U-TURN CURATED BY LARISSA HJORTH AND KATE SHAW CONTENTS U-turn: no laybys, frequent flyer points, returns or exchanges Larissa Hjorth & Kate Shaw 07 Nadine Christensen 08 Peta Clancy 09 Martine Corompt 10 Chantal Faust 11 Ian Haig 12 Stephen Haley 13 Larissa Hjorth 14 Natasha Johns-Messenger 15 Artworks 17 - 32 Laresa Kosloff 34 James Lynch 35 Amanda Morgan & Ella Fairbairn 36 Sanja Pahoki 37 Paul Quinn 38 Kate Shaw 39 Darren Wardle 40 Shaun Wilson 41 Artist biographies 42 Credits and acknowledgements 49 U-TURN: NO LAYBYS, FREQUENT FLYER POINTS, RETURNS OR EXCHANGES NO LAYBYS/LAY AWAYS In a period of globalization, the arts circuit is far from immune. For many artists, nationality is one in many factors that informs, However, as much as global technologies may promise the ability not forms, creative practices. In the case of Australia, the to traverse different geographies and temporalities, place and geographic distance inevitably affects the ways in which artists borders still matter. In other words, the more we try to overcome contextualize their practice. For many Australians, the Internet distance and difference, the more closeness is exasperated. In only further exasperates the difference between (technological) the face of globalization, the tenacious forces of regionalism, connectivity and (actual) contact. Geographic distance is nationalism and localization remain. interrelated with socio-cultural, socio-technological and political- economic factors – conditioning what it means to practice art in International events such as the Venice Biennale only further Australia. It’s a lot of baggage beyond “just” geography. highlight that contemporary Gross National Product has become about branding Gross National Cool (often to the dismay of In today’s global climate, artists are, as Ashish Rajadhyaksha artists). Factors of political economy influence the branding of (2007) notes, the new IT migrant workers. Artists are expected creativity with nation whether artists overtly engage with these to perpetually move, packing their IP and national identity to agendas or not. Australia’s presence in 2007 Venice Biennale was migrate to a next biennale in the resurgent circuit of regionalism dominated by not only a higher than normal budget but, also, as both in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific (i.e. Sydney, Shanghai, an indicator of this capital, a signature big yellow safety bag that Singapore, Gwangju, Yokohama). functioned as a signifier of consuming Australia. While biennales are more than the sum of showbags, the bags do symbolize the Australia’s geographic isolation has been discussed through global politics of consuming art and nation that extends the now many rubrics. One of the enduring concepts has been through the defunct role of the Expo. “It’s in the bag” is a loaded term in the notion of South. For Audrey Yue and Gay Hawkins (2000), Australia sea of biennale phoneurs–the new flaneurs (Luke 2005)–propelled is ‘south’ of Asia and ‘south’ of the West, for the BBC it is the by nations-as-bags. ‘west’ in Asia. This geo-political imaginary has informed many projects including Kevin Murray’s Crafts Victoria South project. 5 FREQUENT FLYER POINTS NO RETURNS U-turn, on the one hand, is mindful of the problematic of The concept of u-turn operates upon many levels. It is a rubric Once upon a time, the art world was compared to that of In the face of prevailing futurism and social networking of exhibiting a group of Melbournian artists where the only common for rethinking geo-political imaginaries of place in a period of anthropology. George E. Marcus and Fred Myers’ (1995) pivotal web 2.0, the art world has continued to question the role of theme is, from a distance, that of nationality. Nationality is, as globalism; a way to define the cross-cultural and intertextual work in this area served to define the artist (and curators) as creativity and place. Far from a homogenized global village, Benedict Anderson noted, an ‘imagined community’ (1983) that nature of practitioners; a template to critically reflect upon the ethnographers, charting the ethnoscapes of contemporary culture. the “international” arts community only further illustrates the is experienced and represented in different ways. In u-turn, the way in which cross-cultural exchange is changing; and, lastly, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu showed us how to read art in significance of locality and regionalism. In the age of dream national is a contested notion, one that is negotiated through the to address that in a period of globalism, the local is becoming terms of sociology to uncover the cultural, social and economic societies, whereby products encapsulate lifestyle identity and lens of multiple urbanities in which Melbourne and LA provide two increasingly important to practitioners. ‘capital’ (knowledges) naturalizing modes of taste. As Arjun everyday users can supposedly become producers, artists can very divergent, but parallel, models. All of the artists have either Appadurai (1987) noted, commodities, like people, have still provide a window onto the way in which place and proximity visited LA for a residency or travel, and thus have––in some form The artists in u-turn ponder, meditate and reflect upon the u-turn life biographies. informs the ubiquity of lifestyle consumer cultures. or another––engaged or connected with LA urbanity and media nature of urbanity in today’s so-called epoch of global media. culture. On another level, the title of the exhibition attempts to Some of the sub-themes include the architectural ethnospaces Now, in an age where consumers have been defined as‘prosumers’ In the social equation of global networks, the suburban satellite openly engage with the politics of ‘exchange’ in a global economy of urbanity (Stephen Haley and Darren Wardle), the mediated (producers and consumers), are they artists too? If they are, urbanities of Melbourne and LA provide parallel experiences of artists-as-IT-workers; in particular, the uneven levels of landscape (Nadine Christensen and Kate Shaw), mobility and what is the role of artists? And what can be made of the shift in contemporary media cultures. But what does it mean to exchange that operate between different nations and regions. the disjuncture of co-presence (Larissa Hjorth, Chantal Faust, from anthropology/sociology to business analogy? Laptop in be a parallel city in an age of social capital and constructed Shaun Wilson and Sanja Pahoki), reworking of spatial practices hand, artists are the new business graduates (like all graduates communities of MySpace, Facebook and YouTube? What does Like the motion of a u-turn, this exhibition toys with the idea and (Natasha Johns-Messenger and Laresa Kosloff), pop culture (Ian with monstrous study debts). But why does it seem that it is the city ‘families’ mean in an age of rampant social networking that ambiguities of place as a fixed precept and, instead, explores the Haig, Amanda Morgan/Ella Fairbairn and Martine Corompt), corporations, not the artists, that are profiting? privileges connectivity over contact? Is this a case of being put migrating notion of place––‘south’ or otherwise––that is manifest contemporary anxiety (Paul Quinn and James Lynch) and the post- on hold? Or making a u-turn? within contemporary life. In addition, u-turn engages with the human (Peta Clancy). nature of on-going cross-cultural exchange, prevalent in the fact LARISSA HJORTH & KATE SHAW that seven of the sixteen artists have had residencies in LA and that all of the participating artists have exhibited or traveled to LA. U-turn reflects upon the way in which the artists draw on the interrelated references of urbanity in both LA and Melbourne, highlighting that cultural flows are never linear or one way. But exchange is, inevitably, a process involving uneven power relations. 6 7 NADINE CHRISTENSEN PETA CLANCY There is a marvelous madness to Nadine Christensen’s paintings. There is something almost romantic about Christensen’s In contemporary popular culture, beauty and youth are sold as As Clancy notes, ‘like the beautician pointing out the wrinkles on Nothing really makes sense here; a stack of desert rocks sit paintings. For all their coolness, for all of the carefully thought the ultimate commodities. People talk about plastic surgery like one’s skin, not as they are but rather as a sign of what is to come, uncomfortably by an office chair and a lounge-room lamp, while out structure, there’s a hint of nostalgia, a weird homeliness about they used to talk about make-up. Why perpetually apply lipstick I aim to trace out an intimate course for the inevitable demise of hawks and other bird life hover above. her work, like emotions carefully subsumed beneath a veneer of when you can have hyperbolic botox lips? In the global trade of the skin’. Clancy continues, laminex and a coating of fake wood grain. image packaging, LA, and its epicenter ‘Hollywood’, exemplifies Christensen stacks objects that are constructed from the debris this phenomenon. Perfect skin is paraded as the signifier of beauty The images denote an intense study of a woman’s mouth and and detritus of her studio practice in a maverick recycling Christensen has always had a tendency to create entire and youth. Wrinkles, once symbolic of wisdom and a map for a eyes. With the use of a fine needle, the creases and lines enterprise. What intrigues her is how we construct a feeling of environments and her works are often presented as intricate person’s experiences, are like used commodities, something to that form on the lips and around the eyes are painstakingly local identity by crafting a relationship to place out of the rituals installations or presented with extra props to include the viewer throw away. Smile wrinkles that show a person’s many laughs pinned to heighten the marks that are left by time, age and and debris of everyday life.