Clouds and colours glow like a
vision from heaven, illuminated from behind by a giant light box.
An enormous image of a woman’s
face stares out into the distance - pensive, melodramatic, and emotionally
heightened by the crisp Perspex upon which it is printed.
A spectrum of hue dances across
the wall like a glittering stage, whereupon the owner of the aforementioned
face could have appeared – as a model, an actress or singing superstar.
First impressions suggest this
could easily be the precursor to a dazzling show of consumerism, design, and
pop and media culture – but no. The above alludes to the University of
Queensland Art Museum’s latest exhibition Return
to Sender.
A project headed by curator
Michele Helmrich, Return to Sender sees
eleven artists who, in the late 1970s and early 80s, left Queensland “largely
in reaction to the political and cultural milieu of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen
era” (Return to Sender 2012, para 1).
Specific guidelines had to be met for inclusion within the show – the artists
were required to be of a suitable age during Bjelke-Petersen’s reign in order
for the events to have impacted their art practice in subtle ways, and the
works had to employ some form of photomedia.
The artworks detailed above, appearance and blow out by Rosemary Laing, and Ice
by Robyn Stacey, are reflections of this criteria. Large scale and
luminescent, they demand attention and dazzle the viewer into submission. I was
easily fooled, having no prior knowledge of the exhibition’s curatorial
premise, into believing I was in for a showy display of works celebrating the
entertainment industry. The revelation of a focus upon the veritable exodus of
the artists featured was surprising, however I was not to be deterred. First
room and refresher of the turmoil felt by radical protesters during the
Bjelke-Peterson years aside, I ventured on with a mind full of new
expectations.
Sadly, not all of them were met.
The next room offered a range of
works in vast contrast to those in the first. There were no showy media
references here, rather a more solemn reflection on race issues with particular
focus on indigenous Australians. The segments of Universally Respected, a series of strikingly intricate works by
Fiona Macdonald, were gathered from galleries across Australia and reunited
within the context of the exhibition. The works act as a poignant portrait of
Macdonald’s hometown of Rockhampton, exposing notions of interpersonal
relations between different races and social hierarchy. Archival photographs,
sourced from collections within the Rockhampton area, depicting persons
considered ‘universally respected’, the founders of the once grand and
prestigious Rockhampton Club, are juxtaposed with portraits of non-members such
as indigenous Australians, women and Chinese. The images have been dissected
and spliced together in a woven pattern – creating an illusory hybrid that
plays with space and depth. The beautiful frames the pieces are displayed in
are artworks in themselves, their natural wood and organic shape conjuring
images of people of the land – earthen and with hands that speak volumes of
their lives.
Providing an interesting parallel
to Macdonald’s Universally Respected series
are works by Tracey Moffat – her Beauties
(in mulberry), Beauties (in cream) and Beauties
(in wine), which depict coloured reproductions, in true pop art fashion, of
a traditional photographic portrait of a young aboriginal man, are displayed as
a triptych. Tangential to these pieces is a work from Moffat’s Something More series – and refreshingly
not one the most well-known of the series, but rather the very final.
Moffat’s photo-narrative series highlights a young aboriginal woman’s struggle
to find ‘something more’ in a country dominated by white patriarchal society. Something More #9 is perhaps the most
wretched of the nine photographs, as it depicts the young woman’s death during
her journey to discover liberation and freedom.
As thought provoking as
Macdonald’s and Moffat’s works were, however, I found myself a little
disillusioned by the so far apparent lack of relevance to the exhibition’s
focus. Other than having been produced in the appropriate time period and by
the appropriate artists, the artworks from the first two rooms seemed to have
little else in common – at least regarding the theme. I could have more easily
believed my first impression. In a curatorial discussion, Helmrich claimed, in
order for an artist’s work to be included in Return to Sender, their practice
had to have been subtly impacted by the creative repression of
Bejlke-Petersen’s government. Evidence of this impact within the show thus far,
must have been so subtle it became non-existent.
The explosion of colour returned
in such works as Lindy Lee’s Philosophy
of the Parvenu, leading in to the final room of the exhibition – the visual
of which felt like a slap to face. It was if I had stepped into an alleyway
lined with political posters and propaganda. Jeff Gibson’s work Trigger Happy has been transformed into
a wallpaper that forms the background for his series of vibrant screen prints Untitled 1-10, which lead into his
Kruger-esque dis POSTER series.
Gibson’s collection of works stimulate images of suppression, radical
protestation and rioting – the first real allusion to the exhibition’s premise
thus far. And yet, this was followed by a further claim on Helmrich’s part that
Return to Sender is not a protest exhibition, nor is it
social history exhibition.
Really? Then what is it? I’m not
entirely sure Return to Sender knows
what it’s about. Individually, the works have merit, however the essential glue
which holds a group show together progressively fell apart the more of it I
saw. Furthermore, certain curatorial choices, influenced by the facilities of
the museum building itself let the exhibition down. Two absolute standout
artworks, video piece Techno/Dumb/Show by
John Gillies (with the Sydney Front) and Barbara Campbell’s Conradiana are greatly inhibited by
their installation.
Techno/Dumb/Show, arguably the strongest piece of the entire show,
is an exhilarating depiction of the human condition. Through epic and often
alien sound, strobe and layering effects, Gillies, in conjunction with his team
of mime artists, represent profound emotion and trauma through little more than
the expression on the actors’ faces and clever video editing. Unfortunately,
Gillies brilliant work, due to the requirement that it be projected in a dark
room – is excluded from the main exhibition. Hidden away down two flights of
stairs from the body of the show, it is likely missed by many visitors. Conradiana on the other hand, boasts a
central position in the gallery space. Occupying an entire wall, Campbell’s
installation includes countless scrolls, upon which Campbell manually typed out
Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness
six times over, flowing in ethereal beauty from the ceiling to the floor.
The scrolls evoke a sense of the
sublime through the notion of endurance, and yet their otherworldly quality is
compromised by the stark, awkward placement of a widescreen monitor –
protruding from a pole in the ground – smack bang in the middle of the work. In
its original format, the accompanying video for Conradiana was displayed on a CRT television, suspended from the
ceiling. Floating in the air, and with a sculptural quality in its own right,
the television enhanced Campbell’s typed scrolls. Within the context of Return to Sender, the video in Conradiana was unable to be suspended
from the ceiling due to technical reasons – however, the decision to display
the video work on a widescreen monitor, when the original film was created in
4:3 format – truly stunted the impact this artwork had on me as a viewer. It
was clumsy, unprofessional and cold.
Return to Sender tried to tick all the right boxes, and in many
ways I was entertained by my visit. However, there was a connection lacking
between the artworks, a certain interdependence in relation to each other and the curatorial premise which is
essential to the success of any group retrospective show.
Return to Sender closes the 26th August. If you’re in
the area, get on down there and decide for yourself – a curatorial triumph, or
an empty excuse to showcase the work of renowned Queensland expats, hopefully
drawing a crowd on names alone?
Lauren Ryan
Return to Sender (2012), media releases, viewed 2/09/12 <http://www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au/return-to-sender>
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