Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery

CURATINGforum - PERTH '62 and HERE&NOW12

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CURATINGforum is an actual and virtual forum for generating a discussion around contemporary curatorial practice.

This CURATINGforum session focusses on the curatorial discussion and reviews of the exhibitions PERTH'62 and HERE&NOW12 at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery.

Arts Review: Darren Jorgensen

Published on September 22, 2012 at The West Australian.

Three exhibitions by three generations of Perth artists offer psychological portraits of the city as it has grown over 50 years.

A show about the adoption of modernism by local artists is as compelling as it is stifling in retelling a certain history of the city, while two other exhibitions feature young and mid-career Perth artists.

Perth '62 is wonderfully cluttered with early work by the cutting-edge designers and painters of the city. There is a real attempt to include as much diversity as possible, from furniture by David Foulkes-Taylor to public sculpture by Howard Taylor, a sculpture by Margaret Priest and pottery by Guy Grey-Smith.

This diversity looks very odd, however, when it comes to the inclusion of a bark painting from the island of Milingimbi, which is off the coast of the Northern Territory.

The curator has tried to include Aboriginal art while overlooking a whole movement of local Noongar and Yamatji artists.

If the theme of the show is Perth modernism in the 1960s, this modernism must include the beautiful Aboriginal landscapes of Reynold Hart, Bella Kelly and Revel Cooper. The show includes craft, but misses a whole genre of craft invented in 1962 in the layered bark landscape drawings that came out of the Aboriginal settlement in Guildford.

I have to declare a conflict of interest here, as I am employed by the University of WA, which hosts this show, and have an interest in expanding the stories of Australian art rather than repeating them. It is indeed a different story in the Here&Now12 exhibition, also at Lawrence Wilson on the UWA campus.

These artists are young graduates of Curtin University's art school, more often seen in Northbridge's tiny OK Gallery. If the Empire show resembles a cluttered lounge room from the 1960s, Here&Now resembles an abandoned office.

Neat drawings, intricately designed sculptures and the installation of an IKEA-style scale model of a pottery furnace, model the austere visions of the OK generation. It is innovative and interesting art, but a long way from the expressive freedoms of the 1960s modernists.

These 20-somethings have a refined version of art, to be achieved through attention to detail, as they work like architects and designers on miniature models. This is the vision of a generation who, like the 1960s modernists, are looking elsewhere for their inspiration.

A third exhibition is less serious than either of these shows. The work of two Perth photographers is hanging in the foyer of Council House, the architectural icon of 1960s Perth modernism, and their work finds something fascinating in the banality of the inner city.

Juha Tolonen wrests the city's numerous older office blocks into focus, turning to a landscape of concrete 10 to 20-storey buildings. A panorama of four images of the Swan River is punctuated by the top of the BGC building, its flat roof adding a plane to the flatness of the Perth horizon.

There is a series by the brilliant Toni Wilkinson here, too, of people on Perth's streets who embody the built landscape. A woman's yellow pants radiate with the sunset, while a young man's mirrored sunglasses reflect buildings.

These shows do capture something of the maturity of a city that has now nurtured several generations of artists.

Perth '62 and Here&Now are at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, UWA, until October 6. The City of Perth 2012 Photographic Commissions Exhibition is at Council House, Perth, until November 30.

 

This review is also published at The West Australian online on October 2, 2012. Reprinted with permission.

Andrew Gaynor, Curator of Perth '62: Empire and Universe

Curator's Response,25.09.12


First, let me say thank you. Having been involved with the Perth artworld since the late 1980s, it is both refreshing and gratifying to receive two reviews of Perth ’62: Empire & Universe by two different authors in The West Australian. This is almost unheard of for a show on local art history and needs to be noted for its significance.

One critic came to praise; the other appears to have come to bury. Admittedly, Pam Casellas had the benefit of walking through the exhibition with me whereas Darren Jorgensen did not and could only take the exhibition as presented.

Which is how it should be. An exhibition, like any single artwork, relies on the ability to successfully impart its intended meaning to an audience without an overload of didactic support. An honestly mistaken reading or alternate translation is equally welcome as it creates a climate of debate, but an overtly agenda-driven misinterpretation is another matter again.

It is important for me to point out that Perth ’62: Empire and Universe is not a show about post-war modernism per se though modernist impulses do prevail. The exhibition is about creative practice in general just as it is significantly about the social milieu of Perth in that year, hence the inclusion of details about architecture, sports, research on Depuch Island, religious design, the reality of the urban indigenous, local + international politics, exhibition lists, newspaper headlines and the rampage of Eric Cooke.

Jorgensen is right to note that the inclusion of an Indigenous bark from Milingimbi seems odd but once its proximity to the John Glenn capsule is registered, then the bark’s depiction of a solar constellation’s story is contextualised as presenting an alternate understanding of the cosmos to that portrayed by the space race itself.

As much as possible, the attempt was made to keep within the curatorial brief (i.e. works made or exhibited in Perth during 1962) but as no similar WA image of the cosmos was accessible, I made the curatorial decision to include the non-WA bark to reinforce the importance of this alternate interpretation. Shoot me down for that as you choose.

I also acknowledge the absence of works by Reynold Hart, Bella Kelly or Revel Cooper, and that their inclusion could have been a positive. Likewise the tourist-market bark landscapes. I actually own three of these ‘collage’ works but had never properly researched them.

I am very appreciative to now know they may have been made in Guildford. Unfortunately Jorgensen uses their absences to claim that the whole show suffers as a result and worse, that it does not expand on the supposedly familiar story of the early 1960s in Perth.

If he can tell me which related show covered the topics outlined in paragraph three, and which also included works by concurrent artists such as Elizabeth Blair-Barber, Garry Smith, Heather McSwain, Darryl Hill, Flora Landells, Eileen Keys or Frank Norton, then I’d be delighted to hear about it and get a copy of the catalogue for comparison. To my mind, there have been no other exhibitions that have attempted to identify or extrapolate on these linkages.

As a curator and researcher, I can only feel gratified if one of my projects acts as a catalyst for others to expand on or unravel alternate narratives. The more variations and reinterpretations on a particular history that are attempted, the more the knowledge is allowed to disseminate and become part of a fuller and more meaningful picture overall.

It is one reason why, for example, I refuse ever to call myself an expert on anything. A ‘specialist’ is my preference, as an expert only occupies a tiny domain always perceiving threats in the form of the next expert looking to knock him or her of their perch via the revelation of a new piece of information.

Keeping that in mind, I usually don’t respond publicly to reviews, positive or otherwise. Normally I simply smile, nod, and absorb the critque before happily moving on. A little bit wiser, but without self-flagellation. However, as UWA Museums have established CuratingFORUM (sic) as a mechanism to open up debate on curatorial issues, I thought it appropriate in this instance to respond directly to this particular review in the hope of sparking other comments and responses.

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Monday, 10 March, 2014 3:16 PM

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