2009 AAANZ Conference Abstracts - The Art Association of Australia ...

ohemian community caused by artists living and working in
the area. Artists are the avante-garde of gentrification, explains
Lucas Ilhein, a member of the controversial artist run initiative
(ARI) Squatspace. David Ley, a researcher and theorist on
gentrification and social geography, states that gentrification
instigated by artists involves the exact same trajectory as
the classic Duchamp transformation of garbage into found
objects: the movement of a place, from junk to art and then
onto commodity. It’s a catch 22 situation though, as once the
gentrified community move into the suburb, it is no longer
affordable for those whom created the desirable and fashionable
bohemian community originally.
Artists have reacted to lack of available space in a multitude of
ways, including finding abandoned properties and ‘squatting’ till
forcefully removed, such as in the case of Squatspace in NSW,
to grouping together and collectively getting into exorbitant
amounts of debt and purchasing a venue, as did the founders of
the Red Rattler in Sydney’s Marrickville.
Amy Griffiths is currently undertaking a Master of Art
Administration Honours at COFA and her thesis is titled, The
Systemisation of Australian Artist Run Initiatives. Formerly, she
was the gallery manager of Sydney ARI, Chalk Horse. Currently,
Griffiths works in the marketing and communications department
at COFA. In addition she works freelance, managing artists,
occasionally teaching art to school students, and at times writing
for various publications.
3. Museums in Transit: An Examination of the Growing
Collaboration Between Museums and Airports
Dr Melissa Laing
In July 1999 the San Francisco Airport Museums was accredited
by the American Association of Museums. At this time Marjorie
Schwarzer, writing for the American Association of Museums
publication Museum News posed the following questions:
“Have museum professionals recognized the airport as the
new downtown, a worthy locale for a museum’s offerings Are
airports a viable setting for museums striving to reach out to the
elusive global community Or, in our ambitions to be expansive,
are we, by accrediting commercial airports as appropriate
containers for museums, just stretching the definition of museum
thinner and thinner”
My paper addresses these questions through an analysis of
different approaches incorporating museum practices in the
airport. These practices fall within a number of sub groups
of which I will focus on three: the independent museum
at the airport, represented by the San Francisco Airport
Museums; satellite branches of museums at airports such as the
Rijksmuseum at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam; and temporary
collaborations between airports and museums, for example the
2008 exhibition of contemporary art, Shifting Identities - (Swiss)
Art Now occurring at the Kunsthaus Zurich, the Zurich Airport
and in the city centre.
These kinds of collaborations between two institutions with
divergent needs can be very productive for both in terms of
building civic and institutional status and attracting customers/
audiences. Yet they have the potential to fail, or rather corrupt
each others goals and principals. On one hand the airport aims
to use culture to create a safe and entertaining environment
for their passengers, and on the other hand museums have a
mandate to critically use and interpret the objects and site with
which they engage. The successes and compromises of these
airport based exhibition practices will be used to look forward
to the possibilities and pitfalls of the growing practice of cooperation
between museums and airports.
Melissa Laing (PhD, University of Sydney, 2008) is an artist
and theorist. Much of her work critics the social and political
implications of civil aviation through the intersection of art
and theory. Also of particular interest to her are (in)security
discourses in contemporary society. She is currently employed
by the ST PAUL St Gallery, AUT University, Auckland, New
Zealand. www.melissalaing.com
4. conTemporary Solutions – The Provisional Kunsthalle
as a Catalyst for the Contemporary Arts Centre
Dr Damian Lentini
The previous decade has seen an unprecedented rise in the
construction of large-scale contemporary art centres. Somewhat
erroneously referred to as “Kunsthallen”, a defining characteristic
of these sites is their dismissal of the need to assemble and
maintain a permanent collection of works; instead focusing
on the staging of an ever changing series of contemporary
exhibitions and events.
Although this model of art centre has several obvious advantages
when compared to a more conventional museum institution, their
construction is nevertheless usually accompanied by a great deal
of debate concerning their cost, look, function or place within the
city’s already-existing cultural landscape.
One recent method that cities have employed to offset some
of these concerns involves the construction of a ‘provisional’
contemporary art centre at or near the site of the permanent
institution in the period leading-up to its opening. Generally
assuming the guise of a contemporary pavilion, these provisional
sites are seen to offer the public a preview of the types of
activities that will occur at the larger centre; thereby nullifying
concerns about the ‘alien’ nature of these institutions, as well as
providing the city in question with a valuable device in which to
gauge local interest in the project.
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