Bridget Stehli, Bridie Connell, Ellen Virgona, Gabriella Lo Presti, Jazz Money, Kansas Smeaton, Kitty Callaghan, Min Wong, Rolande Souliere, Tanya Linney & Zara June Williams
STOCKROOM
'Candy Apple Grey' is a group exhibition programmed by guest curator Sebastian Goldspink, featuring; Bridget Stehli, Bridie Connell, Ellen Virgona, Gabriella Lo Presti, Jazz Money (appears courtesy of The Commercial Gallery), Kansas Smeaton (appears courtesy of COMA Gallery), Kitty Callaghan, Min Wong (appears courtesy of Hugo Michell Gallery), Rolande Souliere, Tanya Linney & Zara June Williams (appears courtesy of COMA Gallery).
Do you Remember?
The day you left me, left me feeling oh so bad
Baby, I'm not sure about all the doubts we had
From the beginning we both knew it wouldn't last
Decisions have been made, the die has been cast...
Don’t Want to know if you are lonely
- Hüsker Dü, 1985
When I was coming of age in the late 80s in Sydney, I was starting to discover what would go on to be called ‘alternative music’. I would spend my weekends skateboarding in the city and going to record shops. Albums were expensive and in an era before streaming, decisions were final and sometimes costly. There was nothing worse than spending six hours’ wages on a single album only to have it disappoint. To circumnavigate this risk, younger people such as myself would ask older people about albums. Record store staff were nearly universally judgemental towards 14-year-old kids. This was also a time where people were wearing a lot of band t-shirts. I remember seeing this cool older guy in a t-shirt emblazoned with the words Hüsker Dü. This guy looked so together and confident that I went to a record store and looked to see if they had any albums from this band. They had one. 1985’s Candy Apple Grey. I bought it without listening to it. I went home, put it on and still listen to it today. I remember sitting in class on Monday and getting a Liquid Paper pen and writing the band’s name on my school pencil case, complete with umlauts. I had found my favourite band.
This exhibition brings together a disparate group of 11 artists that are unified simply because I am interested in them. I like their work and follow their practices on social media. Some of them I’ve worked with for a decade, others I’ve never worked with before. In thinking what someone like me does, a curator, I have always maintained that the starting point is fandom. Being a fan. As with my teenage explorations in music, it is an ongoing process of developing. I went from Hüsker Dü to the Jesus and Mary Chain to Public Enemy to Ministry and so on. When I was young, although I loved art, I never wrote artists names on my pencil case. It was music that defined me. Perhaps I was still in that phase that extends from childhood where we still draw, we still create. Teenage years are where this transitions into adulthood and post school life, where the idea of turning up to work with a pencil case, let alone one with your favourite band on it doesn’t seem right. We stop making, we stop creating. However, artists, heroically continue this impulse. They respond to their world, their thoughts and outside stimuli and render it physically and conceptually.
This exhibition is framed by nostalgia. Not a nostalgia for a particular time but a nostalgia for nostalgia. Inherently bitter-sweet and intoxicating. Some of the artists directly reference this. Some works are brand new, and some represent earlier periods in their practices. For me, as a fan, I get to craft this show and see these voices in the same room.
The reality of adulthood, I feel, sometimes weighs heavily on us all and although teenage years are often confusing and alienating, in retrospect they represent a time of possibility, where we feel closer to something fundamental. We listen harder, we see sharper, and we feel deeper. Something I hope that visitors to this show will do.
Sebastian Goldspink, Curator