The beauty of incomprehension

The week past was a busy one for Sydney contemporary art, with RoslynOxley9, GBK, Grantpirrie and Kaliman all opening new shows of significant ‘early-career’ artists. Some of these shows come with an elaborate subtext which may or may not be necessary to full appreciation of the work, hence this week’s ‘beauty of incomprehension’ title.

The explanatory texts supporting conceptual art are often evocative, sometimes hilarious, but seldom illuminating. A dialect of mainstream ‘Academese’, they can seem to the outsider like a secret code, with their own rules and absurdities. What was it that the SMH’s ‘esteemed critic’ unkindly said of Charles Merewether’s Biennale 2006 (Zones of Contact) catalogue introduction? “A flotilla of clichés adrift on a sea of jargon” or something like that. An esteemed blogger’s recent SMH article about 2008 Biennale Director Christina Christov-Bakargiev’s exposition on her theme ‘Revolutions that turn’ was equally funny, if more benign.

Let’s face it, if words could explain art, there’d be no need for the art, and the power or presence of a work of art is essentially a mysterious thing. Le Flaneur always approaches art ‘explanation-less’ - initially anyway - and tries to let the work speak for itself on its own terms. If it does, then the artist’s or curator’s text can be interesting. Or not. But if the work fails to be eloquent on its own terms, the supporting text will not improve it.

And incomprehension can be an excellent thing - opening us to all sorts of associations and ensuring a mini voyage of discovery when we encounter complex, difficult and conceptually obscure art. Far better than ‘getting it’ in 20 seconds, a sure sign of lack of depth. Jeff Koons has made a career out of this kind of exquisitely shallow joke-art, but we only really need one Jeff Koons.


TV Moore
Fantasists in the Age of Decadence
Roslyn Oxley9
until 25 August

Left: © TV Moore, Installation view, 2007
Courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery

TV Moore certainly understands this, and his artist's statement accompanying this show leaves us really none the wiser, instead inviting us to explore and find in it what we will. I’ve always enjoyed his sense of mise-en-scène, turning white cubes into evocative mediated spaces, and this show is no exception, featuring several projections, DVD screens, stills and objects/installation. The dimly lit main space was thronged with people at the opening, and seemed to invite us to hang out there, but it would be interesting to visit on a quiet day – I’m sure the experience is very different. In the small room, Michael Bell-Smith’s series of DVD animations Home Mechanics, is also well worth seeing.


Chris Fox Lubricant City
Hitesh Natalwala Let’s Talk
Galley Barry Keldoulis
until 25 August

Left: © Chris Fox, Installation view, 2007
Courtesy the artist and Gallery Barry Keldoulis

GBK continues its commitment to showing diverse contemporary work from both Australia and the developing world (India, South Africa), and facilitating the re-configuration of the Danks Street space in interesting ways. Chris Fox’s large floor installation Lubricant City presents us with a particle-board peninsula and islands on which sit a series of oil-rig-like structures - elaborate constructions made from old food-machinery parts and wooden struts. Though available for sale individually, these objects obviously derive a large part of their meaning from their juxtaposition, and to view them as stand-alone sculptures would be a completely different experience. I’m not sure the objects are resolved enough in themselves to hold up outside of their installation context, but it’s certainly an interesting show. Hitesh Natalwala’s works on paper are also good, and highly collectable.


David Rosetsky
Nothing Like This
Kaliman Gallery
until 25 August

Left: © David Rosetsky, installation view, 2007
Courtesy the artist and Kaliman Gallery


David Rosetsky is another artist that understands context and mise-en-scène, for example the complex and atmospheric multi-screen installation Untouchable which won the inaugural Anne Landa Award in 2005. Which is why I found this show a let-down. I think it has as much to do with the gallery context and the plasma screen medium as with their content. I had just been at the TV Moore show (see above), and by comparison this work seemed completely overwhelmed by Kaliman’s brightly-lit white cube. Plasma (or LCD) as a medium has a kind of depthless glossiness that well suits the Sunrise program, and the screen-based works, situated in a pristine blue swimming pool/beach and shot on film with a DOP no less, appear to be ‘about’ the banality of youth media culture, Big Brother style. Fine. The antiseptic white cube may well be part of these intentions, for Rosetsky is a renowned ironist, but I suspect not. To me it’s an example of the exhibition context diminishing rather than enhancing the work, which fails to be interesting enough in its own (cinematic) terms to really bother with the subtext. Ouch. I'll pay for that I'm sure.

Todd Hunter
All Times Through Paradise
Recent paintings
Grantpirrie
until 1 September

Left: © Todd Hunter 'Dead Wood Aches', 2007
oil on canvas, 172 x 160 c
Courtesy the artist and Grantpirrie

Todd Hunter’s abstract-into-landscape paintings are refreshingly free of any subtext, being just what they are, and able to stand admirably on their own feet, so to speak. In fact my one criticism of this show is that there may be too many similar paintings hung too close to each other, and this works against our ability to perceive each one as a world in itself. Take any one canvas and isolate it and you have a luscious, ‘lickable’ and sensual celebration of paint, and its ability to do what no other medium can. Lovely stuff.

Till next week, adieu.