1996
Propelling the rise and rise of contemporary art in Queensland's tropical north is collaboration and this in turn underwrites the creative advancement of the individuals involved. So it is through the coalition of many members' disciplines that the Cairns-based Kick Arts Collective demonstrates its substance, and prevailing highlights of its five-year existence are group shows like The Fish John West Regrets (1993), No Piece of Cake (1995) and Linkage Leakage (1996). I intend to feature two of Kick Arts' other 1996 exhibitions here, Forging North and Baggage, although Emulsion and Traversing Sense are events that still sing to me out of a year of fervid production and are worthy of mention.
Emulsion, held in August, was a landmark photographic exhibition, its curator Phil Baily challenging a perceived regional absence of the artform by selecting and exposing eight signature styles. Although none of those eight photographers practice at the newest edge of the medium (there are no Geoff Kleems or Rosemary Laings hiding out in Atherton) the inclusion of Glen O'Malley's black and white 'overlooked moments', in which the real and the surreal collide, was a tribute to this artist's solid oeuvre. Baily's own images investigating sex, money and violence were strong and provocative insertions.
Performance art would not be what it is in Cairns without Leah Grycewicz. Her Traversing Sense at the Tanks Art Centre in April was a collaboration with Berlin dancer Heike Müller and innovative double bass exponent Rigel Best. Exploiting the imposing circular volume of a massive World War Two tank, with its interior wall coating of dried crude oil, the trio led audiences through exceptional fusions of sound, image and movement, the only literal quality