Artful Politics

by Louise Martin-Chew

 Sidney Nolan's First Class Marksman,1946.

Dramatic events of the past month have culminated in Julia Gillard’s bid for election on 21 August 2010 as first female Prime Minister of Australia. But what of her agenda for the arts – given the disastrous impact of the initiatives of the Rudd government’s Prime Ministership? Sadly, the arts are far from the top ten agenda being discussed today, yet as a sector there are many now fighting for survival. For in recent weeks the Resale Royalty Right for Visual Artists Act 2009 (from 9 June 2010), which enshrines the droit de suite principle into Australian art markets, coupled with the spectre of the Cooper review into superannuation removing art from allowable assets for Self Managed Super Funds has the visual arts in Australia reeling. These are body blows to a sector already working hard to survive an economic downturn. Both of these changes come somewhere from the psyche of auctions as a spectator sport. 

It is awesome, watching small painted sections of canvas in frames sell for stratospheric prices. Witness the Sidney Nolan painting, Ned Kelly, First-Class Marksman, 1946, which sold on March 25, 2010 for $5.4 million – becoming the most expensive Australian artwork to date. Auctions are a spectacle, as realization of cultural capital is reflected in monetary terms. Those outside the industry may mutter, “That’s ridiculous” and, in a way, it is. Art is something in which most people have some emotional investment, and therefore an opinion. What is underappreciated is that, while we can all see the art, decoding the layers in images is a specialty like any other. And large sums of money for art are a simple enough byproduct of that appreciation.

However, recent initiatives from the federal government would suggest that some are uncomfortable about the success, in recent decades, of the visual arts industry, and with the sums of money on offer. Is the resale royalty legislation a systematic attempt to shred that success, with some sort of outdated attack on the commercial sector which is the backbone of the support structure for artists? For every government dollar invested in the arts, considerably more than that is generated from the commercial sector.

Like motherhood, it is difficult to argue with the sentiment behind the Resale Royalty scheme, which is to return money to artists - with a special emphasis from Arts Minister Garrett in selling the policy to bring monies back to indigenous artists in particular.

The trouble is that the legislation, like some other Rudd government initiatives, has been built and rolled out with haste, ignoring detail, and goes against the direct recommendation of the Senate Committee which enquired into this notion for Australia. The resale royalty administrative load has crippled galleries in the first two weeks. Essentially it will operate as an additional tax on art sales, with galleries likely to pay the 5% royalty on each and every sale themselves. This is particularly difficult for art centres in Indigenous situations, with artists no longer able to sell their work easily for a cash reward, with the necessity that they will instead be asked to consign it to galleries to be paid when sold. This is a dramatic change for this part of the sector, and one which will cripple the artists it purports to help the most.

Increasingly strident criticism has been compounded by what is seen as a worse handicap looming over the sector, and that is the removal of art from the allowable assets of self managed superannuation funds. It is another symptom of the removal of individual responsibility for asset management, with apron strings being administered by a government who wish to save us from possible mistakes. The central plank of this argument is that art is not necessarily a safe investment. What is a safe investment may be the subject of debate as the Global Financial Crisis continues to claim the solvency of some European countries - shares? banks? real estate? Like every industry, the more you know and the better your advice, the more you may profit. This particular recommendation from the Cooper review also suggests that all SMSF will need to divest themselves of art in the next five years, with the inevitable result a flooded market for art in Australia.

Galleries are fearful of the fallout, and it is possible to see this as a watershed moment, at which government intervention in the visual arts in Australia wantonly destroyed the vitality of our commercial sector. In the 1970s, with the John Maynard Keynes post war model of arts subsidy still operative in Australia, the government was seen as the agenda-free and benign profferer of funds to artists. In 2010, it is clear that there is nothing agenda-free about the government’s administration of funds and policy. The question is, are these new initiatives designed to cripple a commercial sector that provides essential support for artists? Or sheer incompetence - more policy on the run?

In terms of the resale royalty, the statistics of such schemes in other countries tell a salutary tale – with the vast majority of funds flowing to the big ticket estates (Picasso, Matisse – hardly support for the needy!). The administrative burden of managing such schemes internationally has seen them reduced in recent years, just in time for Australia to pick it up and demand that this burden be borne by the sector that does most to support and develop, in a hands-on way, individual artists.

We’ve had a strong ten years, and the prognosis for visual artists has been as good as ever in Australia. However, it is possible to predict that if the Cooper review is passed in the flurried way that the resale royalty was pushed through, without significant consultation and amendment, this will, suddenly, end. And the victims will be the artists that the resale royalty scheme purports to help.

Are governments seeking to remove independence and the ability of business to manage itself, in order to give back to artists through a more passive funding model? A vibrant commercial sector is more powerful than any government handout. The urgent issue for the arts this week/month/year/decade is the resale royalty/Cooper super review, and rushed government changes that threaten the commercial gallery sector. There is a sense of desperation in the galleries that support artists on a day to day level, and we might look back to this watershed moment.

Both of these initiatives have a sideways fix on those rare moments in the auction rooms – the resale royalty seeking, at the most basic level, to return some of these “spoils” to the artist, but at the same time doubting the inherent cultural value in those objects by removing them from the “allowable investment” category in the SMSF of individuals. It expresses confusion, a cynicism, distrust of individual responsibility – all of which I had hoped was long gone in the Labor Party. At best, this is ham-fisted and naïve ideology, at worst, a cynical decimation of the success of the commerce of art.

An economy of means

by Alison Kubler

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Labirinto e grande pozzo

As my recent blog will attest, I have not long returned from Hong Kong where I enjoyed something of a hedonistic week, as well as some decidedly hedonistic art viewing, of course. I imbibed, degustation-ed and shopped with an abandon bordering on ferocity, thus I returned home feeling a little sheepish. It is a GFC after all, and aren’t we all supposed to be doing our bit? On some level I was stimulating the economy, just not my own. Apparently those spending big in Hong Kong at the art fair were observing their own abstemious standards that must come with a caveat about ‘artworks purchased over $100,000 US are exempt from buyer’s remorse’. Anyway, in response to the excesses of Hong Kong, I have enacted tough personal austerity measures, a la Greece and Portugal. Budgets have been slashed and heads rolled – hang on that bit was Julia Gillard. Nevertheless, the new frugality is sort of fun, in a cruel way. I like to think I am mirroring a mood in contemporary art.

At the recent Basel Art Fair, which is Birkin bag territory to the power of 1000, and European royals at ten paces, the Zeitgeist moment was the number of dealers using iPads to spruik the work of their artists. Such was their ubiquity it may have been rebranded iBasel. While dealers and art collectors weren’t looking at art on small handheld screens instead of on the demountable walls behind them (oh the postmodern irony), they were talking up the success of Art Unlimited, Basel’s curated quotient. The Art Newspaper called the prevalence of larger scale, serious installations by artists such as the late Dan Flavin “big but not brash” (http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Art-Unlimited-opening-It-s-big-but-it-s-not-brash/21064).

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Labirinto e grande pozzo

The willingness of dealers to forgo sales in favour of showing serious, less saleable art was seen as a good sign that the art market is back on track. The installations may have been big but they were characterized by a pared down aesthetic and the use of cheap disposable materials as opposed to spectacle. This is the essence of arte povera, the 1960s Italian art movement associated with artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mario Merz and Greek artist Jannis Kounellis. This poverty of means, doing less with more, would arguably be well placed to make a return in contemporary art practice in a post GFC climate. Pistoletto’s Labirinto e grande pozzo, 1969 / 2010 (a cardboard roll maze, a big labyrinth of a lot - pozzo ) was priced at 650,000 Euro so it is not exactly a bargain - dealers need not panic just yet then - but it is a work that has stood the test of time, philosophically at least. 

Damien Hirst, For the Love of God

Arte povera’s spirit of the cheap and the free is a direct challenge for example to Damien Hirst’s For the Love of God, a diamond skull worth 50 million pounds. Hirst’s work is of course a witty retort – the ultimate vanitas, a double folly – life and death and diamonds all rolled into one. Pistoletto’s work describes a critical mass of nothing of value, it is a labyrinth that leads nowhere with no reward. Pistoletto’s maze is at once ephemeral and enduring. Hirst’s skull is death in all its weighty inevitability. It is solid, ancient and bling. The two works would seem to be in moral opposition and yet they describe the same truth – the fragility of life, and the assuredness of death. I like them both equally. They represent my own moral dilemma, more or less.

Installation Photo Diary

by Nadia Buick

Here's a bit of a sneak preview/behind-the-scenes look at the installation process for an exhibition I've just curated, called Material Memories: restaging the eCHO project. It's currently showing at the QUT Art Museum. I'll post some images of the completed exhibition in the coming week or so, but here's a look at the process of putting an exhibition together; so often we're just shown the finished, shiny product.

Material Memories: restaging the eCHO project

 

Wardrobe Confessional

by Nadia Buick

My curated house - Rose the mannequin head and an Olivetti Valentine

 

I’m currently on the hunt for a new wardrobe; it seems that my current one just isn’t big enough anymore… I suppose when you have a collection of over 100 vintage dresses, this is inevitable. In fact, it speaks to my utter hopefulness that I’ve gone on this long with a single wardrobe. Most women would have had a storage crisis many times over by now. For those of you reading this who are lucky enough to have spacious walk-in wardrobes, or floor to ceiling built-ins that take up half a room, I think I should probably tell you upfront that I hate you just a little bit. Okay, so I rent a beautiful little workers’ cottage, which is certainly not to be sneezed at… except for its lack of storage space (read: wardrobe space). 

I’ve been very diligent over the years at pruning my clothing collection, sending discarded beauties off to op-shops for the next vintage girl to find and love. But it’s getting to the stage now where there’s no weak-links; nothing I could really let go of. I spend a good deal of my life on ebay, searching for the next treasure. In fact, I no longer shop in boutiques or department stores, and less and less in op-shops, previously my only supply. The bulk of my wardrobe comes from far-away lands (France, the UK and the US), probably from women like me who have made the tough call and sacrificed another dress in the hope of it a) going to a good home and b) making a bit more room for that other ebay dress you’re currently bidding on. 

I’m one of a long line of hoarders. On my mother’s side, my Nonna and Nonno have lived in the same big farmhouse for 50+ years and I cannot emphasise the amount of stuff they have hung on to… the place is practically a museum, which I love. My father’s father was the same. And my own childhood was spent loath-fully trudging from antique store to antique store as my mother oohed and ahhed over old washstands and china. And while I thought it was boring as a child, eventually all of that stuff starts to rub off. My house is full of objects; I have a penchant for fashion related things but I love old books, typewriters, postcards, mirrors… the list goes on. I’ve always liked mannequins, and recently I’ve started acquiring them. It began with Rose, the remaining head of a 1930s store mannequin with original glass eyes. I have a 1940s mannequin arm hanging from the ceiling in my front room. And Sophie, my 1960s full mannequin shares our bedroom, dressed to the nines in the corner. 

 The lovely Sophie

Did I mention I’m a curator? There’s something about selecting and arranging things that appeals to me at my very core. And while I do have a wide range of objects, I’ve never really thought of myself as a collector. I think my collection is part of an instinct I’ve always had towards beautiful things, and their display. And for me, curating is not something that just happens in a museum. In fact, the early origins of the museum was the wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities; objects, usually related to natural history, that were collected and arranged and kept in private, albeit upper class homes. Looking at wunderkammer, I love the artifice of the displayed objects and the cabinets that hold them. Their owners were generally men, and I consider them early curators. 

  Wunderkammer, from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thinking about fashion curation, something I spend a lot of time doing… the wardrobe is one of the spaces in which a type of curating takes place in the privacy of our own homes. What our wardrobe contains, how we arrange our garments, shoes, accessories… for me, this is a kind of curation. While many people think of clothing as a practicality, my collection of clothing is something I have built over years of hunting and gathering.  And it is quite a specific collection. I have a love for vintage dresses, my favourite decades are the 1930s-1950s. 

I suspect most people arrange their wardrobes according to garment type—all the shirts together, then jackets, etc.—but when you have a wardrobe that really only contains dresses and skirts, things get a little more detailed. At one end I have my cocktail/special occasion dresses. These tend to be floor length 1930s gowns; bias cut, shoulder padded 1940s frocks and 1950s full skirted floral and lace beauties. In the middle is my day-to-day wearing wardrobe, the largest section; about 80 dresses ranging from the 50s to the 80s in a riot of prints (I hardly ever wear solid colours and I’ll often layer three or four different florals into a single outfit). Finally I have my skirts, a handful of 1950s circle skirts, 1970s maxi skirts, sheer 1980s secretary skirts… and then come the coats. But if I had a second wardrobe, all of these things would have a little more breathing space. As it is right now, the doors always sit a little open because all of the fabric in all the skirts of all the dresses struggle to stay in.  

All of this thinking about wardrobes; what they contain and represent, has given me an idea for an exhibition, but I’ll talk a bit more about that another day. The question is, where will the new wardrobe fit?

 My miniature wardrobe collection

I have a plan but it’s reliant on so many variables that it would take a miracle to find the one perfect wardrobe. It will require a trawl through all the antique stores and op-shops (probably with my mother, proof that the cycle continues), measuring and imaging where it will go… if I can magically conjure up some space in my constant re-juggling of the beloved objects. But after-all, that’s exactly what drives the collector; that one unattainable but wholly necessary object. And when I do finally find it, my dresses will surely thank me.

A conversation with Akira

QUT Fashion After Hours

The art of reality

by Alison Kubler

Sarah Jessica Parker with Simon de Pury, the "mentor" of Bravo's "Work of Art." Photo courtesy of Bravo

I was in the hair salon today when the iPhone of the woman next to me rang to the Sex and the City ringtone. While I cringed for her as she tried, in vain and red-faced, to get to it in time before the entire song had played, it got me thinking: what is a quirky ringtone if not the harbinger of doom? Was my co-salonite a complete bimbo? (Cue pensive look out the window while Carrie muses...).

But seriously, when the world as we know it finally implodes and the earth is covered in the ash of humanity's combined accumulated cultural bric-a-brac, who will be left to take the time to comb through the sludge? Will the anthropologists and archaeologists of the future give enough of a proverbial to trawl through the mangled wreck of iEverything that brought about our spectacular demise in an attempt to garner just what it was that made us all tick? I fear what they will find will be distinctly less illuminating than the Rosetta stone and the southern facade metopes of the Parthenon. Because I know what they will find already: Sarah Jessica Parker. The woman is ubiquitous, in a kind-of good way, and in a 'for the love of God, why her?' way too. And now, for reasons known only to herself and the good people of Bravo, she has made a reality TV show about artists. I am incredulous.

It is yet to air in Australia but when it does dear reader I shall be there, glued to the screen I assure you, waiting to post updates. In short, this is the premise of Work of Art: The Next Great Artist according to the Bravo website: "13 contestants will compete for a gallery exhibition, a cash prize and a sponsored national tour. The artists will create works in the fields of sculpture, painting, photography, industrial design and more. Their completed works will be judged by a panel of art world figures including gallerists. collectors, curators, critics and fellow artists. The finalists' work will be featured in a nationwide museum tour." Hmmmm. The prestigious museum in question is the Brooklyn Museum and the art world figures are a strange bunch to say the least.

Oh, they are competing also for $100,000 (sponsored by Prismacolor) which is not to be sneezed at. It is an entirely brilliant and ridiculous concept for a TV show. It is hard to believe that any artist could approach the idea of participating in such a show with anything other than the ironic intention of making it a conceptual performance: "My conceptual program investigates the suspension of disbelief in the context of a reality show." But no, it seems that the entrants are 'serious' artists who want to be taken seriously. Okay, I admit I haven't seen a single episode so I will reserve judgement (sort of)... but given that each week contestants are given challenges such as 'paint a portrait', 'make a sculpture', 'design a book cover'; it seems inevitable it shall fall into parody. The word 'emotion' is bandied about way too much on the website and one of the finalists is named Peregrine. I rest my case. The SJP connection? She is a producer. This means that conceivably when some archaeologist eventually does piece together our society's great cultural moments he/she may make the assumption that SJP was also a great patron, an art doyenne, an artist even. Oh God, I just remembered Charlotte used to work in an art gallery on SATC. She was a curator! It's worse than I thought: I cannot think of a single thing to say, so here's something completely unrelated:

Charlotte, curator & gallerina on SATC

Charlotte: Imagine being completely blind and not being able to see a beautiful day like today. Can you think of anything worse?

Anthony: Stonewashed jeans and a matching jacket.

To exhibit or not to exhibit... fashion

by Nadia Buick

 Australian Made: 100 Years of Fashion at the NGV

 A few weeks ago there was a small article in The Australian by Michaela Boland titled ‘Frocks finally taken seriously’ about fashion exhibitions in museums such as the NGV and NGA. A friend actually clipped it out and saved it for me because this is one of my key areas of interest. In fact, when I began my PhD at the start of 2009, the relationship between fashion and the museum was at the very centre of my research. As is inevitable with postgraduate studies, your interests often shift slightly as you go along and stumble upon more interesting and unexamined questions. Nevertheless, I’m still very invested in the unending debate about whether fashion belongs in the museum. It seems to me to be just one of countless debates that have surrounded fashion for a long time. It’s also intrinsically linked to debates concerning art and fashion. I think the reason many people think that fashion shouldn’t be in the museum is because many people think fashion isn’t art. And perhaps that’s a point for another post, but needless to say, I don’t think that stating that fashion isn’t art necessarily means it should thus be excluded from the museum.

But back to the Australian article. Like I said, it’s quite short, and its context is decidedly a local one, but it really encapsulates the attitude towards fashion in the museum at this moment in Australia. We’re seeing more fashion exhibitions and there seems to be a higher frequency of large, international exhibitions of fashion coming from institutions such as the V&A. While the NGV and NGA have had curatorial departments for many years concentrating on textiles and fashion, along with having significant collections of fashion (the NGV is the strongest example), other national galleries seem to be taking the leap towards fashion too. The Queensland Art Gallery/GoMA has had two major fashion exhibitions in the last twelve months, with a third, the biggest (Valentino), opening in August, making it three. The first was Easton Pearson, which was curated by GoMA, but the others, (Hats: an anthology by Stephen Jones, and Valentino) have come from major international institutions. So QAG/GoMA is an interesting one to watch. Director Tony Ellwood clearly believes that fashion does belong in the museum, but how that will eventuate as part of a permanent program or even department is still unknown.  It would be easy to argue that, as Suzy Menkes pointed out years ago, fashion is simply the new blockbuster museum exhibition. So perhaps directors such as Ellwood are using fashion as a guaranteed crowd pleaser, rather than displaying any real commitment to the field in the form of setting up a department, for instance. I do get the feeling that the fashion exhibition waters are still being tested here in Brisbane.

Tony Ellwood and Stephen Jones at the Hats opening

And of course, as the Australian article pointed out, not all of the national galleries are on board. Edmund Capon, the longstanding director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales is steadfastly opposed to fashion exhibitions (despite his penchant for historic costume from Asia). Capon was quoted as saying “the only thing about fashion is that it goes out of fashion,” which seems remarkably naïve, and frankly, insulting to institutions whose sole focus is costume and fashion. But Capon’s comment is a reminder of the hostility that does exist towards fashion, even as it seems the tide may have turned; I fear the debate may never be completely over. 

What I do think naysayers like Capon are unaware of, and what someone like Tony Ellwood is hyper aware of, is that fashion does function completely differently to other objects in the museum, and therein lies its value. The job of a good gallery director is to understand what the audience will gain from a particular exhibition, and what fashion provides over any exhibition of art (no matter how popular or blockbuster a show) is a feeling of approachability. I guarantee you will never see a wider cross-section of people at an art gallery as when there is a fashion exhibition. People feel entitled to an opinion of fashion in a way that many don’t when it comes to art. Regardless of how accessible museums are today, art retains its air of elitism (which many prefer) and in turn it can ostracise entire sections of the population from ever stepping foot in their local gallery or museum (although maybe not in the instance of the current Ron Mueck exhibition at GoMA...). In my experience, fashion breaks down these barriers. As a fashion curator, this is something I’ve witnessed firsthand. But, it’s not as easy as simply putting some clothes in a gallery space. There are a whole range of display issues that arise, and this is perhaps my new area of research. But I’ll save that for another day. For now, go and see Stephen Jones’ and the V&A’s wonderful Hats exhibition before it closes this weekend at the Queensland Art Gallery. And if you’re in Melbourne, Australian Made: 100 Years of Fashion has just opened at the NGV.

Power & Beauty: the New Wave of fashion documentaries

by Nadia Buick

Last year I co-wrote an article on The September Issue with my partner, Huw Walmsley-Evans, for the Brisbane International Film Festival (http://www.stgeorgebiff.com.au/ScreeningtheSartorial.aspx). That documentary was one of a number of films in the 2009 BIFF program that could be read through the lens of fashion, and indeed the relationship between fashion and film has a long history. But while most of us accept that clothing and fashion themselves are inherent to the visual landscape and character portrayal in film, there is a recent trend that is taking things a little further.  

 Grace Coddington & Anna Wintour
 

The September Issue itself was a rare example of a behind-the-scenes look at the sometimes troubling world of American Vogue, and its editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour. What The September Issue sought to provide the audience with was the day to day realities of Vogue. The film’s director, R.J. Cutler, is a vocal exponent of cinéma verite, literally “truthful cinema”, and his approach is ideal for the world of fashion. For many, the falseness and facades of the fashion industry, its collusion with commerciality and seeming obsession with idealised beauty make it all together toxic, and irredeemable. In this equation, figures like Wintour, arguably the most powerful woman in the fashion world, are tantamount to the devil (and have been called as such: Wintour was the inspiration behind The Devil Wears Prada). But what Cutler’s film reveals is human relationships, rivalries and power relations. It’s not Hollywood; you’re not tricked into loving Wintour in the end, but there is a complexity that makes this (little) New Wave of fashion documentaries so refreshing. I call it a New Wave because there’s certainly an Old Wave of fashion documentaries and films that dramatise the fashion world (think Robert Altman’s Pret-a-porter), which have done a poor job of even attempting to address anything other than a cavalcade of clichés. 

But moving back to the New Wave for now. Like The September Issue, Valentino: The Last Emperor is an impeccable documentary about a larger-than-life fashion heavyweight. I left the cinema relieved after seeing this film because it resisted the temptation to portray the designer as some kind of ‘genius’. Again, what Valentino: The Last Emperor presents is complex relationships, real situations and struggles for dominance. And beauty; that dirty word which also happens to be the reason why many people hate fashion; beauty is at the centre of Valentino: The Last Emperor. But beauty is complicated, especially when you're in the business of creating it. In each of these films, what the central figure (Wintour and Valentino) does and creates is reliant upon a key relationship with an indispensable partner. In the case of Valentino, it is his life partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, who also happens to be his business partner. Valentino: The Last Emperor is above all else a love story, a portrait of this remarkable partnership that has lasted over 40 years. And in a similar way, what makes The September Issue so compelling is the central relationship between Wintour and Grace Coddington, Vogue’s creative director. Their relationship is tumultuous to say the least, but seeing the reality of these ‘couples’ on screen is what allows the audience to gain a realistic, and intellectually engaging portrait of the fashion industry.

Valentino Garavani

One recent documentary which didn’t succeed in this task was Lagerfeld Confidential, Rudolphe Marconi’s study of Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld. Watching this film, it’s hard to believe that the director spent over two years filming Lagerfeld. It seems Marconi’s intention was to simply film whatever was happening in Lagerfeld’s daily life, which seems like it could be vicariously exciting, but is somehow reduced to countless journeys to and from unnamed locations, events and people. Rather than allowing the viewer into this world, Marconi’s technique distances us from getting any kind of insight into Lagerfeld’s existence. Instead we are merely witness to the questions Marconi wants to ask, the things Marconi sees. In the end, this proves to be, frankly, a boring outcome for what should have been an interesting film, not quite Old Wave, but certainly not New Wave either.

I’ve been thinking about fashion films for a while, and plan to continue posting about more of them on this blog in the future. But what triggered this retrospective look at recent fashion documentaries was an article Alison sent me written by Georgina Safe last week in The Australian, about another fashion documentary that has just screened at the Sydney Film Festival on legendary photographer Bill Cunningham. I’m yet to see it, but I certainly hope it’s of the same quality as The September Issue and Valentino: The Last Emperor; maybe then I really can get away with calling it a New Wave.

(And if you’re keen to see more fashion films on the big screen, The Australian Cinematheque is curating a program of wonderful films to co-incide with GoMA’s Valentino exhibition in August http://qag.qld.gov.au/cinematheque/coming_soon).