Domestic Displays

I recently visited Redfern for the first time in several months and clocked the sharp gentrification evidenced by a quick influx of small bars and delicious coffee. Now a place just slightly cheaper to live than Surry Hills, it would be fair to say that perhaps the artistic community are partly the perpetrators of such gentrification, and as the rent rises, may soon to be of victims of it.  Nevertheless, HOUSE WORK – a curatorial project by Diana Smith, confirmed Redfern is currently crawling with artists.

For the project artist and curator Diana Smith invited her peers that live within walking distance of each other to open up their homes for one afternoon to the public. I left home expecting to visit several loungeroom cum- galleries, perhaps with sculptures on dining tables and some video art on the television. I was pleasantly surprised to encounter something more integrated with the daily workings of domestic life.

I began at Nick Coyle, Alice Gage and James Harneys sharehouse, greeted by the hungover flatmates who encouraged us to play 1970s boardgames. Naturally witty, Nick powered us through wheel of fortune while Jimmy made guacamole in the kitchen. We could have easily stayed for the afternoon, competing against whoever walked in the door, but were determined to visit every abode before sundown.

At first I thought Dara Gill had hired performers to undertake ‘tasks’ around his place, but quickly realised the situation when we were offered rubber gloves. Strangely compelled, I became focused on cleaning the windows while others scrubbed mould on their hands and knees. Surprisingly the house was filled with satisfied grins, leaving Dara with a whole vegetable garden and his DVD collection both alphabetised and genre-specific by the end of the day.

Perhaps less welcoming were Julia Holderness and Henry Kember who had skyped into their lounge room from a bed in a symmetrical flat down the hall. As they sipped tea and read Sunday Life we desperately tried to gain their attention, firstly by poking around their kitchen , and finally by grabbing watermelon from the fridge, and enjoying a slice. This left the invigilator a little on edge, who had clearly been briefed to allow participatory activity until things got stolen. He let us have one slice before wrapping the tropical fruit in glad wrap and asking us to think about how we would feel if strangers simply grabbed things out of our fridge. On later enquiry it was confirmed the artists were happy to see their almost slimy melon get eaten.

Keg De Souza offered us a couple of things from her fridge – home brewed beers and freshly baked cakes. Her boyfriend wasn’t around but he had recreated his sound installation which used cassettes tapes attached to balloons to make noise. This made it the most gallery-esque home and I think I would have preferred some of Lucas Abelas eccentric stories over a beer.

Our last stop was an appropriate finale. Shane Haseman, Ella Barclay and Rosealee Pearson had stayed up all night – the evidence was on the kitchen table. Upstairs we witnessed all flatmates in deep subconscious after popping sleeping pills, and in between spying their book collections, we eerily watched them breathing deeply. A sound recording of them drunk the night before confimed they weren’t acting, the snores were real, and after taking a couple of photos, we left feeling like creeps.

HOUSE WORK cleverly played with the intersection between routine, art and daily life, generating a sense of play without any frightening theatrical participation or a plonking of works made for gallery contexts. It was localised tourism on the most micro scale – made for those who take pleasure in checking out other peoples shopping trolleys and in investigating bathroom cabinets. With it also came a great sense of neighbourliness, a coming together of like-minded strangers walking around the street nodding at each other, eating, scrubbing and chatting, making for a satisfying way to spend a sunny afternoon. HOUSE WORK also showcased one element of a suburb at a time of flux, making me wonder if those share-houses will still be inhabited by artists in a few years time.

Lara Thoms

HOUSE WORK curated by Diana Smith for Perfromance Spaces WALK program Sat 10 December 2011. Photos by Alex Wisser.

Kelly Doley – The Learning Centre

Returning the Gift: Art in Exchange for Knowledge

Kelly Doley is a Sydney based artist who likes to confuse the boundaries between painting and performance and, increasingly between art and life. The two of us met in 2004, while studying at The College of Fine Arts (Sydney) and have been collaborating in one way or another ever since.  We make video and performance works with the other members of Brown Council; we worked together as Directors of Sydney artist run initiatives, Firstdraft and Quarterbred; and we lived together for many years—which I often think of as the ultimate collaboration. This interview marked a new type of collaboration that began with a conversation about art, in this instance about Doley’s current project, The Learning Centre, a participatory performance centred on direct communication, conversation and interactivity.

Through The Learning Centre Doley has constructed an imaginary system of exchange, in which knowledge is traded for art—or more specifically lessons on life are given to the artist in return for a painting. The first public outcome of this project, The Learning Centre: Manifestos for Living, took place as part of Draught, an exhibition at Tin Sheds Gallery, in January this year.  For this exhibition, Doley invited participants from different cultural, political and religious backgrounds into the gallery to give her a one-hour lesson on what they do, why they do it, and how it gives them meaning. This act of performative pedagogy took place in an installation that looked much like a classroom—complete with blackboards, a table and chairs, and just the right amount of stationary to undertake serious learning.

Over the duration of the exhibition, Doley received lessons from 16 participants on subjects as diverse as: hypnotherapy, anarchism, Buddhism and biochemistry.  In exchange for their lesson, the participants were able to request a painting of their choice to be completed by the artist in the studio at a later date. The second public outcome of this project, The Learning Centre: Paintings for People, which opened at Firstdraft in October this year, involved Doley returning the paintings to the participants at designated times throughout the course of the exhibition.

Let’s start simple. Let’s start from the beginning. Can you tell me about what prompted your interest in creating The Learning Centre?

Last year I became quite disenchanted with the art world; I found myself questioning the validity of artistic practice, and rethinking my role as an artist. I became interested in making work that prioritised an engagement with people outside of the art world, who might not necessarily be equipped with the tools to decode the complex language of contemporary art. So I decided to invite a range of people into the gallery to teach me a ‘lesson’ about how they live their life. I thought that through this process, I would discover some kind of ‘truth’ about art and why I had chosen to devote my life to such a cause; or alternatively it would enable me to find a more suitable life path.

How did you invite the participants to take part in the project?

I sent a formal letter of invitation to people that I specifically wanted to engage with, including: a monk, a life coach and a board member from Greenpeace. In addition, I posted WANTED signs up around the city and placed advertisements on online classified sites. It was important to me that the majority of the participants were strangers, as I wanted to connect with people that I might not otherwise come into contact with.

How important is the audience to you? In the case of The Learning Centre did you see the participants as the audience?

For me the audience is everything; as an artist my aim is to connect with people via the framework of art. I am interested in creating an active space in which audiences can directly engage with the work and are essential to the success, and indeed the very existence of the performative act. In terms of The Learning Centre, which was a participatory performance, I see the ‘participants’ as the ‘audience’.

The artist/audience or artist/participant relationship is complicated by the fact that there are two levels of audience co-existing in the work.  On the one level there is the audience/participant who is either conducting the lesson or collecting their painting. They are integral to the performance, as the work simply doesn’t exist if they don’t turn up—in the same way that it can’t exist without the presence of the artist.  On the next level there is the audience/participant who enters the gallery and experiences the ‘performance’ from the periphery. I like to think that their role was also participatory as they were able to make a choice to either listen to the lesson, or just simply walk past.

What led you to the decision to stage The Learning Centre in the gallery?

I have had many suggestions from people that this work should be presented in a more public space, like a classroom or a community centre for instance. There is a long-standing tradition of this type of practice in which artists take an interventionist approach and present similar projects in site-specific locations. However, I wanted to use the gallery as a site-specific space in which performative exchanges, interactions and conversations could unfold. Placing social events and rituals in the gallery is a way to play with the conventions of the hermetic ‘white cube’ and challenge the historical traditions of art with its focus on presentation and display. I am also interested in bringing people into the gallery who wouldn’t normally engage with contemporary art, let alone be a part of an artwork.

Can you tell me a little bit about your decision to set up a system of exchange between art and knowledge? Do you think this is an equal act of reciprocity?

When I first started this project I hadn’t really considered the notion of reciprocation. I (perhaps naively) assumed that the experience of teaching a lesson to an artist in the context of an artwork would be an interesting enough experience for the participants.

However, it soon became apparent that people wanted something in return for the effort and time required to prepare and deliver a lesson. I couldn’t offer them money, so it had to be in the form of trade, and the most obvious thing for me to do was to paint them a picture—as painting is a skill that I possess. I was unsure if the painting itself would be considered an equal trade, but I hoped that the gesture of making a painting—a task that requires time and effort—would be considered an equal act of reciprocity.

Can you tell me about the types of requests you received from the participants about what they wanted you to paint? I imagine that there would have been a broad range of responses, so how did you approach this in practice?

The requests were very diverse and ranged from simple images like: a bee, or a house, to quite specific things like: ‘a picture of something bright and cheerful, so that when I wake up I can say “Hooray it’s a new day!”’[i] To overcome the difficulties of painting a predetermined subject matter, and to create a relationship between the works I developed a set of aesthetic rules, which included: a uniform canvas size, painting application and colour palette. Once the aesthetic concerns were resolved I really enjoyed being able to switch off and treat the act of painting as a task, almost like a form of manual labour.

I really like the way that you have constructed an imaginary ‘gift economy’ in which a one-hour lesson is valued equally to the time and materials required for you to make a painting. Is this a critique of the art market and the value that is placed on works of art, which often seems so illogical to someone outside of that system?

I think that this invented art economy which trades art for knowledge does challenge the conventional system of buying and selling, and wheeling and dealing that takes place in the art market. Because you can’t buy or sell these works, the potential market value and role of the ‘dealer’ has been removed from the equation. I am by no means against the commercial art market; I am just imagining other systems in which art can potentially be traded.

In The Learning Centre: Paintings for People at Firstdraft the paintings were exhibited as conventional ‘art objects’, and yet their primary function is to act as an object of exchange. Why did you decide to have an exhibition of the paintings rather than simply returning them to the participants outside of a gallery context?

I chose to display the paintings in the gallery context as I wanted to make the act of exchange visible to the public. While initially the paintings were hung on the wall as ‘art objects’, they continued to disappear over the course of the exhibition as the participants come to collect them—leaving only bare hooks and pencil lines in their place. What primarily interests me is the disappearance of the paintings over time—the gesture of going from something to nothing.

How have the participants responded to their paintings?

There have been mixed responses from the participants, mainly about the aesthetic choice to use black paint. It would seem that people generally prefer colourful paintings! Mohammad Kamal, who gave me a lesson on biochemistry, had an interesting response. When he saw his painting, of a scientific diagram, he immediately proposed a plan for a potential collaboration combining art and science. He also suggested I make a few additions to his painting including religious iconography to represent each of us. At that point I had to inform him that this might not be appropriate, given that I am a staunch atheist!

Over the years you have moved away from the traditions of painting and object-based practice in favour of a performance based approach, and yet there is always an element of painting in your work. How do you see the paintings functioning in The Learning Centre?

My practice began as an inquiry into the relevance of painting, and more recently, of art itself. This has led me to other forms of artistic practice, like performance and socially collaborative works. However, painting is still a central part of my work and the basis of my training; I like to consider how painting can function within performance-based practice. In the case of The Learning Centre my ability to ‘paint a picture’ is the skill or service I am able to supply in exchange for knowledge. The act of painting aids the process of engagement with the participants and when exhibited acts as a document of the ‘event’. They are proof that the contract of exchange between art and knowledge has taken place.

I know that you have been thinking about the best way to document The Learning Centre and also what to do with the knowledge that has been imparted on you. Where are you up to with this process?

It is always difficult to document a performance and particularly participatory performance after the event because it is premised on exchange and dialogue. The subsequent recordings of the event are completely removed from the moment of interaction, conversation and encounter, which is, in my view, the actual work. Even so, I still have a desire to archive the information, and communicate the process to viewers. People are curious about what was said during the lessons, so I suppose it is important to share that information. At this stage I am planning to present the ‘remnants’ of the work like an archive—possibly in the form of a book, which will include excerpts from the transcripts and photographic documentation.

What’s next for The Learning Centre?

Next year I am planning to take The Learning Centre to several locations around Australia—the first stop is Fremantle Arts Centre, where I will be undertaking a month long residency, and working with the local community. The long-term plan is to tour the work overseas and continue the process of ‘learning’. I still have a lot of unanswered questions about whether it is possible to commodify knowledge, life experience and education and if these unquantifiable elements can be traded for art. So I’m hoping that by presenting The Learning Centre in different cities, continents and cultures I might get a little bit closer to finding out.

For more information on The Learning Centre visit: www.kellydoley.com

Quarterbred – live art overlords? Or just nice guys? You decide.

lala talks with Mish Grigor from Sydney performance curators Quarterbred.

Quarterbred, can you tell me how this started?
Well, the lovely Lara Thoms and Di Smith were having an ongoing conversation about how amazing the PACT space is and what it has meant to a lot of artists and groups in Sydney in the last few years, but that it was only being used by one section of the wider community… So they called a meeting with a bunch of cool dudes like myself and we started dreaming up ways to open it up to new communities of artists and audiences, to put on new types of work at PACT, and also to promote the types of work that couldn’t really happen anywhere else. And then we talked to the ladies who run PACT and they have been amazingly supportive in providing space and heaps of other support, and from the amazing works that were coming out of Quarterbred we decided to start Tiny Stadiums, and etc etc etc

And why? who are you?
Why? I guess cause of the big shifts that have been happening in Sydney over the last few years, with Performance Space moving to Carriageworks and what that means for the communities around the organisation, and PACT shifting its focus to more of a ‘present-y’ type of role, and because we felt like there were loads of inspiring artists around who needed a place to try stuff out, and cause we just get really excited from a curatorial perspective by all the works that we have been able to support and provide a context for, and various other reasons.

We are an army! I copied this from the website cause I couldn’t be bothered to type it all out…
Kate Blackmore is a Sydney-based video/performance artist and new media archiver. She is also one quarter of the artistic collaboration Brown Council. www.browncouncil.com
Ashley Dyer is a performance maker, producer and workshop facilitator. He is currently working on three new collaborative projects involving dance, installation and music.
Mish Grigor is a performance maker and cross disciplinary artist, working primarily in the collaboration ‘post’ who devise new performance works.www.postpresentspost.com
Matthew Kneale is a Melbourne-based project director focused on making live performance/installations in public spaces. He is also a set and costume designer who has worked nationally on opera, dance and theatre.www.matthew.collabo.net
www.highvis.org
Jade Markham is an artist-in-general who also works at the library, studies and performs collaboratively. She makes super 8 films and slides too.
Tim Maybury is a musician, writer, curator, broadcaster and educator in art theory.
Emma Elizabeth Ramsay works in video, community radio sound and installation
Sarah Rodigari is a live artist who creates performance, video and installation through public encounters and social exchange. She is also one half of Panther.
Diana Smith is a video/performance artist, curator and writer. She is also one quarter of the artistic collaboration, Brown Council who create hybrid performance and screen based works. www.browncouncil.com
Lara Thoms works across new media, installation and performance. Her work is often interactive and interdisciplinary, responding to untraditional spaces and audience relationships. www.spatnloogie.com

What sort of events do you do?
Well, this October Quarterbred we have Bunheads, a hair and art event, as well as an afternoon of Monthly Friend, put on by the girls who just did ‘Nature League in North Melbourne’ at the Fringe, and residencies for some Sydney artists who are part of Next Wave’s ‘Kickstart’ program.
In the past we have done a roller disco, created a ghost house, had showings of new contemporary dance works, been a place for development for works like ‘Emergence’, that toured the country, or ‘Six Minute Soul Mate’, that won Adelaide Fringe. We have had sound art nights, live art weekends, a performance documentation video library, symposia, bbqs, short works nights, heaps and heaps and heaps of stuff.

And what is the criteria for your events?
Well, all of the directors have really different interests and practices outside of Quarterbred, so the basic rule is if we are all excited about a project or group of artists, then it gets in.

And so many ladies, what does Ash think?
Well Ash has two boyfriends now, new to the team, so there isn’t SO much of an imbalance…

There is a strong sense that the audience/performer relationship is important in the work that you are curating, if we call some of these works ‘live art’ can you tell me what your engagement with this term is? It seems to me that the idea of theatre and performance art and visual art all seem to blend here and that this generation of makers from Sydney that have come out of PACT don’t see the boundaries between these things.
Its true, and one of the criteria that we asked people to address when we have put out callouts for ‘Tiny Stadiums’ is the experience that the audience will have. I think that basically comes from us as curators, or us as audiences, having an interest in seeing work that engages with the typr of audience experience it is creating, even if that type happens to be more traditional ‘sit quietly and watch’ in style.
This term ‘live art’ is still something that we are getting our head around, and its weird that it has come into such usage across the country in the last two or three years, with TITTROTT, and EXISTin08, and Live Works, and Melbourne Fringe naming it as a category… I guess for us there seem to be a lot of blurring between the terms that you have mentioned, or artists trained in visual arts who are now making works that might be seen as theatre or whatever… And there are projects that might have been called something else ten years ago but now seem somewhat attached to the term ‘live art’… But mostly for us the works that we are programming aren’t exploring crossovers of form as the main part of their idea, they are just using the tools that they have seen used by other artists… It doesn’t really feel like these types of projects are new, it just feels like there is a context and a community around these works, both locally and nationally, and so lots of people are trying it out or becoming interested in ‘live art’ as a way to make sense of their ideas… Maybe….

Do you have a sense of lineage of this type in Sydney, through people like Sydney Front, Gravity Feed and Deborah Pollard etc?
Not at all. What we are doing is totally original and unlike anything that has ever happened before.

And finally the way that Sydney performance has invaded Melbourne through Next Wave i feel is a healthy breaking down of barriers between the two cities, i was talkign to Martin de Amo and he hadn’t even met some key people in Melbourne’s dance scene, indeed to some he is quite unknown despite how ubiquitous he is in Sydney. Do you feel like a cultural ambassador for Sydney or are you a citizen of the world?
Umm… We love Melbourne. And we also love Sydney. Quarterbred has just appointed three directors in Melbourne because we are interested in getting more of a direct connection going… We feel really lucky to know some amazing artists down there. We’re really only invading Melbourne so that we can make more friends like that, and discover their work, and show it off to our Sydney friends.

Some of these questions are nonsense and were meant as witty repartee that you and i would have had in a live interview. The kind of scripted mayhem that is employed on killer shows like Good News Week and Spicks and Specks. Just think of me as a fat Mikey Robbins (he’s not as funny when he is thin), and you can be Myf Warhurst.
Is this still part of the interview? It’s a nice touch. Although a small disclaimer, I am actually a lot more funny when I am offline. That is, in person, when I can just work ”Off The Cuff” and let the lines come to me in response to the often hilarious comments that you are throwing at me fast like flaming arrows of comedy gold.
I hope that you frame this correctly when you publish it online in your e-letter.
Also, I like to think of our conversations as less ‘Mikey vs Myf’ and more “Gretel Killeen vs Big Brother”. You are Gretel and I am the earpiece and you are aging but smarmy and I am small but informative, making jokes directly into your inner ear and telling you what to do.
Yeah?

Mish Grigor is prone to bouts of paranoia and balloon-phobia, do not approach her in public.