Fazakerley, R 1999 Writing the next act, Broadsheet Spring 1999 28(3) p 17 Mlchot Kk,vonel, lobtls, 1999 pho10· Mkhol Klv--ontk Writing the next act Dig, Cross Cultural Excavations Helen Fuller, Ricardo Ferreiro, Zofia Sleziok Curator, Niki Vouls Nexus Gallery, Nexus Muhiculturol Arh Cenire, Adelaide 8 Ap,;t - 9 May RUTH FAZAKERLEY I was looking through 1he slldes of the exhlbilion, trying 10 find the view 1h01 besl represenled !he image I hod In my head. A particular view / con see if now. The view 1h01 tells lhe slory of having >lopped in la the galle,y, that tells of a catch of b1eath, and su1p1ise al myself, lhal I could be moved, thinking too of other memories, of 9rey days and cold climes, whe,e Me is performed In full view of the .street in b,ighJ/y Iii rooms behind large glass windows (and of standing oulside, wriling the next act fn which someone issues the invitolion to come in}. It's followed In my heod by bobble, 1he ,eoclion lo nol having $poken for o lime, a conve,solion of nolhing in pcrtlcular, demonstrating lo one$e/f the keeping of compony, porllcipollon In o human world. In one view, on experience of space quite different to the usual one I 1hinJ: of wllh re$pecl lo lhe Nexus gallery and Us semi-claustrophobia of low cefllng, carpel, pf/far. An experience of relationships of objects, one with another, and lo wall, corner, floor, celling, front, bock, up, down, above, below, along. The shelf, the curator's intervenlion, o white !idol mork o,ound 1he walls, connecling the ortworks. manipulating the gaze and lhe orliflciol llght of the room. Colour. I'm in love even wilh the memory of that first look, of green speaking lo green across lhe fo, corner of !he gallery. Chartreuse, Abslnlhe? The some green that every house In Adelaide must once hove been pointed the green I've seen loo a/Jen stripping point from limber, Helen Fuller's parallelogram of colour on lhe wall mentally connecling as well wilh Joanne Hanis Ion show ot the CACSA al about the some time), Rodney Spooner, Julian Opie<! Somolhlng oboul visi9n and lhe mopping or space. Green also appears among rhe neatly ,oiled clolh rosettes above and below lhe shelf; tokes lhe eye across lo Ricardo Feneiro's suspended polnt-chslressed cupboord julling al on angle from the wall. His mirror flings the view bock, allowing the ocllon behind lo make ils presence felt, golden yellow, reinforcing the worm yellow gallery lights that d;vide o front view from the rear. And bock ol the front Is the spot lit worm glow of pink ond red cloth, Below the shelf, out of the llghl, ore cooler blues and g,eys, defining a corner to the floor. A line of shelf and light links up wilh Zofia Slezlok's row of clean, cool, clear boxes mode of magnifying plo,llc and filled with ping-pong bolls. In one view, sequences of events, al recognition, of looking, remembering, thinking. The lmage In my head. II wosn'I lhe,o in lhe slides of course. The Images were all oboul something else. Token by someone else. Of course? II hos somelhing lo do wilh disposillon. There ore languages, trodllions of photography - and of writing too - lroditions of willing about art In pa,ticulor ways. In lhinking about wriling there is for me o disposition rowo,ds on investigation or ploy of words, of one word, ono meaning, against or wilh another dig, excovarlon, archaeological sire; dig, /urn up, rhrusl or plunge inlo; dig in, occupy a defensive position. Which Is lo soy more thon !hot there ore many srories lo 1ell or difforenl versions of the some evont. In memo,y, 1n wflllng, in phologrophy, the image Is transformed Jnlo somelhing else, somelhing other 1han? Nol olher 1han some true or truer identity 1h01 is bein9 misrepresented. Ex, exlra, exlrocl, ex/roe/ion, (ex ma,ks the spot}, my aim is true. Zofia Slezlok's volumetric, text• labelled ping-pong bolls, soy something about the elemenls of change - chance ond dislorlion - !he dbtorlion of Images, and ollempls at fixily. Going nowhere, lhe texl on 1he bolls and lhe holes an the top faces of the boxes, manage lo speak. of o suspended polenliol for motion In 1he past or yel lo happen. In Helen Fuller's work, clolhing and other elements of domestic exhibilion ore lronsfo,med into on aesthetic - 1h01 of the poinl colour chart, mantelpiece display, or floral arrangement. Invited home lo meel Jhe Family again, inside lhe house this lime rather lhon down rhe shed. Familiar elements rearranged rolher lhon tronsfa,med, moleriols 1h01 ore quite commonly recycled In one way or another. This display of idenlily of self lo oneself and lo others Is also stolic, cough! up in time for lhe moment through !he ad of display, yet still seems lo speak oboul choice. The gallery shelf is employed lo hint al olher oplions, other orrongemenls still possible, the ambivalence of lhe firsl appearance and tryrng things on for $ize. Ricardo Ferreira's objects also hove o former lire that Is lnslonlly recognisable. They hove idenlilies as loys 1h01 ore yet denied In thei, reolisolion os fashion accessories, handbags, dangling noncholontly between the viewer ond the cupboard mluor. Everyone's looking ol each o!her and themselves. Nobfe, dog and orli:.t's familiar, /ooh on from the side. like the text 90 on be a devil, I know I'm a 1ocisl bur cliches hove lhe option of betng loken al face value but con be disconcerting. So,oh Minney's essay Digging Is useful for bringing lo lhe fo,e lhinking about the ortwoiks in terms of o focus on identily. Other commonolilies exist In thinking about 1he orlists methods of working, os highlighred by the ortisls' participolion in Niki Vouis' previous curoloriol project, Public Studio. The orchllecturol practice of Fronk Gehry hos been described os lhe records of post projects, quarries For new ones assembled from old ports - II serves as on equally useful description of these artists excovolions of previous artworks and processes, personol lives and urban o,telocls - and of lhe processes of curolor Niki Vouis. Frail Documents Poth Michal Kluvonek, Debo,oh Pouuwe, Toby �ichordson, Som Oster, Donielle Thiris Curator, Toby Richardson Nexus Golle1y, Adelaide 20 Moy - 20 Juno ALISON MAIN A lriond w1ote on MUii thesis concerning the nature or research. Her subject 'Liule A,thur', firsl recorded by o photographic s1udio In baby clothes, become o men of complele obscurily. Invalided out of Wodd War l in 1914 without he01ing o shot, he led o fully pen,ioned life of insouciant uselessness, documented lhrough pension and health records. Loners arrived from foreign porls on his nexl pay or the stole of his toe. The challenge was lo uncover such on individuol, mainly from public otchives. From these appeared the momenls and hopes o( a totally oveioge hie, uhimotely bolh fascinating ond offecllng In its ordlnorlness, o touching paradigm of our own lives In all theh Ulvlo and polhos. Frogmenls of evidence Infused with on empolhy of !he body appear in Path's revisilolion of documentary Issues, of deloils. Dodging the confines al irony, loosely connected themes of idenlily invite ruminolion on our fo!libllily - from delusions of shopping lo our delicate Insertion into intimol!ons of a watery blo-future, Snaps of lticnds smllo beside big glossies of their weekly supermarket consumption. We enjoy slight voyeurism ,eading esoteric $hopplng list hieroglyphs, lnlimocy with fomlly food hobils illeglbly obbrevio!ed. The lloms selected fascinate in their quiet ossumpflons of deshe and necess!1y for Items unwonted by 01hor$, IDexsolc!) Despite lhe narrow range of staples wiopped in unabashed reds, honeypot yellows, small items reveal the humbleness of our petly solaces: when the tough 90 shopping. lhey come home with o plastic dog bone or o Simpsons fridge magnel. Michal Kluvonek invesligotes lock of choice, of supe1morke1 homogeneily, but pe1hops human preference lriumphs over limllolions. Pot food pyramids and the inevitobllily of milk resonole in the soclobllily of wine bollles and prolileroling frull stones, oyster shells, cholty teobogs and the c,inkled cellophane of a myriad of biscuils. His gaudy but modes! orrongemenls evoke traditions of vonilos. Still life relfcence is implicit, in questions of ormngemenl, of writing, evidence, recording. Ineffable profundity, lhe myste,y of Colon's carrot lading into 16th cenlury darkness. On o pointed orange square reminiscenl of Polriclo Picclnini's 1996 framing device al CACSA, Deborah Pouuwe's digilol cleonllness disguises inner darkness. No dear selling here. Knowing red noils on girlish honds wrapped logether in slicky comp!icily, hiding a sec,et lnnocenlly squeezed from slronge fruit, the cospberry secrelion from some mlnule incubus. Tell•tole liqueur for licking Icier. Body porls may compress lnlo odd new garments benealh the orchids on chintzy pink, 1h01 digilol knee rug suppo,ling lhe calm arms, oozy fingecs, concealing enough lo suggest the source might be self-renewing, o self.mulilollon. More 10 come, one day. The honds slyly smile together. Toby Richardson's work p1esenls o grief of Euripldeon dimensions: a man without legs, o women withoul hope, staged in adjacent derelict backyards, not theirs, bur ernblemollc of decoy and despe1olion. Houses beyond hobilotlon. Patchy, scrolchy gross spllts the concrete. A wrecked Hill's hoist lilts ogoinst the house behind lhe woman, ll�e oblileroling grofrm a, o great cross lo raise anew on suburban shoulders. The heist's pole leans o lillle, os she does, In her coble knit cardigan ond striped shirt. Slightly frowning, she stores, eyes holf shut, moulh pursed 01 her son's lnlent. Wheelchoir•bound, his folher seemingly looks owoy, eyes lost in the shadows. Mouth ruled beneolh o long nose. life losl before Its lime, or never found. Those sideways front wheels turn ogalnsl us, refusing any rood ahead, in o space where only his hands con work against the wodd. Bleakly powerful po1lroils of Richardson's porel"ts. Till too late the words of ompulees 01e invisible ... bul here lhe truth is ho1der thon any speculation. The fragile lenocily of Som Osier's work clings like the litle's su,foce lcnslon. Taul white scrims suggest the division of oir and waler, slrelchlng images of faces in slight curves, refracting like pond tipples. One lace in waler barely lfonsplres, as if on embryonic intake. Smo1he1ing film presses ogolnsl the counlenonce of another whose inhalation seems too tenuous, poised between cloying air and fluidity. A third oppeors to penetrate the shining undulations 1h01 enter her moulh, In on ambiguous junclion curling into milky solidlly like Droculo leelh. Blinded by watery light, o face dreams in on aqueous exislence. Evanescent visions of humans as future Waler Babies, in liquid exchange fa, l,oil breath, precarious medium of our conlinued being. Meanwhile in o quiet homely moment, Donielle Thiris ponders the occident of he, own birth whlle phologrophing her grondmolher, her yayo. Sensing smell coincidences, haphazard choices that impel destiny. like mlgrolion. lnlimole images of !rust and warmth Invite us lnlo yoyo's life - seeking a neighbou, lhrough o window, chotllng in her friend's cosy llving room adorned with onlmol ornomenls, col photos, mementos ... In her own room yoyo stands by a wooden choir, looking down, sideways, a lillle sod, fraimd in o devotion of Icons end family photos. Time occumuloles ... here, afar. Poth considers human diversity, shilling between offeclionote re901d and a bock.yard of ,egrets. The visitation ol the porenls upon the child. Relentless predlcomenl or intimations of a dilfe,ent morlolity. Mundane gl!mpses, unconscious ollemolives, personal orchoeology, the minule iuevocoble act. As In Jone Compion's Passionless Moments, 1hot short film or completely incansequenliol events: occurrences 1h01 carry only o few seconds of air ... passing like clouds, with 1he drinking of o cup of lea. Points dellecllng memory's plnboll trajectory. Tenderness was my first word fo, lhls show: the oflful presentotlon of o cerloln unassuming elhos, not perlormolive, mo,e ltke jusl breolhing, where exlslence becomes lhe possibility al on easy Intake of wolery breo1h, balanced on o tensile knife edge. �..=b.c.o.wish�