The latest issue of First Draft’s magazine Runway is out and it’s themed “escape”. At six dollars it’s cheaper than a round of drinks après opening and just as fun. Among the contributors is a very fine piece by Ella Barclay called Teen Flee in which she reproduces a letter she wrote to herself when she was 14 and which was not meant to be opened until she was 24. Inspired by an episode of Northern Exposure, Barclay wrote to her future self reminding her of her favourite TV shows, CDs and who her best friends were in 1995, then got down to some demands:
So, where are you? I hope by now that now you are a thin, well accomplished actress. Please don’t let me down on this one, PLEASE. I’ve wanted this since I was 8. I may seem very naïve and foolish when I say this but I have wanted nothing more tan anything. Since I was eight. It is my life, and it will be, I’m not going to screw this one up (have I?). Please say no. I hope you’re living the good life in new york, indulging in art, theatre, classical music, movies, food and punk/grunge concerts. Have you met Stephen Dorff? (He’s probably an arsehole, I know…)
It would be interesting to see the return letter Barclay writes to her 14 year old self to explain what happened and that Stephen Dorff is, by all accounts, an arsehole.
In another part of the magazine Iakovos Amperidis writes on his Afterlife Art Manifesto project.Using parodies of Australian Art Collector covers, Amperidis offers a deconstruction of AAC issue 30 and the cover which featured Shaun Gladwell standing waist deep in water, arms folded, beady eyes on the viewer. Speaking in the voice of Gladwell and TV Moore, Amperidis offers the following:
Becoming Gladmoore
In Australian Art Collector issue 30, I appear on the glossy front cover standing submerged in clear blue shallow water, and according to the title preceding my name I’m apparently “at the wavefront”. Given these few key visual metaphors one can imply a number of things:
1. I have risen from the depths of emerging art obscurity and anonymity into mainstream professional success.
2. The perfect wave has come round to catch me, guaranteeing me direct and up front commercial appeal.
3. The reference to waves and ocean water act as an extended promotional tool for my “dangerously sublime situations”.
4. This is just another nationalistic campaign of an Australian cultural identity in its most accessible form
5. I am the current fad, the token young new-media artist hotly pursued by key commercial galleries.
A combination of all the above readings is possible, though the desired interpretation is that I’m at the forefront of a collective movement in Australian art and that this natural force hitting the shores of the market is the sublime new-media force of I, who is readily available for consumption. This transparent sales promotion comes as no surprise considering Australian Art Collector is tailored to the art market. What happens when I’m represented in a high-end commercial art magazine and the Australia Council Support for the Arts Handbook? My presence produces a captivating facade capable of luring artists into a false sense of hope in so far as they see fit to mimic and position themselves within the narrative of an emerging artist going from rags to riches, from OZCO to Australian Art Collector, from a state of dependency to a state of autonomy and, more importantly, overnight. Clearly this is bullshit, but it is the language of hierarchy, the language of my industry, a language I am now all too familiar with. So be it, if I weren’t getting co-opted to promote this fairytale, it would’ve been someone else.
