IN CONVERSATION WITH VIVIAN HOGG
Vivian Hogg: Your recent exhibition ‘No Bad Days’ seemed a little like a ‘collection’ in the way that a fashion house might deliver a collection including singles, separates, accessories etcetera. Like—’Grant Stevens, Autumn/Winter 2008’. Were the works taken from a particular time-period or thought-progression of productivity for you? How were the works in the show decided upon?
Grant Stevens: The three works in the show were made specifically for ‘No Bad Days’. I’ve made a few ‘video shows’ in the past, and often that can mean just showing one work—where a large projection fills the entire gallery, for example. So having two spaces at the Institute of Modern Art (IMA) was a really great chance to make a few works that could revolve around similar ideas, but without necessarily approaching them in the same way—which is maybe where you get that idea of it being like a ‘collection’. I like that analogy—I think a lot about how a good album functions—moving you through a range of narratives and ideas that are linked but without telling you just one thing, or offering just one kind of feeling.
My initial idea for the show was to have one dark space for a projection and one lit space for an object or maybe some 2D work. It was a pretty basic starting point, but it was about trying to create some dynamic between internal and external spaces. After my 2007 show at Gallery Barry Keldoulis in Sydney, I’d been thinking about how particular lifestyle choices sometimes now stand in for personal belief systems or formulations of identity. And how these choices are not limited to the fashion or musical tastes that seem... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline