Getting to Ballilla Mansion was a trek for me. You’ll notice I usually only write about northside and city centre galleries. But! The Melbourne Sculpture Biennale was worth the visit southside, even just as an excuse to catch up with some friends who live in the area and drag them with me to see the show. Housed in a historic mansion built in 1878, the works are site specific and respond to the house itself. Complete with peeling paint, squeaky floor boards, and phallic stained glass windows, the mansion has clearly seen better days, but its dilapidated charm offsets the contemporary sculptures housed within. I’m not usually drawn to sculptural work, and there were many things in the mansion that I didn’t care for or have desire to spend time with, but there were a few that truly stood out. 

I’ve been a fan of Aretha Brown’s work for years, but was going to give this exhibition a miss due to the $19 ticket price at entry. The aversion to the ticket price comes from two directions; feeling guilty spending my money on anything at the moment, and not wanting to write about a ticketed show. You may have noticed that we’ve consistently avoided writing on Lowbrow about exhibitions which are ticketed (the only exception being art fairs, but they’re their own thing). We want the art we write about to have as few barriers to entry as possible and be as widely accessible as possible. We want to bring art to people not in the arts, and platform the people who don’t have other places to be seen. I’ve made the exception for Aretha Brown though, and I’m glad I did.