2 June - 26 July 2007
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
A Constructed World, Ecstatic Torino, 2004, video still
[sourced from: http://www.accaonline.org.au]
Interactivity, collaboration, and their immanent conflicts are currently at play in the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, with the first major survey for A Constructed World, the artistic partnership of Melbourne artists Geoff Lowe and Jacqueline Riva. ACCA's gratuitously bold architectural structure is indeed a space of substantial difference to those ACW are more akin to exhibit within, yet the building’s overbearingly obese white-washed walls surprisingly complement the quirky and inviting artworks intriguingly well.
Upon entering the space, the viewer is immediately confronted with a work that embraces blatant interactivity. Change Platform is a circular gazebo-esque construction filled with a welcoming array of pillows, colouring books, stools and a guitar, all the while emblazoned with the oxymoronically didactic statement of democracy: “It’s all about love you fucking cunt.” Further into the gallery-space a makeshift windowless room has been assembled. Its entry and exit doors bluntly padlocked, the viewer may experience the interior of this brusquely built structure only within two certain days of the week, furthermore under the obligation of signing a legally-binding Social Contract, specifying a pledge to uphold strict confidentiality as to what has been witnessed within the space for “six calendar months” thereafter. An artistic statement that is both adamant and amusing, The Social Contract sees A Constructed World crudely countering critiques of their democratic collectivism by means of superimposing a forceful level of restriction upon their audience.
It is precisely this intrinsic investigation of collectivity that creates a sense of cohesion in what seems to be a manically disparate array of work. Relational aesthetics, perturbed notions of an artwork’s resolution, and the ominous push/pull of art versus non-art are all present within Increase Your Uncertainty, yet the breadth of trans-media and trans-conceptual exploration by no means negates the singularity of ACW’s practice. It is an evolving series of works, however, one that is fascinatingly consistent in its essential elements of practical inquiry. One such example of this evolution is the collaboration’s ongoing extensions of their Ecstatic Torino Project. Initially merely a cheaply constructed video of the two dancing ecstatically after their sincere joy of finding an apartment, its idiosyncratic imagery (that includes Jacqueline Riva dancing naked whilst covered with Post-It notes and Geoff Lowe dressed in a suit waving two large sheets of paper scrawled with the slogans ‘Stay in groups’ and ‘No need to be great’), has been revisited numerous times. Notable examples include the tacky appropriation by a Brazilian choreographer, as well as the most recent, Truck Dance, a performance in conjunction with Increase Your Uncertainty that featured two artists mimicking A Constructed World’s Ecstatic Torino dance publicly on the back of a truck throughout dispersed locations within Melbourne.
Since their formation in 1993, A Constructed World have presented an ongoing practice that is essentially thought-provoking in its levels of engagement. The complexities of their work are too often overlooked merely for a superficial assessment of their democracy as a ‘novelty’, yet it is this embrace of collectivity and the consequent range of artists and minds involved with their projects that makes the work of ACW such a diverse boiling-pot of thoughts, concepts and visual stimuli.
Labels: Reviews, Visual Arts
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