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Six Star everyday medicine by Andrew Martin + Dell Stewart |
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The works have been presented as a critque of advertising by engaging in it, due to the given position that advertising has subsumed Art. The symbols of advertising, which have already appropriated art practice to become icons using hard won artistic principles, have then been used as ‘art’ in a kind of double/double - a virtual implosion. The (mis)use of these symbols (Mobil, Foodland, Rinso, Hanomag) has been juxtaposed with ‘pop’ images of the artists and friends amidst a confusion of drugs, bananas and allied airforce symbols. Confused? So, it seems, is the rest of society according to Martin and Stewart.
The laconic use of these images shows an eye for the popular and quirky, and the opening night Barbie on the footpath and home marketed ‘Six Star Beer’ were treats to the Aussie icon. The T-Shirts are incisive and witty as arts merchandise for the procurers of fine individual fashion, and the limited edition pills definitely impress. The use of photocopies tends to cheapen the actual work, and reminds me of artschool days when I was totally engrossed with image reproduction itself, and could be seen as an easy route to reproduction. Considering that a lot of thephotocopies were then screen printed, perhaps the very indulgment in the throw-away society could be the downfall itself of the works that engage in it. To close, a quote from John Colette’s essay out of the ‘Post Industrial Arts ?’ forum run by N.A.V.A. recently sums up best the feeling of this exhibition :................. “Art is being denied a history because it, like culture itself, is prolifically produced, consumed and appropriated .....the arts risk becoming grist to the mill of mass culture”. The sell of the sell of being sold......... Simon Tait 1999
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