What Does This One Do? by Deakin University Art Gallery

WHAT DOES THIS ONE DO?

WHAT DOES THIS ONE DO? KEITH WONG KATE ROHDE ANNA VARENDORFF WITH HAIMA MARRIOTT

CURATED BY MICHELLE MOUNTAIN & CARLY GRACE DEAKIN UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY 27 JULY – 2 SEPTEMBER 2016

FOREWORD

The exhibition What does this one do? is the result of an annual program run by the Deakin University Art Gallery where graduates of the University’s Museum Studies course are invited to submit a proposal to curate an exhibition for the following year. In 2015 Michelle Mountain and Carly Grace, submitted the successful proposal to curate an exhibition for 2016 presenting the work of four Melbourne based artists looking at the connection between engagement and entertainment. I would like to thank and congratulate the two curators, Michelle and Carly, who have worked tirelessly on the development of the exhibition. In 2012, whilst still studying at Deakin Michelle and Carly worked with the Art Collection and Galleries Unit as Museum Studies interns. They return to guest curate an exhibition having established positions within the arts industry. It is wonderful to welcome them back and I do hope that the development of this exhibition has been a rewarding and beneficial experience for them both. I would like to thank the exhibiting artists Keith Wong, Kate Rohde and collaborators Anna Varendorff with Haima Marriott who have warmly and enthusiastically responded to the exhibition proposed by the Curators, in some cases giving them access to existing works and in other cases working on the development of new pieces for display. Their involvement and contribution is welcomed and appreciated. As is the contribution of poets Jaquim Kenneth Doggan and Natalie Petrellis towards the associate catalogue. Contributing behind the scenes was our gallery technician, Brad Rushbridge and Steve Ingall from facilities. I would like to thank the very talented Brad for his hard work in the installation of the exhibition and I would also like to acknowledge the valued work of Steve Ingall towards the installation of Keith’s work in particular. It would be remiss of me to not also acknowledge our in house photographer Simon Peter Fox and thank him for his contribution to the catalogue. Finally, I would like to thank and acknowledge the other members of the Unit, James Lynch, Claire Muir, Vanja Radisic and Julie Nolan who have all been so supportive and helpful throughout the development of the exhibition. What Does this one do? will challenge your notion of what it means to engage, can we continue to be a passive observer in this fast paced technologically literate society, or do we now require and expect audience involvement? I will leave it to you, the viewer, to contemplate. Leanne Willis Manager, Art Collection and Galleries

Anna Varendorff with Haima Marriott Bouba 2015 Brass Dimensions variable

Keith Wong Kid’s Commission 2014 Full cream milk, Perspex, 9L bucket, fridge, air pump Dimensions variable

RECORDED DISCUSSIONS, JUNE 2015 TO JUNE 2016

CARLY: We were really excited when we came to the point of titling our show What does this one do? For me it felt a little bit like we were capturing something with that phrase or provocation. It had a little bit of humour attached to it and it really struck the right cord. MICHELLE: It was the question we had been asking ourselves over and over. Discussion has really been the core of our curatorial process and we‘ve been constantly thinking about the role of audience participation in galleries, often imagining ourselves as participants rather than curators. CARLY: Yes, it has been a really interesting process because this exhibition wasn’t about a greater external concept; it was about the nature of how audiences and art function. We thought let’s make an exhibition about being an exhibition and we’ve put the visitor at the centre of the experience. MICHELLE: Well it’s a discussion we’ve been having long before we even thought about curating a show. Blockbuster exhibitions like Melbourne Now in 2013 have really changed the landscape of visitor expectation and the anticipation of how we should engage with contemporary art. We saw the results of this in our studies at Deakin University and in our professional experience. CARLY: We’re in 2016 now, so we can look back and appreciate what an iconic exhibition Melbourne Now was, and reflect on how it impacted our local context. This has been happening around the world, museums have had to reimagine themselves from being repositories of history and white cubes to being learning environments and places where the audience consume spectacle. They’ve had to question how they relate to contemporary audiences. In Melbourne and abroad, art institutions are walking a line between engagement and entertainment. MICHELLE: Yes and it really seemed appropriate to investigate these ideas in the Deakin University Art Gallery. We had the shared experience of interning with the Deakin Art Gallery and Collection and this provided us with an understanding of the unique functioning of galleries within a learning environment. University museums are in a privileged position as components of educational institutions. CARLY: They are privileged because they have a captive audience, an audience that is provided to them because of proximity and the

broader context of where they are, however, this is complex. The audience can become an incidental captive non-audience; if the gallery doesn’t enter into a student’s experience it can go unnoticed. The challenge is for university art museums to bridge into student experience. MICHELLE: Definitely, you can have a great exhibition but sometimes the white cube can become a barrier to that experience. I was really excited when you first described Keith Wong’s work Kids Commision to me, because it disrupted that barrier, breaking open the ceiling and leaking onto the floor. I really liked the idea that the milk dripping from the ceiling was also like the white essence of the gallery bleeding out. CARLY: Keith’s work is really powerful. When I saw that work at an exhibition in the Docklands, it was very moving because it was so minimal in its form but it encapsulated so many of the conversations people were having about the role of art galleries and museums. Keith’s experience of working in a large arts organisation gave him the opportunity to contemplate the leveraging of children as an audience. The dripping milk offers people sustenance but only if they’re willing to dedicate the time to collect it. Do you remember having that same experience when we saw Anna Varendorff and Haima Marriott’s work Bouba at TCB? MICHELLE: Yes it was so enthralling to watch visitors discover the work. Playing with the sounds and movement and shadows and light, and coming to the realisation that the work is activated by their touch. I remember that daughter holding her father’s hand and each of them touching a side of the work to produce sound, joined in the experience of it. The potential of Bouba isn’t fully realised until someone physically engages with it. CARLY: It is an exchange and it’s asking something of the viewer but it also changes the code of behaviour in the exhibition space. The work is an invitation, it meets the viewer half way but the viewer has to engage for the contract to be complete. MICHELLE: When we were thinking about this exhibition we also discussed Kate Rohde’s work a lot, partly because we knew Rainbow Squirrel was part of the Deakin Collection and partly because her work engages its viewers in a strange phantasmagorical experience. CARLY: Yes, Kate re-masters the cabinet of curiosity with overtly stimulating sculptures that

draws on visual engagement to comment on museological traditions. It’s a joyful experience looking at Kate’s work; it’s like looking at a fanciful wonderland encased in a bell jar. Kate Rohde has a highly tuned aesthetic, Baroque style and these imaginative, challenging, playful and ambitious qualities are what museums have recognised as so engaging and have chosen to use as a device to captivate younger audiences. MICHELLE: Yes, there is also a nice dialogue between Keith’s Kid Commission and the fact that Kate has been commissioned to create work for the NGV Kid’s Space and for the learning studio at the 2016 Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art. CARLY: One of the things I’ve most enjoyed about the process of putting together this exhibition has been working with Keith to commission a new work. Art Gallery Visitor Parking Only has evolved from discussions between the three of us, curators and artist, around the concept of this exhibition. It has further developed in response to the constraints of placing an art work in a public space outside of the gallery, a space that needs to function as part of the University. MICHELLE: Yes I really enjoyed the different forms the initial proposals of this work took: first a functioning car park, and when this was not possible, an installation that attempted to solve the problem of function by reactivating itself. The acquisition proposal to the Deakin Collection is a really interesting way of potentially providing a car park space to the gallery in perpetuity. CARLY: Central to this work are the conversations we had about access and the different forms access can take. While the work now exists in its potential as a car park, it also functions through its locality in the library. What better place to interject into the student experience and campus life? To create that bridge we talked about. Hopefully it comes to act as a conduit, directing visitors to the gallery and back to the library in turn. MICHELLE: It has also been really satisfying commissioning poets to contribute to the exhibition as another layer to the way visitors can experience and interpret the work. Jaquim Kenneth Duggan beautifully weaves text to evoke the gallery, art, history and an indigenous perspective that is both thought-provoking and astonishing. Natalie Petrellis’ prose poem explores the somaesthetic of experiencing art, drawing the reader to the bodily impact

of the aesthetic experience. I hope visitors are as transformed by Duggan and Petrellis’ words as we were. CARLY: It has been very thought-provoking meditating on the viewer’s experience and working with artists who are interested in how audiences interact with their work. What does this one do? is a question that we inevitably all ask ourselves when we engage with artwork. “What is it offering me?” or even, “why art?”, are the underlying questions that we imagine the viewer asks. An artwork needs to reach out to the viewer and meet them halfway. MICHELLE: In our explorations we never intended to be definitive, rather we hope that this exhibition sits within a series of ongoing dialogues around these ideas; exhibitions and audiences, play versus consumption, entertainment and engagement. This exhibition is a reflection on these ideas but also a question we wish to pose. With contemporary audiences’ expectations of art continuously evolving, what does it actually mean to engage? Michelle Mountain is the Gallery Manager at the Centre for Contemporary Photography. She is a Board Member of Seventh Gallery in Fitzroy and works as an independent curator. Michelle most recently curated a group exhibition Time’s Relentless Melt, Like Rain Through Karst at c3 Art Space in Abbotsford. Carly Grace is the Education Manager at Heide Museum of Modern Art and a visual arts educator at Australian Catholic University. She specialises in interpretation education and has extensive experience in designing and delivering diverse education and public programs within museums, community arts and diverse educational settings.

Kate Rohde Mutant Kitten Vase 2015 Polyurethane 32 X 60 X 16cm

JAQUIM KENNETH DUGGAN —

Savage nature finds home in frayed corners of aged canvases dark crevices creep acrylic coons cracking rocks through flaked paint rhythmic echoes against framed past a deluge of dust drying eyes and tongue marked as savage Spearhead pink palms kissing minerals curl around stone wed with another knapped tools old ways forgotten amongst smoke and concrete found reason in fallen fragments came perfect resolve snatched and locked behind white ways factory glass divorced from flesh and rhyme. Trace along the outlines of colonial borders behind correctional gates black men walk free with the red earth clumped in their brushes swim in the waters of their pallets with turtles and trout and cod they feel the earth shutter when the rainbow serpent slithers beneath the ground they dream still of family on the country

NATALIE PETRELLIS —

Soma Like an empty sponge hitting a body of water, absorb everything—without pretension. Letting your body converse with the aesthetic of the room, the atmosphere, and the art. As if you are holding the heavy sponge in your hand, squeeze the liquid out above your head. Feel the icy water trickle down your back, creating separate tributaries of thought along the landscape of your body. These overflowing channels carry your thoughts, your impressions—and as though you are sitting on the lip of a street gutter, watch the water gush over your boots. Now you see an amber leaf riding the rush of the grey current. Whirling around, it catches on your shoe. Trap it before it’s gone. Feel the soft crumble on your cold little fingers—hear the wet crush, crunch. Your attention is now drawn skyward to catch an autumn sunset. The sky is lightly dusted with colours—a lilac desert with pink and orange hues. Reach up and take a handful of this silky sand and let it funnel through your fist and onto your thigh. When the last moments of daytime have scattered, the darkness hints home. You walk to a nearby train station—your ears are cold and your breath is foggy. On the platform, a girl—squatting like a frog—collects moss from underneath a rotting wooden bench. Ripped from the edges of the chipped chair legs and gaps of the charcoal cement, a collection of citrus broccoli heads now sits in her palm. The train now comes, time pushes you through the doorway, and you do not question her attention to the moss. Rocking back and forth—watching the windows fill with swirling wallpaper of muted lime leaves and black stalks—you remember what it felt like to climb a tree. Feeling the rough bark on your indulgent little hands—you reached for the sky. But the feeling escapes. Like a pair of sunglasses, a framed bit of glass keeps that golden feeling from bursting into you. It’s like the contrast of the ink on the tooth of this paper—you cannot fully appreciate it until you experience it. So fold this piece of paper up and turn it into an aeroplane—point-to-point, fold by fold—then shoot it into unfamiliar cloud formations and find what you once saw in the sky.

KEITH WONG — Art Gallery Visitor Parking Only (detail) 2016 Aluminium sign, 3 galvanised poles 2.8, 2.1, 1.6m Installed at Deakin University Library, Burwood Kid’s Commission 2014 Full cream milk, Perspex, 9L bucket, fridge, air pump Dimensions variable

ANNA VARENDORFF WITH HAIMA MARRIOTT — Bouba 2015 Brass Dimensions variable

KATE ROHDE — Mutant Kitten Vase 2015 Polyurethane 32 X 60 X 16cm Rainbow Squirrel 2009 Mixed media 120 x 51 x 43 cm irregular Purchase 2009 Deakin University Art Collection

JAQUIM KENNETH DUGGAN — Jaquim Kenneth Duggan is an Chinese Aboriginal poet currently based in Melbourne’s North Western Suburbs. His works focus on the unique blend of ancient histories within a modern Australian context. Jaquim is currently studying at Deakin University in order to fulfill his passion in education.

KEITH WONG — Keith Wong is an artist from Melbourne. His work is based on an ongoing analysis of art institutions and their functioning. Through spatial interventions, text, fabricated forms and alterations to existing forms, his work explores the cultural operations at play within the field of social and institutional relations. Tangentially, he is also interested in thinking about work that is orchestrated at the new thresholds of image and object making.

NATALIE PETRELLIS — Natalie Petrellis studies creative writing at Deakin University, and likes to experiment with aesthetic. When she’s not reading or writing, she likes to spend her time screen-printing her own illustrations and taking photographs of her environment. Natalie enjoys exploring the experimental possibilities of art, and always attempts to illuminate forgotten or undocumented subjects.

ANNA VARENDORFF WITH HAIMA MARRIOTT — Anna Varendorff has completed an MFA at Monash University, and has exhibited at Craft Victoria, c3 Contemporary Art Space, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Anna Pappas, etc. Haima Marriott is a music producer and sound artist. He has performed under his own name, as part of duo Hagus (with Gus Franklin) and has produced many records.

KATE ROHDE — Kate Rohde completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) in 2001 at the Victorian College of the Arts. Since then she has been involved in numerous group and solo exhibitions around Australia and internationally, most recently these have included the Rigg Design Prize at the National Gallery of Victoria 2015, and Magic Object: The Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia 2016. Her work is held in a number of public and private collections including the NGV, Heide Museum of Modern Art and Deakin University.

WHAT DOES THIS ONE DO? 27 July - 2 September 2016 Keith Wong Kate Rohde Anna Varendorff with Haima Marriott Deakin University Art Gallery © 2016 the artists, the authors and publisher. Copyright to the works is retained by the artist and his/her descendants. No part of this publication may be copied, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher and the individual copyright holder(s). The views expressed within are those of the author(s)/artist(s) and do not necessarily represent the views held by Deakin University. All images are reproduced courtesy the artist. Photography: Simon Peter Fox Inside cover image: Anna Varendorff with Haima Marriott Bouba 2015 Brass, Dimensions variable Published by Deakin University ISBN 978-0-9944025-2-3 Edition 500 copies Deakin University Art Gallery Deakin University Melbourne Campus at Burwood 221 Burwood Highway Burwood 3125 T +61 3 9244 5344 E artgallery@deakin.edu.au deakin.edu.au/art-collection Gallery hours Tuesday – Friday 10 am–4 pm Free Entry Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B