collaborations, collectives and artist networks from sydney, singapore, berlin
The idea behind the exhibition Situation was inspired. Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) curator Russell Storer sought to bring to a much wider audience the work of artist-run spaces, and to focus on the contribution these spaces have made to the discourse and practice of contemporary art. Storer also sought to highlight the networked nature of artist-run initiatives (ARIs), by grouping within Situation three clusters of activity, based in Sydney, Singapore and Berlin. By braving the criticism that through this exhibition the MCA would effectively appropriate the institutional critique inherent in the ARI phenomenon, Storer provided an opportunity for this critique to be staged for a public beyond the artist networks themselves.
Nonetheless, the resulting exhibition was less satisfying than the theme. First, the accent was on documentation rather than on actual works; this was particularly the case with the foreign components, although several of the Sydney installations were primarily forms of documentation. The exhibition relied too heavily on text and archive that could not adequately capture the dynamism and chaotic creativity of ARI art. It would have been of great interest, for example, to re-create some of the wondrous installations gestated in artist run spaces, to bring some of the risk of those venues to the MCA. Second, there was insufficient rationale as to why these particular groups and artists were chosen to represent the extended and diverse ARI phenomenon (this lack of clarity was particularly stark given that the catalogue was not released until just before the exhibition closed). As a result, the exhibition gave a curiously narrow picture of the activities and politics of these spaces. One artist suggested that a review of this exhibition should use