Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize 2013

 

This is the second year of the relationship between the Redlands Art Prize and the National Art School Gallery, Darlinghurst, a positive coupling that unites contemporary artists with a fantastic, central exhibition space.

The prize is unique for its big brother and sister artists duos, where each invited artist brings an emerging artist with them for the ride. The dynamics of these relationships aren’t reflected in visual cues or styles; all you can assume is that the big ‘A’ artists really want audiences to see work of the little ‘a’ artists. Not a bad way to increase the exposure and circulation for lesser known artists, and to remind audiences that every established artist was once emerging as well.

As I was tasked with reporting the show through the ole' 'Gender/Sexuality' framework (oldie but a goldie), what struck me right away how sexless the exhibition appeared to be. Not to be confused with not sexy, sexless is the new ‘it’ thing across numerous creative disciplines from music to performance to dance. Sexless has become the new ‘international’, an obtund sensory language that is all-inclusive and endlessly neutral. The works in the show take this up in numerous ways.

Cate Consandine’s work Colony engages with the idea of The Boy and his ‘condition of becomingness’, pointing out (literally) the fragility of being suspended between the states of boy and man (or for the unenlightened, puberty). This work could have had much more potency had it been focused on the one form of expression. Instead audiences have to link a video of a hapless nappy-clad adolescent on his back, arms and legs flapping, with an adjacent buffed-steel spear suspended from the roof and corresponding ring on the floor, which are menacing and visually striking. This thematic relationship is not easy to arrive at, which is a shame as the video and sculpture possess enough interest on their own, whereas combining them dilutes and confuses their meaning.

Jen Broadhurst’s three channel video Abstract Feminism delivers exactly what the title promises, three screens of white leotard clad women exercising, wriggling and moving in a vision of pure abstractionism turned physical. The rigid principles of primary colour and pure line and form are made comfortable and soft-edged in this fun and welcoming work.

The winning team is clearly Deborah Kelly and her chosen partner, Cigdem Aydemir. Aydemir won this year’s prize for her work video Bombshell, a continuous shot of a towering woman dressed in full burqa mimicking the famous Marilyn Monroe hot air vent shot. The imposing black clad figure is the anchor to the whirling, buoyant garment that, just like that bombshell Monroe, teases the audiences with what will never be seen. Perhaps it is a comment on the vocal offence the West’s takes to veiled women, devoid of the superficial identifiers that we see as female qualities, but which are perhaps just a bit of marketing-induced hot air.

Kelly’s work The Miracles reiterates her preoccupation with gender roles and society’s hetero-normative assumptions on notions of the family. Kelly’s work consists of modern and religious icons. The modern icons are classicised portraits of families who have used Assisted Reproductive Technologies, essentially immaculate conceptions. The composite work is a projected photomontage of actual icons and Renaissance visions of family. The Miracles is warm, loving and a joy of discovery. 

In order for art to engage with ideas around gender and sexuality they must be clear and central to the work. The male/female binary has and will always exist, but what can change is how we express it without collapsing into a gender-neutral heap on the floor. 

Now showing

National Art School Gallery, Darlinghurst

3 May – 1 June 2013