Review: Mouths and Meaning, Bronwyn Platten, Sarah Coggrave and others

Review: Mouths and Meaning, Bronwyn Platten, Sarah Coggrave and others

by Adele Sliuzas
Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide
1 February-2nd March 2013

Blurring the boundaries between art, art therapy and biographical practice, Bronwyn Platten's recent exhibition Mouths and Meaning emphasises the current role of social engagement in contemporary arts practice. Mouths and Meaning is a multidisciplinary collaborative art and research project that extends beyond the gallery space. The exhibition pieces together paintings, performance, video work and installation that explore relationships to the body and dislocations between mouths and meaning.

Originally from Adelaide, and now working from Manchester, UK, this solo exhibition sees Platten return to the AEAF ten years after her previous exhibition in the space. Her work explores the body, in particular experiences of identity, sense and communication as highlighted by the exhibition’s title. The project includes a body of research and multiple collaborators, moving between the fields of art and health.

Within the gallery Platten has created an affective space, encouraging the viewer to engage and respond on a corporeal level; the works make you feel within your flesh. The mouth is presented as a site to be explored and to be embodied. As a threshold between the inside and outside of the body, the mouth is a liminal space. It is the site of pleasure experienced through tastes, sensations, speaking and laughing. Equally, the mouth is the site of horror and betrayal; spitting, slurring, saying the wrong thing, eating too much, or not enough. Platten invites the viewer to become aware of their perception of their mouth as an entry to the body. In Anatomical Sense, a cluster of small oil paintings, Platten fragments the body, dissecting individual sense organs and inviting the viewer to consider the materiality and mechanics of their senses one at a time. 

The subjective experience of one’s own mouth is brought to the fore within Platten’s Untitled (Mouth Drawing). This collaborative series shows drawn images of interpretations of the inside of a mouth. Collaborators were asked to slowly drink a cup of water and record the sensation; movements of the tongue, the taste, the feeling of liquid pushing up against the cheek and teeth. A multisensory experience, some drawings describe the mechanics of the mouth, others describe ideas of closeness, wetness or tongueness through abstract lines. 

The feeling of embodiment within the mouth is again raised in Body To Brain and Back Again. The work sits across two platforms; a video of a performance by Platten, alongside a series of flashcards with words stencilled on their surface. Within the performance, Platten appears in a nurse’s uniform, with shoes on her head and books crudely strapped to her feet. Humour and childhood playfulness are a way for Platten to contemplate dysfunction and describe experiences that are personal and difficult, but that art can transform. She acts out all of the words in the dictionary from the entry "Body" to the entry “Brain”, corresponding to the flashcards on the floor. Just as in Untitled (Mouth Drawings), this exercise allows Platten to actively consider her mouth, feeling the words and the movements of her anatomy. She questions what the words do and their physicality as they turn from concepts within the brain to actions by the body. In response the viewer questions their own body and feels impelled to experience the sensation.

More than just art therapy, Platten’s practice is relational, creating meaning through experience. Exchange and collaboration form an essential part of the dialogue. Working with emerging artist and recovering anorexic Sarah Coggrave on video performance Untitled (The Party), Platten engages humour to discuss the dynamic relationship the two artists have with food. The performance is a social intervention as much as relational artwork. Despite its bright childhood colours, playfulness and humour, it isn’t easy to watch. There is absurdness in that no food is ever seen entering the mouth. Cream fills gumboots into which the artists put their feet, feeling the sensation of the fatty, squelchy cream against their skin. Pockets are stuffed with cakes. The anxiety and tension is high, and through their laughs and struggles, the performance opens them up to experience the joy, horror, power and control exerted by the mouth/food dynamic. 

Originally published in Artlink Volume 33, no 2, 2013  

The Analogue Lab Show: Alternative Photography on paper, glass and metal

The Analogue Lab Show: Alternative Photography on paper, glass and metal

The Mill, Angus Street

Launch 5pm

In the early years of photography things were very different to how they are now. Developing film and photographs was, and remains, a laborious and dangerous chemical process, an experiment where light meets emulsion in scientific laboratory. To some, analogue cameras seem nostalgic, but to others, like the artists who run the Analogue lab, alternative and historic photographic processes are exciting, even magical.

The Analogue Laboratory is a photographic studio run by a group of Adelaide based photographers within the new Mill complex. The artists are interested in the photographic methodologies of the past, but their practices are not anachronistic. They are attracted to the procedure as much as the result, and to the many processes that go into producing a photograph. The creative passion of this group of artists is one of their greatest assets, equaled only by their skills as photographers. This exhibition is an introduction to what the Analogue Lab can do and features work by Vera Ada, Alex Bishop-Thorpe, Alice Blanch, Aurelia Carbone, Andrew Dearman, Tony Kearney, Leanne McPhee, Amalia Ranisau and James Tylor. This exhibition puts the emphasis on the alchemy and magic of the analogue photograph, showing multiple ways that an image can be constructed. 

Text: Copyright Adele Sliuzas, originally published on The Thousands

Darren Siwes, Mulaga Gudjerie / Santiago Sierra, Destroyed World

Darren Siwes, Mulaga Gudjerie

Santiago Sierra, Destroyed World

Greenaway Art Gallery

Opening May 15^th 6pm

Runs till 23^rd June

Santiago Sierra is an artist and a self confessed anarchist. Inherently political, his work touches on topics that aren’t easy, often navigating blurry and indistinct areas of 21^st century ethics. His practice brings into focus the power relations between the privileged and the disadvantaged, and ideas of submission and domination. Showing alongside his monumental project Destroyed World, is Sierra's work 160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People. This work is particularly confronting, Sierra has tattooed a line across the back of four heroin-addicted prostitutes in exchange for a shot of heroin. The documentation photographs open up more questions than they intend to answer, presenting an ethical dilemma about the role of the artist as perpetrator.

 

Darren Siwes photographic series Mulaga Gudjerie is equally political, depicting an alternative contemporary narrative that sees our head of state replaced with His and Her Majesty, the indigenous Queen and Prince of Australia. Siwes acts out what he calls ‘hypothetical realism’ within the photographs, an embellished possible future that, again, questions our 21^st century ethics, particularly in regards to hierarchical power. The subjects of the photographs are strange and powerful, their waxy whitened skin and regal outfits are enough to make you feel unwelcome and uncomfortable. As they sit together and blankly stare directly into the camera, the two royal subjects begin to make you reconsider the way that power is organized within our country. 

IMAGES:

Santiago Sierra, Destroyed Word, 2010-12, 5 by 10 montage, photographic prints, 180 x 200cm, edition of 3 + 1 A/P

Santiago Sierra, Línea de 160 cm tatuada sobre 4 personas, 2000 /160cm Line Tattooed on 4 People, 2000, photographic print, 100 x 148cm each, triptych, edition of 3

Darren Siwes, Northie Kwin, 2013 (from Mulaga Gudjerie series), giclee print, 120 x 100cm, edition of 10 + 2 AP, courtesy the artist and Greenaway Art Gallery

Darren Siwes, Jingli Kwin, 2013 (from Mulaga Gudjerie series), giclee print, 120 x 100cm, edition of 10 + 2 AP, courtesy the artist and Greenaway Art Gallery

Text: Copyright Adele Sliuzas, originally published on The Thousands

BLOOM-SPACE

Last night was the opening of Bloom-Space, an exhibition I have just curated at the Australian Experimental Art Foundation.

Here are a few shots from the opening night care of my Aunty!

Roy Ananda, The Devourer

Roy Ananda, The Devourer

CACSA

Opening night 26^th April 6pm (with an Artist talk at 5:30pm)

Runs until the 26^th of May

The endless possibilities of the universe, and understandings of space and time are the subject of Roy Ananda’s latest exhibition ‘The Devourer’. The exhibition is part of CACSA’s Manifest series, featuring recipients of the Qantas Foundation encouragement of Australian Art Award, which Roy won in 2010. ‘The Devourer’ is a solo exhibition allowing Roy’s works to form intrusions into space within the multiple rooms of the gallery, echoing the structure of his sculptural works formed of numerous boxlike structures.

The works are as much about inner-head-space as they are about outer-space, and are heavy with science fiction references. American pulp writer H P Lovecraft has been a major influence on Roy’s practice. Within ‘The Devourer’ Roy draws on Lovecraft’s Sci-Fi subject matter, using different aesthetic techniques to explore ideas of space, dimension and the universe. Three-dimensional point perspective drawings show physical space receding into infinite galaxies and Escher-esque impossible loops, while a video shows an empty and alien landscape that appears to never end. In Roy’s signature boyish manner, he also discusses the culture that surrounds Sci-fi literature, where dice are used in roleplaying games and philosophical debates are carried out about the Cthulhu Mythos, a fictional universe.

Images  courtesy of the Artist and Dianne Tanzer Gallery + Projects

Text: Copyright Adele Sliuzas, originally published on The Thousands

Patrick Wundke

Suburban Camping Project

Patrick Wundke

Fontanelle Gallery

Opening Sunday 21^st April 6pm

Runs till 19^th May

In the last few years there has been a real turn towards social engagement within Australian art, shown through projects like Touchy Feely, and through the work of artists including Patrick Wundke. Socially aware and socially active art are really interesting, perhaps because they are kind of demanding; the viewer and their participation are central to the work.

Patrick Wundke examines social engagement through an art practice that takes the artwork directly to the viewer, to their backyard to be precise. The Suburban Camping Project uses the humble tent as a way of navigating the boundaries between private space and public place. As an artist, and a tourist, Wundke camps in stranger’s suburban backyards. Through approaching the members of the public, Wundke enters into a relationship that exposes the vulnerability and the generosity of the ‘other’.

In the gallery, the tent, sleeping bag and camping paraphernalia take on a performative role. The objects act on three levels: they take on a position of art objects within the gallery space and they stand in for the act of social engagement, part of which occurs in the suburban back yards. And, while the artist takes up residency, living in the gallery, they still retain their practical use as camping equipment.

Image: 'Camping Number 3', Patrick Wundke, 2012 courtesy of the Artist and Fontanelle Gallery

Text: Copyright Adele Sliuzas, originally published on The Thousands