Faking It, A Revisitation of Post Modernism
Today marks the opening of ‘Faking It, A Revisitation of Post Modernism’. It’s an exhibition here at the Hastings Art Gallery showing the works of 22 artists and designers associated with the EIT Visual Arts and Design School.
It’s described as an “eclectic re-visitation of the post-modernist thinking that first impacted on local (NZ) visual artists and design practices over a quarter century ago.” I’m your average Joe-ette, so reading the preface of the accompanying booklet relating to the art on the walls I felt the ground rumble beneath me. Sort of like a sign. Not unusual in this neck of the woods given that this IS earthquake country!
Interestingly, the locals are quite ho-hum about earthquakes! In fact a month ago when we had a little 6. something or rather on the Richter Scale I thought the sky was falling in. It never raised an eyebrow among the locals! What was eye-raising to me though was the academic blurb in the booklet. It seemed like overkill to me.
Conversations between the viewer and the ‘work’ are a whole lot more simpler than what was contained in the booklet. Now don’t get me wrong, I have a bucket full of artistic friends and I myself have passed for a ‘reasonable’ one too but I was gobsmacked by the pages of academic verbage (which I can’t reproduce here for copyright reasons) suffice it to say, it’s a good thing the works could speak for themselves.
The booklet was a real struggle and I was immediately aware of the great interpretative and academic gulf that threatened to swallow me up. To be fair, I’m no sloth in that department but there was a definite sense of artistic hari kari about to go down! Mine! So, I thought I’d Fake It.
There were the usual suspects, some obtuse though no unlikeable mob of works. My favourite, a projected ceiling on floor work about cicadas was enchanting, a work made from reclaimed wood with the word Circle (with no circle in sight), Michael Hawksworth’s three pages torn from a book, pinned to the wall and set inside a gold frame. One was titled ‘Disorders of the Intellect’ and another ‘Regions of the Supersensible’ that made me smile and made for an interesting read too. Who comes to see such art?
My cousin said to me, “come here and explain this to me!” I had to tell her I couldn’t because I wasn’t her and it wasn’t my conversation. So maybe, the trick with viewing art is to Fake It! Much more enjoyable!
