Exhibition Catalogue | A Forest of Hooks and Nails

a forest of hooks and nails Thu 4 Feb — Sun 14 Mar 2021

Founder

Principal Partner

Perth Festival Visial Arts Program Partner

fac.org.au | 1 Finnerty Street, Fremantle, WA | 9432 9555 Cover image: Hansdieter Zeh, clearing (detail), 2021, inkjet print on commercial poster paper, 240 x 180cm

Dan Bourke Phoebe Clarke Angela Ferolla Rob Kettels Maxxi Minaxi May Hugh Thomson Phoebe Tran Tyrown Waigana Zev Weinstein Hansdieter Zeh Curated by Tom Freeman

Images left to right: Hugh Thomson, Pyramid Scheme (detail), 2020–21, wood, copper, leather, nails, electrical components, synthesizers, 25 x 120 x 120cm. Maxxi Minaxi May, The light crystals (detail), 2021, FSC wood and plastic rulers,glue, 33 x 11 x 198cm. Zev Weinstein, Mala (detail), 2018, 35mm photograph on Hahnemuhle satin rag, 96 x 67cm, edition 1/10. Phoebe Clarke, Prior to (detail), 2021, organza and embroidery thread,dimensions variable. Phoebe Clarke, A breath felt, 2021, felt, fire bellow, video with sound, dimensions variable. Phoebe Tran, After install ends, 2021, corduroy pants, linen shirt; moss (various unidentified bryophyta sp.), dimensions variable. Photography by Rebecca Mansell

creative occupations

“Where’s Tom?” That was one of the titles thrown around for this show. A silly thought really, an inside joke. Apparently you can hear this echoing through the galleries during install as I’m walking bog laps round and round asking “how’s it going?” and crossing off jobs from my tattered list. The final title we settled on, A Forest of Hooks and Nails, was a throwaway line from our recently parted director Jim Cathcart, recalling his first impression of the galleries when he started in the role fifteen years ago.

It’s heady with poetic nostalgia and a poignant tribute. This recognition of past lineages and historical presence is always a relevant consideration, particularly so for this show as our install staff reveal the bones of this historic building.

This exhibition came about out of Fremantle Arts Centre’s shutdown during the 2020 pandemic. It’s an acknowledgment of the financial hardship and insecurity faced by the casual workforce, and an attempt to offer significant support and encouragement through a major exhibition platform. It recognises and embraces the creative practices that each of our install staff hold tightly and dearly and passionately. Conversations during tea break and lunches frequently circle back to everyone’s artistic pursuits and varied forms of expression and output. These chats also display the depth of consideration and investigation the install staff give to the artworks and artists they work with here, and the inspiration and energy they receive from these close-contact experiences within the gallery. The artists included in this show, who were all current install staff

at the time of selection, have varied practices across contemporary art, fashion, film, music, design and more.

This broad creativity is channelled into their understanding of and relationship with the building itself, and its history, community and sentiment.

There is a persistent common link between artists and install work, a seemingly well-balanced lifestyle combining artistic freedom and semiregular income. The crew of installers at Fremantle Arts Centre are an everevolving assemblage of crafty and clever folk, coming and going depending on where life takes them amidst their daily juggles. I’ve always enjoyed my time involved with install work, and now being the one that looks after the installs and staff I only hope I can provide a fruitful and enriching work environment for this talented team.

Pulling it all together as a multi-tasking bunch of artists, installers, curators and coordinators, this exhibition offers an insightful and enlightening investigation of Fremantle Arts Centre itself.

Tom Freeman Curator, Exhibitions Install Coordinator at Fremantle Arts Centre, living and working from Walyalup Fremantle, Whadjuk Boodjar

before the next show A day on the job at Fremantle Arts Centre during exhibition changeover starts with a brief team meeting to go over the status of where we’re at with the deinstall of one show, and the preparation of the galleries in anticipation of the next. Once everyone’s across what needs to be achieved by the end of the day, we scatter to the different rooms and corridors of the building, each holding a printout listing pre-assigned tasks to check off as they are completed.

More often than not, by the end of the day, these pieces of paper have been folded into triangular shaped catchalls, affixed to the wall with blue painter’s tape, and used to collect debris from holes drilled into all manner of substrates: MDF, drywall, cement mortar, limestone… A quick beer outside at ‘knock-off’, provides a chance to debrief and natter with one another about our own projects and practices. We’re all art installers, and we’re also all artists.

There are moments in time in the life of all exhibitions that galleries hide from their visitors. It’s these moments, when one exhibition ends and the exhibition changeover begins, that remain mysterious. When the new exhibition opens, there’s not a trace of the frenetic outpouring of energy and activity necessitated to install all of the artworks on show. The most we’re ever given in terms of the goings on of exhibition changeover is a polished and carefully edited piece of time-lapse footage posted on the social channels.

This might be used as a teaser, whetting our appetite while we anticipate the opening, or it might be released a long time after changeover has taken place, used primarily to promote the gallery and the exhibiting artists. Either way, the snappy editing precludes the opportunity to see the install process for what it is; messy, noisy, frenetic, monotonous, intense, and joyful.

The title of this exhibition, A Forest of Hooks and Nails, paints a picture of what is often left once all of the artworks have been carefully wrapped in bubble or cell-air and packed back into their crates and boxes during deinstall. Walking around the galleries at this point of the exhibition changeover reveals the hardware of what’s kept objects magically suspended in the air and on the walls. If you look up to the ceiling in the Main Gallery at FAC, you’ll find a constellation of hooks, nails, and screws all left over from previous exhibitions.

Reading through the notes Tom has compiled about each artist’s contribution to this exhibition, I’m instantly transported to FAC, walking its

corridors, climbing wooden staircases, and running my hand along bannisters worn smooth over time. I’m lucky to have had the chance to become familiar with this place as a oncemember (alumni?) of the install crew, as an artist-in-residence, and as a devoted visitor. I can feel the ghosts of installs past close by. The promise of a room to be filled with pure white salt evokes a tale an install crew member once told me about a morning when she unlocked Gallery 3 to find footprints in the fine white dust that had settled on the floor overnight. She was adamant that the footprints weren’t there when she locked up the night before ... This place holds many stories. Imagining a sunchair covered in moss sourced onsite, with a view out of the glazed door at the end of the corridor, reminds me of days (and a few late nights) I spent outside on the grass, measuring twice and cutting once, length after length of poly-pipe. As I wound these cut pipes through the labyrinthine building— already densely populated, floor to ceiling, with poles—I left a trail of white PVC ‘snow’ in my wake.

I’m trying to remember the last exhibition I saw in the flesh or have come across online that has addressed ideas related to the deinstallation and installation of exhibitions. Two exhibitions staged in 2011, De-Building, curated by Justin Paton at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu (Aotearoa), and De/Install, curated by Sputnik (Peter Shenai and Louis-Jack Horton-Stephens) at Modern Art Oxford (UK) come to mind. Both presented artworks and projects by artists that

were revealing of forms, processes, and techniques bound to the activity of exhibition changeover, but none of the exhibiting artists actually worked for either institution as install crew.

Technician’s Choice, curated by Claire Watson in 2017 at Bundoora Homestead Art Centre—a heritage listed building with a rich history not dissimilar to FAC—included artworks made by art install technicians who work across art institutions in Melbourne. Only a few of the artists involved in this exhibition were install crew at the Homestead, and the works called into question the role of the curator and notions of authorship within the development of exhibitions and presentation of artists’ works, rather than illuminate the processes of deinstall/install and the particularities of place. Most recently, Fiona Connor’s commissioned Closed for installation, curated by Sohrab Mohebbi with Kyle Dancewicz, at SculptureCentre (USA) in 2019, featured prosaic install tools—a broom, tape measure, ladder—perfectly cast in bronze. But here, again, the artist was transported in from outside, and the work commented on labour conditions of install more generally, rather than shining light on the actual goings on of that place specifically.

It seems, at least from this modest survey of recent-ish exhibitions, that A Forest of Hooks and Nails is unique.

While there are exhibitions and creative projects that have alluded to some of the historical uses of the FAC building or focused on depictions of the gallery and the position of the building relative to the city of Fremantle and the wider community,1 this exhibition is the first to feature artworks made by artists

who perhaps know it best, the install crew. This capable group of people have probably spent more time, collectively, in FAC’s galleries, than anyone else.

Poring over walls, floors, skirtings, ceilings—their keen eyes are trained to see things that visitors might not notice.

The install crew are tasked with making the impossible happen. There is blood, sweat and (occasional) tears behind the miraculous appearance of each and every exhibition.

The ten artists in this exhibition are all intimates of this place and their artworks ultimately point to sharing what each artist knows of the processes, procedures, and protocols particular to this art institution, and the stories that are acquired through time spent working within its limestone walls. Many of the artists in A Forest of Hooks and Nails will undoubtedly critically address aspects of the building’s current use as an art gallery, while others will seek to draw attention to the past uses of this heritage listed building2 or offer us insights into what this place may have been like before colonial settlement.

Who might be better placed than these artists to tell us something about what this place once was, what it does now, and what it means to make and exhibit artworks here?

Dr Shannon Lyons WA born artist and educator currently living and working in Melbourne on the unceded sovereign land of the Wurundjeri people 1 | See Paul Caporn’s Homely (2010); LINK Dance Company’s Diversify performance season (2012); Mad About You (2013), co-curated by André Lipscombe and Jim Cathcart; and Marzena Topka’s Boundaries of Beige (2014).

2 | Before it became a dedicated arts centre in 1973, with rooms for art galleries, artist’s studios and workshops, the FAC building had been, among other things, an asylum, a women’s home, Western Australia’s first maternity training facility, a temporary home for American naval servicemen during World War II, and a technical school.

it’s all in the doing Install is like a conjuring. A ritual of calling artworks to their place, but also the audience to the gallery. Working as both install technician and gallery officer, Dan Bourke is a custodian of the entire run of an exhibition. The video work churns through icons from web 1.0 platforms, 1990’s music videos, surveillance technology and excel spreadsheets to reflect on the daily data collected by attendance counters in the galleries. Charting the audience tally of this particular work, it provides a rolling visualisation of the influence architecture and statistics have on the presentation of exhibitions.

Install is like a sitcom. Following the annual season schedule, a familiar cast return for each episode to assume their roles. Tyrown Waigana presents a series of works that span his multidisciplinary practice — clippings — to illustrate the stereotypical characters of the install crew. Inconsequential spaces, hidden nooks and crannies across the galleries that feel private to the install crew become sets for Tyrown’s humorous reflections on the social dynamics of the small moments of installing an exhibition.

Install is like an archive. With each addition made (a new layer of paint, a new anchor point, a new artwork) there is an awareness of the many layers sitting just below the surface, out of view. Phoebe Clarke mines the architecture of the Arts Centre, uncovering different guises the building has worn over the years. Selecting and abstracting features of the Australian Gothic building — staircases, fireplaces, limestone blocks — her textile interventions draw attention to the simple and enduring silhouettes of the structure. The gentle skins for the space shift with subtle movements, a reminder of the changes that are still to come.

Install is like a rupture. Every two months or so, we empty the galleries, and start anew with hope and ambition.

Hansdieter Zeh presents works on paper that use the process of décollage — removing layers of paper — making something of a space that has been cleared. Pasting these pieces directly to the walls, Hansdieter is conscious that the architecture of this building is designed to intimidate, to incarcerate, to punish and to stamp out the undesirable. This work proposes that wiping the slate clean will allow healing and growth to begin.

Install is like an early morning.

Walking across the cool, dewy grass, chatter and the tap, tap, whoosh of coffee-making drift from the cafe; inside, the song of Koolbardi in the courtyard echoes through the empty limestone hallways, as the building slowly wakes up. Phoebe Tran blends her technical skills in textile manipulation and electronic music making to produce an installation which captures the peaceful moments before the action of installation and maintenance. Tending to moss and sound, both harvested from the Arts Centre, Phoebe presents a backstage pass to witness the multisensory stillness of the building.

Install is like a conversation. Slowly over months and years, successive hangings and packings ebb and flow across your awareness, depositing understandings and precipitating questions. Rob Kettels offers a reply to Carbon Supremacy (2017) by Andrew Sunley Smith presented in Gallery 3 — the first install Rob worked. Where Andrew filled the gallery with charred, spent objects critiquing global consumption of fossil fuels, Rob thinks closer to home. Building on the artistic and political legacy of this room, brilliant, sparkling salt reflects that in WA it is desire for minerals driving the subjugation of our landscape.

Install is like a routine. The humble work of clearing the mess of process, to present the audience with a finished exhibition. Long-term textiles tutor and install technician Angela Ferolla thinks about this, and the historical clearing as a result of colonisation. The hallway floor is screen printed with a carpet of endemic plants whose tenancy of this site has been disrupted by the many waves of building and activity since the 1860s. Stitched sketches of individual plants provide an enduring presence in the face of vulnerability; a contrast to the footsteps of the audience which will slowly wear them from the floor.

Install is like a kaleidoscope. Colour, bodies and equipment unfold from the tool room to fill the galleries for an intense moment of action; shrinking back neatly into narrow shelves and casual time sheets hibernating for the run of the exhibition. Maxxi Minaxi May takes one of the simplest tools from the install kit — the ruler — to aesthetically size up the gallery. Arranged in repeating geometric patterns and lit to refract colour and shape around the space, this installation calls attention to the shifting nature of the Arts Centre building with each successive exhibition in the galleries and each use in its history.

Install is like a tuning fork. It sings when you hit it just right. Hugh Thomson’s composition of common install materials placed fastidiously in regular patterns builds a system which is called to action by the addition of moving parts.

Free falling ball bearings take paths of chance to produce a soundscape that is generative and randomised. Seeking the

euphoria of the moment that everything functions in harmony, Hugh illustrates the machinations as well as the outcome of this work, allowing process to take pride of place.

Install is like an apprenticeship. Each exhibition presenting a new job to learn on, and new teachers to guide the way.

Zev Weinstein takes this opportunity to apply some of the learnings from his repertoire, adapting his photo documentary practice to an immersive installation that brings together found objects and archival images. Unpacking a personal connection to the Rajneesh community — an infamous feature of Fremantle’s recent history — Zev centres his personal narrative and development through both reportage and construction.

Melissa McGrath Curator, writer and collaborator living and working from Boorloo Perth, Whadjuk Boodjar

Images left to right: Tyrown Waigana, Painting, 2021, wire, aluminium, polymer clay, acrylic paint, fabrics, 32 x 27 x 27cm. Rob Kettels, Mineral Rites (detail), 2021, salt, lighting gel, audio, acrylic paint, 437 x 890 x 539cm. Angela Ferolla, A particular garden before (detail), 2021, screenprinted and handpainted, acrylic paint on concrete, dimensions variable. Dan Bourke, Hit Counter (detail), 2020–21, single channel video on Raspberry Pi with camera, HTML, CSS, Javascript and Python, 20min. Hansdieter Zeh, The fertile ground (detail), 2021, inkjet print on archival paper, 240 x 180cm, printed by Joseph Landro, Fremantle. Photography by Rebecca Mansell

Sandpaper

Paper with an abrasive finish, used for smoothing or polishing surfaces. An essential tool for FAC install staff.

Please utilise this piece in your next project.