The current show at Enjoy, and the one directly before it have in one way or another, skipped, dodged and refused to be labelled. That the viewer, upon entering the gallery and experiencing the work (or perhaps even upon reading the press release) may do so anyway, can't, and shouldn't be helped. But the initial seed of reference has not been planted, so as to allow for wider reading and thought.
The terms 'Feminism' and 'Outsider Art' conjure specific readings, meanings, and associations - art historical contexts that even 'untrained' or 'vernacular' art practice is tied to, by way of its exclusion. And rightly so, too, as 'abstraction', 'minimalism' and any number of terms carry baggage (isn't that their function?), though perhaps not quite as heavy. By avoiding these terms, or better to say dressing them down, Enjoy is at once denying that which the gallery is founded on (dialogue (and let's face it, academic art practice and the art histories it's based on)), while at the same time attempting to further it by allowing the work to speak for itself.
At the artists' talk for the Role. Play exhibition, it was stated by one of the artists that feminist work was seldom sufficiently discussed and unpacked, as the concept and term feminism itself tended to swallow the discussion. And, after an artist talk considerably longer and more engaging than most, very little had indeed been said about the actual work itself. Its context, operation, and what it actually did. It's safe to say that 'outsider' art suffers from the same neglect, and is often not given the same levels of critique and thought as it warrants. This is the case in New Zealand anyway, in parts of North America and Europe it can be a different story.
The current show Tea Time seems to call into question the terms themselves that are on visitor's lips upon entering the gallery, while leaving it out of the brief gallery text offered. I believe that this is an effort to afford the work the level of criticism any other show would receive.
image, Ron Dixon's Kriss Kross, image courtesy of Stuart Shepherd (thanks!)
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