LOWBROW
•
LOWBROW •
So here I am breaking the No Vacancy ban to write about Held, Altered featuring Grace Mitchell, Indya Pearce and Keely Vermalis. And I’m so glad that I’ve ended up here writing about this show, because I’m so pleasantly surprised how well these three artists work together in this space. At first glance, the through line between the work seems precarious. But spending time with the work in the space, I’m convinced. These works speak to each other through memory and time, and it almost feels like I’m walking into a private conversation being held between the artists.
Rereading Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? is an annual experience for me, often precipitated by a friend saying they haven’t yet pulled it up. A foundational text, if not the foundational text of looking at feminism(s) in art history, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists is an essay that is never far from my mind. From first reading it at 19 in ARTH101 in undergrad, I’ve variously argued for, against, outside of, and in need of redressing, Nochlin’s most famous work. As someone who comes to art through an art historical lens, rather than a hands on practice, I am always surprised with the gap between the theory and the history taught in art schools. I’m not saying this as a blanket statement – obviously everyone is a unique individual – but it is a piece of text that is so ubiquitous when studying art history, I cannot imagine writing about, critiquing, or even considering much of much of the art and exhibitions I see without a thorough knowledge of it in my back pocket.
Intended or not, I couldn’t keep the Catholic Church out of my mind at every Design Week event I’ve attended. Between the stained glass ceiling of the NGV’s Great Hall evoking cathedrals, and the inherent, site based religiosity of both Alpha60’s Chapter House playing host to Jon Goulder and the Abbotsford Convent, Christianity was omnipresent in a way that contemporary art and design eschews.
Jesse Boylan, Isabella Capezio, Jody Haines, Pia Johnson, Katrin Koenning, Christine McFetridge, Rebecca Najdowski, and Clare Rae are part of Correspondences, currently on view at Hillvale Gallery. The artists and their works blend - it was a breath of fresh air to have the works genuinely talk to each other, rather than yell from their own corners of a room.
Be the first to know about new reviews.
I haven’t had many reasons to venture out west from my inner north bubble in the years I’ve been living in Melbourne, and I’m well aware of how much of a shame that is – especially as this was my very first time visiting the institution that is Trocadero Projects. There are currently three separate shows filling the gallery space which I had the joy of exploring before buying heading round the corner to pick up the weirdest assortment of groceries from Cheaper Buy Miles; Tent Theory by Hunter Smith, We live by inference from the Saluhan Collective and Discovering human-nature by Lan Anh Truong.