A recent criticism of the exhibition Optimism at GoMA in Brisbane made the claim that contemporary art seems to be about physical sensation rather than intellectual and imaginative engagement. It seems to me that art is always first about sensory stimulation derived from the specific material qualities of the objects presented but if it is any good it instantly triggers chains of association and memory that are both personal to us and culturally mediated.
Our relation to space and place and to the world that is accessible to our senses is fundamental to who we are. Memory is an elusive thing but we are sure now that much of what we remember is triggered by sensations from without rather than coming from a black box somewhere within. Our thinking and our imagining is in constant dialogue with the material world and with ideas that circulate in our societies. Every time we experience a particular event or sensation that connects to our embedded memories the pathway is reinforced. To stop responding to such experiences would be to atrophy the imagination and the intellect.
This reinforcement of experience is exactly what Sean Cordiero & Claire Healy use to make their art. They have led a somewhat peripatetic life style moving from place to place as students and now from International residency to residency taking on board the many different textures and patterns of behaviour that still exist from culture to culture. In such circumstances simple things can provide anchors to place and time past and present. For example we often find a bus ticket in the back of a wallet kept for no apparent reason or a photo or a piece of ribbon. These objects have the capacity to catapult us into some charged recollection. Alzheimer’s patients can respond to an object from their past pouring out memories thought lost forever.
How poignant is it to look closely at a wall where a building has been partly demolished? We see the outline of rooms, wallpaper, fireplaces, and the tracery of long vanished plumbing captured in layers of paint. This startling exposure of the intimate histories of families brings the inside out in a disturbing way. Is this sensation of the world not a powerful trigger for the imagination? Sean and Claire are working in a tradition that is central to contemporary art but that has a prehistory in medieval reliquaries and sympathetic magic in tribal communities since the dawn of time. Surrealism and dada reintroduced this way of thinking about objects in modern times and since then the history has been rich indeed. To take apart or dissect a building like Matta Clark, or to turn it inside out like Rachel Whiteread, collect and stack building materials like Tony Cragg, or notice the habits that accidentally shape our world like Richard Wentworth.
This is the language of these artists and they handle it brilliantly manifesting memories that are often personal to them but that are so much part of daily life that the ideas and experiences are readily accessible to anyone with imagination. Human experience of the everyday, of the things we do to make ourselves feel at home, can be every bit as powerful as grand epics. Our loves, misgivings and hopes are embodied in these small things.
Anthony Bond OAM
Assistant Director Art Gallery of New South Wales
Christopher Allen The Australian December 13th 2008
This essay was first published in Dark Matter, 2009
Dark Matter: Works by Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro
Text by Anthony Bond, David Burrows, Dr Stephen Gapps and Craig Judd
Gallery Barry Keldoulis
ISBN 9780646512457