So Artbank has moved. Ostensibly to a more retail friendly precinct, although I think that the whole Danks Street area has has never really lived up to the early hype. One of the benefits of the new space is they have a gallery area where they are now putting on shows from the stockroom. Their latest is called Visible Storage (I get it) and features over 200 works on yellow walls, cause why not, yellow.
Artspace says this show contains emerging, mid-career and established. Known and unknown. Although, it leans a little more heavily to the unknown to this punter. And the room sheet is pretty hard to navigate with show this big. On the recognisable front I clocked a Mitch Cairns and a Michael Lindeman. I recognised the Cairns from my tour to Artbank a few years ago. Liked them both and you could rent them together for $550 for the year. Actually that was the deal for this show, any 2 works were just over 5 hungy. 3 works $770, 5 works for $1,100 and you are getting the picture this scale went right up to $27,500 for the whole room! That sounds like a good deal but upon getting home and taking a spin around the leasing part of their website you'll find quite a few works for under $200. Not bad. They were a few empty spaces - Artspace is letting you walk off with the art and they are putting a small notice in its place - although I get the feeling that is not necessarily the whole point of the exercise from Artbank's perspective, just making some of their stored works visible I guess!
Points: To be honest I was a little overwhelmed with the choice on offer so I am going straight to the short list. 3 points for Paul White's 'Just off Sunset' 2007 (middle), I love a good illustrated panel van! And I am also a sucker for text in art, so 2 points for Matthew Hunt's text heavy 'Heartfield' series from 2006 (selection above). I liked the style of 'Back Lash' although I would be putting 'Hula Hula' straight in the tiki bar. Lastly, I am going back to the turn of century for a bit of socialist kitsch. Graham Blondel taking the 1 point for 'Workers Collective' (pictured top).
