Recently I visited the National Art School Postgrad Show. I thought a lot of thoughts while I was there. A good friend sent me this Honi Soit article. This article is a response to both of these things. Thank You.
The NAS Postgrad this year shows mostly Master of Fine Arts graduates, many of whom have completed NAS’ undergraduate offering. They have spent near $80,000 at this institution. Where does that money get them?
More than anything, the Postgrad Show shows off the schmick unwavering smile of the brilliantly Sydney institution. Art school grad shows always remind me that there’s a fierce dollar attached to all the things I love to look at. But this goes without saying. Maybe I’m being too cruel, it must be tough for NAS to balance the aspirations of a newly graduated cohort and the vicious cycle of an ever-digesting art market and committed art-loving patrons.
The show reflects the great lessons the graduates learn; how to market your art 101 with a minor in making art that doesn’t say anything too complicated for a waiting room. Criticality an introduction, with an emphasis on being not critical enough to have any radical ideas that may disrupt the beautiful cash flow of the art market. And my favourite, how to make an artwork that explicitly tells us this was this many hours of labour and I expect this much an hour, plus material costs, please pay me $5600, thank you.
There are definite conceptual concerns displayed by the artists this year, and it is clear that there is deep thinking and care in a lot of the works. However, it is also clear that the art school has a preference for an art market over an art object. Sure, this is a great way to make money off the art we produce, but what are the consequences of producing these objects? Do we not succumb to the endless cycle of capital gain we all deplore? It is not the artist’s fault the show becomes a large display of how much money we put into a very specific sect of the arts. In their defence, NAS does a great job skyrocketing their artists into the commercial art world, a gentle swim into the deep end. What do you do in the deep end? Is it any nicer than the walkable shallows? Why are we here?
Each student’s work represented a culmination of years of experimentation, across conceptual and material practices. Each student’s work represented a culmination of years of striving to become a successful artist. What is this success?
The exhibition starts in NAS’ main gallery building. This year the walls downstairs are black and the upstairs are white. There’s a new curator, in what is a notoriously difficult show to curate. How do we think they went? I think the black works perfectly for Artemesia Cornell’s small work, Repose. The spotlight intensifies the careful thought that went into such a small work. It feels special here. Still downstairs, it is dark, the space now feels muddy, many ideas being shown in a dark crowded space. Few works sing as loud in the deep black as Cornell’s drawing. Bronwyn Vaughan’s Bodies of Waters hold the centre of the room with reverence. Beautiful vessels. I’m sure they hold significance and I am struck by their beauty but in this space, with those spills and those squares, I can’t help but be a little frightened of the Oxford Street realtors who are purchasing these bodies. I don’t want to talk about a lot of the other works down here, there are objects in space.
Upstairs, it is no longer muddy, the walls are white and there is space again. An ineffective white cube is the best sort of white cube, how could this space be neutral with a floor and ceiling that used to house prisoners. There are more objects here; we are a society of excess and there is excess up here, objects demanding to be seen and appreciated and refusing to return to the nothing where they were born. I feel rude to assume that these objects offer no criticality in their existence.
Lucinda Bird’s objects are fragile and heavy, I feel I should walk tentatively around them but I know it would take a lot of force to disrupt their beauty. There are beautiful paintings up here and I’m reminded not to be so cynical and to let things be things and to let people enjoy making beautiful things. Oliver Abbott’s paintings are slow, they remind me of staring into the clouds and breathing deeply. Benjamin Akuila basket study is fun, sensitive, and beautiful. I’m enjoying how it might feel to study baskets and how it might feel to have a history that carries these baskets in and out of passing thoughts. I need some air. On to the next room!
Building 25, I’ve heard good things about you. The first section is a little confusing. I can see how these works were imagined together but it feels so much like a thoroughfare I don’t know how to look at the works. There’s a high pitched noise which makes me uncomfortable but the colours are nice. Now I’m in the back, this is very interesting. Let’s start with Martin John Oldfield. I see your stones and wood. I’m immediately thinking about Isamu Noguchi and tentative big slow thoughts, thinking about weight but here in this space, I’m confused. I remember a friend saying she loves Martin’s works, they make her laugh. I see it, it’s a bit silly but still beautiful. They’re contemplative, heavy but also ridiculous. They are a majestic elephant with old wise eyes standing on a bright red ball. They meet you on your level. They set my mood for the rest of the room.
Here is Nikky Morgan-Smith, a woman with no artist statement on the NAS website. I get so exhausted usually with this style of drawing, but I don’t know, I like these a lot. I am in love with the little wooden shelves these are mounted on, they remind me that the collaged nature of her gestures connects to the real world. Drawings are drawings but drawing is an extension of self. It is a word that the body can make. It is the un-words our body imagines taken outside of us onto paper. It contemplates itself and justifies itself. It has multiplicities. Quan Zhu Ma’s little pieces are beautiful and simple. They reflect a lot of the beauty of the real world, they are not tirelessly critical but the artist has a keen eye. They are sensitive and special.
A lot to unpack. I’m a bit angry. But I’m only so angry because I know we can do better. I am upset by a lot in the world and places like the National Art School that make me especially upset. A so-called progressive art school that in April of this year wouldn’t allow the protest of the most well-documented genocide of a people in all of history. Yep, you heard that right, the art school rejects its students protesting genocide! The art school! The arts where change is just around the corner and the students are the future. I understand that everything is political, but what are you scared of? Is the National Art School not the home of radical thought? Apparently not.
This placid flaccidity is the root of my anger. We live in a society of excess, a society of distrust, a society full of countless problems, a society that refuses to fund education and causes an art school to run its students into big debt holes. Have we learned nothing from fascist America? I understand I am the one who has brought politics into this so I will be the one to take a step back from “radical” politics and make this jump again into a language we should all be familiar with: the complete lack of critical thought and radical thinking in an institution built off an industry that so-called thrives on criticality and radical actions.
Here we have an art school that loves to fit into its medium criticality. We have walls painted black because we are different and exciting, not different or exciting enough to exhibit works with space to breathe or open up more of our campus or put more money into the show that would be far too radical. Let’s fit as many of our money pig masters into three-and-a-half buildings so we can consume as much art as possible with minimal fees. Perfectly mundane! I don’t want to critique the artists because I know this is an incredibly difficult and terrific task they have pulled off, but they are the face of this institution right now and the curation makes them feel completely complicit in the crime of shit nothing that the National Art School conducts.
Why is our art about making beautiful things, in a world overflowing with things? Why is our art about the terrible dangers of a never satisfied market, when these statements just get placed back onto the market? Why can’t we be hopeful and make something that protests the people who are burning us or just make something that truly moves and inspires us to do something about this shit show? Why can’t we make the utopia we all dream of?
Let’s settle down for a moment and take a second to remember there are moments of beauty, inspiration, and morality in the NAS Postgrad Show 2024. Let’s talk about building 5. The second-year sculpture room. We enter a large old flakey room that always reminds me of sunlight even at night. There is a tarp, there are marks on the floor, there are objects that feel old and with histories. This room appeals to an aesthetic I’m familiar with and has a history, the aesthetic of reuse, and the real world. This room is sincere, it rejects the terror of the commercial stench of the rest of the show, it is what is, it is a bit shit but it is truly beautiful, it proposes a beautiful object in an ugly object and it is. A beautiful world in an ugly world.
