UNMONUMENTAL: Melbourne sculpture 2001–2010

I completed an Honours thesis as part of Art History studies at the University of Melbourne in 2010, examining emerging sculptural practices in Melbourne. Focusing on what I referred to as ‘unmonumental sculpture’, the paper chronologically addressed specific artworks exhibited between 2001 and 2010—at Gertrude as well as CLUBSproject Inc., Hell Gallery, Joint Hassles, Neon Parc, Uplands Gallery, Utopian Slumps and Y3K.¹ Speculating that this aesthetic trend signaled a distinct generational change in art making, I aimed to understand how a pervasive form of local artistic practice emerges from specific conditions.

There is an inherent impossibility in presenting a historical account of the present.² However, as Terry Smith contends in What is Contemporary Art?, this kind of endeavor is not done in vain: ‘against its grain, we must write its history, as it is happening, otherwise it will elude us—even, perhaps, destroy us.’³ I welcomed the invitation to revisit this paper 15 years later—for Of Stadiums and Construction Sites (Ne change rien pour que tout soit différent)—and provide a condensed account of the prevailing social, political and economic conditions in which the unmonumental paradigm arose alongside my summation of the interrelated artistic strategies local practitioners were enacting
in response.

Characterised by structurally precarious sculptural forms constructed from inexpensive materials and non-precious objects, the term ‘unmonumental sculpture’ was drawn from the exhibition Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century held at the New Museum in New York City (1 December 2007 – 6 April 2008). Curated by Richard Flood, Massimiliano Gioni, and Laura Hoptman, this exhibition attempted to represent the resurgence of assemblage as an artistic strategy, believed by the curators to be leading contemporary art discourse in the twenty-first century. Although Unmonumental drew upon a host of international contemporary artists, it did not include any Australian practitioners. As such, I sought to document a local perspective as part of this recently rehearsed tradition.

The arrival of an unmonumental aesthetic is identifiable in Bianca Hester’s 2001 exhibition objects:translations which presented a sprawling arrangement of construction equipment in the front gallery of Gertrude; a display that, for an unwitting passer-by, was most likely mistaken as the initial stage of an installation process rather than a completed artwork. The diversity of its aesthetic is illustrated by Nathan Gray’s craft-based assemblage, Love, Purity, Accuracy (Utopian Slumps, 2007)—a series of brightly-coloured psychedelic explosions produced from delicate webs of paper; Alex Vivian’s use of a free-standing clothes rack to drape and unravel second-hand garments such as hockey jerseys and button-down tracksuit pants (Untitled, 2009); and 23 Fucked Paintings of the Farm (2009) by Kate Smith—a wickedly deconstructive tower of painted canvasses stacked in an unbalanced fashion directly on the gallery floor.

In the catalogue accompanying the New Museum exhibition, the curators each elaborate on specific elements of the unmonumental paradigm. Firstly, Flood describes the superficiality of Western culture, arguing that the art which best responds to our time is that which is anti-masterpiece and anti-monumental.⁴ Secondly, by way of providing an interpretation of how select works are tied to the larger world, Gioni identifies three key recurring themes: the embrace of fragile forms, traces of social activity and a sense of being adrift in history (where the notion of history as a monolithic structure is replaced by a field open to interpretation).⁵ Thirdly, after historically situating the re-emergence of the assemblage form, Hoptman positions unmonumentality as a kind of formal masquerade whereby individual artworks present highly personalised and introverted narratives rather than represent a return to any kind of hegemonic style.⁶

In locating the impetus for a model of art which ostensibly occurs in opposition to notions of grandeur and monumentality, Henriette Huldisch’s catalogue essay for the 2008 Whitney Biennial explores reasons for the overwhelming shift towards a sensibility of ‘lessness’ in the contemporary.⁷ Huldisch notes that the United States of America had been marked by bitter division for some time: the controversial war in Iraq continued indefinitely and yet remained all but invisible to the general population; there was broad economic growth in which the majority of citizens did not partake; increasing government interference with civil liberties was coupled with a shrinking public sphere; and an enormous accumulation of private wealth belied a decaying social fabric. Huldisch argues that, ever since a sense of uncertainty and anxiety entered social, political, and economic realms in the West, a humbled, slower, softer approach to art making surfaced.

Underpinned by a ‘do-it-yourself’ ethos, local unmonumental practitioners approached the sculptural form using both modest and embodied strategies. Lou Hubbard deftly reconfigures commonplace ready-mades to create something entirely new and unforeseen: Mount (2005) is a structurally precarious assemblage constructed from round plastic tables that suspend and wedge in place an inflated fitness ball, while E.T. (2007) employs the strategic arrangement of a pair of nail scissors, two drawing pins and a floor lamp to produce a shadow with an uncanny resemblance to its title’s namesake. Katherine Huang’s self-contained assemblages, perhaps best described as glorified work stations, incorporate a host of found objects, such as drum skins and household ornaments, alongside basic building supplies, such as raw wood and bench clamps. For Huang, her assemblages offer an intuitive way to visualise our condition of being part of the world; ‘going about routines, by the gradual accumulation of collected stuff. Researching the world, but coming from a reverie.’⁸ Similarly, drawing from his own life, James Deutsher’s Everythin’ Wannabe (2009) transforms vast amounts of refuse into a series of dispersed assemblages. Rather than discarding household items once their use value had expired, Deutsher stockpiled fruit stickers, empty bottles, and chocolate wrappers, and remodeled the material into rough sculptural forms.

In articulating the shifting global landscape under which the unmonumental paradigm arose, three relatively contemporaneous texts engaged with the task of constructing new vocabularies for the types of art production to emerge since the 1990s helped fine-tune this context. Across Relational Aesthetics (originally published in 1996) and Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World (originally published in 2001), Nicolas Bourriaud relates how late capitalist society has become a time of extreme consumerism and reduced social interactivity.⁹ Terry Smith, in What is Contemporary Art? (2009), logically follows by describing the growing force of a globalising culture industry and the intensification of communications among the young.¹⁰

Under these prevailing conditions, I identified a range of creative strategies adopted by local unmonumental artists: resisting practices complicit with over-production and material excess; breaking down formal hierarchies and visual orders; playing and experimenting with existing cultural matter; immobilising the power of spectacle capitalism; trialing alternative forms of authorship, sociability and engagement; and challenging professionalised, de-personalised models of artistic production.

These strategies reveal themselves when, for example, Kain Picken and Pat Foster use a felt tip marker to re-price and purchase items from IKEA at a reduced cost under the pretext that they were damaged or remainder goods; once transferred to the gallery, the ‘liberated’ materials serve as the basis of a scattered installation distinct from the realm of the functional (As Is, CLUBSproject Inc., 2005). Or when Slave, a joint project between Christopher LG Hill, Rob McKenzie, Kain Picken and Nick Selenitsch, exhibited Japaztec (2006)—a magical miniature landscape constructed from a cat post and ceramic pots—in 21st Century Modern at the Art Gallery of South Australia—debunking any sense of gravitas in the exhibition, that took the re-emergence of modernist tropes in contemporary Australian art as its staid premise, by drawing a rudimentary smiley face on the gallery wall.

These strategies are evident in the flippant political commentary of Minor Threat (2007) by Matthew Griffin, where a Bounty chocolate bar is draped across a copy of Time Magazine with a headline that reads ‘The Last Tycoon’, accompanied by an image of Rupert Murdoch. Inconspicuously arranged on the gallery floor, Minor Threat desecrates a world-power figurehead in a casually sly manner. Alternately, the sense of fluid authorship upheld by Christopher LG Hill makes these strategies apparent. Hill’s contribution to Primavera 2009: Young Australian Artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Clique (2009)—featuring works by James Deutsher, Clouds, Matt Hinkley, Olivia Barrett, Simon Taylor, Evergreen, Nicholas Mangan, and Virginia Overall, among others—perhaps best demonstrates his interest in communal exchange: a democratically arranged ring of chairs interspersed with subtle sculptural assemblages. As remnants of a dialogue between Hill and a host of other similarly-minded artists (acknowledged in the work’s title), the installation represents a desire to understand, appreciate and ruminate on the condition of openly conversing.

In 2010, no scholarly information existed on the local model of unmonumentality. Short reviews, exhibition brochures, independent artist publications and online material—such as discussion boards, gallery websites and artist blogs—were the only available resources.¹¹ Bureau, published by the Victorian College of the Arts on behalf of the Margaret Lawrence Gallery (now the Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery), proved to be the one exception to this limited supply of analysis and documentation. A compendium profiling a selection of exhibitions at Margaret Lawrence Gallery between 2004 and 2008, Bureau volunteered an unrivalled insight into the cultural milieu informing contemporary Melbourne art. Rob McKenzie offers an insightful account of the multi-disciplinary projects undertaken by his fellow unmonumental practitioners, stressing the overarching desire amongst his peers to build a sense of community.¹² Australian art writer Stuart Koop builds on this notion, responding to Group Group Show—a 2008 exhibition curated by DAMP—which presented work by artists working collectively. Koop contemplates the (then) current shift towards artistic collaboration at the point of creation, arguing that such practices represent a desire to find a more enriching way to make art.¹³ Finally, Bianca Hester relates the ideas underpinning her practice, expressing an interest in rethinking the role art can play today by fundamentally expanding its possibilities.¹⁴

What I found repeatedly articulated by McKenzie, Koop and Hester in Bureau—and what I (still) posit was central to the local unmonumental paradigm active between 2001 and 2010—is the unwavering will for a sense of openness and community.