Art can offer us ways to connect with our environment. To find our own connections we need to be provided with uncluttered space and time. Art galleries are places that can offer those. Yesterday I saw a show, and heard about another. Both evoked connections with the land.
I am writing here about how I responded to one exhibition I saw yesterday. I acknowledge I was seeing through that day’s interests and expectations. On my way to interview a scientist about art and climate change, I passed the window of Gallery 101 (Melbourne). There I saw the words “artist’s books” and the name of Carmel Wallace. Associating this artist’s work with landscape and climate change, I entered with interest.
Walking into Anthology (Gallery 101, 3-28 June 2008) was like going to a street fair. Booths were set up for nine local artists, with their artworks for sale on the wall space within. Before each display tables were set up like points of sale. But instead of someone standing there awaiting a sale, tables were strewn with ephemera:
Notes, photographs, journals, diaries and references to classical literature and scientific data are evidence of the artists’ exploratory journeys which have led them to produce artist’s books as collectable items within their wider practices. (Catalogue note by Dianna Gold, Gallery Director)
There were too many different objects in there for me to find connections between the artists, or between the individual artists’ works and their objects. It was a lesson for me in keeping things simple, to make things clear for the reader. The artwork that was concerned with the environment, and which most interested me, was diminished, for me, by the clutter and confusion on the tables. And the street stall look didn’t help.
Anthology is probably intended to be read quite simply as an insight into the private studio spaces of the artists. But how these private spaces were made public seemed to me visually chaotic, clumsy and contrived. Carmel Wallace’s essay (available at the gallery), however, lucidly describes the connections between the studio ephemera she selected for display, and the deep concerns of the artists.
I am interested to know how others have viewed Anthology.
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Walk is another project altogether. It’s message is clear and timely:
In March 2006, eight artists embarked on a three week journey through forest, river, estuary and bay along the Great South West Walk in Victoria. Walk invites us to discover this fragile environment through a diverse range of contemporary art, craft, sound and video.
Promotional post card by Friends of the Great South Walk, Portland, Victoria
www.greatsouthwestwalk.com
Artists:
Peter Corbett, Vicki Couzens, Nicky Hepburn, Brian Laurence, Jan Learmonth, Carmel Wallace, John Wolsley
The exhibition tours regional Australia from February 2008 through to June 2009.
I am interested to learn how this project transformed the participants, and how their art might transform observers. Can it help us to connect more deeply with the land, and the changes to which we contribute?