On sunday night I flew down to Mt Gambier in order to give a workshop on installation for Country Arts SA. I am included in an exhibition called ’snapshop’ that is touring around regional SA; this show is now in Mt Gambier which is why I find myself on the ‘limestone coast’ giving a day workshop on installation. The workshop consisted of three parts: me talking about Installation as a practice and showing some images of installation works, working on a series of Ink drawings of ‘left overs’ or ‘remnants’, and the making of three group installations using the cut out ink drawings and white thread. Riddoch Gallery director Lucia Pichler very generously let us use three great sites around the gallery and to leave the works up for the duration of the ’snapshot’ show.
The group was a lively class of local TAFE visual Art students, who had not really encounted Installation before, but put in some good work. The image below is one of the finished installations.
our lady of rinds and parings
open us from the outside, and be our soft shell peeled away.
our lady has been making some sculptures of tangelo peel. They are cast in plaster and dipped in golden resin, and so look like a gudgey gooey dripping peel, covered in golden juice.
Tomorrow (sunday) I fly down to Mt Gambier in a teeny tiny plane, to do a workshop for country arts sa. 18 people are coming to hear me talk about Installation and do some ink drawings and make a very minimal installation with thread. It is fair to say I am a bit nervous. It is also strange for me to talk about, installation, a concept that I have a leary view of. In preparing I have been re-reading Michael Fried’s “Art and Objecthood” one of my fav texts about Minimalism and Modernist sculpture, Fried attacks the ‘theatricality’ in installation. I think respond negatively to this too - although there are many very subtle installations. It is more the fussyness and the over determined ‘rules of engagement’ for the viewer that I object to. But having said that I still desire to control and direct spaces and people’s negotiation of space. Such a difficult line to straddle, sometimes I wonder if neat little paintings are the most humane forms of art - they give so little offense to daily life.
