Art Deco

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years work by one of Australia's ... New Zealand: City Gallery Wellington: 28 June – 19 October, 2008; ... Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ROSLYN OXLEY 9 GALLERY

‘Understorey’ (detail), 1999–2004, glass beads, silver wire, rubber, boar’s teeth vitrine, 176 x 150 x 87 cm. Collection Lisa and Egil Paulsen, Sydney

‘Understorey’ (detail), 1999–2004, glass beads, silver wire, rubber, boar’s teeth vitrine, 176 x 150 x 87 cm. Collection Lisa and Egil Paulsen, Sydney Throughout the 1980s, her photographic work underwent a radical transition from a direct, documentary-style to studio-based, theatreMuseum of Contemporary Art, Sydney: 6 March – 1 June, 2008 set constructions. It is this creation New Zealand: City Gallery Wellington: 28 June – 19 October, 2008; Christchurch Art of miniature worlds, in time and Gallery: 4 December – 1 March, 2009 space, which eventually burst forth from behind the lens and evolved “ ORCE FIELD” is a significant into her hybrid sculptural practice. retrospective of more than 30 Hall’s work has the quality of lived, years work by one of Australia’s embodied experience, through the most individual and accomplished selection of the materials, their craftartists. Memory and loss are key ing and placement. It is a precise themes in the work of Fiona Hall, visual and very female mnemonic celebrating that which is obsolete, that summons forth the parallel and marginal or threatened with extincintersecting allusions that Hall has tion. Her work harnesses the anarinvested in the work. In a sense, chic forces of sensual delight and Hall’s grand project is her attempt theatre to challenge meta-systems to create her own museum – an of knowledge, memory and power. ordered and catalogued place of It is her use of strategies of Eurowonder and beauty. Though critical pean systems of order, the very sysof past discourses, creating her own tems she critiques, to excavate and “museum” gives her the power to retrieve other systems of naming define new sets of questions, exposand placing, other identities and ing underlying structures in the narratives, which gives her work its process. edgy, yet poised, balance. Her repertoire of materials, whilst ‘Scar Tissue’, 2003–04, videotape, broadly being described as domesvitrine, 210 x 330 x 330 cm. Collectic, disposable and consumer items, ‘Cash Crop’, 1998, soap, gouache on banknotes, labels, vitrine, dimention: Museum of Old and New Art Below: Detail of ‘Scar Tissue’ sions 132 x 130 x 60 cm. Collection: Art Gallery of New South Wales (MONA), Hobart, Tasmania

FIONA HALL: FORCE FIELD

PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ROSLYN OXLEY 9 GALLERY

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Craft Arts International No.74, 2008

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PHOTOS: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ROSLYN OXLEY 9 GALLERY

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ROSLYN OXLEY 9 GALLERY

‘Holdfast (Macrocystis angustifolia/giant kelp)’, 2007, tin and aluminium, 27.5 x 27.2 x 2 cm

‘Temptation of Eve’ (from the series ‘Paradise’), 1984, gelatin silver photograph, toned, 24.5 x 19.5 cm. Collection: National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

‘S.O.S.’ (from the series ‘The price is right’), 1994, polaroid photographs triptych, each 68 x 53 cm. Collec tion of the artist

‘Dead in the Water’, 1999, mixed media, vitrine, 106 x 129 x 129 cm. National Gallery of Victoria

The perishable fruits, vegetables and nuts re-created in Cash Crop, the commodities that are traded between colonies or through global corporations, are lovingly moulded from Sunlight soap, a more sensuous material to handle than the razor-sharp metal of tin and aluminium of her earlier series of works that appear in the exhibition. The specimens are presented museologically, ordered according to size from the top shelf downwards, labelled with a triple nomenclature and embalmed within a pyramidal glass vitrine, preserved from the natural rot and decay of organic material. The base of the vitrine is covered in various national currencies’ bank notes. Trade and the usually unequal distribution of wealth generated by ‘Cell Culture’ (detail), 2001–02, glass beads, silver ‘Occupied Territory’, 1995, glass beads, wire, nails, this exchange is the theme in this wire, Tupperware, vitrine, ht 27 x15 x 9 cm. Collection: tooth, vitrine, 39 x 128 x 44.5 cm. Collection: Art work, whether it involved the trade Art Gallery of Soth Australia Gallery of Soth Australia routes which predated European explorations, the aggressive Euro- cooks down to a lovely slimy mush, the Lotus, Nelumbo nucisera, rises Touch, communicating felt expeto the top as Share Market Float. rience, is acknowledged in her use pean colonial trade wars or onwards is trumpeted as the Share Market Slump; the Peanut, Arachis hypo- The floating lotus blossom is purely of soap as a modelling medium. to the globalised trading of today’s decorative, it is the root that is the These fragrant simulacra defy the current multinational corporations. gaea, an important cash crop that Specifically, it is a botanical econ- produces the second largest source source of food and nutrition, and rot and decay of real produce; they it draws it nutrients from the slime will not despoil their pristine musof vegetable oil in the world, is omy that Hall is exposing. All of eum setting. Cash Crop resonates the specimens, so lovingly carved relegated to the Tax Return; and at the bottom of the pond. in soap, are grown commercially, often far from their place of origin. Her triple naming of each specimen discloses Hall’s biting irony in paralleling the two systems of botany and commerce. The principal name given for each specimen is a market economy term followed by the actual Linnaean plant classification and finally, its common name in English. This metaphorical hierarchy proclaims that the most important system is economic value. Some of the links are genuinely cheeky. Okra, Abelmoschus esculentus, a small West African vegetable used throughout Greece, Turkey and the Middle East, that ‘Cell Culture’ (detail), 2001, glass beads, silver wire, Tupperware, vitrine. Art Gallery of South Australia

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Craft Arts International No.74, 2008

Craft Arts International No.74, 2008

PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ROSLYN OXLEY 9 GALLERY

‘Medicine bundle for the non-born child’, 1994, aluminium, rubber and plastic layette comprising matinee jacket, bootees, bonnet, rattle, and six pack of baby bottles. Purchased 2000. Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

PHOTOS: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ROSLYN OXLEY 9 GALLERY

‘Manly Beach’, 1986, gelatin silver photograph, 19.3 x 24.5 cm

nature.’ The late Val Plumwood’s posthumously published paper, Shadow Places and the Politics of Dwelling, advocated a critical discourse of place that challenged our ignorance and disregard for ‘the many unrecognised, shadow places that provide our material and ecological support, most of which, in a global market, are likely to elude our knowledge and responsibility.’ 2 The problematic dualism in Western culture referred to in Plumwood’s paper is taken up in this recent work of Hall’s through the allusive and ironic title with its reference to Plato’s Cave – that exemplary dualist allegory where what we experience is a shadow cast by eternal forms that we do not experience – and the fantasies of our insatiable desire, unhinged from, and ignorant of, its earthed moorings. Plumwood appeals to us to realise that we ‘have lost touch with the material conditions (including ecological conditions) that support or enable our lives’.3 Hall’s precisely rendered casts of human brains colonised by various types of paper wasp and termite species; floating, spotlit and shadowed against a dark cave-like background, they are a kind of memento-mori writ large. Hall negotiates the complex web of equivalences and contradictions that link the material and personal with the larger philosophical and ecological issues. It is an arresting, remarkable creation, made especially in time for this exhibition but evidently too late for the catalogue. An over-arching theme that links all of Hall’s work within this framework is the dialectic of memory and loss and its subset, the retrieval of forgotten, rejected or marginalised knowledge systems; the stuff of other histories that occur outside the linear and heroic imperialist project (whether that project is 19th century European nation states or 20th century global corporations).

has expanded to include bank notes, ceramics, glass etching, knitting, beading and stitching, casting and moulding. Her choice of subjects has become more public and political, combining ecological and postcolonial concerns. The evolution of the word “museum” from a term for an ancient Greek temple dedicated to the muses, to sites of power which promote the universalising narrative of the victor, is an axis along which Hall explores memory’s other; loss, the discarded, the peripheral and the marginalised. Ironically, as the artist’s work becomes increasingly institutionalised due, in part, to her participation in major biennales, triennales and curated thematic shows both in Australia and overseas, many of the works also challenge museological authority. Hall’s strength is her ability to provide a succinct visual mnemonic for complex, layered and often totally paradoxical concepts. Hall’s identification with specificity of place, being “in place”, is emphasised in her work through touch as well as through visual and literal analogies. This perspective is illuminated by a postcolonial discourse and what can be attributed to a very Australian form of feminism: corporeal feminism and its discourse on the ethics of place and being. Her most recent work, Castles in the air of the Cave-dwellers, is an installation that reveals the closely observed studies she has made, and her love and intimate knowledge of Australia’s unique fauna. It is also an elegy for an almost lost hope that we humans might know our place; the realisation that extinction of the natural world will inevitably lead to our own extinction. As Hall herself has stated: ‘For most of us living in a world of manufactured products we tend to think that we are looking out at nature and forget that we are

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PHOTOS: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ROSLYN OXLEY 9 GALLERY

petit point with sewerage pipes in Dead in the Water, is a collision of the absurd and a reversal of the natural order. Her exquisite lacework plumbing pipes can be read as an eloquent exposé of the algal blooms occurring in critical water systems in Australia, particularly in the city of Adelaide where Hall lives. Hers is an apposite analogy: beautifully decorated plumbing pipes, pierced to the point of uselessness, allude to the waterweed that covers a dead river system and emits a foul, anaerobic smell. It is this stench that exposes the true state of the water system; toxic to humans and other organisms and, completely of our own making. It is the deadly seduction of ignorance and greed that Hall satirises in this work. Beneath the waterline are beautifully beaded, organic shapes reminiscent of tree stumps and aquatic plants, which in a healthy ecosystem, would provide food for fish, birds and microorganisms and breeding shelters for fish as well as much needed oxygen to refresh and regenerate the system. However, this is a watery grave of fetid stumps and straggling, bloated roots, which is rotten to the core – an indictment of the mismanagement of critical water resources in the world’s driest continent. Hall, through her modelled miniatures, creates an imagined, alternate system that allows complex and conflicting interpretations to coexist without quashing or negating each others’ characteristics. “Force Field” is a wunderkammer of an exhibition, full of delights and moments of real awe – a rare and immensely rewarding experience. I was so struck by Amnesiac’s Cartography (Narrow Road, Deep Chasm), two hemispheres of the brain perfectly moulded in dark, viscous resin – I could have sworn she had used Xanthorrea resin, that black oozing, fragrant sap – I bent down to smell it, much to the horror of the exhibition guardians. Hall exemplifies contemporary art at its best – challenging, fiercely intelligent, humourous and engaging. Given the very high visitor numbers at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the public agrees.

‘Bullonock ( Nyoongar)/black gin/ Kinga australis (from the ‘Paradise terrestris’ series), 1998–99, aluminium, tin, 26 x 18 x 4 cm 96

‘Castles in the Air of the Cave-Dwellers’ (detail), 2008, resin, 12 objects, various dimensions. Edition of 10 + 1 A/P. Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery, Sydney

Anne Sanders PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ROSLYN OXLEY 9 GALLERY

‘Quercus robur/English oak (from Paradisus terrestris), 1990 –2005, aluminium and tin, 25.5 x 17 x 2 cm with a critique of the colonial pursuit of creating a trading economy beneficial to the coloniser. Sir Joseph Banks wrote of his hopes that Australia would provide ‘objects both in the vegetable and mineral kingdom hitherto undiscovered, that will, when brought forward, become objects of national importance and lay the foundation of a trade beneficial to the mother country with that hitherto unproductive colony’; his emphasis of whom should benefit is unequivocal. 4 Banks’s statement reinforces the intention behind the title of this work, “cash crop”. In the present context, “mother country” can be extrapolated to encompass multinational corporations, whose operations fuel the major stock markets worldwide. The economic power of these companies, like their colonial predecessors, overrides a nation’s or community’s previous trading relationships and production for sustenance. Arable land is taken over for industrial, plantation cropping, often with species that are not native to the region. The inequities that the artist alludes to include exploitation of land and people engaged in the production of raw materials destined for an export market where the cash paid to the grower (and further down the chain, the workers) for the harvested crop is small relative to the profits made further up the supply chain, and in no way compensates for any ecological or social damage that may occur as a result of this practice. Hall’s conflation of lacework and

Anne Sanders is a Doctoral candidate of Art History at the Australian National University, Canberra NOTES

1. Deborah Hart, “Fertile interactions: Fiona Hall’s Garden”, Art and Australia vol.36, No.1, 1999, p.204 2. Val Plumwood, “Shadow Places and the Politics of Dwelling”, Australian Humanities Review, No. 44, March 2008. Located at: http://www.australian humanitiesreview.org. 3. ibid. 4. Patricia Fara, Sex, Botany and Empire: The story of Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks, Icon Books, Cambridge, 2003, p.151

Craft Arts International No.74, 2008