Mrs Iris Frame is going to be bigger than Elvis Presley. She told the author so herself. Her dream is to establish a museum of her life's work on her property just like Gracelands.
Exhibition review it (ca) speaks...it (ca) sucks. "i(t) too was drag(g)ed into this sub-plot"
Installation by Jyanni Steffensen
Experimental Art Foundation
Adelaide South Australia
6 August - 6 September 1992
As a sculptor working in metal I have been interested for some time in combining plants with the hard surfaces of copper and steel. The issues involved in using shrubs and trees are many, including that the work isn't trivialised or lacking in credibility, transport and of course storage.
Disillusioned with the contemptible familiarity of our environment in the South Australian School of Art a group of fellow students and I decided to take our art somewhere else. So, displaced and gung-ho, our controversial creations in tow, we set off to Broken Hill, the self proclaimed art capital of Australia.
The popular understanding of the so-called 'insane' artist cannot be summarised better than in the schmaltzy lyrics of 'Vincent' written and sung by Don McLean in the 1970s. He plaintively chides those who misunderstood the living Van Gogh and charges them with the responsibility for his suicide.
Artists of the modern era have always been fascinated by the primitive, be it the obsession of the surrealists, futurists and modernists for the art of the Negro, the passion of a handful of British in the 60s for the work of the Cornish primitive Alfred Wallis or Jean Dubuffet's exploration of children's art and the art of the asylum which he termed Art Brut.
The diversity of work found in the art of everyday life transgresses many of the implicit boundaries about art practice laid down by the art world. Other art meets all the criteria by which we usually evaluate art works such as skill, commitment and self-expression yet is rarely seen in a gallery context. In order to recover meaning and value for the art of everyday life the question must be asked: why have these artists been marginalised by the art world?