Inherent Vice

• Mitchell Davis (alum)
• Lily Golightly 
• Drew Connor Holland (alum)
• Jahnne Pasco-White
• Katy B Plummer (sessional lecturer)
• Catherine McGuiness × Diane Pirotta 
• Victoria Atkinson
• Sadie Whalen (alum)
• Maryanne Coutts (former Head of Drawing)

Inherent Vice finds its title from an artwork of the same name by the late contemporary Australian artist John Barbour. Barbour borrowed the term ​‘inherent vice’ from museum conservationists who use it to refer to the tendency of a material or object to deteriorate due to an internal flaw. The quality of construction or the compatibility of materials within an object may impact its inherent vice. Textiles, for example, with their inclination to tear, stain, fade, wear, rip and pull, have a high index of inherent vice.

Barbour suggested his artwork functioned as a banner declaring its own material precarity. He explains, ​‘It is fragile – the voile fabric is delicate, the inks used are not lightfast, and the needlework is loose and unstable.’ 1 The artwork’s inevitable deterioration was embraced by Barbour, exhibiting what he called a process of ​‘unmaking’. 2 For Barbour, and evidently for many of the artists in this exhibition, this ​‘unmaking’ is inextricably tied to the materials used, the processes adopted or the ideas explored, and is not to be understood as an endpoint or a move towards completion, but instead as a form of making in and of itself. In Lily Golightly’s dyptich ​‘cosmic strings’, sheets of paper made from recycled cotton rag are drenched and painted, pierced repeatedly whilst sewn into and ornamented with buttons and beads. Jahnne Pasco-White’s ​‘the poetics of painting 2’ sees pieces of salvaged fabrics dyed, painted, stitched together to be later ripped apart, composed, deconstructed and reassembled in what is a seemingly endless loop. Drew Connor Holland removes old bed sheets from their original context, cuts them into pieces and layers them with pigments and mediums, creating a haunting object that seems to move backwards and forwards through time simultaneously. Through being poked and prodded, cut up and worked into, the artists get to know their materials, allow them room to speak and in turn, intrinsically understand them. The artists accept their materials as they come; faults, limitations, vulnerabilities and all.

Beyond a material impairment, a vice can also be understood as a moral fault or weakness. If one takes out the moralistic judgment, however, a vice is simply an indulgence in something pleasurable or enjoyable. In the context of this exhibition, vice can be seen in the shameless love of decoration and ornament and an indulgence in bright, shiny things. Ornament and decoration can often be seen as frivolous in a fine art context, immature or superficial, but as made clear by many of the exhibiting artists, decoration is fun, and fun is important. Artworks by Catherine McGuiness in collaboration with Diane Pirotta are a testament to the seriousness of fun. The works are sophisticated. They are sentimental, full of narrative and complex in their combination of incongruous materials – placing possum fur next to sequins is as surprising as it is beautiful – but most of all, they are undoubtedly full of joy.

Similarly full of pleasure are Sadie Whalen’s fallen towers of discarded objects. Whalen’s collections are like bounties of treasure, mountains of bright and shiny things, golds and hot pinks sitting comfortably next to gravel and dirt. Sometimes trash is beautiful. Of course, it is inextricably tied to late-capitalist overproduction and consumption and, in turn, the climate crisis we exist within, yet despite this, trash can be seductive and alluring all the same. In the words of Oscar the Grouch, ​“I’ve a clock that won’t work, and an old telephone, a broken umbrella, a rusty trombone, and I am delighted to call them my own! I love them because they’re trash.”3

In a similar story of love, or perhaps more accurately, desire against reason, Katy B Plummer’s video work and installation follows a lioness who, against animal instinct, forms a lustful attraction to a lamb. Soft furnishings, tufted rugs, curtains and beautifully sewn costumes surround the narrative, creating a whimsical and tactile environment for the story to come to life. Similarly, Victoria’s beautifully ornamented dream home, made up of window and door cutouts, colourful embroidery, plastic flowers, beads, fluorescent green rope and bursts of gold tinsel, provides safekeeping for two animated video works that express a desire for romantic love. Like in both of these works, textiles wrap around us too. Textiles keep us safe, warm and comfortable. They are a material we are in contact with almost the entirety of our lives, allowing us to move through the world expressing ourselves, our dreams and desires.

With a material such as textiles, the more one interacts with it, the faster it will diminish, accruing holes, stains and tears. These stains and tears are what artist and theorist Hito Steyerl, in her essay A Thing Like You and Me (2010), refers to as the object’s ​‘bruises’; the traces or markers of its physical interactions. 4 Accruing bruises from production, use and eventual disposal, textiles are a type of embodied archive of their encounters. On close inspection, one can find the bruises in both Maryanne Coutts’ and Mitchell Davis’ works; signs pointing to how the textiles were once used, where they may have come from, who once owned them. The textiles transcend their ontological state as simply an assemblage of pieces of fabric stitched together, becoming pieces of a world; worlds upon worlds.

The value of textiles is ever-fluctuating. They fall victim to complex, unstable social and geopolitical factors, as well as economic conditions, art and craft hierarchies, fashion trends and personal taste. Beyond the contentious relationship between textiles and value is their inherent vice; they are difficult to archive considering their proclivity to mark, stain and collect dust. They stretch, fray, and fade if consistently exposed to light. Yet, despite all of this, or in the case of many of the exhibiting artists, because of all of this, some gravitate towards them. Their stubbornness to do as textiles do, often against the will of the artist, is what makes them a fruitful material. Fun, alive and playful.

Amelia Skelton 
(artist and curator of Inherent Vice)

1 ​“John Barbour, Inherent Vice, 2005−06”, The Museum of Contemporary Art, accessed 6 May, 2022,  https://​www​.mca​.com​.au/​a​r​t​i​s​t​s​-​w​o​r​k​s​/​w​o​r​k​s​/​2​0​0​6.43/. 
2 John Barbour, ​“A Note: Inherent Vice” in John Barbour: Hard/​Soft, ed. Ewen McDonald (South Australia:  Australian Experimental Art Foundation, 2011) . 
3 Jeff Moss, ​“I Love Trash,” performed by Caroll Spinney as Oscar the Grouch, Sesame Street, first broadcast 1970. 
Note: The first time I heard this song was during a beautiful performance by a dear friend at Karaoke. The performance and the song deeply resonated with me and frequently comes to mind. 
4 Hito Steyerl, ​“A Thing Like You and Me,” E‑flux Journal, 15, (2010): 
https://www.e‑flux.com/journal/15/61298/a‑thing-like-you-and-me/