AROUND THE GALLERIES Dan Rule
Published: The Age, A2, April 10, 2010.

WHAT Vanessa Van Houten: Taboo
WHERE C3 Contemporary Art Space, Abbotsford Convent, 1 St Heliers Street, Abbotsford, 9415 3600, abbotsfordconvent.com.au

There’s an intimacy to Vanessa Van Houten’s performative photographic works that complicates, and ultimately, transcends simple gender politics. Shot around her grandfather’s home in Bavaria, Germany, the series of photographs sees Van Houten executing various household tasks and chores at the apparent insistence of her grandfather. She mows the lawns, trims the roses, cleans the fetid outdoor pool; her grandfather leans on his walking stick at the edge of the frame, pointing, as if to say ‘You missed a spot’. While it’s hard not to get swept up in the procession of slightly disturbing patriarchal intonations, Van Houten summons another whole layer of potential narratives here. Indeed, though there are clear echoes of problematic family structure, there’s also a sense of willingness, want and emotional co-dependence between the work’s two chief protagonists. One of the most moving photographs sees Van Houten read to her grandfather while he lies in bed. It is a moment not just of inverted power structure, but one of genuine personal and familial intimacy and rapport. Runs alongside Bernadette Keys’ wonderful ode to femininity Vital Statistics. Wed to Sun 10am–5pm, until April 18.

WHAT Gosia Wlodarczak: Self-Centred
WHERE Arc One Gallery, 45 Flinders Land, city, 9650 6710, arc1gallery.com

Flashes of familiarity and figuration emerge from the dense, intricate noise and scrawl of Gosia Wlodarczak’s Self-Centred, a series of pigment marker and acrylic works showing concurrently with Adam Hill’s politically charged paintings at Arc One. Patterns and motifs rise from the thicket of markings, scratches and lines; what at first appears abstract neutralises into recognisable shape and form. It’s a fascinating metamorphosis. What is perhaps most striking about the works is their apparent energy, their kinetic sense of gesture and motion. These worlds are alive and electric. Nothing is stagnant or still. One way of considering Wlodarczak’s work could be that of pure, automated recording. Far less contrived or structured than a diary or journal, this is observation, thought and memory in action. We are given not just a face or a hand, but the lines and traces of movement, sound and story and that ricochet betwixt and between. Tues to Sat 11am–5pm, until May 1.

WHAT Jesse Marlow: Don’t Just Tell Them, Show Them
WHERE Menzies Art Brands, 1 Darling Street, South Yarra, 9832 8700, menziesartbrands.com

There are plenty of documentary photographers working in a similar vein to Melbourne street photographer Jesse Marlow, but very few who pull it off so naturally and convincingly. In its last day, Marlow’s Don’t Just Tell Them, Show Them comprises a striking, at times humorous and ultimately absorbing collection of unstaged street-side photographs. Refreshingly, Marlow’s interest isn’t so much in the colourful human subject, but more the play of unlikely visual cues, signifiers and occurrences on the street and landscape. A crumpled cardboard box casts a shadow that resembles a smiling face; a vivid, red apple floats in a murky puddle bordered by a bright yellow road marking; a white swan perches beside a swan-shaped sign on the edge of a lake, as if posing ironically for the photograph. It’s brilliant. The notion of romancing the banal may be something of cliché in contemporary photography, but Marlow never goes so far. Whether unusual, improbable, beautiful or evocative, this is just visual happenstance. It just occurred to Marlow to open the shutter. 10am–5pm, last day today.

WHAT Omega
WHERE VCA Margaret Lawrence Gallery, 40 Dodds Street, Southbank, 9685 9400, vcam.unimelb.edu.au

Curated by Tony Garifalakis – whose current solo exhibition at Uplands Gallery was covered in Around the galleries last week – the title of this international group show seems no mistake. Featuring French artists Alain Declercq and Jeanne Susplugas, Mexico’s Joaquin Segura, Dutch artist Ewoud Van Rijn and Garifalakis, Omega feistily broaches contemporary themes of the end. International militarism, governmental conspiracy theories, consumerism, medication and therapy culture each take their place in the drawings, videos, sculptures and installations that stretch across Margaret Lawrence Gallery. Garifalakis’s Jane Fonda features a row of 12 large bullets engraved with the words “NO PAIN NO GAIN”; Segura’s Untitled sees a white, taxidermy dove frozen in flight, the ring of a grenade in its beak. Tues to Sat noon-5pm, until April 24. 

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