shaun kirby, sally-anne rowland, derek kreckler, jackie redgate, hope lovelock deane
Once you know how a magician does a trick, it's no longer magic. Has art reached a point of no return? In a wry twist on the millennium theme, this exhibition takes as its starting point an enigmatic work, Fish Catch at Dawes Point, Sydney Harbour, attributed to John Lewin, 1813, and suggests where the artistic trajectory has taken the colony/colonialists since then. Remove ... looks at the ways in which accepted history can influence subsequent generations, perhaps on false premises. The five artists contributing to the show were asked to respond to Fish Catch at Dawes Point, Sydney Harbour, reputedly the first surviving oil painting rendered in this country. The painting possesses characteristics of still life, landscape, and scientific (pre-photographic) illustration. lt is held to be seminal by virtue of its being the first, but whether it is cannot be established conclusively.
In any case, the painting forms part of the continuum of Western art, amateur and professional, that accompanied the First Fleet and its conquest of Terra Australis. Shaun Kirby's Philosophy: the basics comprises three signs. Two are whitewashed, heavy, two metre high wooden stakes, ready to be driven into the ground somewhere, supporting large reproductions of old photos of men drinking. In between is a banner with handles, such as might be carried in a demonstration. lt bears the statement 'different people deserve different amounts', scrawled in a shaky hand as if by a near-illiterate learning a mnemonic. Different amounts of what-alcohol? Kirby's ironic inversion of the cardinal Australian principle of the fair go exposes our failure to honour it. We are neither equal nor sober, despite our claims to be so. Sally-An ne Rowland 's Love