Above: Tina Douglas, ‘rubblehub’ 2019, 23x18cm hand felted wool 3D printed plastic errors, thread | Tina Douglas, ‘scrapstrip’ 16x22cm hand felted 3printed plastic errors, thread
Shit That I Like
NICHOLAS PROJECTS
https://www.nicholasprojectspresents.com
A show programmed by self-professed non-curator Benjamin Aitken. “Artists to Appreciate” sounds like one of those lame-duck sections in Australian Art Collector – a bit like “Curators to Watch” or “Young Artists Worth Collecting.” It’s not about that at all. It’s more simply “Cool Art to Check Out” without shoving anything down viewers throats. It doesn’t carry the now academic burden of being “curated,” which is largely bullshit now courtesy of the university courses, not to discredit some of the amazing curators out there envisioning amazing exhibitions and creating important political discourse. Sure it could have a snazzy, wanky title like “Melbourne’s New Millennial Zeitgeist.” But it’s not about that. There is no curator. There’s a ‘programmer’ which is more like someone who collected bands for a festival which may have included DMX, Swans, GG Allin and John Denver. There is no curatorial theme. This could be argued, by design that this show actually quite could be subconsciously curated.
‘Shit That I Like’ is simple, honest, a bit anarchistic and punk. It’s not dressing mutton up like lamb. Hopefully it has an edge, which most of the art does. It’s literally shit I like in a not for profit and unfunded space that gives the artists a platform. If the viewer thinks it’s simply shit, that’s their call. You are welcome to visit some other galleries for some flowers and seascapes.
A curate is a person who conducts worship for a parish. Curate comes from the word cure; a curate Is supposed to cure that most important part of you – your soul. And that’s what I hope the art in this exhibition will do for each individual. None the less the only holy spirit I believe in is Saint Vodka.
Benjamin Aitken 2019
——————————————————————————-—-
Gems in the Sewer – by Ashley Crawford 2019
‘Shit That I Like.’ Ben Aitken doesn’t exactly mix words here. What he says is what you get. For those of a more conservative ilk, including a profanity in an exhibition title remains unsettling, a rebuke perhaps, a streak of the anarchistic, a tad ‘punk,’ a ‘Man the Torpedoes,’ ‘No Prisoners’, ‘Do I Look Like I Give a Damn’ moment. It is a million miles away from the pseudo-intellectual, well-bred pretensions of contemporary curatorial studies or polite theoretical linkages. Damn, Aitken doesn’t even quote a French philosopher to excuse his bad manners. It’s just Lock ‘n’ Load, Rock ‘n’ Roll.
In other words, it’s almost excruciatingly honest.
There are no rules here. Generations are treated with indifference, thus a well-established Jon Cattapan or Sam Leach sits happily alongside younger artists most of us have never heard of until now. Somehow, almost accidentally, it’s weirdly politically correct. There’s an equilibrium of genders and sexualities, a fair dose of the indigenous, there’s multi-culturalism alongside multi-media. There are artists with professional, high-end gallery representation and others who have barely crawled out of their bedroom-studios. There are huge works by Phaptawn Suwunnakudt, Cyrus Tang and Fiona Lowry alongside the tiny and intimate. Aitken’s curatorial strictures have more in common with British occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) when he proclaimed “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”
Indeed, with its’ liveliness and zeitgeist feel. Aitken may have something to teach the ‘professional’ curators with their B.A.s.
But this show is NOTcurated. Aitken states this in person with vehemence. “I am nota ‘curator,’” he proclaims, thus describing his role as more of a programmer. He’s acting like a DJ playing his favourite tracks. If you don’t like the music, you can always leave.
OK, he may not be a curator as such. But he seems not to mind when I suggest he is acting more like a ‘curate,’ a clergyman who helps the priest in caring for their congregation and the process of being together a group of worshippers. In this case their God is Art and, like the Gnostics of old, God takes whatever form seems most apt. Aitken’s congregation here embraces both the artists and the audience. Their sacraments are paint and stone, metal and multi-media.
But, and here’s the rub, whether consciously or not, Aitken’s has indeed, indisputably, curated‘Shit That I Like.’ There is, to highly varying degrees, a distinct aesthetic running throughout this show, a restless, youthful energy regardless of generation, a kind of urgency, even panic in the modes of expression as though time is running out. There are moments of playfulness, of wilful naivety and devil-may-care anarchy. There are strange contrasts and surreal outbursts. Indeed, as a whole, there is only one person who could have curated this raggedy horde into one space, only one person who could juggle this mercury and herd these cats.
Ben Aitken, to his credit, has not allowed himself the egotistic opportunity to hang his own work here. He is hovering just to one side of such hubris, although clearly his own work would have sat comfortably amidst this chaotic assemblage.
Aitken’s title may be provocative, even slightly transgressive for those of an ultra-conservative, rigidly ‘proper’ mentality. You may not ‘like’ some of it. I may not ‘like’ some of it. But Aitken sure as shit likes it and given a free space and a free hand in the creative process, well he’s simply going to show the shit that he likes and the result is a myriad cornucopia of styles, images, techniques, media and miscellanea only one person could have ‘curated.’