The Art of Survival
Issue 14:2 | June 1994
A jam packed issue that examines all those issues dear to every heart -- How to survive as an artist. Is it possible to live off art? Who are the new artist entrepreneurs? What is the strength of the artist co-operative? Is social security the patron saint of artists? As well as the usual plethora of book and exhibition reviews.
In this issue
Adelaide Installations: Adelaide Festival
Review Adelaide Installations Adelaide Festival South Australia Various locations 25 February - 13 March 1994
The End of an Era? Artists' Week 1994 Adelaide Festival
Artists were left out in the cold at the 1994 Festival of Arts. Examines issues facing organisers of events such as Artist's week in the context of the Adelaide Festival of Arts.
Surviving the Recession
How do artists survive when they are not able to sell work in galleries -- sales are at a record low and many galleries have folded-- or get commissions through State agencies -- because these are few and far between?
Living Off Your Art: New Figures on Artists' Income
Artists are particularly vulnerable to economic downturn for two main reasons...the business cycle and the role of other jobs in a tight employment market.
Dial Up for Rewards
Article written with Phillip Bannigan and Sue Harris. Transactions, enterprise training, curating, industry, art in public, trainees, cashflow.
Multiples for Sale
Written with Shiralee Saul and Susan Fereday. How does an art object differ from a manufactured 'designer' commodity? Is the traditional status of the work of art undermined by repetition, reproduction and affordability? Are the qualities of fetish, uniqueness and authorial presence removed from or reinstated in the art multiple.
Thinking Wholesale
At the Jam Factory in Adelaide, Rolf Bartz, David Archer and Lorry Wedding-Marchiaro are three of the SA designer makers who have entered into a marketing agreement which may be the way of the future for many more.
Futurama: Art and Technology Expo
Article written with collaborator Shiralee Saul. Discusses the planned Futurama which was slated to start in 1996 as a 4-5 day event in Melbourne Victoria - organised by Installation Publication a partnership of 2 artist administrators.
Artists -- From Garret to Office
The Premier of Victoria may claim that his government has opened Victoria for business, but it is the important role of local government and the Federal Government in developing arts training and facilities that is really making the running. Artists are no longer in their garrets but in front of pcs in their offices.
Self-Starting Sculpture
The artist describes her attempts to sell her sculpture and the need to take other work. How has this impacted on her artistic approach?
Showing Art On Your Terms
Melbourne artist Ewa offers the benefit of her experience in marketing art without a gallery.
Shedding the Bark
Bark painters of Arnhem Land are experimenting with a new medium - canvas- and in so doing both increasing their output and responding to market forces.
Drawing Wages
Looks at the Studio School of Painting and Drawing in South Australia. It is essentially a working artist's studio which has admitted students.
Strategies for Debunking the Myth of Artist as Wanker
or what I learned at school... the artist Malcolm McKinnon examines his training through the art school in Melbourne in the 1980s.
Income, Outcome? Hard Times for Artists + Industry
As an organisation, Arts + Industry is fundamentally concerned with economics and income generation. Assisting artists and designers to either find employment with industry or create opportunities as self-employed designer/makers is integral to their goals.
Furniture, Ceramics: What the Hell, Let's Do It
Examines the Centre for Furniture Design, the Centre for the Arts in Tasmania and the Atlantis Studio in Townsville Queensland.
Pity the Poor Director: Priorities Askew in Low Budget Film and Video
Operating both as an industry training ground and as a space for creative experimentation, low budget film and video production must be thought of as an economic and a cultural investment.
Artists as Soul Agents in WA
During the 1990s a number of initiatives have been undertaken in Western Australia which aim to improve the lot of the State's artists. The article examines three particular initiatives.
Whitechapel Meets Eastenders
Museums and larger arts spaces are increasingly looking at ways to improve access to their exhibitions for a wider range of people. Contemporary art spaces face a more difficult battle than museums in trying to become more relevant to their diverse communities.
The Jeweller's Apprentice
"As a practising artist/craftrsperson with an interest in education, teaching and learning, the potential of studio based training greatly appealed to me."
Things I've Seen a Little Different Along the Way - Stories from Up North
"If you are real lucky you got CDEP or your are making it selling your art and then you got a good art centre too, maybe. If you are real lucky just when you turn up with a couple of week's art production, maybe yours, maybe the families, the centre's got cash, no one's a bastard, everyone's happy, the store has even got some decent food, even new bikes, toy guns, tape decks and a few tins of Log Cabin. Shit, life's good - sometimes anyway." A personal view of art making in indigenous communities.
The Spirit of Collectivism: A Brief Guide to Melbourne's Artist-run Galleries
A brief guide to Melbourne's artist run galleries: Ether Ohnetitel, The Women's Gallery, Gallery Gecko, The COOP, A For Art Space, Making Sense Contemporary Art Space, The Basement Project, Argyle Street Studios, West Space, Arts Post, RedPlanet, Another Planet Posters, Red Letter Community Workshop, A.R.T. (artaroundtown), First Floor, Store 5, Room 4, ROAR Studio, Temple 29 and 41 Gold Street.
No Vacancy: The Art of 400 Artists
Looks at the artist run space 'No Vacancy' located in Melbourne, Victoria.
Brisbane Offers Plenty of Space
Brisbane has been and continues to be well served by artist run spaces and access galleries, particularly in the last 2 years 1993-1994. Can there ever be an over supply? Looks at Dogget Street Studios, QAA, Metro Arts, Inkahoots, Loading Bay, Isn't Studios and Fireworks Gallery.
Showing and Working Together in WA
To survive financially and professionally a large number of artists in WA have formed themselves into co-operatives.
Critical Mass/ City Art/ Artists' Initiatives
A recurring feature of recent initiatives is to be self-funded or to operate with a minimum level of government funding and frequently to begin with a limited time frame in mind. The social side of such organisations cannot be underestimated and is probably as important as any art that eventuates.
Looking at the Billboard
Written with Lee Salomone exploring the utilisation of prominent billboards on the tram track in Adelaide for the term of one year at no cost for them to be used as public art spaces.
Powerful Alternatives - Sydney
They may not have been characterised as 'artist run initiatives' but exhibition spaces run by artists have been around, in one form, or another for a long time.
Non-Metro Spaces
Artists collectives and access galleries do not just exist in big capital cities. It seems that wherever there is a community of artists and Artist Run Initiative will happen.
(L)earning Curves on the Streets of Melbourne
The transforming role of local government. More enlightened attitudes towards art making are coming from all levels of government and from property developers and others - often at the urging of those various levels of government.
Roads, Rates and Renaissance
Looks at the Melbourne inner city initiatives commissioned by the local governments to enhance public works.
Artists Pave the Way
One outcome of the recent spate of local urban design projects and processes has been employment for artists.
Liverpool Links: Industry and Art
The Cultural Services Unit of the Liverpool City Council has increased substantially over the last 2 years as has the number of artists employed by them.
Artists' Park Blooms Again
Box Hill known in the art world for its connection to the Heidelberg School of Painting has maintained its commitment to the arts.
Migrant Artists and the Mysteries of Australian Culture
The Thousand Handed Hydra has been an experiment of difference and opposition in practice. Hydra began in May 1993 as a one year pilot program of education, transition and introductin for migrant artists to the professional networks of Australian (Melbourne) art, culture and practice. Includes the work of artists Fernando Ronquillo, Anita Lorina and Rafael Rojas.
Tickling the Senses in Brunswick St
Located in Melbourne Victoria, the City of Fitzroy was given $1m by the federal government in 1992 for capital works. One project funded was the commissioning of 16 pieces of public art from 11 artists to build on that heart of cafe culture Brunswick St.
Focusing on the River
Every State has one - a local council that is outstanding in its commitment to the arts and in Western Australia, the credit for innovation and energy goes to the City of Gosnells, who have arguably led the pack for the last 5 years in interesting community arts projects...
Arts Employment Through Small Business
...So in effect, what we have in Australia is a separation of public and commercial by governments arts departments that unfortunately does not take into account the fact that the arts industry operates on a continuum...
Good Spot for a Pot Shot
The time is post-recession, the economic climate is uncertain, Australian designers and consumers inhabit the suburbs but are cut off from each other, and someone decided to do something about it in the City of Caulfield, Victoria.
Sophistication in the Country
Shire of Eltham on the outskirts of Melbourne Victoria and its commitment to the arts.
Noarlunga: Backwater No Longer
The City of Noarlunga and the City of Prospect in South Australia are the only two councils who have retained community arts officers.
Pav Offers Sweet Success
Bondi Pavilion Community Cultural Centre is situated right on Bondi Beach in the heart of one of Sydney's most ethnically diverse areas.
Bonanza for Creators in Ipswich
Ipswich City Council in Queensland is recruiting artists and designers from their large regional base and assisting them to create their own incomes through the work they are already trained to do.
Briefly, Two Epics
Review Adelaide Installations
Adelaide Festival of Art
South Australia Various locations
February - March 1994
Jemmy Caution
Exhibition review Jemmy
Mehmet Adil, Craige Andrae, Johnnie Dadie, Simryn Gill, Richard Grayson, Linda Marie Walker, Paul Hewson, Shaun Kirby, David O'Halloran, Bronia Iwanczak, Andrew Petrusevics, Bronwyn Platten, George Popperwell, Jyanni Steffensen, Steve Wigg
Curated by Alan Cruikshank
Ebenezer Studios Basement
February 18 - March 13 1994
The Case of the Cigarette and the Egg
Review Women and sexuality in Asian-Pacific Cinema
Media Resource Centre
Adelaide South Australia
February 26 - March 11 1994
Festival of Perth: Visual Arts a Shadow of Their Former Selves
Review A sad thing has happened to the once vibrant visual arts component of the Festival of Perth - the oldest arts festival in Australia. It has become tired if not downright tiresome. The whole event needs a good shake - up.
Aboriginal Art Exhibitions in Western Australia
Review The Festival of Perth presented two major exhibitions of Western Australian Aboriginal art Bush Women at the Fremantle Arts Centre and This is my country at the exciting new exhibition venue 'Artplace' in Claremont.
The Green and the Wild
Exhibition review Dark Nature
Anne MacDonald and David Stephenson
Dick Bett Gallery Hobart, Tasmania
3 - 22 March 1994
Designs on Shopping
Exhibition review 4 Seasons - Objects that Contain
Plimsoll Gallery
University of Tasmania Centre for the Arts
March 4 - 27 1994
Missing in Action
Book review Body and self: Performance Art in Australia 1969 -1992
By Anne Marsh
Oxford University Press Australia 1993
A View of the Perennials
Book review Contemporary Sculpture in Australian Gardens
By Ken Scarlett
Craftsman House 1993
Artrave
Easy Access Hardware
The Raw Material Curatorial Development Program was designed to provide training opportunities for curators without experience, but with plenty of potential. Based at Gertrude Street Victoria. Featured artwork by Marie Sierra-Hughes.