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Live in Your Art (polystyrene, 3M floor tape & Index project space). Detail of polystyrene wall fixtures. Photo: Alex Wissar

Opening 18 December 2010. Open until 23 December, 10am-5pm, and by appointment: ph 02 9590 7704 before coming

Index 60 Hutchinson St. St Peters 2204

 

Live in Your Art tries to resolve the white cube 's ambivalence towards the human body's need for living space, by taking the lead of INDEX.space and trying to ignore it (ie., the ambivalence). INDEX.space is both a place in which to show art and a place in which to live and work, and Live in Your Art tries to be doubly site-specific by mimicking this dual use as well as some more formal aspects of the building. It does this by shifting the couch, the bar, the dog etc to make some site-specific art on the floor and walls, and then returning them to where they were found. As well as creating a nice reversal of the public art convention by plonking the (accoutrements of) life on the art, it experiments with the possibility that it may not be so hard to share the space by 'simply' recognising the different aspect of it that each uses.   

The more formal site-specific art is made by reproducing two other elements found in the project space--one of its walls and an open metal box left behind by a previous occupant. The inside of the outer warehouse wall--specifically its out-dents, drainpipe and powerpoints--is reproduced on the outside of the recently built studio walls in polystyrene forms that are reduced to 77% of those on the outer wall, reflecting the different heights of the two walls. While waiting for the polystyrene forms to arrive from Wetherill Park, the metal box located on top of the old part of the studio structure was drawn isometrically on the ground from four positions, a possible advance on the tradition of the three graces, as Lesley Giovanelli suggested. Once installed, the polystyrene forms made the studio wall appear slightly surreal. When seen paired with the original outer-wall, however, it creates a cosy back-lane type of space in which people can play the familiar gallery game of walking around and puzzling over abstract shapes.