Performance, Documents, Film, Video

We tend to cling to ‘art’ as a term which necessitates the concepts to lean heavily towards permanence and the use of a medium and a support (e.g. oil on canvas). The sources of visual stimuli related to the last few years are vast. In the world today images abound, whether they be relevant or irrelevant, ranging from contemporary issues to those relating to prehistories, histories and various cultural and ethnic groups.

The range and rate of change of stimuli as it is related to the six sense fields is enormous. We must consider that not only sight, sound and touch are catered to but all the sense fields, with the subtle breakdown of ‘mind’ itself into its components of memory, perception and consciousness. Therefore the range that the artist has to work in is equally vast and subtle. Anything that comes within the artist’s sphere of activity can be incorporated to achieve a desired result.

And the very nature and apparent random quality of the range of works presented here prevents understanding being achieved through the introduction of ideas of aesthetics, art history and art theory. The basic foundation on which the works themselves are set ranges along that elusive line between the transient and the durable. Some of the artists approach traditional problems applying completely non-traditional means while others make use of media and materials whose application in art works has only recently become apparent. Systems associated with the support of the various vital life styles as well as those which are more akin to the areas of popular entertainment take on new dimension and meaning at the hands of the artist. These are artists who are aware of the fact they are working at the beginning of the last quarter of the twentieth century.

A Chinese scroll of the Ch’an school would reveal very little relevant information if approached with the general western methods of judging and understanding a work of art. We should look for the mountain in the brushwork and the brushwork in the mountain and view the work as a statement on man’s preoccupation with the reflections of reality rather than ‘reality itself’.

When considering the exhibition, might not this be regarded also as statements by the artists on man’s preoccupation with the reflection of reality rather than reality itself?

Source
Exhibition brochure, text by Geoffery Burke (former NGV Curator of Contemporary Art)