Anna Louise Rowe, Speculum in Vellum,
Mirror etched with text, 1996

Rozalind Drummond's contribution to the exhibition, archive, serves as an introduction to the show as a whole. The work is a found collection of portrait photographs dating from the 1950s or 1960s, displayed in neat rows in two of the glass-fronted display cases that form the exhibiting space at Platform 2. Material similar to this has formed the basis of Drummond's exhibiting practice over the last few years. In this instance, however, the found photographic "evidence" is presented without any of the support material which Drummond usually employs to direct the viewer's interpretation of the work in accordance with her intention. Archive is a work in genesis. It is also a form of fiction similar to that found in the novels of postmodern writers George Perec and Alain Robbe-Grille; as viewers we participate with the artist in constructing a meaning or narrative to accompany these superficially homogeneous images.

Sarah Curtis and Caroline Eskdale both present evidence of fictional lives. Somewhere behind Eskdale's Reconstructing a Collection lurks the figure of an amateur rock collector whose selection process relies on the aesthetic qualities of specimens rather than their scientific value. Sarah Curtis invites us to speculate on the motives and activity of an urban folk-artist, who devotes their time to carving the likenesses of popular TV stars and Greek heroes on blocks of soap.

Using the image of an African-American woman from a book of glossy documentary photographs as a reference, Eliza Hutchison has assembled a collection of personal affects. Mira makes three dimensional the identity of a woman who has been flattened out into a fetish by the photographer's lens, but also reminds us of the creepy activity of the fetishist or fan. Rose Nolan's Another Time, Another Place documents a period in her life when her interest in Communist Russia became an obsession. Her display of memorabilia, tourist snaps, and clothing made in imitation of Constructivist design blurs the distinction between homage and imitation.

The care and storage of completed work is presented as a generative activity by Simone Slee. Her recent modular work made from folded and sewn tissue paper is shown as we would imagine it stored in the artist's studio, the configuration suggesting possibilities for future exhibition of the work. Sally Ross also takes the viewer into her work environment with a collection of working drawings, photographs and found material. As an archive, the collection takes on the appearance of a dippy sociological project, combining documentation of social embarrassments, temper tantrums and face pulling, with research on recent trends in interior design. Anne-Louise Rowe's Speculum in Vellum appears as a reply to the curatorial theme rather than a complicit response. Her installation of mirrors, inscribed with mannered handwriting, initiates a complex series of associations and metaphors on subjectivity, context and interpretation.

For Lauren Berkowitz and Megan Marshall, the activity of forming and arranging collections is primary to their activity as artists. In the context of the exhibition and the gallery's location, Berkowitz's and Marshall's work loses some of its purely formal qualities and takes on more familiar connotations. Berkowitz's mass of paper bags, pressing against the windows of the display cases, adds weight to the gesture of carelessly disposing of a paper bag. Marshall's assemblages of clear plastic, pins, and stockings fully embrace their bodily connotations. With its connections to traditionally feminine, time-consuming domestic activities, her catalogue of abject body images makes tangible the cathexis of frustration or desire into laborious and methodical work.

Incorporating the activities of curation and research (the fictional identities of archivist, detective, and collector) into her total work and practise, Drummond draws attention to the possibilities that arise when an artist broadens their activities to include areas that are normally considered to be tangential to the production of visual art. Like Perec, Drummond aspires to make a profession of playing the dilettante. She displays how the resulting product, despite its heterogeneity, is one that can be significant and engaging in its process.

Andrew McQualter
1996

1. Drummond curated "faktura" (Stop22, Melbourne, 1995) and was a participating artist in "the modern star series", (Welcome Hotel Video Screen, Melbourne, 1996 Next Wave Festival).

Simone Slee, Store:
Fold Through, 1996
also see First Floor review