bianca hester, lyndal walker, callum morton, mutlu cerkez, john dunkley-smith, james morrison
The works in Longevity, produced by six Melbourne artists between 1989 and 2000, explore various ways of representing memories of the recent past and visions of the future. The exhibition examines how contexts are constructed to promote artistic longevity (the exhibition itself being one of those contexts). The notion of longevity is considered here on a number of levels. The show, although not challenging standard conventions of display, does succeed in presenting works that are stylistically disparate yet contained by the curatorial theme. As the curator Bala Starr states in her exhibition catalogue, 'Longevity is in one sense a distillation of a particular moment and the recollections of particular artists and a curator, decisions that over time provide a part of art history’ [1]. This leads into questions about the role of the art museum in creating an art historical discourse, the voice of the artist and the gaps that exist between the artworks: what is not on display rather than what is. In the last few years at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, there have been a number projects that have re-contextualised museum or gallery collections from an artist's perspective. Some of these have had mixed results-Janet Laurence's overly stylised and superficial re-presentations of taxidermied animals and archeological curios, and Fred Wilson's Viewing the Invisible spring to mind.
Longevity locates itself at this juncture where history and the history of art collide, creating fresh perspectives on old and new work. Bianca Hester's installation catalogues the involved and complex social networks that make up the artist-run scene. With its photocopier and booklets, the installation projects a sense of busy enterprise and earnest questioning (reminiscent of Sandra Bridie's Talk