'Supermarketism'

‘Supermarketism’

By Charlie Trivers Student Number Z3195644

2010 Candidate Master of Fine Arts by Research

University of New South Wales UNSW College of Fine Arts Cofa Program Code 2245

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Welcome customers to Supermarketism. Supermarketism is a body of sculptural work that started in 2005 and now in 2010 continues not only as a relatively short- term research project but also as a body of work that will continue well into the future. Much of the aesthetic and conceptual explorations made in the five years of this research will be re-examined, refined and re-defined for many years to come as both formally refined objects and installations of social, political and artistic critique. I write this preface in the aftermath of writing the story. In fact, I needed to write the story to be able to both explain the arguments it contains and to clarify them for myself. The presentation therefore is not only an argument but also the story of how that argument developed.

This thesis is the narrative of how Supermarketism developed initially by mispronouncing Suprematism. It tells the story of my artistic background and the subconscious reasons a mistake became a body of artistic research. I did not set out to explore an identified gap in knowledge in the field of sculpture. Rather, I set about a methodology similar to Malevich in exploring a cube as a sculptural variation to the Suprematist exploration of the square. The methodologies, influenced by my ‘conceptualist’ viewpoints, are very different to Malevich’s non-objective viewpoints. It was the discoveries that this methodology and its influences that allowed me to come to a seldom investigated, observational point. In addition, with that point, further interrelated components evolved.

The links between the world of commerce and the world of art are concrete blocks in the brickwork of our society. The current visual face of the world of commerce is the Big Box Supermarket complex. Most would say that the world of art is far too sophisticated to have designated car park space in this region. My line of argument is contrary to this assumption. I believe that even in this ‘no frills’ divide in the world of commerce, the world of art is a major stakeholder. I come to this line of argument initially by making objects that conceptually explore consumerism while making highly desirable, well-manufactured consumer objects. In the process of making, my iconography is increasingly sourced from the elements of Big Box Architecture. I find that many of the elements that I have investigated exist

2 in sources from Minimalist Sculpture to the much earlier Non-Objective geometric abstraction. In fact, Malevich himself made sculptural Architectons that he saw as a blueprint to a new architectural aesthetic, which has an uncanny resemblance to a Mega Mall.

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Originality Statement ‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgment is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’

Copyright Statement ‘I hereby grant to the University of New South Wales or its agents the right to archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in the University libraries in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. I also authorise University Microfilms to use the abstract of my thesis in Dissertations Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral theses only). I have either used no substantial portions of copyright material in my thesis or I have obtained permission to use copyright material; where permission has not been granted I have applied/will apply for a partial restriction of the digital copy of my thesis or dissertation.’

Authenticity Statement ‘I certify that the Library deposit digital copy is a direct equivalent of the final officially approved version of my thesis. No emendation of content has occurred and if there are any minor variations in formatting, they are the result of the conversion to digital format.’

5 $(&"/ #!)'(#!&'(#)$&!& ('! "(&#)(#" Welcome customers to Supermarketism. Supermarketism is a body of sculptural work that started in 2005 and now in 2010 continues not only as a relatively short- term research project but also as a body of work that will continue well into the future. Much of the aesthetic and conceptual explorations made in the five years of this research will be re-examined, refined and re-defined for many years to come as both formally refined objects and installations of social, political and artistic critique. I write this preface in the aftermath of writing the story. In fact, I needed to write the story to be able to both explain the arguments it contains and to clarify them for myself. The presentation therefore is not only an argument but also the story of how that argument developed.

This thesis is the narrative of how Supermarketism developed initially by mispronouncing Suprematism 1. It tells the story of my artistic background and the subconscious reasons a mistake became a body of artistic research. I did not set out to explore an identified gap in knowledge in the field of sculpture. Rather, I set about a methodology similar to Malevich in exploring a cube as a sculptural variation to the Suprematist exploration of the square. The methodologies, influenced by my ‘conceptualist’ viewpoints, are very different to Malevich’s non-objective viewpoints. It was the discoveries that this methodology and its influences that allowed me to come to a seldom investigated, observational point. In addition, with that point, further interrelated components evolved.

6 I come to this line of argument initially by making objects that conceptually explore consumerism while making highly desirable, well-manufactured consumer objects. In the process of making, my iconography is increasingly sourced from the elements of Big Box Architecture. I find that many of the elements that I have investigated exist in sources from Minimalist Sculpture to the much earlier Non-Objective geometric abstraction. In fact, Malevich himself made sculptural Architectons that he saw as a blueprint to a new architectural aesthetic, which has an uncanny resemblance to a Mega Mall.

The Introduction is a personal background to the author as an artist and individual. In it, I imagine myself as a middle aged, suburban father, husband, teacher, artist with the Punk words of the Clash reverberating through my social consciousness. I wake up only to realise the tinnitus of truth.

The chapter, Welcome Customers to Supermarketism, is the beginning of a story without anything to write about other than to account the artistic background from whence future content originates.

In Chapter Two, Homage to a (Supermarket) Square, the chapter opens a dialog and begins the artistic journey. By making the first artwork, a paradigm of systematic investigation is set in place, one that is inspired by the Malevich model. An examination of Kasimir Malevich artworks in this chapter establishes the authority of that artist to this story. The original idea begins with an unintentional pun and subsequent parody. The research develops maturity in understanding and respect of his original work.

Chapter Three Underselling by Overselling and Underselling by Overselling is a reflective and personal view of art. It is also an investigation that establishes a rationale for an undeniable commercialism in art. This affects all artists and all art objects made by them.

Chapter Four Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversions marks a progression in the body of work to ask more questions of it and give complexity to the texture of the puzzle.

7 In the chapter Fabrications I include a information gained on Metal Fabrication for sculptors as I had to learn trade specific skills to fabricate the steel and stainless steel sculptures. The question of painting sculpture is an important one to sculpture particularly to sculptors who make geometric abstractions. I look into the blurred definitions of painting and sculpture and account the knowledge accumulated by following different painting goals. In Dynamic Supermarketism Supersupreme Compositions I look at readymade packaging as templates for sculptural compositions.

In Chapter Six Out of the boxes a mention of the significance of Warhol’s Brillo Boxes is important at this stage of the paper. I also look at Big Box Theory and Big Box stores and how they operate in the marketplace. More importantly, I investigate the perceived lack of aesthetics in Big Box Architecture and its similarities to Minimalist sculpture. I learn about Malevich’s Architectons later in the research that draws me to making work that incorporates Big Box aesthetics with Supermarketism and the Architectons. Supermarketism Architecton Compositions are the final investigation into the body of work.

Tangents is the chapter where I introduce artists who are currently working in fields of thought and making that directly relate to my research.

In Conclusion I write the Supermarketism e-Manifesto “The Non-Objectionable World". This is a take on Malevich’s manifesto as an ultimate sales letter. A most appropriate and appropriated way to sum up. Supermarketism.Com is a non-object way of investigating the idea further and a less artistic and more real world vehicle.

8 &#)" I write this thesis as a fifty year old, therefore at least for now I am. It is only when a gust of wind blows grey hair over my eyes that I am no longer blind to the fact that I am no longer twenty-five. When I make my middle age art, I make it to be significant in some way. Significance is important to me. I enjoy art history and theory, as it is a story of artists that made artworks and had artistic careers that history has signed off as significance. I believe that contemporary art with its Modernist zeal for invention and newness in approach and adaptation to new social and political contexts has significance. To achieve significance in art in 2010 is to make a visual statement that has 2010 written all over it. The artwork has direct references to the past, is not of the past but of the here and now with a hint of what the future offers.

This I believe is the essence of each new aesthetic and conceptual puzzle that I set for myself to solve. I stave off dementia by constantly thinking of these unsolved puzzles. In this way in the reality of everyday life where I have a full time job, mortgage and family I can keep my healthy head in my sculpture shed. I use the term sculpture shed because I do not warm to the term studio. The artist’s studio with all the term’s connotations of solitude, inventiveness, is not relevant to my busy life. Therefore, if I must use the word one last time then the shed in my head is where I do all my drawing and dreaming is my only one true studio. It is for me a place where ideas can be nutted out, worked and reworked. In a world that has so many competing demands for your time, the shed in my head is also my time management centre. Unfortunately, not all time is creative time. Creative time comes along in its own course. Often in a staff meeting or in long periods of data entry, creative time comes along and so it is off to the shed for the right side of the brain while the other half pays the bills.

When I do manage to get my physical body in my physical shed, not every artwork that I make proves to be a successful solution to a particular puzzle. Yet each one unravels something to learn from and investigate further. Out of this unravelling and further investigation a language develops. The language reference past work, is current to your thoughts and offers a hint to future improvements or directions. Language does not develop in isolation for long. A language open to critique, develops significantly and when open to change, very quickly. An artist runs the risk

9 of their language not only referencing its past but also existing in it. Often it is difficult for a visual artist, who generally works in isolation, to notice. For me as an artist I take all the opportunities I can to exhibit. By exhibiting, you allow your artwork to communicate with other people. No one person will read your language the same as the next person or the same way as you. An interpretation of an artwork by another human being is a resource by a learned peer; it is a gold mine. This is why I chose to do a Masters Degree in Fine Art by Research. As a twenty five-year- old artist, I either did not comprehend this concept or did not believe it to be true.

As a twenty five-year-old kind of idealist, I looked forward with a view to changing the world. I memorised the lyrics of Joe Strummer from the Clash and Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil because their words had significance. Joe Strummer knew that music would not change the world yet that was no excuse for not trying. Peter Garrett? Well he simply lived longer. The Clash said how they saw with a mixture of raw punk anger and sophisticated insight into the political and social structure of contemporary Western existence. The Clash provided a model for young people of my generation of how to think and analyse the world they live in. Their musical language also had direct references to the influences that rock and roll was constructed on. They were part of, defined their time, and with a record like Sandinista gave a hint to the future. Many significant musicians that came after them site them as a major influence. I can play London’s Burning on guitar but I am no musician and yet as a visual artist, my first influence was The Clash. Moreover, their art did change the world.

When I was a teenager I had three all consuming interests. They were art, surfing and girls all of which I found to be interrelated and continue to this day. As a Higher School student, I did not do Art at school. My first influential art educational experience was at the Newcastle City Art Gallery. My parent’s belief was that this all-consuming interest would not get me a paying job. It would be better pursued in later life perhaps as a hobby. This created a hobbyhorse that I rode around on as a young man but with hindsight, they were proven right. As a teenager, I would leave my surfboard outside the gallery. This was to obey gallery rules with the secondary intent of perhaps impressing any girls inside. My third and main goal was to read with fascination a particular painting in the foyer of the gallery. The painting was

10 Summer at Carcoar a landscape by Brett Whitley. Whitley in his painting not only painted rocks to give the illusion that they were rocks but he also stuck real rocks onto his paintings. Additionally, where a real rock or an image of a rock was to be inserted later into his picture he would write the word ROCK 2. There were so many interesting things happening all at once in his picture. The flattening of the picture plane, distortion of line, shape and colours; representational elements morphing into abstraction and vice versa were among the devices used. I thought Whitley invented this language all by himself and I was so impressed and inspired by his art I decided to be an artist rather than a surfboard shaper.

I also read my high school art student friends textbooks. Surrealism and Pop Art were the popular choice for teenage boys which is something I have found as a qualified High School Art Teacher to be a constant. Salvador Dali (Spanish1904-1989) and Rene Magritte (Belguin1898-1967) were my favourite artists both chose unrealistic realism, the absurd and the idea of an artwork acting as a puzzle. They also displayed a dazzling display of the imagination in a full manifestation in their imagery. Chronologically Pop Art was the smart politically aware hedonistic American offspring of Representational Surrealism and Jasper Johns (b 1930) stood out to me as an artist of influence. John’s Target with Four Faces 1955 was an artwork that held a particular fascination probably due to the incorporation of three dimensional compartmentalised human elements into a composition that was essentially a banal target signage in blue and yellow set in a red square 3.

2 Kosuth, Joseph One and three chairs (1965) MoMA (2011) www.moma.org>Explore>The Collection In 1965 Joseph Kosuth (American, born 1945) made this conceptual artwork of a readymade chair to its left a scale photograph of the same chair and to the right side of the chair a dictionary definition of the word ‘chair’. The viewer is left to decipher three different codes of language and how they relate to an object as an artwork. Brett Whitley Summer at Carcoar 1977 oil and mixed media on canvas 244.0 x 199.0 acquired 1977 as a gift from William Bowmore Newcastle Region Art Gallery

3 Johns, Jasper. Target with Four Faces (1955) from “Techniques of the great masters” Artchive (2011) www.artchive.com/artchive/J/johns/target_4.jpg.html

11 The paintings of Australian Jeffrey Smart (b 1921) I found to have a similar thematic context to Johns. His compositions rely on geometric elements occupied by comparmentalised human elements. An Australian twist is the myth of the bush from an urban perspective as a space in which the banality of signage and the built environment dominate the human and landscape elements. Smart’s view is an honestly stark view of the detachment most Australians have to the natural environment and their sense of place within it.

Do I drop my camera and save the burning girl or do I take the photograph that draws attention to her plight? This is the question where I have never been able to commit to an answer. I want to do both but only one option is available. Luckily, the girl was saved and the photograph was taken. Being an artist has its moral conundrums. In the greater scheme of existence, is art making significant? Very few people on this planet have had the leisure time to follow the dream of significance. A by-product of Modernity is leisure time. I would say that Modern art exists because of leisure time. The significant artists in the story of Art History had the time, resources and opportunity to become significant artists.

Being an artist in Australia is very dissimilar to being an artist in any other country in the world. Like many artists in Australia, I am a bit embarrassed to call myself an artist. To say you are an artist is to somehow admit and feel the guilt of an abundance of leisure time. It also suggests that being an artist is a leisure pursuit by our society. Art as a statement, object or even commodity are determined as frivolous by our greater society. Leisure in the Information Age has allowed Western society to grasp endeavour in human existence in relation to the environmental sustainability; political, financial and social stability; morality; ethics; philosophy; spirituality and religion including art. Why do I put art last on the list? I think because most people would drop the camera first. Leonardo DiCaprio did not paint his muse as the Titanic went down.

Yet amongst the ruins of history, art is first to be salvaged or pillaged. Art defines the particular human epoch more than any other endeavour. Therefore, art is significant as it appears to define humanity in a place and time. Perhaps more accurately, it defines the ideal that society identified with in a place and time. The imbalance of the

12 equation affecting human existence is the reality of the epoch. The richness or impoverishment of the ideal is correlated to the richness or impoverishment of the real. By my rationale, therefore art in the eyes of society is both significant and insignificant at the same time depending on the ideal and real perspectives of society. Given that, most people on the planet are more preoccupied with the reality and not the ideal of daily life, art for most people on the planet has little significance. Therefore, we accept that only for the idealist few, art is significant or we somehow place art in the world of reality. At fifty, I find myself becoming a reflective being. I look to the past, present and future with equal vigour and enthusiasm. This leads me to ask myself and others of my art practice, is my idealism significant enough? Has it been significant in the past and how can it be in the future? If it is not significant enough do I continue making art in that knowledge paradigm? Is significant enough significant enough?

Arguably, Joe Strummer would not see the real as a barrier to the ideal. He would see significance in the ideal changing the real.

13 -#)'-)$&!& ('!. In the late twentieth century as a thirty year old, first year university art student, I was asked what I thought of Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp was the patron saint of my undergraduate art school. At the time, I did not understand or comprehend him as an artist. It helps to be an artist with a conceptual education to get Duchamp. At the same time as a new student who was new to any kind of art education I was required to deliver a fifteen-minute art history presentation on Kasimir Malevich. My lecturer assigned the subject and it was an assessable and a compulsory component of my art history education. It is not known if this choice of assignment on the lecturer's part was by chance or not as she no longer can recall the incident.

I have been told that every high school art student is taught about Malevich the Great Russian constructivist and the historical genius behind Suprematism. As previously mentioned, I did not study art history at high school. As a mature age student not much younger than my lecturer, I believed my entry into art school was because I was good at visual representation. At the time, I thought I was a very clever landscape painter. My research into Suprematism led me to a firm conclusion at that time that geometric abstraction, even in the early twentieth century, was not clever painting. I was not particularly enthusiastic about the subject matter of my presentation. I was new to art history but not all that new to the world of consumerism and mistakenly called Suprematism Supermarketism. Laughter erupted in the lecture theatre. Slightly shaken I stirred an assumption. Unplanned assumptions have to be made quickly when making a fifteen-minute art history presentation. I assumed that the class thought the mistake was an intentional hilarity. In an effort to save face, I gave the impression that humour was an intentional element to the presentation. Among the many things I learnt in that instant was that humour enhanced subject matter for which I was unenthused and helped to invigorate the presentation.

14 Figure (1) Figure (2)

Kasimir Malevich Anthony Caro Suprematist Composition White on White Petticoats (1971/1976) (1918) oil on canvas 88x70cm Steel painted brown Museum of Modern Art New York 160 x 195.5 x 89cm www.anthonycaro.org Kasimir Malevich Research by Siri Fischer Hansen The Non Objective World 1913 Studio Database and Website by KYPS WebMuseum Paris copyright B1003 Catalogue Raisonne 19/8/2002 Nicolas Pioch www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/malevich/sup/ (2002)

Concurrently, sometime between after lunch and a quarter past both an untruth and an artistic concept were conceived. I was not truly aware of this at the time. Alternatively, perhaps the event had a profound influence, forming a method of enquiry that would typify future artistic practice. I put Supermarketism in the To Be Followed Up file for future reference. For the next three years as an undergraduate student, all humour was seriously funny. In that time, I found a way to justify making representational paintings about landscape. I did this by following a post-modern

15 path in addressing the issue of erosion by making eroded historical Australian/European landscape paintings. I particularly liked John Glover and made many Disgloveries. My work became more three-dimensional as the ideas became more important than the act and skill of painting. I finished my degree with a major in painting, making sculpture about painting about painting, etc. I read a lot more than a healthy level when it came to Post Structuralist Theory. I was particularly attracted to Baudrillard and his America for Disneyland simulacra4. To a lesser degree I found Derrida’s deconstructing pattern in his text and his obsessive use of artists’ words, in particular Cezanne, in rationalising art in search of meaning to be pointless. I graduated with a good grounding in history/theory and a grasp of Malevich. I also developed an understanding and respect for Duchamp as the ultimate thinking artist’s artist.

Luckily, my painting lecturer was a sculptor and she encouraged me to study postgraduate sculpture to get a handle on the more formal aspects of sculpture. What I found fascinating was that once again I was dealing with artists and supervisors who were working with geometric abstraction. They strongly encouraged composition from all possible viewpoints. Subject matter, even colour were taboo. The patron saint of my Post Graduate art school was Anthony Caro. Upon exposure to his sculpture I developed an irresistible arcing to go out and buy a welder. Welding, I soon discovered, is not as easy as it looks. After a number of welding disasters, I decided to fake welding. I did this by making compositions out of PVC stormwater and irrigation pipe. I made totemic structures about the alchemy of landscape through irrigation and painted them to look like steel. From this I learnt three things. Firstly, to be a competent welder, doing a welding course is a good idea. Secondly, if you have to fake it use Duchamp’s readymades as a model. Finally, there must be something in Geometric Abstraction.

As a graduate artist, which was something I could never bring to call myself, I had a few years of experiments, tangents and blind alleys. I found myself carving out of

4 Baudrillard, Jean Simulacra and simulation originally published in French by Editions Galilee 1981 The European Graduate School Stanford University Press 1998 99. 166-184 http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/simulacra-and-simulations/ (1997-2010)

16 recycled laminated timber organic abstract compositions influenced by marine forms. I called these compositions Animadversions. I first exhibited Animadversions as an installation of fifteen carvings made to fit into small crevices carved by nature into a rock face. I exhibited these in Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi, Sydney in 1999, and began a long association with this exhibition (see figure 3). Animadversions begin with automatic drawing in response to the coastal natural environment. Drawn interpretations of natural elements then are extended into three dimensional form. The word ‘adverse’ means criticism or an expression of disapproval. ‘Anima’ is also the inner personality or the Jungian female part of the male personality. In addition, the word ‘version’ allows variations of the same thematic rule system5. Animadversions are organic with a suggestion of simple yet complex life forms. When making an Animadversion composition I feel a great freedom of compositional challenge in transforming a two dimensional idea into form using wood. This joy resurfaces again in Supermarketism as a conceptual and aesthetic component in my Masters work.

Figure (3)

5 Carl Jung ( 1875-1961) the Swiss psychiatrist founder of Analytical Psychology and pioneer in the field of dream analysis wrote of the anima as the female aspect to the male psyche. Carl Jung , Anima and Animus, Collected works 7, par. 336. Carl Jung>Archetypes, 2008 www.carl- jung.net/animus.html 2011

Charlie Trivers Two of fifteen carvings of various sizes placed in small rock face crevices. Animadversions (1999) Carved Recycled Laminated Ash Timber Exhibited at Sculpture by the Sea Bondi 1999

Before digressing into Supermarketism I would like to mention one other body of work that led me to my Masters work, the Fishbottle. The idea came to me in response to a stormwater pipe that led to the ocean at the Boot at Bondi. The pipe has a large net to prevent rubbish from flowing into the ocean. Most of that rubbish is PETE drink bottles6. I had in my pocket a plastic bottle shaped as a fish that once contained soy sauce that I had found in a gutter that would have ended up in the stormwater drain earlier in the day. The Fishbottle evolved as an idea and a species from the design of PETE drink bottles. Each species was a manipulated readymade where the original bottle was modelled with clay fish features. They were cold cast in bronze or marble. Aesthetically each object had the perception of value yet despite their appearance were either truly bronze, or marble, or were they truly polyester? Conceptually the idea dealt with readymades, consumerism, packaging, pollution,

6 PETE (Polyethylene terephthalate) is a thermoplastic recycle type 1 used to store liquids such as water and soft drinks.

18 scientific method, high art/low art, serious fun, value and truth in and to materials. Conceptually, Fishbottles lent themselves to an installation. In the 2000 Sculpture by the Sea exhibition I made an installation of one hundred and forty cast Fishbottles made from recycled tyre rubber. The installation gave the impression that the Fishbottles had evolved, and yet, an oil slick could decimate this new pseudo- species. One day I would like to repeat this installation on a much grander scale and involve the media and scientific community to press the idea to real significance. Fishbottles spawned ideas for five exhibits in Sculpture by the Sea. However, all ideas have a limited life span and a place and time, and the Fishbottle offered limited formal sculptural possibilities. I also had lost my Fishbottle enthusiasm, for a new puzzle was in the shed.

Figure (4) Figure (5)

Charlie Trivers Marcel Duchamp Fishbottle Quartet (2004) Bottle Rack (1914/1964) Marble dust/resin, Steel, Fibreglass Readymade Bottle rack Galvanised steel mesh Galvanised Iron 300 x 300 cm 59 x 37 cm Exhibited Sculpture by the Sea 2004 Kodak Sculpture Prize www.abcgallery.com/D/duchamp/duchamp/html

19 Figure (6)

Charlie Trivers Fishbottle Rack 7 (2002) Readymade Bottle Rack Marble dust/resin 64 x 70 cm Exhibited Sculpture by the Sea 2002

7 Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) was a French artist and keen chess player it could be said that he also saw art as a game also. Duchamp as a member of the Dada movement is best known for his development of the “readymade” in modern art. Readymades were found objects that were selected by him and presented in a gallery as art. The readymade presented the idea that art did not have to me made by an (special) artist and therefore anyone could be an artist. Therefore artists and art is not special. Bottle Rack (1914) is a steel bottle drying rack and an everyday object of his time. Duchamp the artist chose and signed the object changing its context into art. This move by Duchamp questioned the very notion of art and became the most influential in Modern art.

20 $(&+#/#!(#5)$&!& (6%)&

)$&!& ('!#!$#'(#"' If ever there was a good title that deserved an equally good sculpture Homage to a (Supermarket) Square was the one. The title is a play on Josef Albers 1965 Homage to a Square. This is Albers homage to Malevich’s 1918 White on White Suprematist painting. The square is the logo shape of Non-Objective Modernism. It is also the logo shape in the aesthetics of Big Box Supermarket Architecture. The square does not occur naturally in nature. These thoughts had been floating around in the shed in my head for the best part of a decade. I had at that stage not been able to step up to the next level in the puzzle by connecting them. Malevich’s investigation into the square was profound to him. To Malevich the square was an empty space of feeling and everything outside the void. For me an empty square is bad for business. However, I do share with Malevich the use of the square as a device to connect ideas and bring about a new language. For the period before reaching the next level, I had always approached the puzzle as a two-dimensional one. I just happened to see a cruciform one day; it was packaging for fast food. I wish it could have been McDonalds but I remember clearly that it was not. The florescent lights in the shed in my head switched on as I drew Suprematist designs on a cruciform made of six squares with folding tabs. The language was similar to Fishbottles, as they were both manipulated, readymade packaging. The box was open for opportunities to unfold into formal compositions. The puzzle was on.

21 Figure (7)

Charlie Trivers Drawing for Supermarketism Composition (2005) Watercolour and Graphite on paper

Figure (8)

Charlie Trivers Paper cut outs for Supermarketism Compositions (2005)

22 In 2005 I enrolled in TAFE to do a vehicle restoration module of the trade panelbeating course. The other students were various kinds of tradesmen who had panels from old cars that they were lovingly restoring as their work during the year. I was a TAFE Fine Art Teacher with a splatter of welding skills and a box of cut outs and drawings. I cannot to this day believe my acceptance into the course. Those trade teachers were either desperate for a challenge or desperate for numbers. They were great teachers and obviously enjoyed teaching adults by night rather than teenagers by day. I learned how to weld and cut with an oxy-acetylene torch. I learned how to form sheet metal over dollies and made my first and only VW Bug hubcap. I learnt how to Arc, Mig and Tig weld and how to use a Plasma Cutter. The boys back at my Post Graduate Art School would be very envious of the toys and skills that became available to me. By another stroke of luck I had made friends with a husband of one of my best students. And he just happened to own an engineering business. I had won the inaugural Kodak Sculpture Prize at Sculpture by the Sea in 2004. So at cost, I bought an Arc, Mig and Tig welder and a Plasma Cutter. My TAFE teachers, although they thought my presence and project was odd, admired my new skills as I could practice with my own tools in my own time and in my own space. To test my luck even further I applied to the University of New South Wales (Cofa) to do a Master of Fine Art Degree. I have not yet worked out who is the patron saint of COFA.

'!& * Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935) is credited as the first non-objective Modernist painter. He called his two dimensional geometric abstraction Suprematism. Suprematism, although abstract, suggested the illusion of flight reflecting Malevich’s interest in aerial urban photography. Suprematism was constructed on what Malevich described as ‘the basis of weight, speed and the direction of movement8.’ He called his mature work Dynamic Suprematism. To Malevich the square was the ‘purist’ of all geometric shapes and it was an integral element in his Suprematism compositions. He used the square to reduce abstract painting to its most geometric

8 Kasimir Malevich Biography Art Republic www.artrepublic.com/biographies/156-kasmir- malevich.html (2008-11)

23 simplicity. Malevich gave up Suprematism upon deciding that he had exhausted its artistic possibilities. He returned to more expressive figurative work. He later described Suprematism as ‘a hard cold system set in motion by philosophical thought9.’ Upon reading this description I thought that this would be a methodological model for Supermarketism. I have misused Malevich’s words and images to invent this new hard cold system. This is not out of disrespect for Malevich’s significance through his Modernist achievements, rather, I seek significance in Supermarketism by revisiting and re-contextualising Malevich’s language, just as Malevich looked to Cubism and Futurism for direction to develop a Suprematist language. Suprematism eliminated all superfluous elements. Supermarketism ironically elevates all superfluous elements. Where Suprematism in 1918 gave an artist an idealist worldview through art, Supermarketism in 2010 highlights the consumerist worldview and discursively plays with art and idealism. Supermarketism is a Post Modern re-examination of Suprematism visual language with a three dimensional and sculptural emphasis. Unlike Malevich who created the illusion of space, real spatial concerns are part of my ‘hard cold system.’ In Supermarketism, the cube becomes the ‘purist’ of all geometric form. The ‘philosophical thought’ behind Supermarketism is essentially the conceptual link between the cube and a box and any ironic opportunities that jump out of it.

Dynamic Supermarketism A cubic box is deconstructed into six square shapes, a cruciform. By manipulation and physically overriding the predetermined utility of the box, it can be reconstructed into a formal composition. In which I mean an exploration of the principles of composition and in particular form as an element of design. Malevich’s emphasis on the purity of a square becomes a spatial investigation of the cruciform, which is a cube flattened out, or six squares in a cross. A Malevich like composition of four geometric shapes is drawn on the cruciform. They are a square and three long,

9 Alley, Ronald Catalogue of the Tate Gallery’s Collection of Modern Art Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet London 1981, pp470-1. www.tate.org.uk (2009)

24 slightly tapered, rectangular shapes. The cruciform with four negative shapes are re assembled within its particular spatial possibilities. The composition touches ground at three places, which influences the composition. See figure (10). The forms that have inherent folds from their origins as a cube are then composed within the three dimensional composition to serve an interactive function. The positive forms interact with the negative shape of its origin: the overall composition, and as much as possible, space. The square is static while the long, bent rectangular forms serve as an implied hinge. The use of colour is primarily for conceptual reasons. Primary and secondary colours for me as an artist with a view towards consumerism are the language of advertising and the mass marketing of commodities (including artworks). The colours and text were sourced directly from cutting up junk mail. The actual meaning of the text is unimportant and therefore obscured by its reduction to geometry. This enhances the overall geometry of the composition with further reference to its Suprematist origin. The sculpture, by its analytical nature, is an abstraction from a box be it packaging or be it a cube. There are visual clues towards the reassembly of the sculpture back into a box. Picasso always used that device in his Cubist abstractions which gives the composition a further function as a puzzle. Supermarketism is therefore largely a Post Modern puzzle.

Research for my first Supermarketism compositions were in white cardboard. This began my experiments for my Master of Fine Art project. The white cardboard helped to visualise the sculpture tonally but it had little structural strength. I made a cruciform with packaging tabs and drew a Suprematist-like composition on it. I found that the rectangle’s forms implied greater movement if they were more tapered than those of Malevich. See figure (9). I decided to include a square in all my compositions as homage to the original “hard cold” system. To Malevich colour had symbolic meaning. He used primary and secondary colours. This prompted a ‘philosophical thought’ that the colour of packaging and the marketing of it is the same. I initially included readable text. Gradually I decided that the geometric structure of the text was more important than legible text. The first Supermarketism composition successfully completed as a sculpture was in 2005. See figure (10). The sculpture was constructed from a cruciform of 12 cm squares. Made from 1.5mm steel plate it occupies approximately .5cubic meters of space. It is hand painted with enamel paint and is free standing. The sculpture is an

25 interplay of positive and negative shapes that weave through the composition. Part of the cold hard system was to place the positive shapes in close proximity to the negative shapes from whence they were cut. The sculpture also takes on the role of a puzzle, almost a rebus10. Supermarketism first showing was at the Toyamura International Sculpture Biennale, at Abutagun Hokkaido, Japan in 2005.

Figure (9)

Kasimir Malevich Suprematist Painting (1916) Oil on Canvas 88.0 x 70.0 cm Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suprematism (2010)

10 The Rebus is the puzzle where the viewer visually packs all elements back into a box or reconstructs the cube

26 Figure (10)

Charlie Trivers

Homage to a (Supermarket) Square (2005)

Painted Steel 25 x 32x 27cm

Exhibited at the Toyamura International Sculpture Biennale 2005 Abutagun Hokkaido JAPAN

The cold hard system became a process of making a number of designs in paper and in cardboard and selected the better compositions for their sculptural possibilities in steel. All compositional devices in the sculptures were true to the original design. There was no distortion of elements to force the composition to fit. Every composition could be unravelled into the original box. This cold hard system had its limitations and out of thirteen compositions, Figures (11) and (12) were the more

27 successful sculptures. I decided to play around with the scale of the compositions. This was in part due to the challenges of the new body of work and because I had a new found confidence in upsizing.

My next move was to double the thickness of steel plate and the dimensions of the cruciform. Making a few subtle compositional alterations, I made another version of Homage to a (Supermarket) Square using 3mm steel plate and a cruciform of 24 cm squares. It occupied approximately one cubic meter. See figure (16). I found changing the thickness of the steel and size of the components made the sculpture structurally flimsier. The larger sculpture was too large to work in an inside space, and too small to work in an outdoor space. The work also introduced me to a number of new problems that have taken me years to, almost, resolve. The question of the plinth for a smallish outdoor/indoor sculpture is a difficult one 11.

A cube of equal or reasonable proportions did not elevate the sculpture to eye level. A box come plinth seemed a logical element to add to the sculpture, therefore the plinth was made of three cubes. The most important addition to the cold hard system was the use of box flaps as a sculptural device to highlight the weightiness suggested by the volume of the box. This move allowed the sculpture and box better sculptural unity. Another alteration to the system came from the process of upsizing. A small freestanding sculpture has the limitations of gravity whereas a sculpture attached to a plinth at one point does not. In my next upsizing exercise, I referred to a small Supermarketism Composition sculpture that offered spatial possibilities that would allow the second version to become significantly more dynamic. I called this body of work the Dynamic Supermarketism Composition series. See Figures (11) and (12) and their Dynamic Supermarketism versions in Figures (13) and (14).

11 British sculptor Anthony Caro (b 1924) abandoned the plinth in his sculptural practice to work on compositions that had no literal references and free to pursue abstract steel sculpture as compositional objects in their own right. My move was to introduce the plinth as a sculptural element and as a literal reference to a box as the packaging the sculpture came in in the first place. www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/caro/room02.htm (2011)

28 Figure (11) Figure (12)

Figure (13) Figure (14)

Supermarketism Composition Number 3 Supermarketism Composition Number 5 Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 3 Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 5 (2006) Painted Steel

29 The plinth geometrically comprised of two squares and four rectangles. This elongated square prism is called a cuboid polyhedron. As a compositional element in the sculpture it became apparent that other cubic elements needed to be incorporated into the compositional system to give the plinth unity with the rest of the sculpture. It was also important that the viewer could unravel the composition and visually put it back in its box. The plinth as box as packaging became as compositionally important as it became conceptually important. Dynamic Supermarketism Compositions followed a cold hard system of sculptural interplay between a cube as a plinth (including box tabs), a smaller cube and three parallelepiped elements sourced from the cruciform. The cruciform with the residual two dimensional pattern remains as a compositional element. As compositions became more cubic and complex it remained important to me that negative shapes in the cruciform retained the interplay with the cubes and cuboids. I reinvestigated several of the original compositions as Dynamic Supermarketism Compositions. When I doubled my upsize to working from 6mm steel plate from a cruciform of 48cm squares the plinth for the next sculpture had to be a cube. In these versions the sculpture without plinth occupies approximately 2 cubic meters of space. The cube- come-box-come-plinth is .6 cubic meters. In 2006 I exhibited in the Woolahra Small Sculpture Prize with Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 9. see figure (19)

Figure (15) Charlie Trivers Supermarketism Composition Number 1 (2006) Painted Steel 55 x 55 x 45 cm Exhibited at the 2006 Moreland Sculpture Show Melbourne

30 Figure (16)

Charlie Trivers Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 1 (2006) Painted Steel

31 Figure (17)

Charlie Trivers Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 1 (Supersized Version) (2006) Painted Steel Exhibited at the Swell Sculpture Festival Currumbin Gold Coast Qld

32 Figure (18)

Charlie Trivers Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 9 (Mini Mart Version) (2005) Painted Steel 380x320x220mm Exhibited at the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize 2005

Figure (19)

Charlie Trivers Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 9 (2005) Painted Steel 3000x2800x2500mm Exhibited at the University of Western Sydney Acquisitive Sculpture Prize Exhibition

The mini mart version weighed 2 kgs and the large version weighed 350kgs. I had never worked on sculpture with this weight/mass before. I was introduced into the world of hoists and cranes and this scale is only possible with the facility of a large workshop space. Compositionally, a number of changes had to be made from the mini version to the maxi version to compensate for weight. The cruciform was made of 6mm plate but all the other cuboid components were made from 3mm plate. All the cuboid components had to be internally reinforced with bracing to give them extra strength and to minimise distortion through the welding process. More contact points were designed into the composition to give it greater strength. I had never encountered before the compromise between compositional balance and gravitational balance of the sculpture. I was happy with the sculpture when sited at the University of Western Sydney campus at Campbelltown.

34 My concern, as with all of my Supermarketism sculpture, was that the formal information overrides their conceptual information. In the case of the 2006 UWS Acquisitive Sculpture Prize Exhibition I wrote the following Artists Statement for the catalogue.

Welcome to the world of Supermarketism. Supermarketist art products are dynamic, bold, colourful and very affordable. Do you need an aggressive and imposing boy’s toy? Well these slightly over the top capitalist constructs are for you. Unravel the box and impress your friends. We hope you enjoy our new line of sculpture.

Supermarketism employs the very latest in Post Modern thought. Supermarketism has been inspired by the Suprematism paintings of the early 20th century constructivist pioneer Kasimir Malevich. Malevich found purity in the square in his two dimensional geometric abstractions which implied movement in space. He used primary and secondary colour for symbolic effect. Supermarketism is a homage to a square in particular supermarket squares. Supermarketist use of colour is to replicate the language we are all comfortable with; the language of advertising. Text is cropped to avoid cross selling and therefore illegible, serving a further geometric function. Spatially the sculpture is an interaction between negative spaces and positive vibes and volumes. Supermarketism is a Post Modern re-examination of Malevich’s visual language with a three dimensional and sculptural emphasis. Supermarketism is a homage to a square as a supermarket square. It is also a conceptual device to critique the trashed world of consumerism.

This language demonstrated that I have the intention to make sculpture with an inbuilt subversion of its initial appearance. I have found in the process of this research project that there is a fine line between the recognition of it as being a formalist investigation, and being a conceptual one. The time, effort and expense to make a large scale sculpture is much greater than the time, effort and expense of its conceptual content. The physical nature of the work, both its construction and its exhibition presence, may override the words that travel with it. At the time I also found myself caught up in the process of applying for large scale outdoor exhibitions

35 with large scale outdoor sculptures. Each application accepted represented at least six months commitment to one sculpture. This was an unsustainable scenario given the lack of sales and commercial appeal of the work. I don’t know of any other pursuit where this is such a positive outcome. And when the call for entries for the following Sculpture by the Sea is called, what does a poor artist do? Apply and make over six months yet another art object of cultural value of course. Perhaps I might sell it for the asking price less commission and GST. Do I critique the world of consumerism because no one will buy my sculpture? Perhaps subconsciously this is my way of dealing with the lack of commercial success. The following chapter is my view on this and how it indirectly influences my artwork.

36 $(&&/"&' "-#*&' ")"&' "" #*&' "-)"&' "#*&' "

When an art student graduates from art school is he or she then an artist? Surely this is true of Doctors who graduate from Medical School or Lawyers who graduate from Law school. And of those artists who call themselves artists who have never been to art school, are they similar to lawyers who call themselves lawyers who have never been to Law School?

An artist has to invent him or herself into their profession. The new artist has to convince not only him or herself that he or she is an artist but also other artists, art enthusiasts and the art industry. Artists are hard to convince as they too are caught up in the same convincing cycle. In addition, once an artist starts the process of convincing others that he or she is an artist, the artist cannot stop. Because if you as a convinced and convincing artist do stop convincing others you are an artist, then you are no longer an artist. Worse, still if you want to resume being an artist you have to start the convincing game all over again.

Unlike a doctor or a lawyer, every artist engages in product differentiation. The more seemingly unique an artist’s product is, the more seemingly significant it is. Yet art products are promoted as services, as objects, as products. This confusion from a capitalist and from an art perspective cannot be resolved. This is because Art, unlike medicine or law, is open to definition. No one, including artists, are convinced as to what art is or what an art object is. A large part of what art is, is defining what art is. And a large part of making art objects is defining what art objects are. Not much is said about defining what a commercial art transaction is. This is also true in defining what an artist is. We use images and text to define art. We also use images and text to convince of the quality of artistic intent. The scale and diversity of the text and images that are a product of the volume of scrutiny of an artist’s text and images is a measure of significance.

37 Let me convince you I am a significant artist by telling you I am a significant artist. Or do I get someone else who has convinced others of their art authority to tell you that I am a significant artist. Significance in the art world is also by an artist’s accumulation of credibility and respect. Artists whose outlook and purpose is for purposes other than financial gain are respected and given greater credibility than artists with purely commercial intent. Significance is long term if the artist can afford a much delayed pay cheque. Once that significance is refutably established an artist is established. The artist is said to be part of the art establishment. In the commercial world this significance has a monetary value. The art world promotes itself as apart from this concept. The truth is the art world is a part of this concept. In fact art is the signature commodity of the obscenity of monetary value of significance. A painting made in a leisurely nineteenth century Impressionist afternoon commands a greater capitalist value than any other evidence of significant pursuit. Art as a commodity is a construct of the Capitalist System. Yet as an artist, I would like to make a living out of what I do. As an artist, I would like to eat food on a regular basis, live in a nice house and provide for my family.

Commercialism as an evil is a popular perception like politicians as liars. A commercial exchange is desirable and undesirable and like every aspect of art, is yet another polarity to ponder.

38 Figure (20)

Charlie Trivers Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 3 (2006) 260x190x160cm Painted Steel Exhibited Sculpture by the Sea 2006

39 $(&#)&/-"!)$&!& ('!"!*&'#"'

After making Dynamic Supermarketism Compositions for three years my research became a process with limited inventiveness. Invention was limited to the maquette and I had become quite competent with the construction of the up-scaled version of the maquette. The time required to construct the large compositions for Public Art Exhibitions also has had a bearing on the time available to realise my ideas for the research. I became concerned that as many commercially orientated artists vary their compositions slightly from artwork to artwork, I may fall into the same mode of practice.

I then began to think outside the box and incorporate another dimension to the research. I do like making geometric compositions but I much prefer to make fluid carved or modelled organic forms. An example of this is in figure (3). I revisited a body of work that I had been working on up to 1999 called Animadversions. To summarise, Animadversions were in part inspired by automatic drawings in a coastal environment and by my interest in the biomorphic sculpture of Jean Arp, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Isamu Noguchi. The American born Noguchi (1904-1988) interested me more, as his biomorphic sculptures also formally conformed to grid like structures. I include Figures (21) and (22) to demonstrate the influence his sculptural investigations have had on my own work. Noguchi had a career long recurring theme of interplay of the geometric with the organic. I find this narrative visually compelling.

By following this path, I found that I could better conceive Supermarketism, metaphorically holding up the mirror to society as I saw it. The puzzle I now set was of organic and geometric elements together in a sculptural composition with the purpose of pursuing a narrative as a major factor.

40 Figure (21)

Isamu Noguchi Kouros (1944-5) Marble Metropolitan Museum of Art New York

Figure (22)

Isamu Noguchi Red Cube (1968) Painted steel Marine Midland Bank New York

Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversions is the juxtaposition of two dichotomous variations of sculptural abstraction. In a contrast of sculptural language, geometric abstraction interacts with organic abstraction in search of simultaneous and interconnected social, ecological and sculptural narratives. The geometric abstraction is called Dynamic Supermarketism and its narrative is concerned with the issues involving consumerism and one life packaging. The Big Box Theory is an important part of this narrative. I began researching the interaction of organic and organic abstraction as a narrative concerning the natural world under climate change pressure. Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversions are compositions of contradiction where geometric and organic abstractions both strive for order in built and natural environments, which are in chaotic states. I made my first Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversions from recycled cardboard. I later, once again, supersized them in steel.

41 #!(&'(&(#" Supermarketism is a self-generating, geometric, sculptural language. As discussed above, Supermarketism has its origins in Suprematism. Suprematism as a non- objective innovation relies heavily on narrative. Malevich during Suprematism rejects the objective representation of his artwork prior to, and post, this period. His sense of narrative remains constant as his geometric shapes and use of colour represent aspects of his “Non-Objective World” of “pure artistic feeling”12. Malevich used dynamic forms to organise a system where “the subject matter of a new science- the science of painting” is part of his “analytic investigation.”

Supermarketism also relies on narrative, Supermarketism is in part a Post Modern parody of Suprematism, and in part a formal investigation into its Modernist spatial possibilities. It is also about the disposable nature of consumerism, and how it is packaged. One of Supermarketism's predetermined rules is to use its consumerist overtones to undermine and promote simultaneously. Supermarketism shops around for the interchangeable language of consumerism and of art history. As with a lot of Pop Art, to which it refers, Supermarketism endeavours to generate meaning out of the meaningless. Supermarketism's heroes and villains are Duchamp and Anthony Caro. McDonalds is unmistakably McDonalds whether you are in Washington or Wagga Wagga with a few local variations. All Supermarketist sculpture to this point is unmistakably Supermarketism. Supermarketism develops logic with playful purpose between a box and its contents and how they spatially interact with other boxes and their contents. The box is plain white and visually unappealing while the contents are cubes and are colourfully attractive. The cubes’ colour and design have been borrowed from advertising. The rearranging and interpreting of this sculptural language is a compositionally overwhelming process. The elements as objects exist before the search for relationships begin. The objects have a reference to real, functional boxes, yet they do not have functional

12 Kasimir Malevich The Non-Objective World: The Manifesto of Suprematism first published as a Bauhaus Book in 1927 Originally published Paul Theobald and Company Chigargo 1959. Malevich on Suprematism: Six Essays, 1915 to 1926, 1999 (edited and introduced by Patricia Railing) Museum of Art University of Iowa, Oxford

42 properties. The boxes expel, momentarily contain and consume. The boxes have passive and impassive interactions with the cubes. Their interaction depends on the implied action of the box. This largely depends on implied motion, contact or release from both. The relationships between the sculptural elements have an imposed complexity. That complexity allows a narrative that is derived from improbable and possible spatial associations.

&"'(&(#" Animadversions begin with an automatic drawing response to a natural environment. Drawn interpretations of natural elements are animated into form. As discussed previously on paged 16 in the name Animadversion, the word ‘adverse’ means criticism or an expression of disapproval, ‘Anima’ is the female principal in Jungian psychology, and the ‘version’ allows variations of the same thematic rule system. Animadversions combine these qualities with a suggestion of a simple yet complex life form. All animadversions are the same motif but in response to compositional purpose are in different positions. The forms at the top have a head with a single feature. As with Supermarketism boxes Animadversions give the illusion that they expel, momentarily contain and consume. As in real life, the unreal life of Animadversions need to consume, but what they consume is inconsumable. As in real life, the unreal life of Animadversions have a need to inhabit, but what they inhabit is uninhabitable. The Animadversion elements were made in recycled cardboard with a view to upsizing them in steel. The first time I exhibited a Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion composition was at Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi in 2007. See figure (23) for the cardboard maquette and figure (24) for a photograph of the sculpture at Marks Park and in preparation for painting in my warehouse. The story of how this sculpture was fabricated is a large unseen part of the work. How I ended up making the work was vastly different to how I proposed to make it for Sculpture by the Sea. In Chapter Four: Process, Metal Fabrication and The Question of Painting Sculpture and Dynamic Supermarketism Supersupreme Compositions describes the processes developed to fabricate and compose the sculptures.

43 $(&9/&(#"' ( &(#" As previously mentioned, I did a panelbeating short course at TAFE before starting this research project. In that course I learnt a lot about sheet metal fabrication and forming that I have used in the fabrication of my steel sculpture. Compared to building a car the plan to build a sculpture is always up for reinterpretation. A car is built to be as light as possible where as a steel sculpture does not have to be light and it is often an advantage to be heavy. Car makers use 0.9mm thick steel plate. I have found that 3mm thick steel plate is best for making small and large sculpture. 3mm thick plate steel is an ideal thickness for Mig and Tig welders. This thickness minimises distortion. Distortion is where plate buckles because the heat and therefore expansion of the sheet is greater where the weld is compared to the relatively cooler areas of the plate. To avoid distortion it is best to tack plates together and then weld in small amounts and cool the plate with water. 3mm plate is heavy at 85kg per sheet so moving the sculpture in the making soon becomes difficult. Hoists and trolleys make the job easier.

As a sculptor it is best to tack the sculpture together with a MIG welder first. By doing this I can look at it and how all the elements relate to each other and undo welds if they do not. A Tig welder fuses the edges of plate together. A good weld has good penetration in the join. The more heat the better the penetration. However the more heat the more the likelihood of both distortion and melting a hole in the plate. In a nutshell, getting the right combination is the skill in welding.

I cut all my steel plate with a plasma cutter. Geometric plates are cut using a straight edge. Straight bends I have found are best done by cutting the bend line desired to a 2mm depth. I then bend it to the cut and tack it into place. A Mig welder fills in any gap left with steel. There are machines that will bend plate called folders, but they are large and expensive.

44 Figure (23)

Charlie Trivers Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 1 (2007) Cardboard

Figure (24)

Charlie Trivers Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 1 (2007) Painted Steel 2400x2000x1600mm Exhibited Sculpture by the Sea Bondi 2007

Fabricating an organic form in steel is completely different to fabricating a geometric form. Very few sculptors do it and fewer still do it well. As a well known and influential steel sculptor recently said of my cardboard organic maquette, "I can't see that in steel". This is one area where I have only begun to explore the fabrication possibilities. There is no rulebook or resource to refer to how to form flat sheets of steel into round and bulbous forms. With the sculptures for the 2007 Sculpture by the Sea exhibition, I moved into unknown territory and followed a few paths before developing a solution. Firstly, the maquette was made in cardboard by cutting out various sized circles and feeding them through a steel rod. This was fine for cardboard but to do the same method in steel to such a large scale would have been problematic. The weight would

46 have been incredible and unworkable. Complying to an engineering certificate would also have been difficult. Layers of mild steel would have been highly corrosive particularly in a marine environment. In fact, a metal fabricator advised me that stacking steel plate on top of each other would serve as a moisture trap and would accelerate corrosion. There was no conceivable way of protecting the steel from corrosion.

I then investigated the use of Cor-ten steel. Greg Johns13 see Figure (25) has been very successful with his use of Cor-ten steel as it is extremely malleable and corrosion resistant. This steel alloy has a high copper component in its make up. The steel supplier however advised me against its use, as the corrosive environment of stacking plate would still affect that product. I thought about using aluminium, but having no experience with the metal and the added expense, I decided to try another approach. I ended up making a light steel rod armature and wrapping strips of 1.6mm plate of various sizes around it. It then became obvious that I would need to use a lot of bog (polyester putty) to fill all the gaps. I began trying to conceal the putty but eventually let it become an aesthetic feature. The entire organic component was welded from the inside. I therefore had to weld from the bottom and work my way up as if it was a steel basket. I also had to bog my gaps as I constructed the sculpture from the inside. This was not easy as the heat of the welding often compromised the strength of the bog and often caught fire and had to be re-done. It was not physically possible to wrap 1.6mm steel around the tight bends of the sculpture so I resorted to thinner plate.

Figure (25)

Greg Johns Horizon Figure 1 (2009) 195 x 80 x 50 cm

Cor-ten steel and ironstone

13 Greg Johns (Australian, born 1953) Influenced by the Australian landscape Horizon Figure 1 2009 195 x 80 x 50 cm is made from Cor-ten steel and ironstone.

47 I decided to try another approach for my University of Western Sydney Acquisitive Sculpture Prize Exhibition in early 2008. I made this sculpture in a similar way and replaced the technique of welding strips with welding shapes onto the armature. I panelbeated the shapes into a wooden bowl dolly that I made up for the project. I also made sure that the shapes overlapped much tighter and I made my armature more substantial. The steel bowl construction method worked much better that time around. However, it was probably more time consuming as individual shapes were cut in paper to fit and then cut out in steel. Each shape was ground and sanded along the edges for a smooth fit and appearance.

Figure (26)

Charlie Trivers Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 3 (2008) 240x160x200cm Painted Steel Exhibited Acquisitive Sculpture UWS Prize Exhibition 2008

48 Figure (27)

Charlie Trivers Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 4 (2009) Painted Stainless Steel 2500x900x900 mm Exhibited Sculpture by the Sea 2009 and Willoughby Sculpture Prize 2009

To fabricate Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 4 I carved the Animadversion component out of plaster. I bent pieces of stainless steel rod in a timber dolly to fit the outside surface of the plaster and welded the stainless steel rod over the plaster. Plaster by its nature was resistant to the heat of the welding. When I had covered the surface of the plaster with the stainless steel rod I then chipped the plaster away from underneath to reveal the steel copy. I then welded the joins from the inside to tidy the steel structure with the exception of one section. I chose a section to cut out so that I could place and weld the painted stainless steel cubes inside the structure. With the aid of wet blankets I welded the cubes to the structure and welded the cut out section back to the sculpture. The wet blankets reduced the amount of burnt paint and splatter from the welding. I then touched up the cubes with paint and painted the stainless steel rod.

49 %)'(#"#$"("') $()& The question of truth to materials tends to arise whenever the answer to a sculptural problem is to paint it. Since the Renaissance, Western artists did not consider painting a sculpture, any more than they would have sculpted a painting. Traditional sculpting materials, like bronze and marble, implied permanence and had their own aesthetic. Now the distinctions between painting and sculpture are increasingly blurred. All materials are now considered sculpture materials and permanence is less an issue. The camouflaging of the identity of a material with paint can be a good aesthetic dishonesty. However, the question like a hangover remains and the following answers like a remedy reply.

Supermarketism has as part of its compositional process, beginnings in two dimensional language including painting. The question of painting sculpture is really only relevant in a Modernist context. The function of paint in this context is to protect the surface and give it uniformity to allow the aesthetic appreciation of abstract form. Modernist abstract sculpture has little to no narrative function. Post Modernism on the other hand is all about narrative, both as a story about something and about the artform that relays the story. Yet to say that it is irrelevant to abstract sculpture does not fit within Post Modern logic. Painting enhances the narrative and in doing becomes an integral sub plot to it.

I began painting my first steel Supermarketism sculptures with a soft brush using ‘Kill Rust’ enamels. It takes many layers of enamel to build up strong colour without streaking. The process was time consuming and took a lot of masking off to get convincing colour separation and sharp hard edging. Brush marks no matter how much sanding between coats were always evident. I also found that a clear enamel coat over the paint-work tended to bleed the underlying coats. For larger compositions, I used a roller over steel, masking off areas to have multiple colours. This worked well except for difficult to get at areas that had to be hand painted. Coming from a painting background, I also painted the early sculptures with a white enamel ground. White enamel I soon found is not a good primer for steel. One problem arising from this process was, enamel paint scratches easily and is difficult to repair. The thick paint had to be filled with polyester putty and sanded back before repainting. Enamel takes longer to cure than it does to dry. It can easily lift,

50 particularly in places where pressure is applied, like tied down sections. Transportation of sculpture became problematic where large sections of a sculpture had required repainted on site. Permanent siting and transportation became a real problem as far as maintenance goes. ‘Kill Rust’ is not a good product for protecting the steel from rusting particularly in a coastal environment like Sculpture by the Sea.

To solve the problem I learned to use automotive paints with spray guns and compressed air. This process is reliant on an etch primer. Etch primer sticks to steel very well and can be built up quickly by adding a number of coats quite quickly. It has to be thinned with thinners for the paint to be applied by the spray gun. Etch primer can be used to fill pinholes that may be missed when filling holes with polyester putty (bog). Etch primer is easy to sand to achieve a very flat smooth surface. Care should be taken at the edges, as it is easy to sand back to metal at these points. An acrylic white base coat is then spray applied. It is best applied on the same day as the etch primer cures. Colour is best applied over the base coat after 24 hours of curing. The range of automotive paints is endless and a number of coats give the finish an automotive appearance. Automotive paints (particularly base coat) have about a week before they have to be sealed. Each coat has a period of optimum adhesion to the next. After a week coats do not have optimum adhesion and will eventually separate in an outdoors environment. Thinners have to be used about 50- 50 to spray the paint through the gun but it gives a very thin coat. The thin coats are very easy to damage particularly when doing small fiddly paint applications to masked areas of the sculpture surface. Touch ups with a brush sometimes work but they often give a look of a small layer of paint over a larger surface. The surface can be sanded back with a 1000+ grit sand paper. Generally, it is best to respray any damage, which also involves re masking. A clear polyurethane finish, which is ultra- violet resistant and hard wearing, is a two-pack application. By this the polyurethane and catalyst is mixed in proportion to form a chemical reaction. The finish is relatively slow to cure even though you are applying a finish with a hardener catalyst in its mix. It picks up and shows dust very easily. Professional spray painters have spray booths to provide this environment, which is very dissimilar to a sculptor's fabrication studio. It is a most hazardous automotive paint and requires a respirator face mask, goggles and full body coverage. However, it gives a product-like finish to the sculpture, which is a surface I have been trying to achieve. Results cannot be truly

51 perfect without perfect conditions. As I learnt more about the hazards involved with two-part polyurethanes I used acrylic finishes as a substitute. Acrylic finishes dry fast but do not leave the same quality of finish.

A combination of automotive and enamels came to me as a solution to the approach to painting sculpture. Painted sculpture needs a coat of zinc to protect it from the elements. Many art galleries and sculpture parks now insist on a zinc coat and use it as a selling point. Hot dipped galvanisation of steel is the most effective way to protect mild steel. However, in scale and cost it is largely impractical for a sculpture. Zinc can be sprayed using the same spray gun equipment as for the automotive paints. It is easy to scratch therefore a coat of etch primer over the top of the zinc secures that layer. It is also a good idea to keep a gun for zinc and etch primer and a separate gun for acrylic automotive paints. I have had one contaminate the other.

There is a problem with etch primer. It dries mid air thereby giving a rougher surface to parts of the sculpture that is furthest from the spray gun. This I have found can be used to advantage as it can provide a grainy surface not unlike a grey gesso. This provides a surface that is ideal for the manual application of paint. Acrylic paints can be worked into this surface to give a painterly finish. Automotive two-pack clear will go over the acrylic without affecting the surface. Automotive two-packs will affect an enamel surface because of the thinners in the two-pack. However, if you paint enamel over zinc and etch primer there is no need for a lacquer. Further, the anti rust agents in Kill Rust Enamel paints should add to the anti corrosive armoury of the surface.

Also of note, a coat of polyester resin or polyurethane (UV stabilised polyurethane is dearer but better) can be applied to a coat of acrylic without affecting the paint. In the process of this research, I have painted my sculptures with a combination of painted surfaces to reach these conclusions. In my next sculpture, I decided to abandon mild steel for 306 stainless steel. The stainless steel is low grade and although more expensive than mild steel, in comparison requires less surface preparation which evens out the cost. I now live a lot closer to the ocean than I did when I first started this research and not only my sculpture is rusting but large chunks of my car and my house.

52 -"!)$&!& ('!)$&')$&!#!$#'(#"' Much of my head in the shed time involves other important inputs such as beer and pizza. I was a bit short of cardboard on one of those moments so I used the cardboard from the pizza box. I found that the Supermarketism design cut out of the box worked well with the readymade cuts of the pizza box. The cardboard was too flimsy to make the artwork itself, yet it made a very good template. To this point, all the boxes that I had used in my Supermarketism compositions had been cruciforms of squares or rectangles. Using the pizza box offered an opportunity to look at all types of cardboard product packaging for Supermarketism compositions. The pizza box was probably the more recognisable as a source. Once again, the beauty of the title Dynamic Supermarketism Supersupreme Composition, deserved an equally good sculpture. I made Dynamic Supermarketism Supersupreme Composition Number 2 in 2007 and entered it in the Kajama International Sculpture Competition in Japan. I was a finalist and the work was exhibited in both Tokyo in 2007, and Osaka in 2008.

I also used the sculpture as a maquette for a super-sized version exhibited in Sculpture by the Sea in 2008. see Figure (29) The narrative of Supermarketism and its social commentary was clearly defined at this point. The narrative I enjoyed in this body of work was the one of their making. I made the super-sized pizza sculpture in stainless steel plate. The beauty of the template cut into over thirty pieces transferred into 6mm stainless steel to the same number. The joy of all the pieces in the puzzle fitting precisely back as intended was part of the work; knowing that under a painted surface of colour sourced from a pizza box lies a well-fabricated structure.

53 Figure (28)

Charlie Trivers Dynamic Supermarketism Supersupreme Composition Number 2 (2007) Painted Steel Exhibited the Kajama International Sculpture Competition Japan Tokyo and Osaka Sculpture by the Sea Indoor exhibition 2008 Bondi, Sydney

Figure (29)

Charlie Trivers Dynamic Supermarketism Supersupreme Composition Number 3 (2008) 260x190x160cm Painted Stainless Steel Exhibited Sculpture by the Sea 2008

55 This emphasis on the aesthetics of process is reflected in the sculptures of American artist Martin Puryear (b1941). Puryear has an unwavering commitment to crafting his objects using traditional methods and manual skill14. His work has intellectual and cultural references as well as technical and material beauty. His sculpture, largely referencing natural forms have a poetic presence. Puryear is often referred to as a Minimalist but rejects the Minimalist ideal of objectivity and non referentiality15, yet his works remain true to sculptural formalism and emit the purest Minimalist sensibility. This bridging of conceptual richness with poetics that quote formalist, on Minimalist sculpture is the territory where my research lies also.

Martin Puryear’s artwork is biomorphic in nature, elegant and often deals with the sculptural idea of an opposition between organic and geometric elements. As an African-American artist he has a deep connection to African sculpture and his work shares that sense of mystery.

Figure (30)

Martin Puryear Old Mole (1985) 1985 154.9 x 154.9 x 86.4 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art

14 Martin Puryear Discussion Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Puryear (2010)

15 Elderfield, J, Kravis, H Chief Curator MoMA Exhibitions 2007-2008 http://www.moma.org/visit/calandar/exhibitions/28 (2010)

56 $(&:/)(#(#,'

&# 1'& ##,' One cannot make art about boxes, packaging and supermarkets without mentioning Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes16. In 1968, Andy Warhol, from out of the world of supermarkets, brought the Brillo Box into the world of art. At the time he was the killer of the aesthetic and spiritual values relevant to the Abstract Expressionists. The Brillo Box design was the commercial work of Abstract Expressionist painter called James Harvey. Ironically Warhol had no sense of distinction between commercial and high art. Warhol, by exhibiting the Brillo Box, raises the question whether an object is a work of art in a gallery context and merely an object in its original context? Warhol purposely destabilized high culture and blurred the divide between kitsch and art. Even today, the Brillo Boxes are unsettlingly deadpan and confronting. As an artist Warhol was uncompromising but perhaps not so as a human being. As an artist I liken myself more to James Harvey17 than Andy Warhol. As an artist, I have never made or attempted to make a living from art. From turkey artificial inseminator, to rice cake maker, from a teacher to a curator, my livelihood life has been a separate life to my art life. When an artist has to make art on time, art does not always accommodate. Art does not grow to an optimum placed next to a window of opportunity.

16 Andy Warhol, American (1928-1987) first exhibited his Brillo Boxes at the Stable Gallery in New York in 1964. They are a comment on the physical and commercial environment of an art gallery compared to that of a supermarket. Walsh,P 1998 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Allen Memorial Art Museum, www.oberlin.edu/amam/Warhol_BrilloBoxes.htm (2010)

17 James Harvey, Canadian (1929-1965) was a commercial and fine artist who designed the Brillo Pad box made famous by Warhol. Harvey was an Abstract Expressionist painter who as a commercial artist had Brillo as a client. James Harvey Discussion Wikipedia 2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harvey_(artist) (2010)

57 As with James Harvey I enjoy the process of making art. I enjoy the physical manipulation of materials. I also enjoy art making for its technical challenges, which makes me an art object maker. I enjoy the engagement with the art viewer. Warhol was certainly a beautiful art ideas maker, a system that guaranteed a not so beautiful art object.

The neo-Dada achievements of Warhol and the authority of Brillo Boxes have a value that I respect but do not wish to emulate. I am the kind of artist I want to be. If I had more time I would probably spend it at the beach after a good shopping session of course.

Figure (31)

Andy Warhol Brillo Box (1968) 50.8x50.8x43.2cm Acrylic and Silkscreen on wood www.artnet.com/.../139637/brillo-box.html (2010)

58 #,#&- I avoid at all cost the accusation of suffering from grumpy old man syndrome but it really annoys me when I hear someone say that he or she needs to go to Bunnings for something. It annoys me for three reasons. Firstly, it annoys me that Bunnings have been successful in replacing the word hardware with its own brand name. Secondly, it annoys me that so many people accept that particular branding manipulation and blindly perpetuate it. Finally, Bunnings so dominates the Bunnings market I can’t go anywhere to get my Bunnings other than Bunnings. Bunnings is a big box brand in Australia but is a very small box in a world of big boxes such as Wal-Mart in the United States of America and globally K-Mart, IKEA, Toys’R’Us and Target.

The first Wal-Mart opened in Bentonville Arkansas in 1962. Wal-Mart spread throughout the United States to the point that the average American now lives less than 7 kilometres from one of its stores. Each new store opened has forced the closure of existing stores. The growth of the wholesaling supply chain is in its ever-improving efficiency to supply. It is estimated that consumer goods sold by these wholesaling supply centres are 25% cheaper than in large supermarket stores. Over 10% of all US imports from China are made by Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is the quintessential example of the costs and benefits of modern globalization18. Big Box stores derive their profits from high sale volumes rather than marked up prices. To do this they must occupy large amounts of space. As they also rely on auto-borne shoppers, acres of car parks surround big box stores.

When a Big Box Store comes to a supermarket near you, it has a retail strategy. Firstly, it sets up near a highway on the outskirts of town. It sets up shop on a very large scale, at least several times the size of a traditional outlet in their category. Big Box Stores are not particularly attractive. There is little aesthetic pretence in their design and construction.

Yet size matters in Big Box Architecture. Architecturally the wholesale supply chain stores look like large boxes and are generally placed in the centre of a sea of

18 Rogoff, Kenneth. Wall to Wall Wal Mart? Project Syndicate, 2006. www.project-syndicate.org (1995-2011)

59 car parking spaces. They are called “category killers” because their intent is to kill off competitors rather than share the market. Once they have killed off their competitor they then monopolize the market allowing them to increase prices, reduce staff and shift the product mix19. Therefore, smaller competition disappears.

Internally high intensity lighting, glass and gloss primary and secondary colours typify the stores. The unchecked, explosive growth of Big Box stores provides not only a general loss of aesthetics but also a loss of a sense of community in not only the United States but also here in Australia. They are rectangular in design, usually made of concrete with corrugated iron and/or brick facades. Most design aspects to the warehouse-like buildings are centered on promoting the store brand or logo.

Big Box Architecture is unique to nowhere; it is the same in the city, suburbia, rural or overseas. From the car park, generally the architectural façade is most visible. The façade consists of large scale, painted, cast concrete geometric arches and columns. There are striking similarities in the non-functional or decorative elements of big box architecture to early modernist, non-objective, geometric abstraction. I believe there are striking similarities between Big Box Architecture and Modernist sources, ranging from Russian Constructivism to the David Smith Cubi series20.

Both Big Box Architecture and Modernist Geometric sculpture are about volume, space, modern material and surfaces, the modular and the monumental. Ironically,

19 Discussion, Big Box Retail, 1994, Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation and Planning http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/bass/newrochele/extra/big_box.htmi (2010)

20 David Smith, American (1906-1965) combined the language of Surrealism and Cubism into steel constructions. The aesthetic and conceptual concerns of the American Abstract Expressionists were first realised by Smith three dimensionally. He was a trained metal fabricator working in a car manufacturing plant in his youth and he applied this knowledge to his sculpture. Smith’s Cubi series were largely single viewpoint compositions that were largely made up of space and less of the reflective stainless steel blocks that enclose the space.

60 Totalitarianism meets Capitalism both trying to out sell each other are part of the façade of Big Box Architecture. Figure (32)

David Smith Installation view at the Tate Modern 2006

Compare Smith’s framing of negative space to the entrance of a Big Box Store. The decorative elements frame the empty space of the store within.

Figure (33)

Illustration Big Box Archictecture www.shutterstock.com/display_pic (2010)

Given this comparison, it would not be out of order to compare Big Box Architecture to Minimalism and Post Modernism. Frank Stella21 said about Minimalism, “What you see is what you see” and this is true of Big Box Architecture. Big Box Architecture is a minimal environment stripped down into fundamental features. This no doubt enhances the overwhelming logo advertising that may appeal to the heart while the buildings may appeal to the brain.

Could this be related somehow to the consumerist quote that “you only get what you have paid for?”

Much of the façade elements of Big Box Architecture are equally reminiscent of the Minimalism of Robert Morris22. Morris (American b 1931) constructed environments out of monumental simplified geometric forms such as a right angle. The viewer of Morris’ large-scale plywood forms confined within the internal gallery box space are consumed by the competition for space between the objects and viewer. There is also a sense of familiarity with the motifs that the viewer was not distracted by what the form meant but rather by its scale and presence. When researching the links between Big Box Architecture and Minimalism I was attracted to a quote by Morris where he writes, “Indeterminacy of arrangement of parts is a lateral aspect of the physical existence of the thing23.”

21 Stella, F. Discussion Frank Stella and the Anderson Collection What you see is what you see, 2004 SFMOMA www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/160 (1998-2011)

22 Morris, R “Notes on Sculpture” Artforum, 1966. www.artandculture.com/users/276_robert_morris (2006-2009) He also exhibited two L Beams in 1966 in an exhibition called “Primary Structures” at the Jewish Museum in New York.

23 Morris, R. “Notes on Sculpture 4: Beyond objects”, Artforum 1968. www.leftmatrix.com/morris.html (2010)

Big Box Stores in a Big Box complex are arranged in a seemingly random and unrelated way. Their main link is by the practicality of access to car parks. Compositionally Big Box Architecture and Minimalism share a reduction of the object to exist within their own form and function without a collective one.

Akin to the dinosaur’s evolutionary pinnacle of unparalleled super-sizeing, it makes sense that supermarkets also evolve in scale and ferocity. Everything seems to be getting bigger: people, burgers, ideas, four-wheel drives, roads, cities, coal ships, egos, problems, poverty, disasters and TVs to watch them all on. Good big things like economic growth thrive on such other good big things. Is it not a successful idea to simply get bigger?

There is a quote by Sol LeWitt in his obituary in the New York Times, which read, “Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple. Successful ideas generally have the appearance of simplicity because they seem inevitable.”24

Figure (34)

Sol LeWitt Drawing # 1061: Planes of Colour (2003) Kunstsammlugen Germany March 2003

24 Kimmelman, M. Pub April 9 2007 New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/arts/.../09lewitt-html (2010)

63 Big Box Theory acts like another theory, evolution; it is a seemingly simple idea which brought into practice provides the emptiness and indifference of the shopping experience as a human activity and of course, pure Minimalism.

As with ideas, repetitive devices in Big Box Architecture are simple. In Big Box Architecture, the modular is celebrated mostly in cast concrete panels. These repetitive devices are reminiscent of the Minimalist sculpture of Sol Lewitt (1928- 2007).

For example, the open box like grids of LeWitts modular work would not look out of place in the façade or ceilings of a Bunnings store. Arguably, the closest thing to a Big Box Store is the Prada Marfa sculpture by Elmgreen and Dragset25 in 2005 in the recession hit former oil industry in the middle of the nowhere town of Marfa, Texas26. Marfa was a community in decline until Donald Judd brought Minimal Art to town. Minimalism brought tourism, with it commercialism, and the town’s economic revivalism. This was an art installation by the two artists. The installation is a Post Modern joke to comment on art as a commodity, and how large-scale commercialization changes the nature of a community. Judd was very aware of integrity and saw it in the desolate location and its inhabitants. Yet what brought people to Marfa were not its true local treasures, but its newly transplanted Prada outpost. Text from a visit Marfa poster exclaims, “Take the whole family to Marfa, Texas, ‘the Jonestown of Minimalism.’ See Donald Judd’s bed! Eat food all the same color! Scare the locals! Win a date with John Chamberlain!”27. Soon, in run down town halls throughout

25 Wilson, E. Little Prada in the Desert The New York Times Sept 29 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/…29ROW.html (2005) Michael Elmgreen, Denmark (1961-) and Ingar Dragset, Norway (1968-) are a collaborative duo of artists who live in Berlin, Germany and are known for their subversive humour.

26 Donald Judd, American (1928-1994) was a conceptual artist who founded the Chinati Foundation, a contemporary art museum in Marfa Texas. www.chinati.org (2010)

27 Goodwin-Sides, Anne. Donald Judd Found Perfect Canvas in Texas Town, 31 Jan 2009, NPR, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99130809 (2010)

64 the desolate barren oil fields of Texas it seemed like all the locals wanted their own Prada store art installation and a date with John Chamberlain.

New Yorker Judd helped bankroll the Marfa project from a successful career as a Minimal Artist. Between 1980 and 1986 the DIA Foundation a non-profit organisation that supports and preserves art projects, gave the project $4 million. DIA ran into financial difficulties and cut off support. Judd threatened a lawsuit and formed the Chinati Foundation to preserve and present permanent large scale installations by a limited number of artists to the public. Judd’s ideas were different to Morris’ or Dewitt’s in that Judd did not believe in transforming materials into art objects. He liked the idea of transforming the real world and preferred not to call his creations sculpture because he believed that the

Figure (35)

Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset Prada Installation Marfa Texas (2005) www.http://answers.com/topiv/donald-judd (2011)

65 word sculpture too closely referred to carving. He sought to eliminate spatial illusion with a view to make people aware of space. He saw himself more as an architectural designer and helped popularize plywood, cor-ten steel, stainless steel and concrete.

Nevertheless, once the shopper trolleys through the hollow cast façade they are consumed by the vastness of thousands of square meters of box space. We shop with fellow time deprived strangers in a large windowless, single story, no frills, standardized box.

*1' Malevich made his three dimensional versions of Suprematism between 1919 and 1932. He called this body of architectural models Architectons. Architectons were imaginary buildings made out of white clay. They were also a rich compositional interplay between art and space. Today they exist solely as photographs of the originals. They are horizontal and vertical constructions where a larger rectangle connects to smaller blocks. The boundaries between painting, sculpture and architecture are clearly indentifiable in this body of work. In his 1924 Notes on Architecture, Malevich described architecture “as an activity outside all utilitarianism, a non-objective architecture consequently possessing its own ideology… an activity free from all economic and religious ideologies28.” Upon investigating the links between Minimalism and Big Box Architecture, I revisited the work of Malevich, as non-objective art was often described in my research as the precursor to Minimalism. I had previously overlooked that Suprematism had a three dimensional counterpart and found that they complemented Malevich’s artistic style and philosophy. They “are understood as early modern avant-garde art objects or as blueprints for a new urbanism29.” Of particular interest to me was Malevich’s

28 Malevich, K. Notes on Architecture, The artist, infinity, Suprematism. Unpublished writings 1913- 1933 trans. Xenia Hoffman, Ed Troels Anderson Copenhagen: Borgen 1978 p102 Malevich viewed architecture as art, a-logical, non-objective and of a new epoch.

29 Karaush, I from Kazimir Malevic and architectons as monument: on looking at early modernism. University of British Columbia 2007. http://hdl/handle.net/2429/888 (2009)

66 sculpture, Architecton Alpha (1923), which was a vertical construction of hidden possibilities. I saw in this work a sculptural language that upon investigation would allow a combination of its aesthetics with the aesthetics of Big Box Supermarkets, both real and ideal.

Supermarketism Architecton Compositions Supermarketism Architecton Compositions have a starting point with a square. From the square, three L-shaped elements similar to those of Robert Morris were drawn in the square, then a square arch similar to arches found in Big Box stores and

Figure (36)

Charlie Trivers 9 views of Supermarketism Architecton Composition Number 2 (2009) Painted MDF 30 x 30 x 25cm Exhibited ‘Sculpture 2009’ Defiance Gallery Newtown Sydney in 2009

67 McDonalds restaurants. From the arch, came a square with a square space contained as a homage to Malevich. The residual positive square became the sixth element. All six elements can be reassembled into the original square. As with the Dynamic Supermarketism Compositions, my rule system allowed shapes to become forms of various thicknesses. For example the residual positive square became a cube which had painted text geometrically in black and yellow.

In keeping with iconography developed during the research, certain elements remain constant through each developing body of work. This includes the black and yellow cube and the two L-shaped elements which were painted geometric text in white and red. The other colours were sourced from colours used by local big box stores which I have coined Fries with that Red; Harvey Norman’s Blues; Seen to be Green, Green; Almost White; 21st Century Brown; K-Mart Yellow and Why that Purple. As a further observation, these colours and sculptural elements are found in regular monotony adorning the houses commonly referred to as McMansions built in close proximity to the Big Box Store Complexes and encompassing the real estate value of this desirable position.

With this research in mind, I made four Supermarketism Architecton Compositions in 2009 and 2010. They were made with MDF and painted in acrylic with a wax finish. I found the MDF much quicker to work with than steel but suspended elements tended to sag over time and joins needed to be large, compromising spatial adventure. The advantage of MDF is it retains good sharp edges and sands well. Plywood is a better material for this type of construction because it is structurally stronger while being less materially dense.

68 Figure (37)

Illustration of a Geometric Arch in ‘Fries with that Red’ McDonalds restaurant Long Jetty NSW I exhibited Supermarketism Architecton Compositions Numbers 2, 3 and 4 at Sculpture 2009 at Defiance Gallery, Newtown, Sydney in 2009.

In 2010, I revisited Architecton Alpha (1923) by Malevich. I decided to take on a large scale Architecton as my final project for this research. Supermarketism Architecton Mega-Alpha Complex is the working title. This work will be a predominately vertical composition with aspects of all the motifs of the geometric work over the five year period of research. The work will be constructed out of recycled construction timber and plywood. The recycled timber was actually a wall of my house that I knocked out. The lengths an artist will go to in sourcing materials for sculpture are boundless. The work will provide its own light sources.

Figure (38)

Kasimir Malevich Alpha Architekton 1920 (1925-26) Plaster 31.5 x 80.5 cm x 34 cm State Russian Museum St Petersburg http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=arch_papers& sei-redir=1#search=%22Alpha+Architekton%22 (1-1-2006)

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But, wait there’s more.

As with most journeys where the path is undefined and the goals are, uncertain tangents crop up from time to time. Tangents usually present themselves when the road ahead is seemingly clear. This research project has provided its fair share of tangents.

One such tangent arose out of a concern that most people should have over the largest landfill on Earth, the North Pacific Gyre. It is a clockwise system of currents that has

70 trapped exceptionally high concentrations of plastics and resulting chemical sludge. Some scientists believe it to be twice the size of Texas while others suggest it is twice the size of the USA. Plastic is not biodegradable and it will breakdown into small pieces of the same polymer. In places the gyre is a confetti of small to almost invisible pieces of plastic pollution floating in and on the water. The plastic is small enough to be ingested by aquatic organisms thus entering the food chain. The ingestion of toxic chemicals from the plastic soup impact all animals in the food chain, including us.

For some reason (and I know a few artists who do this) when I walk along the beach, particularly after a southerly low pressure system unleashes its fury on the coast I collect plastic debris that has been washed ashore. For some other strange reason I take my plastic collection home, sort them into their retrospective colours and put them in their nominated glass jars. Back in the physical shed, I look at them and wonder what I could possibly do with all these colourful jars. Over time, the collection gets out of hand both in size and smell and they end up in the recycling bin. The colours of the plastic are the faded colours of my Supermarketism compositions. The irony of the packaging and products of consumerism washed on shore to be further used in artwork about consumerism was also an appeal.

Everyway I looked at a solution to the problem of utilising these plastic objects I found myself out of my aesthetic comfort zone. I could not incorporate one aesthetic successfully with the existing one. The opposition of the two did not enhance the narrative or the object. I could not apply the beautifully made object with the conceptual consumerist irony with plastic debris. The work of Tony Cragg (b1949) offered some two-dimensional solutions to the collection of plastic colour. In his Britain seen from the north (1981) Cragg uses found fragments of rubbish to make a large scale map of Britain on the wall and a social comment on British society. I have made plywood cubes internally lined with plastic ocean debris sorted into different colours. I now look at cubes of colourful plastic and wonder what I could possibly do with them. There is no shortage of plastic and one day I will find an answer. An answer to the North Pacific Gyre is a far more complicated and urgent one.

71 For the majority of the research period I had made work that would cater for my normal exhibiting practice of entering sculpture prize exhibitions. At the end of the research period I stopped applying for entry into those exhibitions to concentrate on an indoors MFA graduate exhibition. My idea is to exhibit the broad scale of my investigations including those elusive Pacific Gyre cubes. In this pursuit I researched the following artists all of whom to varing degrees, as an artist, I found common ground giving me a fresh insight into my own work and its possibilities.

Thomas Rentmeister (b1964) is a German artist whose installation at the Greenway Art Gallery as part of the Adelaide Bank Festival of the Arts was described by Ursula Panhams-Buhler as a kind of "Dirty Minimalism30". Rentmeister’s view of today's modernism is one of shopping in a supermarket of 20th century art. His sculptures refer to Minimalism but are more about the tactility of surface and the recycling of materials. He plays with hard and soft surface and from materials that are diverse and yet the same colour. Unlike the Modernist ethos he is not true to his materials. As with Supermarketism Rentmeister’s work is not truly abstract and not truly representational. He also uses humour to reconnect art to the real world. In his 2007 installation, Untitled, Rentmeister presents a shopping trolley almost buried by a large pile of sugar. In another installation the title is Nearly 100 fridges in a corner, which describes exactly what the artwork is, and yet it is not because it is made from another material31. Both installations have a simple beauty, frozen like a moment in our time. See figure (39)

30 Panhans-Buhler, U. Sweet Heaviness and Gravitational Sweetness catalogue Thomas Rentmeister 2001 www.gagprojects.com/TR2008.html (27 Feb-23Mar 2008)

31 http://todayinart.com/2010/05/21/more-installations-by-thomas-rentmeister/ (2011)

72 Figure (39)

Thomas Rentmeister Nearly 100 fridges in a corner Penaten baby cream, Styrofoam 705 x 536 x 370 cm

To Marliz Frencken Dutch, (1955-) postmodernist shopping is more extensive than Rentmaster’s combining the low culture of mass production with the high culture of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The surfaces of her figurative works are both alluring and grotesque. Her work is highly superficial as is consumerist culture and surreal figuration. She models her figures in clay and sticks found objects on them dipping them in thick clear resin. The resin runs as it sets over the badly

73 made model. The works are colourful and playfull idealized visions of women trapped in clear plastic.

Her work is a curious mix of concerns that inform my work like social criticism and consumerism with her religious and feminine concerns dividing the line between art and kitsch32. A striking example of her work is the 2006 ‘Nivea Girl with Child’. Here the Madonna and child have the blue Nivea logos as halos with the same Nivea blue replacing ultramarine throughout the entire composition complete with matching checked gift bows33.

32 http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/museums/museum-profile/…/2641.html (2003-2011)

33 http://lookintomyowl.com/marliz-frencken-cruel-beauty.html (21 May 2009)

74 Figure (40)

Marliz Frencken Nivea Girl with Child 2006 Clay resin various materials 43.9 h http://www.artnet.com/Galleries/artwork _detail.asp?G=&gid=119094&which=& ViewArtistBy=&aid=690649&wid=4259 69014&source=artist&print=1&rta=http:/

/www.artnet.com 2011

Mark Hosking (b1977) is a British artist whose work operates somewhere between sculpture and a functional object. His works are a part of a narrative that is multi- layered and provoking aesthetically, politically and socially. He not only sends up art, art history, the art system, conservative values and political correctness, he sends up his own scenarios. Original uses for objects are distorted and re-used in a systematic parody of function. Bikinis become water purifiers and air bags become grow bags. He shows us how commodities can some how save us in a world of global warming and energy crisis. His “social sculptures” have no narrow conceptual theme making them idiosyncratic works of opposing functional and aesthetic values.

75 In 1997 at the Lisson Gallery he had an exhibition of sculpture34. Their manufacture was based on United Nations designs for rudimentary technology for impoverished nations. The objects were deliberately reminiscent of Caro's sculpture. They are formally purist, they have a functional quality and are detached from humanist values and they are for sale through a commercial gallery system. Supermarketism follows a similar approach as it has a deliberate ‘Caro look’ and Malevich reference without genuine ownership of them. “The works induce painful anguish in the viewer an acutely discomfited Western guilt35.”

Figure (41)

Mark Hosking Untitled 1997 Painted Wood 205 x 190 x 75 cm www.saatchi- gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages /mark_hosking_untitled.htm (2011)

David Cerny (b1967) is a Czech artist who’s practice I admire for his large scale works that are politically provocative. He first came to public attention when he painted a former Soviet tank pink. The tank was a war memorial in central Prague and Cerny was arrested for vandalism. In his public art in Europe and in the USA he uses scale and humour to make his politically incorrect statements. He mistrusts all politicians both Communist and now Czech. For example, in a permanent installation at the Futura gallery in Prague, the viewer needs to climb a ladder up a large stooping figurative sculpture to look up its arse to see an enclosed video installation of two politicians feeding each other slop to the sound track of “We are

34 Press Release Kerstin Engholm Galerie Vienna 2004. http://www.engholmengelhorn.com/ARTISTS/mark_hosking/MHT-html (2004)

35 Brown.Neal. Freize Magazine review Issue 37 1997 http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/mark_hosking (16 Oct 2010)

76 the Champions” by Queen. His most controversial public artwork in Prague are the enormous babies scaling the central Communist era TV tower.36

Figure (42)

David Cerny Installation on the Prague TV Tower Zizkov permanent since 2001

Canadian, James Carl (b1960) makes disposable mass produced items "disposable art". He investigates arts part or position in the chain of production and consumption. He presents an art like mask of consumerism a creative task with no consumer value. Where Supermarketism makes steel replicas of cardboard packaging Carl makes cardboard replicas of consumer and household appliances. He carves marble into disposable packaging for mass produced items. In a 1993 Vancouver installation he constructed a full scale garbage dumpster complete with the labour intensive nuts and bolts out of cardboard. He placed it next to a real dumpster after the real exhibition. In an ironic statement the

36 www.davidcerny.cz (2011)

77 dumpster was then taken away by a real garbage truck. In this example, artificial meanings of art and everyday life are intertwined and confused37.

Figure (43)

James Carl Public Works: Cardboard Only 1993 Salvaged Cardboard 72 x 49 x 30 in

Richard Serra was born in San Francisco in 1939. Although known as a Minimalist he has a great awareness of his materials, which may reflect the steel mills, and shipyards of his youth. This background (which is similar to mine in Newcastle) may also play a part in the physicality and engagement with space. Serra is best known for his large scale, site specific Cor-ten plate sculpture. His work has an emphasis on materiality, site placement and viewer engagement with gigantic, towering, bent, curved, leaning in and out steel plate. His work in the New York Times was compared to a “sinuous fun house” composed of many steel plates38. In 2007 Serra’s work was celebrated for extending the definition of sculpture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art which presented a large scale retrospective, “Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years.” Serra not only considers every step in the making of his sculpture, he placed all twenty-seven artworks himself at MOMA for

37 Grande, John, K, James Carl, Sculpture Magazine April 1999 Vol.18 No.3 ISC, http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag99/april99/carl/carl/.shtml (April 1999)

38 Kennedy, Randy, Sculpture (and Nerves) of Steel The New York Times May 20 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/ars/design/20kenn.html (2010)

78 the exhibition. Serra describes his thoughts on art making, which he believes to be more important than the end result, in this way: “Sometimes the solution to a problem leads to an altogether different idea39.” This is a comment that strongly resonates with me as it is realised as the story of Supermarketism unfolds.

Figure (44)

Richard Serra The Matter of Time Guggenheim Museum Bilbao http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Serra (2011)

Lucy Leonard (b1978) is a British artist and architectural designer who deals with being a consumer and the anxiety that comes with storing items in the household in a space saving aesthetic. Her perfect order systems for the ideal home were exhibited in the “Art of Consumption” exhibition at the Whitecross Gallery in London in 2007. Leonard deals with our domestic relationship to consumer culture.40 Artists such as Malevich and his cold hard system have a methodology that in turn can become the aesthetic. As a body of artwork develops over time it develops its own logic and order systems as I have found with the iconography within Supermarketism.

39 McShine, K Cooke, L, Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years, MoMA, 24 Sept 2007 www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/14 (2010)

40 http://www.whitecrosgallery.com/artists/lucy-leonard (2010)

Figure (45)

Lucy Leonard Archive/power/play 2007 Cardboard, paper, floor paint, angle poise lamp

80 $(&

I made a mistake in pronunciation and developed a Masters research project out of it. I called the project Supermarketism. Supermarketism is not a mere parody of Malevich’s Suprematism it is in part a homage and an exploration into non-objective geometric sculptural abstraction. Along the way all the influences that has had an impact on my social conscious and artistic education and practice have bought their way into Supermarketism. I had a really good title that deserved an equally good body of work. To do that I researched not only Malevich’s work but also his methodologies and found that we had much in common. As with Malevich I like art as a mental puzzle. As the puzzle maker I have found that the greater the complexity the greater the challenge. Supermarketism as a project is the story greater complexities and challenges.

I had to learn how to weld, fabricate and finish steel sculpture and became very good at it. I investigated artists like Smith and Caro and learnt their sculptural language. I investigated the reintroduction of the plinth as a literal and sculptural element as well as a deconstructon of a box or as a packaging box. I learnt much by exhibiting with other artists in exhibitions like Sculpture by the Sea; the UWS Acquisitive Sculpture Prize and the Toyamura International Sculpture Biennale. Ironically Supermarketism attracted more commercial recognition that any of my previous bodies of work. This became quite the conundrum that led me in part to develop the Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion body of work. At best the work was a juxtaposition of two variations of sculptural abstraction. The critique on Consumerism as the underpinning narrative became stronger because of it. Conceptually Warhol’s Brillo Boxes and Aesthetically I have been inspired by the art objects of Martin Puryear have inspired me. Puryear’s work convinced me to incorporate other mediums in particular plywood into the making of Supermarketism objects. At the same time I had rediscovered Malevich and his three dimensional Architectons. I found this work oddly similar to contemporary Big Box Architecture.

81 This led me to make work that investigated the links between big box architecture and the Minimalism of Robert Morris and Sol LeWitt.

Finally and most recently I am investigating a more environmentally sensitive and green brand of Supermarketism. I am using the language developed through this project to address the issue of the North Pacific Gyre plastic pollution situation. I am currently working on a Supermarketism Pacific Gyre Construction for the Willoughby Sculpture Prize Exhibition in 2011.

)$&!& ('!0#! I was sitting in a university lecture room quietly attending a compulsory workshop on thesis writing for my Masters by research degree. Among a group of art students, a lone brave student asked a question that really struck me. “How do we know that our research topic had not been done before?” How do I know if Supermarketism is an original idea I questioned myself? It had never occurred to me that someone else might have made a research body of work out of a mispronunciation. How could I validate Supermarketism in 2009? The internet was the answer and the server my saviour. I went straight home and opened up my late Toshiba laptop and went straight to my Microsoft Online and Googled ‘Supermarketism’. To my relief only my name and the evidence of Supermarketism sculpture and the exhibitions in which they appeared came up on the screen. I must therefore be the true author of Supermarketism. I immediately for some reason thought of Supermarketism dot com. If I set up a website called Supermarketism.com I would without doubt be the true author of Supermarketism. Not only does originality exist, it has to be licensed. I will make www.supermarketism.com a reality. In what style should the website be? Should it be a website that sends up other websites, particularly commercially orientated artists websites complete with paypal? Should it be a website that is information based?

No. The best website I believe is in the form of an Ultimate Sales Letter.

And so I would like to conclude this Research Paper by introducing to you to

The Supermarketism e-Manifesto: “The Non-Objectionable World”

82 It covers nearly everything you need to know about the future of sculpture, art theory and art commerce by using a special systematic methodology to unravel Supermarketism’s super-sizing of the superfluous.

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41 http:\www.burpiesbybrett.com/geethanks.html (2011)

92 ') #)!"(&-#&#('&) $()&

(01) Homage to a (Supermarket) Square Painted Steel 2005 27 x 32 x 25cm JPEG Folder #1

(02) Supermarketism Composition Number 1 Painted Steel 2006 55 x 55 x 45cm JPEG Folder #2

(03) Drawing for Supermarketism Composition Watercolour and Graphite on paper 2005 JPEG Folder #3

(04) Paper cut outs for Dynamic Supermarketism Composition 2005 JPEG Folder # 4

(05) Supermarketism Composition Number 3 Painted Steel 2006 JPEG Folder # 5

(06) Supermarketism Composition Number 4 Painted Steel 40 x 20 x 30 cm JPEG Folder # 6

(07) Supermarketism Composition Number 5 Painted Steel JPEG Folder # 7

93 (08) Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 1 Painted Steel 2006 JPEG Folder # 8

(09) Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 3 Painted Steel JPEG Folder # 9

(10) Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 5 Painted Steel JPEG Folder # 10

(11) Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 9 (Mini-Mart Version) Painted Steel 2005380x320x220mm JPEG Folder # 11

(12) Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 1 (Supersized Version) Painted Steel 2006 90 x 120 x 90 cm JPEG Folder # 12

(13) Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 9 Painted Steel 2005 3000x2800x2500mm JPEG Folder # 13

(14) Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 3 (Supersized Version) Painted Steel 2006 260x190x160cm JPEG Folder # 14

94 (15) Supermarketism Animadversion Drawings JPEG Folder # 15

(16) Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 1 Cardboard 2007 70 x 56 x 40 cm JPEG Folder # 16

(17) Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 1 Painted Steel 2007 240 x 200 x 160 cm JPEG Folder # 17

(18) Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 3 Painted Steel 2008 240 x 160 x 200 cm JPEG Folder # 18

(19) Dynamic Supermarketism Supersupreme Composition Number 3 Painted Steel 2005 JPEG Folder # 19

(20) Dynamic Supermarketism Supersupreme Composition Number 2 Painted Stainless Steel 2007 JPEG Folder # 20

(21) Dynamic Supermarketism Supersupreme Composition Number 1 Painted Steel 2007-10 58 x 50 x 33 cm JPEG Folder # 21

95 (22) Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 4 Painted Stainless Steel 2009 250 x 90 x 90cm JPEG Folder # 22

(23) Plaster Animadversions Carved Plaster 2008 various sizes JPEG Folder # 23

(24) Walcha Animadversions Carved Redgum and Tallow-wood 2008 JPEG Folder # 24

(25) Koala Bay Animadversions 8 Polished 316 Stainless Steel, Copper shapes wrapped around pine (copper-log) JPEG Folder # 25

(26) Dynamic Supermarketism Big Box Composition Number 1 Painted Steel 2007 JPEG Folder # 26

(27) Supermarketism Architecton Composition Number 2 Painted MDF 2008 30 x 30 x 25 cm JPEG Folder # 27

(28) Dynamic Supermarketism Big Box Composition Number 2 Painted Steel 2008 260 x 190 x 160 cm JPEG Folder # 28

96 (29) Supermarketism Pacific Gyre Constructions Found beach debris 2009 70 x 40 x 40 cm JPEG Folder # 29

(30) Supermarketism Architecton Composition Number 5 Painted MDF 2009 37 x 23 x 50 cm JPEG Folder # 30

(31) Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 1 Painted Steel, Plywood 2007-10 70 x 56 x 40 cm JPEG Folder # 31

(32) Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 5 Painted MDF and Plywood 2009 14 x 15 x 17 cm JPEG Folder # 32

(33) Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 6 Painted and waxed Plywood 2009 73 x 50 x 50 cm JPEG Folder # 33

(34) Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 7 Painted and waxed Plywood 2009 55 x 68 x 50 cm JPEG Folder # 34

(35) Dynamic Supermarketism Big Box Number 2 Painted Steel 2007-10 140 x 30 x 60 cm JPEG Folder # 35

(36) Supermarketism Pacific Gyre Construction Plywood Plastic ocean debris 2010 70 x 40 x 40 cm JPEG Folder # 36

(37) Supermarketism Red Cube (Homage to Isamu Noguchi) Painted Steel 2007-10 40 x 26 x 19 JPEG Folder # 37

(38) Supermarketism Architecton Composition Alpha Painted recycled timber and electronics 2010 182 x 45 x 45 cm JPEG Folder # 38

(39) Cofaspace Graduation Exhibition 2010 Photographs

JPEG Folder # 39

98 #&$- (n.d.). (O. Gallery, Producer) From http://www.abcgallery.com/D/duchamp/duchamp.html (n.d.). (artrepublic, Producer) From artrepublic.com: http://www.artrepublic.com/biographies/156-kasimir-malevich.html (n.d.). (T. Online, Producer, & Tate Collection) From www.tate.org.uk: http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=1561&pa ge=1 (n.d.). (Wikipedia, Producer) From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suprematism (n.d.). (Artcyclppedia, Producer) From www.artcyclopedia/artists/noguchi-isamu.html (n.d.). From http://www.artnet.com/artwork/424108351/brillo-box.html (n.d.). From Robert Morris @ Art + Culture: www.artandculture.com/users/276_robert_morris (n.d.). From Donald Judd: Biography from Answers.com: www.http://answers.com/topiv/donald-judd (n.d.). From Today in Art More Installations by Thomas Rentmeister: http://todayinart.com/2010/05/21/more-installations-by-thomas-rentmeister/ (n.d.). From Marliz Frencken-"Nivea Girl with Child" at Stux Gallery: http://www.artnet.com/Galleries/artwork_detail.asp?G=&gid=119094&which=&Vie wArtistBy=&aid=690649&wid=425969014&source=artist&print=1&rta=http://www. artnet.com (n.d.). From Saatchi Online: Marliz Frencken: http://www.saatchi- gallery.co.uk/museums/museum-profile/…/2641.html (n.d.). From Mark Hosking-Untitled-Contemporary Art: www.saatchi- gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/mark_hosking_untitled.htm (n.d.). (M. F.-a. center, Producer, & Artwork-Sculptures) From www.davidcerny.cz (n.d.). (MOMA, Producer) From MOMA/Richard Serra Sculpture:Forty Years: www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/14 (n.d.). From Lucy Leonard//Whitecross Gallery/ artists: http://www.whitecrosgallery.com/artists/lucy-leonard (n.d.). From www.burpiesbybrett.com/geethanks.html: http://www.xmarks.com/site/www.burpiesbybrett.com/geethanks.html Walsh, P. (n.d.). From http://www.oberlin.edu/amam/Warhol_BrilloBoxes.htm Wattis, P. (2004, Oct 06). From www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/160 Wilson, E. (2005, Sept 29). From Little Prada in the Desert-New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/…29ROW.html (2001). From Big Box Retail-Columbia: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/architecture/bass/newrochele/extra/big_box.htmi (2004, Mar 25). From keg/Mark Hosking: http://www.engholmengelhorn.com/ARTISTS/mark_hosking/MHT-html (2008, Jan 14). From http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/28 (2009, May 21). From Marlez Frencken-Cruel Beauty- Look into my owl: http://lookintomyowl.com/marliz-frencken-cruel-beauty.html (2010, Sept 24). From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Puryear (2010, Oct 2010). (Wikipedia, Producer) From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harvey_(artist) (2010, Nov 02). (Wikipedia, Producer) From Richard Serra-Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Serra Baudrillard, J. (1994). (T. b. Glaser, Editor, & U. o. Press, Producer) From J Baudrillard-1994-books.google.com:

99 http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=9Z9biHaoLZIC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1 &dq=simulacra+and+simulation+baudrillard&ots=3KY6hYhxmU&sig=FvbOkvToEi aZQhJviZF3LOiJ1Dg#v=onepage&q&f=false Bird, J. (n.d.). From Robert Morris-Left Matrix: www.leftmatrix.com/morris.html Brown, N. (1997, Nov-Dec). From Frieze Magazine/Archive/Mark Hosking: Neal Brown review http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/mark_hosking Cartwright, D. R. (2009). From http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=4108 Chilvers, I. (1999, Dec 19). From http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Kazimir_Severinovich_Malevich.aspx Grande, J. K. (1999, Apr). (S. Magazine, Producer, & International Sculpture Centre) From James Carl-Sculpture.org: http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag99/april99/carl/carl/.shtml Hansen, S. F. (n.d.). (S. d. KYPS, Producer) From http://www.anthonycaro.org/ Johns, G. (n.d.). From http://www.gregjohnssculpture.com/ Johns, G. (2004, july). From http://www.gregjohnssculpture.com/writings/ Karaush, I. (2007). (T. U. Columbia, Producer, & UBC Library) From Kasimir Malevic and architectons as monuments: https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2428/888 Kennedy, R. (2007, May 20). (T. N. Times, Producer, & Art and Design) From Installing Richard Serra at MOMA-Art-New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/arts/design/20kenn.html Kimmelman, M. (2007, Apr 09). From http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/arts/design/09lewitt.html Malevich, K. (1978). Notes on Architecture, The Artist, infinity, Suprematism. (T. A. Copenhagen, Ed., & Xenia Hoffman, Trans.) Unpublished Writings 1913-1933. Malevich, K. S. Malevich on Suprematism: Six Essays. In P. Railing. Museum of Art University of Iowa . Malevich, K. (2003). The Non=Objective World: The Manifesto of Suprematism. Dover Publications. Malevich, Kasimir: Suprematist Compositions. (2002, Aug 19). (WebMuseum Paris) From http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/malevich/sup/ Mertins, D. (2006, Jan 01). (U. o. Commons, Producer, & Department of Architecture) From The Modernity of Zaha Hadid: http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI9989589/ Panhans-Buhler, U. (n.d.). From GAGPROJECTS: festival.fusion.com.au/show/detail Sides, A. G. (2009, Jan 31). From npr Arts and Life: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99130809 Smith, D. (n.d.). From http://www.davidsmithestate.org/bio.html Stockebrand, M. (n.d.). From Chinati Foundation: http://www.chinati.org/information/visionofdonaldjudd.php Rogoff, K. (2006, May 05). From http://www.project- syndicate.org/series/the_unbound_economy/description The Museum of Modern Art New York. (1999). Exhibitions and Collection. From http://www.moma.org: http://www.moma.org/explore/collection/index

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Figure Illustrations Page

Figure (1) Kasimir Malevich 12 Suprematist Composition White on White (1918) oil on canvas 88x70cm Museum of Modern Art New York Kasimir Malevich The Non Objective World 1913 WebMuseum Paris copyright 19/8/2002 Nicolas Pioch www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/malevich/su p/

Figure (2) Anthony Caro 12 Petticoats (1971/1976) Steel painted brown 160 x 195.5 x 89cm www.anthonycaro.org Research by Siri Fischer Hansen Studio Database and Website by KYPS B1003 Catalogue Raisonne

Figure (3) Charlie Trivers 14, 15

Two of fifteen carvings of various sizes placed in small rock face crevices. Animadversions (1999) Carved Recycled Laminated Ash Timber Exhibited at Sculpture by the Sea Bondi

101 Figure Illustrations Page 1999

Figure (4) Charlie Trivers 16 Fishbottle Quartet (2004) Marble dust/resin, Steel, Fibreglass Galvanised steel mesh 300 x 300 cm Exhibited Sculpture by the Sea 2004 Kodak Sculpture Prize

Figure (5) Marcel Duchamp 16 Bottle Rack (1914/1964) Readymade Bottle rack Galvanised Iron 59 x 37 cm www.abcgallery.com/D/duchamp/duchamp

Figure (6) Charlie Trivers 17 Fishbottle Rack (2002) Readymade Bottle Rack Marble dust/resin 64 x 70 cm Exhibited Sculpture by the Sea 2002

Figure (7) Charlie Trivers 19 Drawing for Supermarketism Composition (2005) Watercolour and Graphite on paper Figure (8) Charlie Trivers 19 Paper cut outs for Supermarketism Compositions (2005) Figure (9) Kasimir Malevich 23 Suprematist Painting (1916) Oil on Canvas 88.0 x 70.0 cm Stelelijk Museum Amsterdam en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suprematism

102 Figure Illustrations Page Figure (10) Charlie Trivers Homage to a (Supermarket) Square (2005) Painted Steel 25 x 32x 27cm Exhibited at the Toyamura International Sculpture Biennale 2005 Abutagun Hokkaido JAPAN

Figure (11) Charlie Trivers 26 Supermarketism Composition Number 3 (2006) Painted Steel

Figure (12) Charlie Trivers 26 Supermarketism Composition Number 5 (2006) Painted Steel Figure (13) Charlie Trivers 26 Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 3 (2006) Painted Steel

Figure (14) Charlie Trivers 26 Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 5 (2006) Painted Steel

Figure (15) Charlie Trivers 27 Supermarketism Composition Number 1 (2006) Painted Steel 55 x 55 x 45 cm Exhibited at the 2006 Moreland Sculpture Show Melbourne

Figure (16) Charlie Trivers 28 Dynamic Supermarketism Composition

103 Figure Illustrations Page Number 1 (2006) Painted Steel Figure (17) Charlie Trivers 29 Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 1 (Supersized Version) (2006) Painted Steel Exhibited at the Swell Sculpture Festival Currumbin Gold Coast Qld Figure (18) Charlie Trivers 30 Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 9 (Mini Mart Version) (2005) Painted Steel 380x320x220mm Exhibited at the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize 2005 Figure (19) Charlie Trivers 31 Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 9 (2005) Painted Steel 3000x2800x2500mm Exhibited at the University of Western Sydney Acquisitive Sculpture Prize Exhibition

Figure (20) Charlie Trivers 36 Dynamic Supermarketism Composition Number 3 (2006) 260x190x160cm Painted Steel Exhibited Sculpture by the Sea 2006 Figure (21) Isamu Noguchi 38 Kouros (1944-5) Marble Metropolitan Museum of Art New York Figure (22) Isamu Noguchi 38 Red Cube (1968)

104 Figure Illustrations Page Painted steel Marine Midland Bank New York Figure (23) Charlie Trivers 43 Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 1 (2007) Cardboard

Figure (24) Charlie Trivers 44 Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 1 (2007) Painted Steel 2400x2000x1600mm Exhibited Sculpture by the Sea Bondi 2007

Figure (25) Greg Johns 45 Horizon Figure 1 (2009) 195 x 80 x 50 cm

Cor-ten steel and ironstone Figure (26) Charlie Trivers 46 Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 3 (2008) 240x160x200cm Painted Steel

Figure (27) Charlie Trivers 47 Dynamic Supermarketism Animadversion Number 4 (2009) Painted Stainless Steel 2500x900x900 mm Exhibited Sculpture by the Sea 2009 and Willoughby Sculpture Prize 2009

Figure (28) Charlie Trivers 52 Dynamic Supermarketism Supersupreme

105 Figure Illustrations Page Composition Number 2 (2007) Painted Steel Exhibited the Kajama International Sculpture Competition Japan Tokyo and Osaka Sculpture by the Sea Indoor exhibition 2008 Bondi, Sydney Figure (29) Charlie Trivers 53 Dynamic Supermarketism Supersupreme Composition Number 3 (2008) 260x190x160cm Painted Stainless Steel Exhibited Sculpture by the Sea 2008

Figure (30) Martin Puryear 54 Old Mole (1985) 1985 154.9 x 154.9 x 86.4 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art Figure (31) Andy Warhol 56

Brillo Box (1968) 50.8x50.8x43.2cm Acrylic and Silkscreen on wood www.artnet.com/.../139637/brillo-box.html Figure (32) David Smith 59 Installation view at the Tate Modern 2006 Figure (33) Illustration Big Box Archictecture 59 www.shutterstock.com/display_pic Figure (34) Sol LeWitt 61 Drawing # 1061: Planes of Colour (2003) Kunstsammlugen Germany March 2003 Figure (35) Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset 63 Prada Installation Marfa Texas (2005)

106 Figure Illustrations Page www.http://answers.com/topiv/donald- judd Figure (36) Charlie Trivers 65 9 views of Supermarketism Architecton Composition Number 2 (2009) Painted MDF 30 x 30 x 25cm Exhibited ‘Sculpture 2009’ Defiance Gallery Newtown Sydney in 2009

Figure (37) Illustration of a Geometric Arch in ‘Fries 66 with that Red’ McDonalds restaurant Long Jetty NSW

Figure (38) Kasimir Malevich 67 Alpha Architekton 1920 (1925-26) Plaster 31.5 x 80.5 cm x 34 cm State Russian Museum St Petersburg http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1007&context_papers

Figure (39) Thomas Rentmeister 70 Nearly 100 fridges in a corner Penaten baby cream, Styrofoam 705 x 536 x 370 cm

Figure (40) Marliz Frencken 71

Nivea Girl with Child Clay resin various materials 43.9 h www.artnet.com/galleries/artwork_detail

107 Figure Illustrations Page

Figure (41) Mark Hosking 72 Untitled 1997 Painted Wood 205 x 190 x 75 cm www.saatchi- gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/mark_hosking_ untitled.htm

Figure (42) David Cerny 73

Installation on the Prague TV Tower Zizkov permanent since 2001

Figure (43) James Carl 74 Public Works: Cardboard Only 1993 Salvaged Cardboard 72 x 49 x 30 in

Figure (44) Richard Serra 75 The Matter of Time Guggenheim Museum Bilbao http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Serra

Figure (45) Lucy Leonard 76

Archive/power/play 2007 Cardboard, paper, floor paint, angle poise lamp

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