Polly Borland, Untitled IV from the series Smudge 2010; We used to talk about love, Balnaves contemporary: photo media; AGNSW courtesy the artist and Murray White Room, Melbourne |
The combination of a re-engineered viewing space (a collaboration between curator Natasha Bullock and architect Jan van Schaik), which adapted the galleries into an intimate labyrinthine configuration, and the lyrical quietness emanating from the vernacular subject matter resulted in a focused viewing experience with a stilling effect, yielding some surprising results.
Most striking was the communion taking place in the darkened, altar-like space housing Grant Stevens’ minimalist video installation, Crushing (2009), where audiences appeared mesmerised by the drift of white text messages floating across the black screen. Set to a wistful piano soundtrack, the texts sharpened into focus and then faded out, coalescing into a loose narrative that poignantly conveyed the anguish of a break-up. Families leaned in closer to one another as they watched, mothers stretched their arms around their kids to offer comfort and one man gently rested his hand on his wife’s shoulder. Despite the banality of the phrases, this intuition of the universal experience of rejection aroused an atmosphere of shared vulnerability in the space.
Not all works in this exhibition of photomedia by 11 contemporary artists exploring the theme of love were intended to provoke such strong affects. Still, emotional responses were encouraged by Bullock’s thoughtful curating which sought to chart the more treacherous, taboo or melancholic, rather than sentimental, territories of love. There were allusions to the complexities and contradictions of young love, for example, in such works as Angelica Mesiti’s video Rapture (silent anthem) (2009). Capturing the spiritual quality of the idolatrous fervour of a crowd of sweaty teenagers in a mosh pit, Mesiti also tapped into the powerful role that projection and transferred affection play in sublimating overwhelming feelings like love in the transition into adulthood.
Far from the collective euphoria of this scene, there was much solitude and yearning in the slickly aestheticised photographs of David Sylvester. Redolent of advertising images in their strategic placement of consumer items, Sylvester’s photographs suggest stories around isolated figures. In one image, a forlorn high school student clutches a break-up letter while in another a teenage couple in a library appear trapped in the gaze of their peers. These emotionally stranded protagonists disarm the viewer in their incongruence with the breezy confidence and self-assurance we have come to expect of the subjects of aspirational mass-media culture.
Paul Knight, Untitled (2012), We used to talk about love, Balnaves contemporary: photo media; AGNSW image courtesy the artist |
Standing before Borland’s Smudge (2010) photographs, I overhead one viewer describe the work as “nightmarish.” But what, exactly, is the nature of Borland’s nightmare? In this uncompromising and oddly humorous suite of portraiture, sitters dressed in stockings, lycra, prosthetics, wigs and other accoutrements, are transformed into uncanny, post-human creations. Here it is arguably the repression or shame caused by fear of the body that is depicted as more ugly than whatever one feels compelled to hide. Also concerned with the limits of photographic representation were Knight’s candid photographs of couples in bed. Literally folded to partially conceal the nudity of their subjects, this cleave in the images alluded to the doubleness of physical intimacy as a tightrope dance between togetherness and separation.
David Roseztky, How to feel (still) (2011), We used to talk about love, Balnaves contemporary: photo media; AGNSW image courtesy the artists and Sutton Gallery Melbourne, © the artist |
Contemporary art and love haven’t always shared an easy relationship. During the 20th century, in particular, its feminised associations positioned love as an unmodern theme. In her introductory essay, however, Bullock notes a recent paradigm shift as emotion, intimacy and affect become of increasing relevance to artists. This exhibition offered strong supporting evidence for such a shift. It might not come easily but love, it seems, is certainly something we will be talking more about.
Art Gallery of New South Wales: We used to talk about love, Balnaves contemporary: photomedia. Artists Polly Borland, Eliza Hutchison, Paul Knight, Angelica Mesiti, David Noonan, David Rosetzky, Tim Silver, Glenn Sloggett, Grant Stevens, Darren Sylvester, Justene Williams; AGNSW, Jan 31-April 21
RealTime issue #114 April-May 2013 pg.
© Ella Mudie; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]