Stereolab, 1997
Exhibited: Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney
Bruce James, ‘Galleries’, Sydney Morning Herald, Friday May 16, 1997
In a recent body of work, Susan Norrie incorporated parts of Antonioni’s classic film L’Avventura into her sculptural and painterly practice. I recall being piqued by this seemingly gratuitous appropriation; then, over time, becoming comfortable with Norrie’s respectful and inventive annexure. Luke Parker’s exhibition at Firsdraft, Stereolab, pays much the same compliment to Blow Up, the cinematic quintessence of the ‘60s, which he sees as a deconstructive exemplar for the ‘90s. Like Norrie, he runs the film on video monitors in the gallery, risking the defection of the viewer from the copy to the original. That one ultimately engages with the art and not the art-movie is a test of self-discipline, ours and the artist’s.
Parker intends the resulting tensions. His installed photographs and puzzle-objects goad one back and forth between reality and its further representation. Some of his independent sculptures, signboards in various shapes and configurations, lean toward the semiotic mantras of Magritte. ‘This is here in place of the thing itself’ is the confounding sentence inscribed on one example. On another: ‘Go away!’ At that point, I did.
Exhibited: Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney
Bruce James, ‘Galleries’, Sydney Morning Herald, Friday May 16, 1997
In a recent body of work, Susan Norrie incorporated parts of Antonioni’s classic film L’Avventura into her sculptural and painterly practice. I recall being piqued by this seemingly gratuitous appropriation; then, over time, becoming comfortable with Norrie’s respectful and inventive annexure. Luke Parker’s exhibition at Firsdraft, Stereolab, pays much the same compliment to Blow Up, the cinematic quintessence of the ‘60s, which he sees as a deconstructive exemplar for the ‘90s. Like Norrie, he runs the film on video monitors in the gallery, risking the defection of the viewer from the copy to the original. That one ultimately engages with the art and not the art-movie is a test of self-discipline, ours and the artist’s.
Parker intends the resulting tensions. His installed photographs and puzzle-objects goad one back and forth between reality and its further representation. Some of his independent sculptures, signboards in various shapes and configurations, lean toward the semiotic mantras of Magritte. ‘This is here in place of the thing itself’ is the confounding sentence inscribed on one example. On another: ‘Go away!’ At that point, I did.
