As I have few
imaginative resources of my own with which to investigate the world I am highly
dependent on culture when visiting places. So one of the things I've done as
I've travelled round some of the cities of Australia talking adaptive
resilience (more of which soon) is check out the major, and in some cases,
minor galleries. I will spare you the full run down of what I saw, but I
was struck by something I read yesterday, in the ebook for Rally: Contemporary Indonesian Art Jompet Kuswidananto and Eko Nugroho,
an exhibition at National Gallery Victoria, and thought I'd share the
thought. It is something the latter said:
'If you live in
Indonesia, you will understand that it is impossible to exclude politics from
everyday living. Nearly 90% of the art that is made here is a response to or
influenced by the socio-political conditions of our surroundings.'
I simply wonder
what the percentage in Britain is, and what makes us so much 'better' at
excluding politics from everyday life? It can't just be that we are the
comfortable old jumper bit of the world, and Asia is the exciting, growing
teenager, can it? There is clearly some exciting, argumentative art coming out
though (saw two particularly exciting shows at Singapore
Art Museum, as well as private gallery dedicated to work from China
in Sydney, White Rabbit Gallery) which makes some of
the gallery shows I've seen at home recently look at bit tame and lacking in
spark, if well-executed.
There is a
further thought inspired by the e-book/app form, which seems to be much more
freely used in Australia than in the UK. I got good ones from the
Love Lace show at the Powerhouse in Sydney (iTunes here ) and a 'catalogue' with video and
audio for the Contemporary collection at the rather marvellous Art
Gallery New South Wales. (iTunes here.) Although there are some UK galleries
with things on I-tunes, you tend to have to pay for them. You are, in general,
also a bit hampered downloading in situ, as there doesn't seem to be as
universal an acceptance that public-building=free wifi as I found. These added
a lot to my experience - both in the gallery and afterwards. (When I'm looking
round that kind of compendium, the names tend to shift into the background, so
it's good to be able to look things up afterwards, without paying £25 for a
catalogue.)
So what's
stopping us? Is it just money? Do we not like giving things away, or does the
BIg Bad Business Model say No? Or is everyone doing it and I've just not been
going to the right places?
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