AUSTRALIAN ART SHOCK / LONDON

The  cover of the Spring 1982 edition of  the Art Network  magazine featured an  Ansett  airline  hostess  serving  up  a  Ford  sedan on a  tray, used  to promote  a  Sydney  art  exhibition. 

 

Served  up  inside were  some   grand   articles,  including  one  with  the  startling  Redback Graphix  illustration  , below, at the start of an extensive, disparaging  piece  about art on display in London's  Commonwealth  Institute, some of  it  Australian . 

Art critic  Stuart  Morgan  set  the  tone  early by  declaring  that  no self-respecting tourist with time to kill in London on the rainiest of  rainy  days  should  waste  time  going to the Commonwealth Institute , which  he  said  contained  an  anthology  of  insults  to  the  countries  it  represented.Most English people, he wrote, knew or cared less about  Australian  culture .After the Sydney Opera  House ,Picnic at Hanging Rock and Rolf Harris , it was an  uphill struggle . Even the culture vultures  could  not  do much better than Patrick White and Sidney Nolan . No big exhibition of Australian art had taken place in Britain since   the early l960s. However , in l982, there was some  Aussie art  on  display at the  Institute . Did  it  work , or was it another  dull display , he asked .The general   standard of  the  Commonwealth   exhibits , consisting of much  rubber  , plastic and  creaky soundtracks, were  branded  offensive.

The Australian section, wedged between  Japan and India , was emotively entitled   Eureka! 

Best of all ,it contained  Morgan's   favourite bad display , an artificial man    dubbed  Bruce , a  scratchy film from the neck up , standing akimbo  on a mound of plastic earth, surrounded by  schoolchildren , delivering a lecture  on  the future of Australia.  

Strange looking  Australians 

On close  examination , Bruce was found to have no  nose . Flies seen buzzing about him  were  actually scratches in  the  film , causing the art critic to laugh  a  lot. 

When   English schoolkids listened to Bruce  and went away to write essays  on  Captain Cook and the Great Barrier Reef, would they conclude all Australians were odd  looking  as  Bruce ? 

The  Australian  display also included   an amazing Sixty Ways to Confuse a  Trout-  seemingly a  live performance  by  Kevin  Mortensen , in waders and wearing  a  bird mask, who  climbed into a metal boat , and with the help of a tape recorder  played  fragments  of  news !!!! 

There was strong competition from other  countries -including "The Antarctic " , which displayed  an oversized , sloppily-iced  fibreglass wedding cake with holes  for  stuffed  penguins.

Kenya was  represented  by a stuffed giraffe  head  from the neck up  placed on a table .

The magazine  appears to have once belonged to the late  art historian  Margaret  Vine , mentiond in  this  blog, who once lived on Magnetic Island . 

An article about the  Sydney Biennale  since its inception supported by Transfield  in 1973  contains  underlining and margin notes  typical  of  Margaret .