Artists | Art works | Art’s work | Arts workers

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Artists

Art works

Art’s work

Arts workers

These are the main operators of a sprawling, complex and fragile web that is know as the visual arts. And while it may appear to the onlooker that as an industry we are united by the gossamer of passion and creative spirit, the reality is that we are all eking out a strained and increasing leaner livelihood trying to do the things that justify our existence (read funding).

Some of you may of read Saturday’s SMH article on the ‘Tit-Farm’, featuring a bohemian rundown house filled with artistic demi-goddesses in sheer vintage skirts, nursing kittens and babes under a warm, dream catcher diffused light (in art, even a bad news story is aesthetically pleasing…). Tit-Farm was used to highlight the how difficult it has become to be an artist in Sydney with the spiraling costs of living matched with uncertain and irregular income streams.

A proposed solution is to provide sibsidised housing and work spaces for artists by classifying them as ‘key workers’ who are entitled to affordable, inner-city rents and other benefits or concessions would make their existence much more secure. The plan proposed by Saint Clover (aka Lord Mayor) aims to have some positive affect on the thousands of artists that are struggling to survive and maintain artistic output in this brutally expensive city. And it’s not just the cliché of the emerging artist starving in the garret, I know prize winning, gallery represented artists that are only just hanging on.

And I also know a huge amount of highly educated, over qualified and extremely experienced arts workers have to live and work in the city, just scraping by and making very consequential sacrifices in order to remain working in this field. There aren’t articles written about them or policies dedicated to assisting their profession. There is no gallery assistant grant or subsidized housing for arts administrators. And the other alarming, but not surprising fact is that they are mostly women, quietly persevering and taking on more and more work without any extra remuneration or time in lieu to compensate.

What the wider community must also realize is that the arts, outside of publicly funded institutions, is largely unregulated and unchecked. If it were held to other industry standards such as paid overtime, defined roles and monitored work loads the fact is that this country would not have a visual arts sector. The visual arts could not afford to exist. Arts workers are just as ‘key’ as the artists they work tirelessly to support and promote.

This is not an argument of us-and-them, artists and arts workers are utterly codependent. What is required is a broadening of the assistance and support networks that are in place for artists in order for arts workers to gain some benefits as well. We’re all part of the same equation working for the same outcomes, therefore if is crucial that artists and art workers are given the same support and opportunities to thrive.

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

Interview with Dr. Rebecca Huntley: Gen Y, leadership and the arts

    

 Dr Rebecca Huntley is a researcher and author with a background in publishing, academia and politics. She holds degrees in law and film studies and a PhD in Gender Studies.

Rebecca is a social researcher and an Executive Director of The Mind and Mood Report, Australia's longest running social trends report. She is the author of three books, The World According to Gen Y: Inside the New Adult Generation, Eating Between the Lines: food and equality in Australia, and her most recent memoir, The Italian Girl. 

When Rebecca isn’t talking to Australians about their lives, she is working on her fiction and non-fiction projects, cooking and knitting.

We can’t have it all. Gen Y has seen that with the Gen X’ers. With this in mind, do you think Gen Y will have a more lifestyle-orientated approach to career and social goals?

Absolutely. We are seeing this already in both young men and women in Gen Y even before they get married and have kids. The desire for a life outside work, activities that promote health and wellbeing, travel, time with friends, passions and a like-long commitment to learning.

Gen Y characterizes the notion of the individual as his or her own brand identity. How do you see this unfolding within setting of large corporations and companies where you are just a number, where the individual is discouraged in favor of the collective personality of the workplace? Do you think there will be cultural and organisational revisions to allow for this?

Yes, we can already see this in terms of how consumers, younger and older, are using social media and creating their own content, lobbying or bypassing big media and corporations.

On the contrary, do you think the self-confidence and can-do attitude of Gen Y will see a meaningful shift towards a more mobile, multi-skilled and self-determined workforce?

Yes but only the very skilled and very adaptable will thrive in this market. I worry that those without those skills will get duded along the way.

As a legacy of graduating high school and university during the decade of the crisis’s, crunches, recessions and downturns, Gen Y has, it’s fair to say, never experienced economic confidence that was a fixed feature for the Gen X’ers and Baby Boomers. How do you think this will result in the decades to come, as Gen Y’s start to become leaders in politics, business and culture?

The theory is they will be more flexible and adaptable but again the comment above still holds true. Will Aussie Gen Y’s still support the idea of a social safety net for those who aren’t on the upside of the changing economy?

From your observations, what do you think it takes to be an effective and influential leader in the creative and cultural industries of today?

Passion. Education. The ability to take risks. And again, adaptability.

Gemaine Greer’s advice to women is to stop cleaning, or just do once a month at the most. What’s your advice to young women, who want big, satisfying careers as well as big, fulfilling lives?

Choose a supportive partner! Realise there will be tides in your career, big waves and little ones, so learn how to body surf and don’t get dumped when you aren’t paying attention. Be honest but assertive with your employer. Lean in as Cheryl tells us.

Last question, you can choose any piece of art in the world to own. What will it be?

Guernica. I would then sell it and fill my house with less expensive but nevertheless important work by Italian futurists like Giorgio Morandi and Giocoma Balla. Also a few Emily Kame Kngwarreyes please.