After seeing stand after stand of the glitz and glamour of high-profile commercial galleries, it is a refreshing break to come across the Artist Run Initiatives (ARIs). Who else would think to cover one of their white walls in spaghetti? (Anthony Johnson at Constance ARI, FYI.)
While there was a strong presence of Sydney and Melbourne galleries at the fair, two of the ARI stands came from further afield: one from Queensland, and a collaborative duo between Adelaide and Hobart. In both cases, several artists and groups came together to create stands that speak more of the fringe side of the contemporary art scene – experimental, participatory works from a younger group of artists. These works tackle the art scene from a slightly different perspective than the commercial world, and playfully yet effectively off-set the seriousness of the market-driven aspect of the fair.
Q[ARI] collective brought together seven ARI’s from Queensland: Addition Gallery, Boxcopy, Current Projects, Diagram, Level ARI, The Wandering Room and Accidentally Annie Street. One work consisted of glasses viewers could wear to give them a distorted view of the fair, making us consider how our views about art are moulded by outside opinions. Who is telling us what to think? What factors change our views of art? What happens when we remove these influences?
A series of tote bags titled Totes over it (2013) by Level ARI printed with evocative statements related to women’s roles in the art world make us re-evaluate gender roles in the art market. And if you’re interested in buying not just an artwork but an artist collective, have a chat to the co-directors at Current Projects, who have put their entire enterprise up for sale, inviting potential buyers to make an offer and get involved.
Boxcopy presented the work of Stephen Russell, who interrogates the decorative and functional values that allow objects and images to be classified as works of art. His work Untitled (decor) (2013) is a showroom of DIY design objects that imply use but continually defer it, through traditional forms of sculpture and painting diffracted through a series of diversions. By doing this he highlights the position of art in a contradictory context of commodification, distribution, and digitisation.
Contance ARI – the only Tasmanian gallery at the fair, and Feltspace, from Adelaide came together to share a stand, both supported by the Australia Council for Visual Arts. The works shown created a fun and engaging space incorporating all sorts of mixed media works and created a sense of a dynamic, collaborative, work-in-progress feel with unique tactile materiality.
Joel Crosswell’s work ‘Devil Bucket’ is a series of red buckets hanging from the ceiling, each containing a varied collection of materials which relates to a different version of horror or hell, with the subjects raging from fire, spiders, porn and Martin Bryant. Crosswell creates these assemblages from kitchy materials such as fake cobwebs and spiders, collages of magazine cut outs and matchsticks. The buckets evoke a playful representation with dark undertones, and multiple meanings that can be read into each individual standardised container of the bucket.
The Artist Run Initiatives at Sydney Contemporary created an important aspect of the fair that remind us of the reality for emerging artists rather than the commercial world, and the importance of experimentation and collaboration in the process of making themselves known. By presenting works that are on-going and in progress, and initiating conversations about the art world, they evoke the more real side of the processes of creating works and community rather than only the finished product. Importantly, they question the systems of the art market and instead present the artists and collectives that are making art for art’s sake, which sometimes gets left behind in the commercial world.
Images
Anthony Johnson and Joel Crosswell, 2013, Constance ARI stand at Sydney Contemporary 2013
Totes over it, 2013, limited edition tote bags, Level ARI at Q [ARI] stand at Sydney Contemporary 2013
Diagram at Q [ARI] stand at Sydney Contemporary 2013
Stephen Russell, Untitled (decor), 2013, Boxcopy at Q [ARI] stand at Sydney Contemporary 2013
Joel Crosswell, Devil Bucket, 2013, Constance ARI at Sydney Contemporary 2013
