Reinventing Modernist design
Stepping inside the compact space of the Plimsoll Gallery at the Tasmanian School of Art was like walking onto the set of the new Austin Powers movie. Flecks of light spun round the gallery walls like a 1960's disco strobe. The source of the dazzling whirlwind of light and colour was Nike Savvas's captivatingly visual installation, Untitled (Sparkly), 1998. Dozens of small gold, blue and silver disks of mirrored perspex hung in vertical rows from ceiling to floor over a large portion of the gallery space. The effect of the childlike beauty and magical energy of Savvas's work urged one on with an enthusiastic expectation of what was to follow.
Curated by Jenny Spinks, The Organic and the Artificial: Reinventing Modernist Design, was the final exhibition in a series of six, included as part of the University of Tasmania's three year project entitled 'Questioning the Practice'. A vibrantly energetic collection of works drawn from artists selected primarily for their interest in 1950's and 1960's modernist design, The Organic and the Artificial was a visual feast of warped interiors and abstract structures.
The letters I O U were moulded into tactile acrylic forms, reminiscent of a packet of 'Five Flavours' Lifesavers in Mikala Dwyer's I.O.U., 1998. The knee high, jube-like letters luxuriated on a pristine white shag-pile rug; and placed snugly inside the dot of the 'i', was a doll-sized, plastic red television. Silent, flickering images of daytime soap operas nestled in the 'eye' of the 'i', and blinked out the static blur of a vacant, buy-now-pay-later lifestyle, creating the sense of a hollow domesticity embodied within the cold, polished surfaces one might find inside