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| Contempora 5
Art Prize Fiona Hall, Deej Fabyc, Hany Armanious, Ken Unsworth, Nigel Helyer National Gallery of Victoria April - July, 1997 Melbourne |
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 Ken Unsworth, Is blood a juice, installation view, acrylic pigment, electric motor, steel, 1997. |
Mainstream Australian culture is
dominated by sport and sport is dominated by competition.
There are few mythic or spiritual aspects, even pleasure
or enjoyment. Sport is about winners and losers. Like it
or hate it, cricket used to be a ritual performed over
five days, often without conclusion. The contemporary
one-day version is all but a marketing campaign for a
television audience. And, in the end, there can be only
one winner, neither the players nor the audience but the
media promoters and advertisers. The problem faced by the management of the National Gallery and the Kennett Government was how to get the general public interested in contemporary art. The answer: Hold a competition. Not just another exhibition but a prize. But besides the predictably obvious t-shirts and coffee mugs (and perhaps next year a range of Fiona Hall soaps), what the NGV hasn't learnt from Kerry Packer is how to best extract money from the general public while they watch the competition. The public only seems to pay for the mythical icons curated in the blockbuster exhibitions. While the MCG is not very far from the National Gallery, the new casino is even closer. For the NGV and Kennett Government, to be an artist in this state is no different to being a punter: you spend time and money in the vain hope of one day hitting the jackpot. Like the casino, the new art prize was presented as a generous gift to the people of Victoria by Premier Kennett. Not only the biggest game in town but the biggest game in the country. While the general public did have the opportunity to see some challenging contemporary art that they may not have otherwise seen, the NGV actively framed the game in a particular way: There are some crazy artists out there making weird things and we're going to judge the best of them and give them $100 000. The publicity read "Come in and judge for yourself". But art is not a competition. For the art community, art prizes and competitions (of which there are already far too many in this country) can only be divisive. They perpetuate myths of the individual creative genius who is "better" than all the rest. Competition does not recognise difference. On an (artificially) level playing field, the other becomes the competition, the enemy. The greatest fear of late capitalism's bureaucracies is a creative community. It might spread. There are many ways a state government can support contemporary art, just as there are many ways to present it to a broader audience. There are various corporate and private foundations that quietly and genuinely support the artistic community in this state through funding exhibitions, building collections and donations to artist-run initiatives. A new $100 000 art prize in the state with the biggest casino and the biggest sporting events is a pathetic gesture, particularly coming from a state that has traditionally had a such a strong artistic community. D J Huppatz © The artists and |
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 Fiona Hall, Give a dog a bone, detail, mixed media, mixed media, 1997. |
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