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FOUND OBJECTS - as well as a last word on the etching process. In the ‘deadly serious light-hearted’ humane spirit of Marcel Duchamp (& perhaps also Kurt Schwitter’s MERZ) the following is a series of some of the found objects that one has come across in the discourse of everyday life as well as other observations which have been included on the ‘chance’ realization that the exhibition is to be coincidentally held 100 years and - in the same month - since the first performance of the Dadaists at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. The production and random acquisition of found objects fuels the free market capitalist economy which is akin to a cargo cult. It should also be mentioned that much of the subject matter chosen for the etchings are ‘found objects’ which have been discovered in the Australian bush and elsewhere. One should not have to entertain the notion that a found object need always be a human made thing although in many of the images this is what is presented. It should also be noted that the etchings also involve an element of chance in their creation in the manner that a high level of randomness is allowed to have an opportunity to be included in the production of the final image. With this in mind one feels the best advice ever given about etching was over twenty five years ago by a wizened printmaker who had a café art shop in Bangalow (now in Brunswick Heads although he may be gone now…) who said he would just leave the etching plate in the acid bath and go off and have a beer before bothering to check on it. Thus involving a very human element in his artwork rather than following a strict technocrat procedure fraught in turning one into a mere ‘human machine’. One would hope that spontaneity, chance, instinct and human emotion still remain as basic motivations and ‘skills’ for art - alongside analytical thought, rather than ‘submerged’ by it. Furthermore one considers the greatest skill in etching is actually patience. The found object of this orange typewriter which was used to type up the original exhibition list.
Brunswick Heads bus shelter mural found object.
Found Annandale domestic space with leadlight.
Wheels of fate. A video clip of moving wheels.