Displays that risk blowin' in the wind
by Associate Professor Robert Nelson
A pair of Chanel scarves hang in decorative state at the entrance to an intimate exhibition at the Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA). The flamboyant silk dangles on brackets that also support stanchion ropes, as in a posh hotel, museum or department store.
This ensemble by Dan Bell, 100% off, is both institutional and personal. Silver clasps, golden volutes and rope literally hang together, evoking old-world authority and private luxury.
But the title undermines any celebratory grandeur that the snooty accoutrements signify. On the one hand, ''100% off'' means that the ideology of branded pride is rotten. On the other, it proposes that the artefacts are stolen, a perfect discount, that infinite reduction which is theft. And both could apply: the crime adds contempt to the critique.
Give some artists enough rope and they'll hang themselves. But then just because the label says the goods are filched, it doesn't necessarily mean they are. The confession could be a lie, as in the paradox: ''this sentence is wrong'', which is wrong even if it's right.
The reason 100% off is powerful is not that it defies the law but that it brings a hypothetical proposition to an alarming immediacy: how does the aesthetic change if the ingredients are illegitimate?
Curated by Rosemary Forde, Pretty air and useful things is a lively show, with similarly propositional works by Sanne Mestrom and Alex Vivian. A cube upholstered in Gauguin fabric, a human torso bottle with a spoon stuck down the neck are among Vivian's inventions; and Mestrom comes up with strange pairings of objects that seem to be in monumental conversations.
Alongside this fascinating show is a more ambitious exhibition, Liquid Archive. In a catalogue essay, curator Geraldine Barlow explains the meaning of archives, their development and fragility, and how artists engage with them.
Though sophisticated, the exhibition handles unfavourable subject matter. Archives are either neutral - in which case they're boring - or they're set up for some curious or contestable purpose, in which case the interest is seldom in the archive itself but defaults to the politics around it.
An artwork that handles archival logic could be interesting; but because the interest arises somewhere between the information bank and its historical objective, the work is pinched by divided subject matter and therefore carries an unwieldy expression.
To interpret the works, I depended upon Barlow's essay. Fortunately, it's a good essay (definitely one for the archive) but I felt inadequate and helpless in front of the objects, images and videos.
On occasion, the title delivered the artwork from obscurity. A joyful example is Patrick Pound's collection of paraphernalia, from musical instrument to Ventolin. The assortment of heterogeneous objects is endearingly called The Museum of Air and it all relates to breath or atmosphere. The idea is phenomenologically witty, if less than profound.
Even with the titles, many other works require a knowledge of the background, which gratefully Barlow supplies. But once you've understood the circumstance, you don't need the artwork. The art becomes redundant, adding only a layer of audio-visual pomposity.
Highlighting this problem, a scintillating catalogue essay by Canadian Julie Louise Bacon throws up priceless intuitions about archives which are unmatched by the art. In an epoch where half our conversations are archived, Bacon's ideas are strikingly relevant: the inclusiveness and ubiquity of archives are limiting, like the publicity of the private. Her ideas of ''the dream-reason of time'', the defining role of search modes and ''a hide-and-seek game where nobody comes to look'' are way ahead of the artworks.
Unless in direct homage, as with Leah King-Smith, the closer we get to archival material the more withering the result, as with reportage from the Hindenburg disaster. To the strained historical sound track, Kit Wise places sparse words on a black screen. Alas, the historical background is interesting in a way the artwork isn't. I get a sinking airship feeling that archives are more rewarding for writers than for artists.
'Pretty air and useful things; Liquid Archive' will be on display until 22 September 2012 at MUMA, Monash University's Caulfield campus.
Associate Professor Robert Nelson is the Associate Director of Student Experience in the Office of the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) at Monash University.
This article originally appeared in The Age.