That’s what I thought anyway, until I asked two colleagues to read my final draft and give their comments. They both judged the review to be lacking the necessary authority. They warned, "If you’re going to be critical, you had better sound more authoritative" and "Beware of the personal." These comments made me think more about David Rosetzky’s Custom Made and about art criticism too.

The idea of "the personal" that was so apparent at First Floor Gallery (of which Rosetzky is Director) in the nineties and early this century, thrives in Melbourne contemporary art, but is no longer as apparent or encouraged in writing. After submitting experimental and often personal pieces, writers are now expected to be authoritative. Surely there is no such thing as "just" a personal opinion. I don’t mean ranting on about one’s personal problems in relation to the work. I mean taking a position as an individual who has an immediate and palpable relationship to a work of art.

Walking into the faux-wood-veneered hallway, viewers took a seat in one of the recessed booths, and looked at the screen on the opposite wall. The image was a life-size video projection of several fairly normal, sometimes hapless or sad individuals, fessing up about their personal lives and relationship "issues". Should voyeurism or empathy have compelled you to sit through these painful divulgences, it would soon become apparent that a nice dualism had been set up. You are sitting in the very same booths as the subjects. We are all the same! United, by our dependence on friends who perpetually let us down, parents who never loved us enough and lovers who left us emotionally maladjusted, we too can take solace in the smallest liberations, the victories, the sorrows. Oh! The humanity! A hokey, saccharine instrumental introduced each new confessor, thus adding a daytime television atmosphere that said, "we sympathise with you - until the next commercial".

This exhibition was (in the smoothest way) utterly gushing with sentiment. In hindsight, Custom Made seems anything but. Rosetzky’s work is powerful in the sense that its memory has lingered with me long enough for my feelings to change from empathy to distaste.

In terms of Rosetzky’s other work, Custom Made is an achievement. His characteristically slick construction, his concern with natural versus artificial behavior and style and the cultivation of identity, are developed and represented here on a grander scale than in early works, (though not without problems).

The wood veneer is fashionable in a poor-white-trash-made-retro-high-fashion way. It immediately suggests that Rosetzky is going to mine the natural vs. artificial theme that he has been working on since the mid-nineties in shows such as Lifestyle (1996). In this early work, Rosetzky placed a fish tank near a gym mat over which dangled a chain of large metal rings. Nearby, a chair with a built-in TV played a video of animals frolicking in the wild. The show achieved a visually sterile but morally fetid ambiance, by staging a heightened play between so-called natural and unnatural (or cultivated) styles of living.

The title of Custom Made also harks back to Rosetzky’s earlier works, such as Knitting Nancy (1995) and Little Hans (1995) in which a handcrafted element is a key to the work’s psychiatric and palliative content. Rosetzky’s latest exhibition is a more sophisticated conflation the idea of "custom made", being objects hand-made to special requirements and behavior shaped by values and social conventions – by custom.

Custom Made is also a product of Rosetzky’s interest in portraiture. In works such as Sarah (1997) and Luke (1997), Rosetzky began to video real people, delivering more or less contrived scripts in a naturalistic manner. Works such as Chris (1997) and Stevie (1997) required less acting ability, as they relied more on the natural exhibitionism of 1^st Floor identities. These works succeeded in being engaging, quite cool and thoughtful about the ways people put themselves together through style and performance.

This early interest in portraiture combined with Rosetzky’s interest in the nature/culture dichotomy in Custom Made. The actors seemed more real than in previous works, the flagrant self-absorption of the subjects is true to life and their stories so banal they were probably real (if not for them, then someone else). The faux wood, the hokey sound, and the generally very contrived structure of the exhibition opposed the apparently frank disclosures made in the video.

Rosetzky’s decision not to completely finish the work is unlike his work in the past and detracted from the overall impact of Custom Made. Tresses and construction were left exposed to the audience. For the past ten years or so, leaving the construction of the painting or installation visible has been a popular strategy amongst Australian contemporary artists, but it didn’t seem add anything to this work. Subtlety and immaculate finish have been Rosetzky’s strong suits, but they seem to have left him on this occasion.

Custom Made raises some important issues in an ingenious way. Rosetzky’s play with contrived and genuine emotions is disturbing. Custom Made’s mass-confession structure was reminiscent of the Ricky Lake Show and just as manipulative. The work took the viewer into morally and emotionally ambivalent territory and left them to flail around with the issues and feelings it evoked. This final ambivalence may also secure Custom Made’s longevity and allow for as many meanings as there are people - in this case, cynicism about the roles of confessional television and pop psychology in contemporary life.

Lara Travis
2000

© The artist and
Images courtesy of the artist.
Photos: Rick Allen