There is a superlative irony in the title of this extraordinary group show. Set, as it is, in the dilapidated, cell-like rooms of a former flop house and brothel, one thing is fairly certain, the Carlton Hotel’s former residents were anything but relentless optimists.
But the curator of ‘Relentless Optimism’, Mark Feary, makes the point of his perilous title clear in his catalogue entry, ‘If anything, the projects in “Relentless Optimism” embrace the doom, loneliness and futility of our collective lives. But they are, perhaps, tempered with a very slight degree of hope, or at least, in some cases, an element of humour or playfulness, which may alleviate, if only temporarily, the allure, indeed the reflex, of negativity’.
As a curator Feary has always been one to watch. Currently the program coordinator at Melbourne’s cutting-edge West Space gallery he has curated a number of powerful exhibitions such as ‘Neo Noir’ at Gertrude Street Artists Spaces in 2002 in which he explored the gritty fascination with crime noir in contemporary Australian art. But ‘Relentless Optimism’, which has been dubbed a miniature Melbourne Biennale, is a far more ambitious venture.
Feary selected twelve Melbourne-based artists to take over the former brothel. Many of the artists’ works were dark in the first place, but as they sipped on the dark succor of their allotted environments many responded directly to the lingering scent of sweat and sperm, desperation and despair, the dark stains on the walls and floors, the imagined syringes and blood.
Strangely, one of the most powerful works was the least elaborate. Julia Gorman, well known for her elaborate installations, evidently spent considerable time mulling over the potential of her space and