METRO ARTS // EXHIBITION PROGRAM

CATACOUSTICS /

16 SEPTEMBER - 3 OCTOBER 2015CHARLES ROBB

CATACOUSTICSSamantha Littley

For Charles Robb (1971–), the ‘public monument’ provides fertile ground to explore the contemporary possibilities of sculpture. Consider Surrogate (2004), the fibreglass statue that Robb made for the City of Melbourne’s Laneway Commissions scheme, which depicts surveyor Robert Hoddle (1794–1881), architect of the street grid system that defines inner-city Melbourne. Sited not in a park but a back alley, the sculpture pays homage to Hoddle’s genius while undermining the expectations that surround memorials. For Landmark (2005–2006), a tribute to Victoria’s first Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe (1801–1875) that was temporarily installed in Treasury Gardens during the Making Melbourne exhibition (2006), Robb literally turned the idea of the monument on its head. Speaking about these works, he explained that ‘I wanted to talk, in both statues, about contemporary Australia and the way we remember people … the heroes we have aren’t necessarily enshrined in bronze.’1 This exhibition is, then, a broadening of this impulse and Robb’s ongoing interest in self-portraiture.

Catacoustics comprises Robb’s fragmented replica of the Ian Fairweather (1891–1974) memorial rock, erected on Bribie Island in memory of the ‘selectively gregarious’ Scottish-born artist who lived on Bribie for the last 21 years of his life, along with remnants of Robb’s previous works, and sculptural paraphernalia that accumulated in his studio while he was making the cairn.2 He sees this accretion of objects and materials as representative of his artistic processes and, hence, indicative of him; as he describes it, ‘the doing is part of the representation of self.’3 That these elements evolved spontaneously, rather than through design, and were subsequently brought into the overall concept, reflects his interest in the ‘tension between purpose and chance; structure and accident.’4

The title of the exhibition is a term describing the branch of acoustics that relates to echoes. There is a sense in the show, and in Robb’s work generally, of a resonance or resounding; of an object that stands for itself and reverberates with a larger history. In this case, the rock is a starting point for Robb’s scrutiny of the edifice itself, its relationship to its subject, and the concepts that underpin such monuments. Robb came across the memorial on Bribie fortuitously, an event that impelled him to explore its significance. He is not the first artist to engage with the legacy of Fairweather. Take, for example, TV Moore’s (1974–) photographic self portrait As Fairweather (2009), in which Moore steps into the guise of the enigmatic artist, both contesting and perpetuating the myth that Fairweather’s long shadow casts over Australian art.5

Robb’s references in Catacoustics are, however, more oblique and, to a degree, opaque. In his installation, the Fairweather rock prompts us to contemplate this mode of remembrance. ‘The boulder,’ Robb argues, ‘has a history that extends from Palaeolithic structures to the memorial rocks of our public spaces.’6 So, as with many of his works, we start with an individual, extend to an understanding of a mode of representation, and travel full circle to consider the artist and his methods. We might ask, for instance, why a memorial rock was regarded as a fitting tribute to Fairweather. Certainly, the craggy unaffected form, situated amidst the Bribie Island Pines that surrounded the artist’s makeshift hut and imposed themselves on the visual language of his late paintings, seems more apposite than the kind of statue that might be erected in honour of a statesman. We wonder, nonetheless, how much such a testament can express. Robb, then, presents us with a genre of portraiture and, simultaneously, questions the very basis of that ‘“portrait format”, which is of itself limited and incomplete.’7

What, ultimately, does his recasting of the original reveal? In the context of Robb’s practice, the answers centre on his methodologies, his preoccupation with monuments and commemoration, and his almost thankless urge to interrogate the incentives and aesthetic choices that surround this particular rock – as he says, ‘I wouldn’t [set out to create] a rock that looked like this. It’s an ugly rock.’8 In this respect, the installation relates to the epic trials of King Sisyphus who, in Greek mythology, was condemned forever to push a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down again. In the end, we are left to contemplate Charles Robb’s desire, despite his robust scepticism, to reproduce the memorial form, and what that tells us about him.

1 Charles Robb in Clay Lucas, “The city gets another dead white bloke,” The Age, 20 August 2006, http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/the-city-gets-another-dead-white-bloke/2006/08/19/1155408071346.html?page=fullpage. 2 Ian Fairweather in Nourma Abbott-Smith, Ian Fairweather: Profile of a painter (St Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1978), xi. 3 Charles Robb in conversation with the author, 31 July 2015. 4 Charles Robb in artist statement supplied to Metro Arts, 3 August 2015. 5 John Young’s (1956–) exhibition at Philip Bacon Galleries, Eternal transformation, features a series of works based on paint-ings by Ian Fairweather. In the installation Argonauts of the Timor Sea (2004), New Zealand artist Michael Stevenson (1964–) ruminates on the infamous, near-fatal raft journey that Fairweather embarked on in 1952. Robb himself made a previous work that relates to Fairweather. His cement-rendered sculpture Heavy weather (2012), produced for the McClelland Sculpture Prize, depicts the artist effecting a ‘Fosbury flop’ high-jump manoeuvre over an elongated, stylised version of the memorial rock. 6 Charles Robb in artist statement supplied to Metro Arts, 3 August 2015.7 Charles Robb in conversation with the author, 31 July 2015. 8 Ibid.

Metro Arts acknowledges the assistance of the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.

CREDITS

Cover / Heavy Weather III, 2014. Image by Al Sim. Courtesy of the artist and Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne.

Inside left / Image of casting process, 2015. Image by Charles Robb.

VOTE OF THANKS

The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of the QUT Creative Industries Faculty, Moreton Bay Regional Council, Tim Lynch, Claire Sourgnes, Michael Riddle, Genine Larin, Aaron Butt, Courtney Pedersen, Libby Andersen, Joseph Breikers, Daniel Mafe, Mark Pennings and Samantha Littley in the realisation of this exhibition. Charles Robb is represented by Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne.

PROJECT PARTNER

METRO ARTS PARTNER

Chief Executive OfficerDavid Fenton

Curator (Exhibition Program) Amy-Clare McCarthy

metroarts.com.au

109 Edward St, Brisbane Qld 4000GPO BOX 24, Brisbane 4000 (07) 3002 7100info@metroarts.com.au

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