We are naturally very paranoid people. Over at First Draft Gallery the exhibition Turning Tricks: Old-School Magic by New School Artists kicked off last Thursday night, curated by Soda_Jerk and featuring the work of a number of young artists including Hannah Furmage. We’ll be reviewing the show on Thursday but for now, something else is in the wind. Furmage’s art work, A Groundbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, features a video installation of the artist interviewing a junky at The Wall in Darlinghurst and on a plinth encased in rock hard acrylic, what looks to be about a quarter gram of heroin.
On the way out of the gallery we mentioned to the people manning the desk that we’d be bitterly disappointed if it turned out that the heroin wasn’t real. On the contrary, we were assured, Furmage is an extreme artist and it was probable that she’d go the whole way and include real drugs. What’s more, the nice people said, they’d already had calls from John Laws producers at 2UE and some hack from the Daily Telegraph. Ooh, we thought, media outrage!
Expecting a bite, we scanned the page of the weekend press and the web and found nothing. Then we received this anonymous email:
“So when she’s not floating in a water tank for 7 hours with live eels and strutting around like a pseudo rock styled rebel, she’s buying smack on the street and exhibiting it on a plinth in ‘Turning Tricks’ Firstdraft Gallery. Does anyone else find the attention seeking antics of Hannah Furmage to be juvenile and more than a little naff?”
We had the distinct impression that we were being played. Yes, naff and juvenile and look-at-me, but also knowing in an excruciatingly undergrad style and designed to create a “media storm”. Maybe we’re just paranoid, maybe the whole thing is a coincidence, but we’ve only this to say: careful what you wish for government funded arts organisation – if Laws and pals get a hold of this, it could be curtains for First Draft.
