Old Skool (Never Lose That Feeling)

OLD SKOOL (NEVER LOSE THAT FEELING) OLD SKOOL (NEVER LOSE THAT FEELING) STUART BAILEY IRENE HANENBERGH MATT HINKLEY MATTHEW HUNT GEOFF NEWTON LISA RADFORD SODA_JERK DARREN SYLVESTER JENNY WATSON CURATED BY HANNAH MATHEWS & ROBERT COOK 6 DEC 2007 – 27 JAN 2008 PERTH INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS CATALOGUE DESIGN MATT HINKLEY NEVER LOSE THAT FEELING, NEVER LEARN being a fake, a nobody. Given that, and as you suggested before, I think old skool is very different from other culture or fashion Exhibition curators Hannah Mathews and Robert Cook talk discourses because you have to earn your old skool stripes. You about fluoro pants, phys ed, a bunch of artists and their old have to know the codes of fashion and behaviour and you have to skool moves. know them deep down: they have to be a part of you, not simply surface jiving. I guess that’s why I opened with that reference to This conversation happened in October and November via the fluoro kids, because my feeling is that what they are doing is hotmail and bigpondmail. Hannah was in Tokyo. Robert ‘mere fashion’ and not old skool. was in Perth. The typetalk, though, was preceded by hours of coffee, lunch and phone discussions about the show and Hannah the idea of old skool itself. They were floating and tentative, Yes, there is a significant gap between old skool and a fashion/ inquisitive and sometimes personal, and amounted to an trend. Actually, perhaps the fashion and consumer mecca of exhibition but not a fully tricked-out theory or history of old Japan reveals this difference. I have spoken to a few people skool. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this most recent back-and- here about the idea of old skool as we experience it in Australia forth has some of the casualness of our exchanges, and and have witnessed it in Europe and the USA. Their feeling while making an attempt to outline what old skool might is that in Japan it is more a ‘look’ – Bon Jovi boys and 50s be, we refuse (or fail) to pin it down once and for all. But, rock’n’rollers, etc – that is commodified by savvy marketers. you know, no apologies. That’s how we want it, especially In general, it seems consumers are not intellectually, politically since the work in this show is complex and open-ended in or spiritually interested in the source or initiators of the fashions its analysis of old skool culture. Indeed, what is beautiful to they employ, but are happy to adopt the lite version that us is that there is a spirit of excited inquiry in the exhibition identifies them in a crowd as a ‘type’. that is completely devoid of any of that unfriendly, nerdish grandstanding that typically surrounds pop culture inquiry; I think this is common world-wide and, as you point out, old skool has not been intellectually or formally mastered raises an interesting point about old skool that we have tried into submission by these artists. Instead, it has been used to draw out in this project. We have identified the existence as a way of connecting with the world of pop and other of old skool in many forms of culture through this project culture in an open and playful, honest and ethical way. – art, design, music, fashion, etc. Yet we also see the Hannah Mathews and Robert Cook existence of a genuine old skool, of true self-reflection and connection, that runs counter to the other lite, consumer version as marketed by multi-nationals. Robert I had a conversation at work today about the new fluoro fad. Given the diversity of old skool in our culture, it’s important You know, kids with over-sized fluoro cardigans, tight pants, big to note that we have invited texts from commentators in hair. That whole deal. For me, it seems like they are referencing various fields to relate the old skool nuances of their areas 80s surf culture, when fluoro was a key part of casual out-of- of inquiry – Clinton Walker (popular music), Kate Rhodes the-water attire (led, I think, by Quiksilver) as well as surfboard (fashion) and Justin Clemens (language, identification, and wetsuit design. Pink was big too. In one way, what these generational exchange and culture-at-large). To get the kids are doing is a riff on old skool. However – and maybe advertising take on the phenomenon too, we have ex-cool I’m just an old grey-beard – something feels wrong about it; it hunter Adam Ferrier talking at the Old Skool (never lose seems disingenuous or just plain stupid. It is not about finding that feeling) Forum. This juxtaposition of voices gets at the meaningful roots, but about styling. How do you figure the fact that old skool has its true fan routes but has also been difference between simply referencing the past and old skool? constructed (in part at least) by marketing dynamics; maybe this is the friction that actually defines old skool today. Hannah Fluoro... hmm... for me I think of ankle socks and nail-polish, Robert Madonna, Wham, Duran Duran and the like. For whitey-white I agree, but my J-take is different. I e-converse with a friend girls like me it didn’t work, but I remember girls with tans being in Tokyo about bikes and his sense is that the old skool track able to wear fluoro bathers, toenails and more. It’s news to me bike scene there is completely intellectually committed in so far that Quiksilver may be the origin for that trend… as knowledge about parts, bike heritage and stuff goes, even though track bikes have turned into a fashion statement over the And perhaps that’s the thing about the old skool discussions last few years. But, as you say, there is probably both going on we’ve been having for a while now, between us and with others. at the same time, even in commodity capital Japan. There is the Everyone identifies old skool as coming from a certain period, hipster thing and the old skool thing, and the lines between them being initiated by a certain icon, being practiced by a certain can be pretty blurry sometimes. Like you, I think that fuzziness sub-culture. But this actual reference point is subjective and is really interesting as both potentially corrupt/infect each other. seems to be based on age, geography and other interests. That’s why the idea of doing a show about old skool was so interesting to me when you mentioned it – the category is so While old skool definitely references the past it is more specific much more flexible and mutable and loaded than we generally than ‘the past in general’ – it is the adoption of tropes from think it is. So this show was never simply an exercise in picking a certain past, a certain moment, a certain style, a certain a cool, timely topic and making a hip or wryly ironic response or movement. By adopting an old skool style one adopts a style ‘intervention’. On the contrary, the artists included in the show that is ‘authenticated’ by its roots. It’s something like fandom, have each taken it in surprising ways, subjecting the category to but extending across time. Perhaps it’s the search for identity interrogation, but also finding creative ways to use it as a vehicle in an age where nothing seems new. Like an identikit-identity. to explore personal and cultural connections and problematics. Is that sad to say out loud?! Shall we talk about why we selected the artists we did? Robert Hannah Yes, it is sad to say it out loud like that. But I can definitely relate Before we look at the artists shall we try and outline, in a clear to the quest for identity as being key to old skool; it is the quest way, what we perceive ‘old skool’ to be? Maybe it would be for something that will ground you and lend you a kind of personal helpful to give some points of reference to allow people to and social significance. In a sense, therefore, (and in pop-Lacan- navigate the intellectual and cultural space around the term speak) old skool is where we go to repair our fundamental lack, and the exhibition with some confidence. I actually think that’s the sense that there is a hole in us that needs to be filled (and yet important because as we were developing this show many of can never be, blah, blah, blah). Looking back, my own leanings to, the conversations we had showed that people are often unclear or pursuit of, old skool at various times in my life was always about on what is meant by old skool or are perhaps not confident that making up for a sense of dislocation and an inner feeling/fear of their connection is the same as others. Robert Robert Damn, I was hoping we could avoid that. I’ll start evasively and Most definitely. And hey, I am a generation and a half older than echo your comment above, positing (in an old skool Foucauldian you, but had phys ed too! Maybe we are temporal Phys Ed manner) that there is no old skool ‘as such’ but many old skools bookends! Anyhoo, now that we’ve conceptualised ourselves in action that are produced as practices within particular zones in and out of various corners, let’s move on to the artists. I of engagement! That is why there is confusion, but also why it’s remember we were sitting in a small park in Northbridge eating a rich topic.

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