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The title ‘Let the Healing Begin’ sounds like the sort of thing that might come out of the mouth of a Moses character in a Mel Brooks film. Starting from this mock decree, the exhibition featured artists who, according to the rationale, endorsed, satirised or remained ‘undecided’ about the role of therapy in art. In reality, it communicated bemusement at the idea of art as therapy and scepticism concerning the capacity of contemporary art to deal with emotional depth.
Guided by a bold and idiosyncratic curatorial approach, the exhibition walked a line between provocation and denouncement—something that the Institute of Modern Art (IMA) has done before with the polarising ‘Feminism Never Happened’ (2010). In this instance, ‘Let the Healing Begin’ challenged the boundary between the bleeding heart type of art lover and those for whom art is a way to express anguish or social injustice. However, despite the stated ambition to mix the sincere and the insincere, sincerity was not a prominent concern. Exemplifying this, Australian indigenous artists—for whom the subject of healing in art is paramount—were conspicuously missing. Perhaps the inclusion of indigenous reflections on social injustice would have drawn out a political seriousness that went against the exhibition’s mischievous intentions. As a result of this, curatorial restrictions dominated and foregrounded absurdist and light-hearted characteristics in many of the works.
The curatorial rationale was purportedly inspired by the practice of Stuart Ringholt whose previous performance piece Anger Workshops (2008) revitalised the therapeutic benefits of art in a very non-Beuysian way. His performative component for this exhibition was a naked artist talk that he delivered to those who also had to be naked to attend. It prompted conceptual artists all