person stopping at the end, hesitating, trying to decide whether they want to break the spell and look under the curtain. 

Pat Brassington, Chambre Vide, 2016.
Image credit: Pat Brassington    

So many of the works are defined by barriers, fences and walls – frames of a sort.  In addition to Harper’s fort, we view Michael Schlitz’s prints through Entrepot bookshop’s storefront, Jacob Leary’s blacklit installation through Entrepot Gallery’s gridded windows, and Matt Warren’s sound and video works from behind the loading bay barriers.  Darren Cook’s multimedia installation is also viewed behind the gallery’s storeroom fence, with the plinths, screens, and other paraphernalia, acting as a canvas for his projected videos. In this darkened space, Warren and Cook’s soundtracks bleed into each other, a haunting mixture of thunder, static, and flat-toned speech.   The use of these spaces are one of the exhibition’s key strengths, but at the same time, the gallery’s location within the university and associated bureaucracy has evidently limited the exhibition’s full potential.  Let’s hope fear doesn’t muzzle future Plimsoll Gallery programming.

Installation shot of the gallery storeroom showing part of Darren Cook’s Take it Outside.
Image credit: Gerrard Dixon

Brainstorm, 10 June – 19 June 2016. Plimsoll Gallery, Tasmanian College of the Arts.  Curator: John Vella. Artists: Michael Schlitz, Pat Brassington, Matt Warren, Andrew Harper, Scot Cotterell, Amanda Davies, Darren Cook, Grace Herbert, Jacob Leary.

Disclosure note: The author is employed by Mona, but has no direct involvement in this year’s Dark Mofo or the Plimsoll Gallery.

This review was first published in the July edition of Warp Magazine.

Arts funding: budgeting for the soul

When it was suggested to Winston Churchill that he cut the arts budget to fund the war effort, he replied, “then what are we fighting for?”  Well, so the meme goes.  The fact that the then British Prime Minister didn’t actually say this doesn’t really matter. It’s remained a favourite social media meme and oft (mis)quoted moment because it’s not an arts advocate, an artist, a curator or an arts-loving writer arguing for arts funding – it’s a politician.  It seems so unusual that a politician would care about the arts. 

On the whole, politicians are considered philistines when it comes to the arts.  As we come into the federal election, it’s evidently not a priority.  The headlines are all about wealth-creation (or barriers to it): surplus, superannuation, taxes, housing, ‘boat people’, dole bludgers, construction, unions, penalty rates etc. etc.…. And that’s why the arts community gave a collective sigh of relief when Malcolm Turnbull  - a known art-collector and supporter of the arts - was elected PM.

The arts community was thus understandably upset when the new arts minister appointed by Turnbull announced that the changes to arts funding brought in by the conservative, ballet-loving George Brandis were not going to be reversed. Over the last year, the arts community has waged an admirable war against the changes.  Last year’s senate enquiry into the Liberal’s art budgets, for instance, received a record 2719 submissions, leading one LNP senator to label the response as a conspiracy.  Evidently, our politicians underestimated the passion and sheer doggedness of the Australian arts community. 

Last month the effects of the arts changes became particularly obvious when around 65 arts organisations, many of them established and respected, were de-funded in part as a result of the funding changes.   Because of the Australia Council’s funding structure, the cuts in funding have disproportionately affected the visual arts and writing communities.  As Alison Croggon pointed out in The Guardian, there’s been a massive 70% reduction in individual grants since the 2013/14 financial year. I don’t want to go into too much detail about the changes, and I recommend you google Croggon’s articles in The Monthly (16 May) and The Guardian (19 May) for a more detailed account. Instead, I want to emphasise why we should fund the arts, and more specifically the visual arts (I’ll let my fellow columnist, Paige Turner, argue on behalf of literature).

I strongly believe one of the major errors we’ve made in our argument for greater investment in the arts is to use the language of conservative economics.  Our arguments have been based on financial return and job creation.  Let’s be honest, no one goes into the visual arts in order to make money.  We make, support and view art because it makes us happy and fulfils our intellectual curiosity.   This is also backed up by science. According to Neuroscientist Jaak Panskepp, the key to human happiness is the act of seeking, which encompasses the quest for knowledge, anticipation, and the creation of new forms of expression.  For an easy dopamine hit, create some art.

Visual art a method of storytelling that we can trace back to our early ancestors.  Archaeologists have discovered figurative cave painting in Indonesia and Australia that pre-dates the famous caves in Europe, and this concurrent emergence of visual expression suggests that art is something innate in us all.  It defines us as humans.

Art has also long-served as an important pre-literate method of communication.  The pre-Modern frescoes and stained glass windows in the churches and palaces of Europe, for instance, were in part designed to communicate biblical stories, local history, and political authority to a largely illiterate public.  Art has the ability to express stories, ideas and emotions in ways that words simply cannot.  Even now that we live in a highly literate society dominated by written language, we’re incorporating emoticons and other forms of pictorial communication to convey nuanced emotion where words fail. 

Detail of the stained glass window called Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière, a section from the 13th century, in Notre-Dame de Chartres cathedral. This is the central image of a section depicting the Marriage at Cana.
Source: Wikimedia

When we view art, we experience emotions.  Entering a maze-like installation might inspire feelings of curiosity, excitement, and perhaps even a bit of adrenalin-pumping fear. A portrait of a dog may invoke affection, and a painting by J.M.W. Turner is undeniably visually pleasurable.  Even the most abstract artworks can appeal to our emotions - many years ago I broke down in front of Robert Morris’ Minimalist L Beams.  Art often demands a level of intellectual engagement from the viewer and can challenge us, ask difficult questions and expose us to different worldviews.

Carl Spitzweg, The Poor Poet (1839). Source: Wikimedia

It benefits society to have ready access to art both in galleries and public spaces, and therefore we need to support the producers.  If you ask an artist why they make art, they’re not going to respond ‘to increase tourism to the region’.  Increased tourism is great for Hobart’s many coffee shops, hotels and high-end restaurants, but it doesn’t change the fact that some local galleries do not even pay artists to exhibit or even provide material allowances.  It’s particularly galling when you consider that the gallery’s cleaner gets paid in money, rather than the oft-cited ‘exposure’.  We shouldn’t ask artists exhibiting in public galleries to work for free, and public galleries need to be funded so that they can pay artists fairly, just like they do the cleaners, plumbers and other workers. 

Art should be seen as a public good like health or roads, and it should not be expected to be financially self-sustainable.  Art departments in schools and universities need to be better funded. We know creative expression can be therapeutic, so we need to use it as a method of healing in hospitals and prisons, and provide cheap and easily accessible spaces for community groups to create together. 

Many years ago I worked as an art therapist, and I remember one non-verbal client who would silently wrap objects in string, over and over with precise rhythm, resulting in a delicate cocoon.  A few years later I attended art school and watched as a fellow student did the same thing.  The instinct was the same, but only one needed an artist statement (or so the university’s unit outline stated).  

We invest far too much money in the worst parts of ourselves (the recent $50 billion on military submarines immediately comes to mind). It’s time to better fund the better side of our nature.

This article was originally printed in the June issue of Warp Magazine.

Review: Birchs Bay Sculpture Trail

This year marks the eleventh anniversary of the Birchs Bay sculpture trail.  Originally called ‘Benchmarking Birchs Bay’, the recent name change to ‘Art Farm Birchs Bay’ reflects the expansion of their art program, which now includes art and craft workshops and an indoor art gallery: the Old Distillery.

I’ve visited a number of their previous trails, and have watched it mature and develop into a diverse and thought-provoking exhibition. Of course, there are a few of the usual twee sculpture trail offerings, such as mosaic flowers, and stick and shell constructions. But on the whole, the current exhibition easily rivals major public sculpture events in terms of scope and artistic engagement with the surrounding environment.

It’s about a 45 minute walk through the bush. We initially wind our way through the working farm, including a pear orchard, which is quite appropriately scattered with oversized ceramic pears.  After crossing a plantation of Tasmanian native pepperberry trees, we wind our way up to the natural bush trail.  I walk with my small dog, who seems particularly attracted to the sculptures with a lingering smell (especially the caged oyster shells).  The trail is on private land and presumably relies on their café revenue to partly fund the initiative, but visitors are nonetheless encouraged to bring their dogs, their kids, and a picnic.  At one point I encounter a family of picnickers (including a happy Labrador) enjoying the incredible view over the Great Bay to Bruny Island.  For awhile, I’m followed by a family who’s playing a game of ‘guess the price of the artwork’, with the ‘answer’ printed in the accompanying catalogue.  Artwork sales are obviously important to the exhibition’s financial sustainability, but I also have a tendency to get distracted by price tags. As a result, I walk the rest of the trail without reference to the catalogue, enjoying the unexpected artwork encounters sans map. 

Dean Chatwin, Nature's Way, 2016. Image credit: the artist.

The standout for me is Dean Chatwin’s witty installation, Nature’s Way.  His sculpture mimics the design of Tasmanian street signs with one exception: like a weathervane, a gust of wind will alter the sign’s orientation.  On one hand, the structure is an unexpected aesthetic intrusion, but it’s also such an everyday object that it’s comfortingly familiar, even natural. At the time of my visit, ‘Nature’s Way’ points to a barrier of bush scrub, although it could just as easily be pointing in the direction of the working farm.  We might think we can control the world around us, but as the sign suggestions, nature will ultimately have its way.

Unlike Chatwin’s work, which deliberately stands out against its surroundings, Sally Brown’s ­­­­Web, Net, Lace (2007) has weathered and faded over the years.  The cobweb-like structure high between two trees is easily missed, particularly if you’re buried in the sculpture map.  Each year, a couple of sculptures are acquired by the owners and remain permanently along the trail, aging sympathetically to their surroundings.  There are sculptures by a number of fairly high-profile Tasmanian artists, such as Brown and Marcus Tatton.    Brown’s other permanent work is a field of metal flowers dotted around the upper trail.  Like ­­­­Web, Net, Lace, the flowers are weathering and rusting, blending with the surrounding environment despite the material’s industrial roots.

Mike Limb, Cello

I’m conflicted over Mike Limb’s descriptively titled Cello.  While the subject leaves me cold, there’s a lovely relationship between the curled strips of rusted steel around the instrument’s bridge and the scraps of bark littered around its base.  Julie Milton’s Eucalion mimics the surrounding environment more directly – a steel and acrylic version of the surrounding natural grasses.  I also enjoy Keith Smith’s Cuckoo Nest made from ‘beach float-some’, including shoes, rope, fishing nets, and hats, although I wonder if the awkwardly-located rusted metal birds are really necessary.  The sound and light elements of Edith Perrenot’s towering sculpture aren’t working on my visit, but I’m nonetheless intrigued by the cheeky figures peering out from the golden vestibules.

Keith Smith’s Cuckoo Nest (with my dog Pip)

We have a couple of high-profile art philanthropists in Tasmania who understandably receive a lot of media attention, but we’re also lucky to have a lot of smaller, privately-run art initiatives, such as Art Farm Birchs Bay.  I urge you to check it out.

This review was originally published in the May edition of Warp Magazine.

On the Recent Changes to Australian Arts Funding

I started this piece at the opening of the Venice Biennale.  It was going to be about all the tote bags I’d scored, the outrageous outfits, and my lack of party invitations.  The fact that Arts Minister Michael Brandis opened the new Australia pavilion didn’t even register until the following week when he announced massive changes to arts funding.

The changes include the establishment of the ‘National Program for Excellence in the Arts’ (it deserves inverted commas), the funding of which will be transferred from the Australia Council for the Arts (Ozco) – a move that will disproportionately and deliberately affect individual artists, particularly visual artists, filmmakers, writers, and small and/or regional arts organisations.  Tasmanian artists and audiences should be concerned.  

In Venice, Brandis basked in the reflected cultural prestige of the world’s largest visual arts event, rubbing shoulders with the Australian art world’s most influential players.  I guess it wasn’t the place to announce cuts to the very organisation that administers Australia’s involvement in the biennale.  To give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he hadn’t decided yet.  One of the stated aims of NPEA is to encourage cultural philanthropy, and as the pavilion was largely funded with private money, perhaps it inspired Brandis’ scheme.  Unfortunately, it's only ever financial donations that are acknowledged on golden plaques and programs, not the in-kind support provided by artists who often go unpaid or underpaid for their essential work.  If we stopped participating tomorrow, the cultural economy would collapse, which explains why last year’s Sydney Biennale boycotts were so threatening to the status quo.

I did attend one party at the biennale by the way.  I wasn’t invited, but the champagne was flowing and the art was terrible.  I guess I was a welcome rent-a-crowd.  The Sheikh had evidently paid a large amount to stage the exhibition (it costs $30,000 just to register as a collateral event), but as the saying goes, money doesn’t buy taste.  Ozco isn’t perfect, but if we leave it to rich individuals to decide what is and isn’t supported, the diversity of Australia’s art scene will undoubtedly suffer.

Paris beckons

In a few months, I'll be off to Paris to stay at the Rosamond McCulloch studio at the Cite Internationale des Arts.  The studio was a bequest by the late artist to the Tasmanian School of Art (now Tasmanian College of the Arts) to allow former students to undertake residencies in the oh-so-cultural city.

My time in Paris will be spent examining the dialogue between pre-Modern art and architecture in a number of key buildings, including churches and palaces, in order to expand my existing knowledge on contemporary site-specific art practice.  My PhD thesis, which I submitted in late 2012, examined site-specific art in Australia’s public museums.  One of the aspects of site-specificity that I have become interested in, but for many reasons was unable to pursue in my thesis, is the pre-twentieth century relationship between art and architecture, as well as other models of site-specificity such as Visionary Environments (large scale installations, often defined by the maker’s lack of formal art training, and are thus often associated with Outsider Art).

When theorists define or describe site-specific art, they usually look at art from the 1960s onwards, viewing the art form as a relatively recent trend that followed the art ideals of Modernism.  However, my belief is that we can extend our knowledge on contemporary site-specific art by examining the way in which pre-twentieth century art was usually made for a particular site, purpose, and most importantly, made in dialogue with architecture.  For instance, the altar pieces that we so often see in museums, cut-off from their original environment, were not designed as stand alone artworks, but as an integral part of the church and site.  My intention for Paris is to examine the relationships between altarpiece and museum (such as the Louvre), and in sites such as the Saint Chappelle, altarpiece and church.

The two other models of site-specificity that sit outside the contemporary notion of the term are the before mentioned Visionary Environments, and the studio as museum.  For some reason France has many of the most famous Visionary Environments.  A few of the sites are close to Paris, so I will also do at least one day trip during the residency period.  The ones high on my list Ferdinand Cheval's Palais Idéal (Ideal Palace) in Hauterives, south of Lyon; Adolphe-Julien Fouré’s Les Rochers Sculptés (Sculpted Rocks) in Saint Malo, Brittany; Raymond Isidore’s la Maison de Picassiette in Chartres (an easy day trip from Paris).  These environments are built around existing structures, often using local found materials, and while they are not site-specific in the critical sense of the term, they have an interesting relationship to site.  Similarly, I am interested in examining the relationship between art and environment in Paris’ studio museums, such as the “l’atelier Brancusi” outside the Pompidou museum, which is an exact reproduction of Constantin Brancusi’s studio as dictated by the artist in his will.

My other key aim is to not turn into a blimp thanks to a surplus of eclairs and cheese. Exciting times.