See you at the barricades

1 ‘Well then, see you at the barricades’. nostalgic depictions of protest movements. My grandfather said this to me in the parking These include Marco Fusinato’s gutsy yet silent An introduction lot of his local shopping mall. I’m not sure images of rioters and Raquel Ormella’s banner where he came across the phrase, but he has declaring, ‘I’m worried I’m not political enough’. used it all my life. For him the saying is a way The exhibition concludes with Sharon Hayes’s not only to identify himself as an ‘old lefty’, but multi-screen installation overflowing with also to invite amity through shared resistance. balloons and raucous chants, which brings I have borrowed his catchphrase as the together many of these themes. These works title of this exhibition, which studies the complex traverse the emotional terrain of protest, entanglements of art and protest after the revealing the complexity of art’s relationship ‘year of the barricades’, 1968. Recently many to political change. contemporary artists and curators have used the materials common to protest, from banners ------See you and sandwich boards to demonstration re-enactments, repositioning protest within the In May 1968, Paris erupted in demonstrations. white rooms of contemporary art spaces and Photos from the time show thousands of major museums. This raises several questions: students and workers in the streets, waving at the where do the boundaries between protest and flags and clambering over upturned cars. art lie? Is there a difference between protest art Elsewhere, the Vietnam War raged, Soviet and art that uses protest’s symbols? If so, do Union-led troops invaded Czechoslovakia to barricades the latter simply manifest nostalgia, neutralising crush the Prague Spring reforms, and Martin the impact of such symbols by aestheticising Luther King was assassinated. At the Mexico them and relegating them to history? Or are City Olympic Games, two African-American they more complex attempts to make sense of athletes won medals and famously held their the relationship between past and present? clenched fists aloft in a gesture that echoed the See you at the barricades is a speculative Black Panthers salute. exhibition that explores some of these ideas Such images are burned into collective through a selection of works in the collection memory. They have become symbols that of the Art Gallery of . The represent a build-up and release of baby exhibition ranges from historical protest works boomer dissent. Essayist Isaac Balbus captures through to contemporary reflections of dissent. the feeling of this generation: ‘For many of us There are four sections, each with a thematic who cut our political teeth on the civil rights, title: ‘Declarations’ (political posters and antiwar and student movements, the sixties slogans); ‘Screenings’ (television, archives and live on as a longing for a golden age that has documentary); ‘Left-wing melancholy’ and been lost to a permanently pallid present.’1 finally a single work titledRevolutionary love: Of course no one can top such a heroic, I am your worst fear, I am your best fantasy. if fictionalised, past. As political theorist The first section opens with protest works such Jean-Philippe Mathy suggests, ‘Before, the as the technicolour posters that flowered in story goes, people believed in revolution and Australia in the late 1970s and ’80s. These national identity; after, amid the crisis of the images provide historical context for the future, the era of emptiness opens up’.2 Those subsequent section, which turns to the role of of us born after the 1960s, too late to be part screen-based media in protest: John Hughes of the so-called ‘golden age’ of counterculture, and Peter Kennedy’s remixed footage of Prime grew up in this ‘crisis’. Minister Gough Whitlam’s dismissal and Billy The year 1968 remains a talisman of Macushla Robinson Maynard’s reprinted images of protesters both transnational resistance, after which the image show the ubiquity of the dissident figure on and idea of revolution became gradually more screen. Following this are contemporary works complex. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that explore our culture’s romantic and often and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the

2 3 totalitarian nature of many communist govern- it and art that seeks to retain the autonomy I can’t understand the present, or believe in the produced under the rubric of Redback by Alison ments, which had long been suspected, became and critical distance traditionally afforded future, if I can’t look back at where we’ve been’. Alder. A woman holds a sign high over her head truly undeniable and their rehabilitation to artists. Here this means the subtle but that reads, ‘When they close a pit they kill a impossible. What we now call postmodernity important difference between protest art and ------community’. It urges viewers to ‘support the – with all its attendant contradictions, shades art about protest. KCC women’s auxiliary’ because ‘community of grey and apparent nihilism – set in. Yet the boundaries between these Declarations action will save our jobs’. With her weathered For my grandfather, who found his political positions continue to erode. Protest has been face and yellow apron-style dress she is an community in the labour movement, the ‘golden the subject of many recent exhibitions. These In May 1968, amid the fray in Paris, a group idealised version of the working class mother: age’ was earlier, in Australia’s early history of include Direct democracy (2013) at Monash of radical students took over the printing practical, politically active, salt of the earth. revolt: the red ribbon rebellion in Bendigo in University Museum of Art, ; Hereby studios at the École des Beaux-Arts and Around the same time, many poster 1853, the Eureka Stockade of 1854, even the make protest (2014) at Carriageworks, ; produced a series of posters that they pasted collectives were actively campaigning for ill-fated ‘New Australia’ socialist colony set up and Protest! Archives from the University of up all over the city. While the political poster environmental causes (for example, Redletter in Paraguay in 1893. His ideal past was different Melbourne (2014). Internationally, the has a long and rich history, the graphics in Press’s Save the Franklin. Damn the from that of today’s ‘left’. Though he taught and Albert Museum’s Disobedient objects (2014) France at this time arguably served as an government c1982). These issues were me values of social justice, his were far more made the roles of creativity in contemporary antecedent for political poster collectives often at odds with each other. The left-wing masculine (predominantly white and working protest plain.5 around the world in the late 1970s and ’80s. movements of my grandfather’s time valued class) than those of my own political And just as artists have deployed their This first section of the exhibition, titled solidarity. Yet in this section we can see that communities. Yet his heartfelt nostalgia for an skills in aid of protest movements, images of ‘Declarations’, offers historical context. The the protest landscape is more complex at apparently more radical time that antedates protest have become material for artists. While works do not consider past protests but engage closer view. The many causes represented the 1960s shows that each generation has its the first section ofSee you at the barricades with the political issues of their time, from youth here don’t always align. irretrievable golden age. My parents, who came features posters that try to persuade us with unemployment to the poor representation of Many poster collectives at this time spoke of age later, in turn yearned for the 1960s. colour and humour (artists using their skills to women in art galleries (many of these issues out for Aboriginal land rights. The Women’s The tendency to glorify past rebellions protest), other sections show the work of artists remain relevant today). Bound together by their Domestic Needlework Group, for example, was articulated long before the 1960s. who reflect upon the material aesthetic that declamatory style, these posters represent a produced a poster titled Aboriginaland. Land Walter Benjamin coined the term ‘left-wing has come to define protest movements. Many directly political form of art. rights, not mining 1979 (underlining the afore- melancholy’ in an essay of that title (1930), of these works comment on the circulation of Plastered across two walls in a dense grid mentioned tension between mining workers which describes an individual who prefers to political imagery, rather than being a form of of statistics and bright colours, the posters on and other social justice issues). Land rights lament the passing of a struggle rather than activism themselves. display are by turns funny, angry and earnest. dance 1977 by Chips Mackinolty recalls Joe transform the present. Benjamin’s phrase On the surface, See you at the barricades The cacophony of voices, slogans and statistics Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph captures the mood of many of the works in is a ‘protest show’. But it is also about nostalgia vying for attention plays out the confusion of Raising the flag on Iwo Jima 1945, which depicts the third section of this show – an almost for protest. Though many artists are suspicious contemporary political life. American troops during World War II – an irrational attachment to revolutionary idealism of nostalgia, I don’t believe that we can simply Unlike the strikingly simple French posters heroic, widely disseminated image. Another and the camaraderie that comes with it. dismiss its power. Yearning for another time of 1968, later Australian political posters sought poster by Marie McMahon, who was in both Arguably, artists who draw upon the is a feeling familiar to many. John Stezaker to persuade a less united audience using Redback Graphix and the Women’s Domestic imagery of protest manifest left-wing melancholy defends nostalgia as being, ‘not a comfortable humour and comic strip narratives. Printed Needlework Group, pictures an Aboriginal in its most material sense by constructing form of reverie but the opposite: it is a way of either in cheap black and white or lurid colour, woman above the words, ‘Pay the rent, you are banners and waving flags, putting slogans in living with loss. It is not about an imaginary they were designed to shout at viewers on busy on Aboriginal land’. Opposite this poster is a the museum and staging marches that are retrieval of the past but about the impossibility streets. They were often souvenired. I remember large painting by Richard Bell which recalls documented as artworks. Perhaps this is what of return: a condition of exile’.6 We may be a poster that graced the door of a share house American abstract expressionism with Pollock- Alana Jelinek meant by ‘clichés of resistance’ exiled from the past but we are also defined toilet during my childhood that declared, ‘For like paint splatters and a Jasper Johns target, in her book This is not art (2013).3 Arguing that by our relationship to it. the man who said life wasn’t meant to be easy yet it delivers the same demand: ‘Pay the rent’. political art and activism are not the same, she Yes, nostalgia can lock us into outmoded – make life impossible.’ These two works make the same political criticises ‘the endless re-staging of once effective patterns of behaviour. But this emotional One of the best-known Australian poster point but they speak from different perspectives and once interesting art events and the attachment to time is part of the human collectives is Redback Graphix, an organisation and times. McMahon is an artist of European reproduction of tropes, now worn threadbare’.4 condition, a way to process its irrecoverable that made posters for political causes as well as ancestry who has worked extensively with Jelinek’s attack on the habitual imagery of nature. We also define our present by how we benefits, film nights and conservation services, Aboriginal communities. She sees Aboriginal activist art echoes Benjamin’s concept. Her deal with our past. As Sharon Hayes says in so long as they were broadly sympathetic to the land rights as an issue for all Australians. Bell is concern rests on the old binary between art the culminating work of this show, ‘I know that group’s political ideals. One image in particular an Aboriginal man whose work sharply critiques that engages with the world in order to change you’ll get mad at me for looking to the past but has always captured my attention: a poster Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal people and

4 5 cultures. The time between these two works – blunt typography, witty catchphrases and the work invites viewers to ponder the nature of In 2014 the Australian artist Billy Maynard a gap of some 27 years – proves the continuing occasionally lurid colours. Posing questions the incident. Crowds cross the screen chanting undertook a similar project on a far larger scale. relevance of this message. Yet side-by-side they such as ‘Do women have to be naked to get ‘we want Gough’, as the colours flicker from Over 2500 hand-printed cyanotypes rest in a foreground the vexed question of solidarity: into the Met Museum?’, their posters publish glowing pink to acid green. Projected on two random scatter on a long table in this exhibition. who has the right to speak for whom, and statistics that prove widespread inequality. walls, this reshaped 1970s news footage acts They portray people running, throwing stones equally, do any of us have the right to remain This suite provides the Art Gallery of New as an evocative, almost hallucinogenic, lens and bottles, holding flags and sometimes silent about such important issues? South Wales with the opportunity to reflect onto Australia’s biggest constitutional crisis. guns, always with their faces covered by caps, Redback Graphix also made posters on its own history as an exhibiting institution. In a related video work November 11 balaclavas or hoodies, wearing ‘the tracksuit that addressed current and historical political The Guerrilla Girls might have something to – work in progress 1981 (directed by Hughes and sneakers – the uniform of the oppressed situations in countries like Chile, South Africa say about the fact only 19% of our collection and originally installed with banners painted by and the migrant’.10 The icon of the dissident, and Vietnam. One work, a calendar for 1982, is by women artists. Kennedy) the story becomes more complex. who might also be seen as a terrorist, multiplies commemorates a victory for communist News footage overlaps and interrupts itself, into the tens of thousands. Vietnam on each page. The image for January, ------gradually drifting into information overload. Maynard’s images are rephotographed February and March represents the fall of the Amid the chaos, a conversation occurs between from archives, newspapers, TV and computer French colonial government in 1954 by showing Screenings two young would-be revolutionaries. Following screens. While Richard Hamilton sat with his peasants tearing town a tattered French flag the events of the world from their living room, camera in front of the TV, Maynard searched in front of a tangle of barbed wire. Two earlier The works in ‘Screenings’, the second section they argue about the Soviet Union, their the wealth of videos and images that are now communist Vietnamese propaganda posters of See you at the barricades, capture the sunburnt faces superimposed over televisual available on demand: broadcast, self-cast and sit alongside this calendar. These images show transformation of protest through the screen footage of riots and tanks in Czechoslovakia. viral. In rephotographing these figures Maynard similarly heroic figures with arms raised, holding into something sensational and often ambiguous. The woman asks: ‘What could be more takes each image out of context. In this show guns in one hand and barbed wire in their One step removed from direct activism, they evidence of Soviet imperialism than this?’ Her we can leaf through the pictures – a surprisingly clenched fists. The pairing conflates two explore what it means to view world events companion defends the movement of Russian tactile experience in a museum – but we cannot different worlds to reveal the symbols and visual through a medium that gives us no direct way troops by citing instability in the Middle East, tell who or what they really depict. Maynard style common to an international communist to participate in those events. Unless you can the Vietnam War and CIA provocation in does not try to make sense of them. Instead (or communist sympathiser) movement. get on television, it is a one-way medium. In this Czechoslovakia. ‘Socialism was under threat … he lets them rise to the surface and fall away like way, these works question our agency when In order to survive against America [the Soviet a collective unconscious of televisual memory. ------looking at distant suffering or social injustice.7 Union] has to do certain unpleasant things.’ Maynard’s work, then, marks the next step While it is commonplace to ask whether We have all heard such euphemistic lines and it in the narrative of this exhibition. Whilst the Many of these posters emerged out of male- the mass exposure of suffering can do any good, brings me back to my grandfather, who guards posters and related material in the first section dominated narratives of the political ‘left’. Yet the screen has arguably played a dramatic role against this sentiment by repeatedly stating feature slogans and clear messages (easily feminism often drives the works in this exhibition in shaping the nature of protest. As philosopher that ‘the ends must never justify the means’. digested if not easily acted upon), this archive and is the particular focus of two collectives: Susan Buck-Morss wrote in her book Hughes and Kennedy’s work is undeniably falls in love with the compelling aesthetic of the Women’s Domestic Needlework Group and Dreamworld and catastrophe (2000), during political. Yet other artists here are drawn less protest itself. Guerrilla Girls. The former was an Australian the fall of the Soviet Union ‘satellite television to a political message and more to the alluring group founded in 1976. Their posters are large played an unprecedented role as witness, aesthetics that the screen offers. Richard ------and elaborately illustrated, celebrating the attesting to the reality of change, a situation Hamilton’s screenprint Kent State 1970, for aesthetic of lace whilst highlighting the labour that encouraged the staging of “revolutionary” instance, shows a bloodied body photographed Left-wing melancholy conditions of women who worked in textile events, as if massive social transformation during a BBC television broadcast about the industries in the 19th and 20th centuries. They were a matter of gaining access to airtime’.8 shooting of student protesters on a university Two hand-embroidered banners lean against looked to the historical roots of feminism, linking Of course protests only function when they campus in May 1970. Hamilton said, ‘It had the wall. One of them reads, ‘I’m worried I’m it to broader socialist and class agendas by capture attention. This has traditionally been been on my mind that there might be a subject not political enough’, the other ‘I’m worried this highlighting the communal possibilities of achieved through the press, and is today staring me in the face from the TV screen’.9 will become a slogan’. These works by Raquel women’s work. complicated by the increasing role of mobile Might the image equally have been an ad for Ormella are wry, with a note of self-doubt. They We often assume the art world to be devices and the internet. Coca Cola or a still from Happy Days? Hamilton are aware of the problems of political art while socially progressive, but the New York-based John Hughes and Peter Kennedy’s video has commented that while he was reluctant embracing and repurposing its style. collective Guerrilla Girls targets its frequent November 11 1979 shows footage of protests to aestheticise an image of this tragedy, he The works presented in this section sexism and discrimination. Founded in 1985 and speeches surrounding the dismissal of eventually decided that a large scale print edition appropriate the materials associated with in response to an exhibition at the Museum Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in might act as an indictment (perhaps in the activism such as flags and banners, along with of Modern Art, the collective is famous for its 1975. Made well after the dismissal took place, same way that a television broadcast might). iconic historical and contemporary images

6 7 of dissent. There are two concurrent themes militant. His work often consists of room-sized In another form of homage, Australian The suggestion that nostalgia is inherently here: the nostalgic lens through which protest installations full of homemade protest artist Mathew Jones’s work New York Daily so implies that progressive politics is, or is often viewed, and popular culture’s materials, images of horrific violence collaged News on the day before the Stonewall Riot should be, a consistent march forward without romanticisation of contemporary dissent. from current conflicts, and projects that aim 1996 revisits 27 June 1969, the day of Judy setbacks or swings of the political pendulum. Drawn from a newspaper photograph, to reach out to local communities. His artist’s Garland’s funeral. Mourners, including many Such a vision assumes that the present always Marco Fusinato’s Double infinitive 5 2009 statements read as manifestos: ‘Art reaches from the gay community, gathered in bars improves on the past – that we must jettison represents one such troublingly romanticised beyond solutions, art can confront problems, across Manhattan. Later that night New York the movements that didn’t make it, forget image of protest. A figure stands in the street art is the problem and art can give form to police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular about old ideas (even good ones) and march with his arm pulled back, taking aim at someone the problem.’13 gay hangout in Greenwich Village, triggering relentlessly forward. off camera. Reflecting on the relationship Japanese photographer Yasumasa a riot which was widely credited as a turning Jones and Morimura, among many other between the press and counterculture, Fusinato Morimura’s works, on the other hand, give form point in the development of the gay liberation artists included in this exhibition, show that says ‘this series is about media construct. to the difficulty of fully re-entering the past. movement in America. looking back might be positive; it can be an What we don’t see in these images is not just He poses as the figures in famous images, here Jones’s work consists of newspaper attempt to extract something valuable from the row of police, but the even larger row of both related to the history of protest in the pages transcribed by hand from microfilm. the past. Theirs is an active remaking, inhabiting photographers [waiting] for you to throw that 20th century. A requiem: spinning a thread It takes several forms: the original drawings the past and identifying a lineage for themselves rock’.11 Indeed, if we were to see them, the between the light and the earth/1946, India are pinned to the wall – sheets of paper with – one that often entails a subjective account image would be completely different, not a 2010 restages Margaret Bourke-White’s 1946 tidy but not photorealistic pictures of each of complex events. Their work knowingly seductive ‘hero image’ but a bizarre reflection portrait of Gandhi for Life magazine. Morimura’s newspaper spread. Below rests a bundle of contrasts the documentary facts of history on the conditions of contemporary televised photograph appears almost indistinguishable newspapers that were printed from the drawing with emotional truths. protest where rioters are outnumbered by the from the original, but the artist inserts a and originally handed out in the streets of press who are all eager for the ‘money shot’. subtle twist by replacing the magazines that New York. The painstaking labour that has gone ------Fusinato elevates this grainy newspaper ‘Gandhi’ studies with publications that date into this piece invests what might otherwise image to the heroic scale of a history painting. from after the photograph was first taken. be seen as a casual, transitory object – a daily Revolutionary love He doesn’t provide any contextual information He looks down at images including the original newspaper – with significance. It can be read to ground these images of dissent. All the portrait of Gandhi and Eddie Adams’s Pulitzer as a meditation on the ways in which Stonewall In 2008, during the national conventions held photographs that the Double infinitive series Prize-winning photograph from 1968 titled changed gay culture and it would be easy to by the Republican and Democratic parties in draws on come from different places and Saigon execution – one of the pictures that frame it as homage to those who took part in America, a crowd of queer activists gathered to times, yet ‘all of the protagonists look the turned the public against the war in Vietnam. the riots. read aloud from a fictional love letter. Dressed same: jeans, hoodie and their face covered. In the adjacent piece, Slaughter cabinet II However, the artist made the work in cowboy hats, overalls or a ‘lesbian avengers’ International style’.12 1991, Morimura restages that same execution with a different intention. Jones feels that t-shirt, they read this message to a former lover, I find myself wondering whether this photograph. Shown on a television set in the Stonewall Riot aligned gay culture with someone seemingly bound up in American image perhaps amplifies the media construct a wooden cabinet, this work was made in mainstream politics. He holds that this political life. At one moment during their that the artist sets out to critique. In the end, response to the Gulf War in the early 1990s. uprising lost its subversive edge by mimicking performance protest, they encountered a group these works engage in a tense pas de deux It was produced not only much later than the heterosexual social structures. Through of anti-gay protesters with their own signs – between critique and celebration. original, but in Osaka near where the artist New York Daily News on the day before the ‘homo sex is sin’ – a moment showing that the Next to Double infinitive 5 stands Thomas lived at the time, rather than in Saigon.14 Stonewall Riot, he yearns for a time when work of protest is never confined to any one Hirschhorn’s The subjector no 1 2009. This Casting both backwards and forwards in time, queer politics were not normalised.17 political persuasion. female plastic shop mannequin has been the two images weave these histories into a In her recent reprisal of Walter Benjamin’s These actions were then transformed pierced with screws and nails as though shot single neat sequence. concept of left-wing melancholy, political into a video installation accompanied by many through with a thousand bullets. Prickling Performance theorist Rebecca Schneider scientist Wendy Brown warned against the voices shouting together through PA speakers. like a threatened animal, The subjector no 1 argues that, ‘Paradoxically, perhaps, it is the backward-looking, conservative nature of this Colourful balloons bob against the ceiling, appears simultaneously dangerous and errors, the cracks in the effort, the almost melancholy, which she sees as alive in much gradually drifting down to the floor like the vulnerable, a martyr and a weapon, armoured but not quite, that give us some access to contemporary political debate. She describes remains of a wild party. Titled Revolutionary and yet penetrated by metal objects. sincerity, to fidelity, to a kind oftouch across Benjamin’s target as ‘attached more to a love: I am your worst fear, I am your best Together with Double infinitive 5, this sculpture time.’15 By including images from the future particular political analysis or ideal – even to fantasy 2008, this work by New York-based revels in the violent and seductive nature of Vietnam War in the pages of Gandhi’s the failure of that ideal – than to seizing artist Sharon Hayes fills an entire room. revolutionary imagery. magazine, Morimura attempts to inhabit the possibilities for radical change in the present’.18 Hayes’s work is underpinned by a constant Referring to himself as an artist, worker past. Schneider calls this kind of re-enactment But is this longing for the past really engagement with the history of protest. Many of and soldier, Hirschhorn is self-consciously ‘critical homage’.16 conservative in the way that Brown posits? her works harvest speeches, texts and images

8 9

from historical protests. This work takes its title in all its forms and claim desire and personal from a photograph of a woman holding a and erotic fulfilment as rights. handmade protest sign in 1970. The letter that The empowering nature of participatory Selected works from the exhibition is at the core of the demonstration echoes experiences complement, and even account famous and lesser-known speeches from many for, the romantic and nostalgic images seen different moments in history, here revisited and in the earlier sections of this exhibition. In one adapted for the expansive present. ‘The whole way or another, many of these works are bound project of archiving, of documenting that “we up with the communal aspects of protest. have a past” is, in actuality, a desire for a future’, Indeed the excitement of being with other she has said.19 people and the performance of protest is part Revolutionary love casts a festive light of its persuasive apparatus. back across the works in this exhibition. It’s not what my grandfather would Against the sometimes solemn pieces in the imagine, but ‘see you at the barricades’ might ‘Screenings’ and ‘Left-wing melancholy’ be said by one of Sharon Hayes’s performer- sections, this installation is loud and colourful. protesters while putting on their lashes and Its celebratory balloons are printed with the deliberately smeared lipstick, getting ready word GAY, and in this context make full use for the action. The phrase encompasses both of the double entendre of the word itself, struggle and friendship. It can travel across which means both homosexual and ‘having political affiliations and make room for different or showing a merry mood’ as in ‘we’ll have a agendas, with all the emotional and political gay old time’. complexities this entails. In her essay on the ‘festive principle’ Much of this exhibition is about the feminist film theorist Meaghan Morris writes emotions that drive protest, whether anger of ‘the pragmatic, survival-oriented, and and humour or anxiety and melancholy. With world-changing energy of being “festive”’.20 its emotionally fraught yet articulate love letter, She contemplates the casual photographs Revolutionary love encompasses all these of her own past – images of women and men feelings. It’s a street party at the barricades. who treated protests like parties. Their joy is political in and of itself: they celebrate love

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1. Isaac D Balbus, ‘Mourning assembling contemporary art, the zero point’, Oyster, no 84, New York, 2011, p 112. the movement’ in Mourning Black Dog Publishing, London, Oct–Nov 2009, p 1. 16. Schneider 2011, p 112. and modernity, Other Press, 2008, p 27. 12. Correspondence with the New York, 2005, p 80. 17. Correspondence with 7. For a well-known discussion author, 19 Mar 2015. author, 4 Feb 2015. 2. Jean-Philippe Mathy, of this subject see Susan 13. Thomas Hirschhorn, Melancholy politics: loss, Sontag, On photography (1977) 18. Wendy Brown, ‘Resisting ‘Crystal of resistance: artist’s mourning, and memory in late and her later book Regarding left melancholy’, Boundary 2, statement’ 2011, Maska, vol 28, modern France, Pennsylvania the pain of others (2003). vol 3, no 26, Fall 1999, p 19. no 151–52, Winter 2012, p 73. State University Press, 8. Susan Buck-Morss, 19. Julia Bryan-Wilson, Pennsylvania, 2011, p 25. 14. This strategy of ‘We have a future: an interview Dreamworld and catastrophe: overleaf: 3. Alana Jelinek, This is not art: the passing of mass utopia displace- ment has often been with Sharon Hayes’, Grey Room Selection of posters 1966–84 by activism and other ‘not-art’, in East and West, MIT Press, used by artists and activists to 37, Cambridge, Fall 2009, p 92. remind people that something Earthworks Poster Collective, IB Taurus and Co, London, 2013. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 20. Meaghan Morris, just as terrible could happen p 228. ‘Sustaining the festive principle: Redback Graphix, Redletter Press, 4. Jelinek 2013, p 9. to them. This is also the point between realism and pleasure Truong Singh, Women’s Domestic 9. Richard Hamilton, Collected of Martha Rosler’s photo- 5. This exhibition will be staged in institution-building’, Needlework Group, Sydney. words, 1953–1982, Thames & montages Bringing the war at Sydney’s Museum of Applied Lola journal, issue 2: Devils, Full details see list of works Hudson, London, 1982, p 94. home 1967–72, see p 23. Arts and Sciences in October 2011–12, np. pp 46–47 and online: 2015 as part of their ‘Season 10. Correspondence with 15. Rebecca Schneider, artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/ of disobedience’. author, 19 Mar 2015. Performing remains: art see-you-at-the-barricades 6. John Stezaker quoted 11. Marco Fusinato quoted in and war in times of theatrical in Blanche Craig, Collage: Dan Rule, ‘Marco Fusinato – reenactment, Routledge,

10 11 12 13 Richard Bell Pay the rent 2009 synthetic polymer paint on canvas

14 15 Guerrilla Girls posters from Portfolio compleat 1985–2012

16 17 David McDiarmid from the suite Rainbow aphorism colour xerox prints mounted on craftboard

Miss thing, our labour and skills are indispensable to the advancement of civilisation 1994

Don’t ask, don’t tell, die alone 1994–95

‘... but if some of the work of younger gay and lesbian artists in this year’s Mardi Gras seems banal, and the explicit sexuality both boring and distasteful...’ Joanna Mendelssohn, The Australian, 5 February 1994 1994

Anger denial depression bargaining acceptance 1994–95

18 19 John Hughes, Peter Kennedy VALIE EXPORT Tap und Taskino / November eleven 1979 Touch cinema 1968 U-matic video, colour, video, black and white, sound, 18 min sound, 01:08 min November eleven: work in progress 1981 video, colour, sound, 19 min

20 21 Martha Rosler from the series House beautiful, bringing the war home photomontage as type C photographs Balloons 1967–72, printed late 1990s House beautiful (Giacometti) 1967–72, printed late 1990s

Richard Hamilton Kent State 1970 colour photo screenprint

22 23 Billy Maynard Blue sky period 2009 (details) an ongoing project with 2500 images printed to date

24 25 Raquel Ormella I’m worried this will become a slogan (Anthony) 1999–2009 double-sided banner sewn wool and felt Collection of the artist

26 27 Raquel Ormella This dream 2013 nylon

28 29 Vernon Ah Kee becauseitisbitter 2009 synthetic polymer paint on linen

30 31 Marco Fusinato Double infinitive 5 2009 from the series Double infinitives UV halftone ink on aluminium

32 33 Thomas Hirschhorn The subjector no 1 2011 (detail left) mannequin, nails, screws, plastic base, wood Collection of Dr Clinton Ng

34 35 Mathew Jones The New York Daily News on the day before the Stonewall Riot copied by hand from microfilm records 1996 wall: 52 sheets (original drawings) in box, ink and texta on tracing paper floor: 96 copies of 104-page newspaper printed from hand-drawn originals

36 37 Yasumasa Morimura Slaughter cabinet II 1991 wood, lightbox, gelatin silver photograph opposite: A requiem: spinning a thread between the light and the earth/1946, India 2010 gelatin silver photograph

38 39 You’re invited to ... New acquisition in focus The party relate to. And here, Hayes makes us part of this potential. Her specific staging within the Walking into Sharon Hayes’s Revolutionary love gallery space encourages us to join the crowd, when it’s first installed is like walking into a join the party and become part of history. crowded party. The guests are a motley crew The text read aloud by the protestors, of young and old, white, black, gay, lesbian and which is written by Hayes, is what she calls transgendered. Some wear fishnet stockings, a ‘love address’. The readers, who address a wigs and cowboy hats, others t-shirts and past lover, are at times exasperated, defiant, Revolutionary love: jeans. Their voices call out boisterously from all pleading or bursting with love. ‘I’ve found my directions, often in unison and sometimes over voice and with it I scream, I love you!’, they the top of one another. Up on the ceiling float declare. In this context, the familiar expression helium-filled yellow and pink balloons – the of a love letter brings queer desire into the I am your worst fear, ultimate party decoration. In a festive gesture, public sphere. At the same time, it connects they are even marked with the word GAY. It’s us by way of the universally-felt highs and noisy, messy, colourful. It’s everything a party lows of an impassioned love affair. Written in I am your best should be. the first person, but spoken by ‘an army of The scene here, however, is not a lovers’, it reminds us both of our collective party per se, but a public demonstration filmed potential and the empowerment and thrill and projected onto screens around the gallery of speaking with one voice. fantasy space. In fact, it’s a performative protest for gay rights staged by Hayes and held outside the 2008 national conventions for the The wrap-up American Democratic and Republican parties.1 The featured placards, parliamentary backdrop Walking into Revolutionary love towards the and manifesto-like declarations – all signposts end of its scheduled exhibition time is like of protest – indicate the event’s political walking into the tail end of a wild party. The purpose. But above all, this is the coming once festive balloons, which were inflated for together of a group of people – in this case the exhibition opening, now lie deflated and recruits from the queer communities in the shrivelled on the floor. The animated voices convention host cities of Denver and St Paul of the partygoers kick on loudly and the – in a mass expression of public sentiment. feathers and hotpants are still on display, but There’s a shared feeling of camaraderie and the deflated balloons tell us that time has belonging, a collective energy, a high – much passed and the party is wrapping up. You can like at a party. almost imagine that feeling of coming down As a young activist in New York in the from the adrenaline of an event. Still reeling, early 1990s, Hayes recalls being attracted to we start to grasp the realities of returning Donna Gottschalk holding a ‘the potential for something big to happen home to our individual lives. We begin looking poster at Christopher Street 2 Gay Liberation Day parade, when people get together’. Perhaps you’ve back on what was said and what was done, New York, 28 June 1970 experienced this sensation during ‘Occupy’ already turning events into memories. Photo: Diana Davies Martin Place or in joining the #illridewithyou In many ways, this work also looks back. Twitter campaign in the wake of the tragic Hayes’s love address is rife with references Sydney siege. Maybe you’ve cheered along at to speeches made during the American gay Alexandra Gregg the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade liberation movement of the 1970s, like the on Oxford Street. Whether in protest or not, appeal: ‘We demand the right to be gay anytime, this ecstatic feeling of actively participating in anyplace!’3 Hayes even takes the work’s subtitle, a collective movement is something we can all I am your worst fear, I am your best fantasy,

40 41 from an archival photograph showing a young in unison points to ‘the impossibility of a woman holding a sign at the 1970 Christopher collective, essential being’.5 In the same way, Street Liberation Day parade in New York. it also hints at the failures of communication But rather than being an historical tribute, between political parties, lovers, or perhaps Hayes’s quotations are a reminder of how a even cultures. As Australian listeners, for yearning or nostalgia for these past events example, what kind of meaning is made or continues to affect us today in very powerful lost as we plunge into the American spectacle ways. ‘A given moment in time is never of national political party conventions? exclusively its own,’ Hayes says. ‘It’s always The term ‘party’ first originated as a informed by what’s before it. Time projects both way to describe a contest or dispute, hence forwards and backwards.’4 This is a concept the political party. And while Hayes plays on that queer theorist Elizabeth Freeman so aptly the divide between public and private, speech calls ‘temporal drag.’5 and silence, past and present, collective and As the party wraps up, your ears might individual, it’s in her re-creation of the other start ringing from the prolonged period of kind of party – a celebratory one – that we shouting and straining to hear in a loud find hope and connectedness. crowded room. It’s a disorienting sensation that resonates with the limitations of communication conveyed in this work. For not only is it strange to hear someone’s personal love letter recited by a group, it also changes the tone and at times makes it difficult to understand. In Hayes’s own words, the difficulty of speaking

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1. Revolutionary Love was and their legacy, Routledge, Sharon Hayes created by Hayes for the New York, 2001, p 294. Revolutionary love: I am your non-profit organisation 4. Hayes, ‘Keynote address’, worst fear, I am your best Creative Time’s 2008 public 2009. fantasy 2008 art initiative Democracy in America: the national 5. Elizabeth Freeman, Time opposite: performance campaign. binds: queer temporalities, documentation from the queer histories, Duke University Democratic National 2. Sharon Hayes, ‘Keynote Press, North Carolina, 2010. address’, Revolutions in Convention, Denver, Colarado public practice: Creative 6. Julia Bryan-Wilson, ‘We have (top left) and the Republican Time summit, 29 Oct 2009, a future: an interview with National Convention, St Paul, creativetime.org/summit/ Sharon Hayes’, Grey Room 37, Minnesota (centre and Fall 2009, p 82. 2009/10/24/sharon-hayes, bottom right); installation accessed 1 Mar 2015. views, Kunstmuseum St 3. ‘Statement of demands Gallen, Switzerland from the male representatives of national gay liberation’ overleaf: installation view, 1970, reproduced in Kathleen PS1 Contemporary Art Turner and George Katsiaficas Center, New York (eds), Liberation, imagination, and the Black Panther Party: a new look at the Panthers

42 43 44 45 List of works Guerrilla Girls Mathew Jones David McDiarmid Marie McMahon Redback Graphix Michael Callaghan & Unknown USA, est 1985 Australia, b1961 Australia, 1952–95 Australia, b1953 Australia, 1979–94 Peter Curtis Vietnam Selection of 77 posters Pay the rent, you are on Australia, 1956 It is as if Uncle Ho shares All artworks are in the The New York Daily News from the suite Alison Alder from Portfolio compleat Aboriginal land 1981 South Africa, state of the joy of victory 1975 Art Gallery of New South on the day before the Rainbow aphorism • Australia, b1958 1985–2012 colour screenprint terror 1986 collage, gouache and Wales collection unless • Stonewall Riot copied colour xerox prints When they close a pit dimensions variable 66.9 x 44.9 cm colour screenprint ink on paper otherwise stated. by hand from microfilm mounted on craftboard they kill a community. Purchased 2014 Gift of the artist 1982 100.8 x 75 cm 75 x 53 cm records 1996 • Gift of the Estate of Support the KCC Women’s 150.2014.1–94 204.1982 Purchased 1981 Edward and Goldie • indicates work is 52 sheets (original David McDiarmid 1998 Auxiliary 1984 • 456.1988 Sternberg Southeast illustrated in the catalogue drawings) in box, ink and 368.1998.1–8 colour screenprint Richard Hamilton Yasumasa Morimura Asian Art Fund 2008 texta on tracing paper 74.2 x 49.3 cm England, 1922–2011 Don’t forget to Japan, b1951 Redletter Press 401.2008 233 x 682.6 cm overall Purchased 1988 remember 1994 Australia, 1979–91 Kent State 1970 • Contemporary Collection Slaughter cabinet II 1991 467.1988 38.7 x 28.5 x 1.3 cm • Women’s Domestic colour photo screenprint Benefactors 2003 wood, lightbox, gelatin Bob Clutterbuck 67.1 x 87.1 cm Michael Callaghan Needlework Group, 73.2003.a–zz Girlfriend, our life is one silver photograph Save the Franklin. Damn Australia, 1952–2012 Sydney Vernon Ah Kee Purchased 1971 of lights and shadows 58 x 43 x 43 cm the government c1982 The New York Daily News • Australia, est 1976 Australia, b1967 49.197 1994 Purchased with funds colour screenprints on the day before the colour screenprint becauseitisbitter 2009 • 36.5 x 27.5 x 1.3 cm provided by the Young Purchased 1983 Marie McMahon Stonewall Riot copied 73 x 48 cm synthetic polymer paint Sharon Hayes Friends of the Art Gallery Australia, b1953 by hand from microfilm Miss thing, our labour and If the unemployed Purchased 1982 on linen USA, b1970 Society of New South records 1996 skills are indispensable are dole bludgers, 311.1982 Frances (Budden) 240 x 320 cm Revolutionary love: I am • Wales 1996 96 copies of 104-page to the advancement of what the fuck are the Phoenix Purchased 2011 your worst fear, I am your 506.1996 Martha Rosler newspaper printed from civilisation 1994 • idle rich? 1979 • Australia, b1950 163.2011 best fantasy 2008 • USA, b1943 hand-drawn originals 36.5 x 27.5 x 1.3 cm A requiem: spinning a 70.3 x 82.5 cm multiple-channel video 85.1983 from the exhibition Richard Bell and audio installation, 39.5 x 29.4 cm each ‘... but if some of the thread between the light from the series The d’oyley show 1979 Australia, b1953 10 PA speakers, 5 projection Gift of the artist 2015 work of younger gay and the earth/1946, Onward Christian House beautiful, colour screenprints India 2010 • soldiers 1979 • bringing the war home Pay the rent 2009 • screens, helium balloons, and lesbian artists in Purchased 1981 Pat Larter gelatin silver photograph 74.5 x 49.2 cm photomontage as type C synthetic polymer paint coloured light bulbs this year’s Mardi Gras 175.1981.1–10 England/Australia, 1936–96 119.6 x 149.9 cm 87.1983 photographs on canvas dimensions variable seems banal, and the Aboriginaland. Selections from the Purchased with funds Gift of Geoff Ainsworth AM 240 x 360 cm Mervyn Horton Bequest explicit sexuality both What now Mr Mao, Land rights, not mining • Pat Larter mail art archive provided by Geoff and 2015. Donated through the Purchased 2010 Fund 2014 boring and distasteful...’ dance? 1979 • 73 x 48.7 cm Vicki Ainsworth and the Australian Government’s 203.2010.a–b 249.2014 relating to the mail art Joanna Mendelssohn, 74.4 x 49.5 cm exhibition Art core The Australian, Photography Collection 86.1983 Cultural Gifts Program Fancywork: The meltdown 1979 at the Benefactors’ Program 2010 archaeology of lives Breadline Posters Thomas Hirschhorn 5 February 1994 1994 • Salt of the Earth 1980 Balloons • Union 290.2010 • 73.8 x 49.8 cm Australia, est 1978 Switzerland, b1957 36.5 x 27.5 x 1.3 cm 74 x 49.5 cm 1967–72, printed late 1990s (with Terry Reid and Cees The working class victory The subjector no 1 2009 • Anger denial depression 89.1983 59.5 x 49 cm For twenty years Franck) • Raquel Ormella calendar 1981 c1980 mannequin, nails, screws, bargaining acceptance 73 x 48.5 cm (irreg) National Art Archive, Art Australia, b1969 El Salvador, Reagan’s House beautiful colour screenprint plastic base, wood 1994–95 Gallery of New South Wales • Vietnam 1982 • (Giacometti) • Sweating the women • 64.6 x 89.6 cm (irreg) 225 x 50 x 50 cm 36.5 x 27.5 x 1.3 cm I’m worried I’m not MS1991.1 97.3 x 60.3 cm 1967–72, printed late 1990s 72.8 x 48 cm Purchased 1982 Collection of Dr Clinton Ng political enough 107.1983 59 x 45 cm 303.1982 Don’t ask, don’t tell, (Julie) 1999–2009 That as their daughters, John Hughes Lucifoil Poster Collective die alone 1994–95 • double sided banner, Gregor Cullen daughters up did grow, Australia, 1980–83 Truong Singh VALIE EXPORT Australia, b1948 38.7 x 28.5 x 1.3 cm sewn wool and felt Australia, b1954 the needle’s art to their Vietnam Austria, b1940 Peter Kennedy Bob Clutterbuck Flippancy sentimentality 128 x 202 cm (banner) Fresh blood 1982 children show • Currently, fighting Tap und Taskino / Australia, b1945 Australia, b1951 sarcasm camp smut Collection of the artist 74.6 x 47.5 cm 73.8 x 48.5 cm against the Americans Touch cinema 1968 1994–95 103.1983 • November eleven 1979 • Woolloomooloo mural I’m worried this will to save the country is The forgotten workers • video, black and white, 36.5 x 27.5 x 1.3 cm U-matic video, colour, project 1982 become a slogan Women and Arts the most important task 73.9 x 48.2 cm sound, 01:08 min sound, 18 min colour screenprint Motorsexual homocycle (Anthony) 1999–2009 • Festival 1982 • of the party, the army, Mervyn Horton Bequest The song of the skirt • Purchased 1988 70 x 46.3 cm slut needs servicing double sided banner, 73.2 x 48.3 cm and the people 1966 • Fund 2007 Purchased 1982 77.1 x 49.2 cm 352.1988 1994–95 sewn wool and felt 97.1983 gouache on paper 312.2007 314.1982 128 x 202 cm (banner) When I had worked November eleven: 36.5 x 27.5 x 1.3 cm Michael Callaghan & 53 x 38 cm Collection of the artist Edward and Goldie the pattern Marco Fusinato work in progress 1981 • Billy Maynard Alison Alder Earthworks Poster Sternberg Southeast 73.5 x 49 cm (irreg) Australia, b1964 video, colour, sound, 19 min Australia, b1992 This dream 2013 • Chile demands justice 1987 Collective nylon colour screenprint Asian Art Fund 2008 Women who toiled Double infinitive 5 2009 • Purchased 1988 Blue sky period 2009 • Australia, 1972–79 150 x 210 cm overall 100.1 x 74.2 cm 400.2008 72.8 x 48 cm from the series 353.1988 an ongoing project with Rudy Komon Memorial Purchased 1981 Double infinitives 2500 images printed to date Chips Mackinolty Working class needlework • Fund 2013 455.1988 UV halftone ink on National Art Archive, Art Australia, b1954 73.3 x 49 cm 258.2013.a–c aluminium Gallery of New South Wales Land rights dance 1977 Michael Callaghan & 250 x 500 cm overall MS2014.15 colour screenprint Gregor Cullen Contemporary Collection 74.7 x 49.6 cm Australian Vietnam Society Benefactors 2013 Purchased 1977 1982 calendar 1981 • 259.2013.a–d 379.1977 30 x 35.3 cm 96.1983.a–d 46 47 INSIDE BACKCOVER USE SEPARATE ARTWORK FILE

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