Once Removed

This group show, curated by Felicity Fenner, was exhibited at the 53rd Venice Biennale last year, representing Australia in the art world’s main event. The three installations in 'Once Removed' all refer “to aspects of place and the predicament of displacement...of individuals, communities and entire racial groups” (Fenner, 2009). Such a global phenomenon is familiar to many of us, and especially poignant to the peoples of Australia, who, whether recently or in generations passed, have come to this land from foreign countries. The myriad experiences of this phenomenon is firstly manifested through the selection of artists; Vernon Ah Kee is an Indigenous Australian with Chinese ancestry, Claire Healy is Caucasian and born in Melbourne, her collaborative partner Sean Cordeiro is Asian-Australian and born in Sydney, while Ken Yonetani was born in Tokyo and now lives in Katoomba. While the works in this exhibition have artistic strength and conceptual sophistication in their own right, thus representing the many ways in which we are all different, with our individual identities and backgrounds; together, they also show the way in which, essentially, we are all the same in our journey through the contemporary world and the multi-faceted dimensions of humanity.

Ah Kee’s ‘Cant Chant’ is an elaborate, multi-pieced installation which plays out the intersection between Aboriginal tradition and Australian culture and the very conflicted historical background on which such confrontations take place. Ah Kee’s video shows members of his family surfing at the iconic Surfer’s Paradise on boards which have a segment of their faces on one side, and Aboriginal patterns on the other. These boards have subsequently been hung in the gallery amongst white walls with the artist’s signature bold black statements.

‘Life Span’, by Healy and Cordeiro, is monumental not only in concept, but also in execution and of course size. A huge solid cube made up of 195 774 VHS tapes, the work is a literal representation of an average person’s lifespan of 66.1 years – that’s how long it would take to watch all these videos. Evoking the grandness of the church in which it originally stood at Venice, without of course the same aesthetic appeal, the cube stands stoically over those who view it, overwhelming us with its presence and the thought that, if your life was to look like one single thing, then perhaps this is what it would be. Such a thought is both disconcerting, yet oddly comforting.

Finally, my favourite installation would have to be Yonetani’s ‘Sweet Barrier Reef’, a work which has the grace and delicate beauty of a traditional painting, with the conceptual sting and socio-political commentary of art that is conscious of its time. Made entirely from white sugar and modelled on the form of a Japanese Zen garden, the work casts a light on the little-known environmental crime of coral bleaching by the sugar industry. While the work looks absolutely beautiful and serene, the knowledge of its context evokes, what Fenner describes as, “a post-apocalyptic landscape in which everything is bleached white and has perished.” The fragility of this work, and hence the increasingly frail environment it represents, is made even more apparent by the sugar, which appears to hold the entire work together but can break away or become deformed from a single touch (as I learned when my two-year-old stuck his fingers into the edge of the work).

Of course, these works require much more time and depth to adequately understand their complexities and the comments they have to make on individual and community experiences. Unfortunately, what I have here will have to suffice. The exhibition is currently showing at the Campbelltown Arts Centre until the beginning of August, so check it out, it’s well worth the trip! [Images from ozarts.com.au and balnavesfoundation.com]