Simon Zoric
Down the end of Higson lane is an art exhibition. Whether or not you can still see it is really up to whatever god has domain over the system of back alleys in Melbourne and two enterprising undergrads. My trip to the CBD wasn’t without trepidation - I’ll be the first to admit that street art is mostly a minor hit and a major miss with me. This was artists (established, work at VCA, have gallery representation, definitely not lowbrow artists) working with a distinctly hostile gallery space to make something that maybe only eight people are going to see. I was lucky to be one of those few.
I got to Trashed early, as Kiron Robinson’s towers of apples and mandarins were still being set up, dotted like easter eggs down the laneway. Each composed of two real fruits and one fake one, the stacks were a direct opposition to any other art on the street. Some of the towers were hidden, others were toppling, refusing to stay up, no matter how flat the surface. Each felt like a fungi, springing up from a garden that was only asphalt and brick and grime. Robinson’s towers descended into performance art, begging the question of how many times can an artwork topple before you simply give up and move it a foot to the left.*
Simon Zoric’s “Interstitial” paste-up was that on many levels. Beyond the wry humour of a technical art term finding its home in the end of an alley, it’s given form to what it says. Magritte could never make a painted image of a pipe a pipe, but this paste-up is an interstitial ad infinitum. It’s an addition to the space more so than an intervention. The paste-up is camouflaged, to the extent that it had to be pointed out to me. The veiling works in its favour, asking more of the graffiti and street art around it as well as the situational, art historical, “can this be good art” limbo the medium exists in.
This was the 14th iteration of Trashed, and they’re just getting started. Asking the duo behind the endeavour for a quote, Chuck Tantrums and Jack Maiden said:
“Each TRASHED has brought us down alleyways we wouldn’t have ventured otherwise. Kiron and Simon’s work took this further, making us hawk the alleyway for little fruit shrines and a paste-up deeply into the alley. Now anyone can find it, it is for everyone! And most importantly, TRASHED is for the artists!”
A true pop-up exhibition, each lasts however long the artworks themselves last in the space (a truck nearly backed over one of Robinson’s sculptures 20 minutes in, another was at constant threat of a swinging door). The artists already featured are who you should and will know in the Melbourne art scene. I am excited for Trashed for every reason Secret Chamber was something that I went from discovering to writing about within 24 hours - both are new, different, experimental, and oddly earnest. The kids are alright; they’re better than we ever were and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
*at least 6