artists getting crafty – and vice versa

It’s the Fringe Festival down here in (finally) sunny Melbs, so there are a few irregular happenings going down. I’ve had cause, and occasion, over the weekend to peruse the full festival programme. I found within a couple of interesting exhibitions, happening in spaces other than galleries, which were enough to get me thinking.

First up, Home is where the Craft is is happening in Cate Lawrence’s home. While the exhibition text on the Fringe site is a little all over the place, it does pose an interesting – and possibly somewhat confronting – opportunity to see a home as an alternative exhibition venue. I’m all for opening up my own place as a venue for collaboration or even craft gatherings (and of course it is routinely scattered with the detritus of my own artistic operations), but to have a bunch of strangers into my most private space for an exhibition? I plan on seeing the show this week to see how comfortable – or otherwise – this experience turns out to be.

Second up is a street based show called Subversion Therapy by artist Nick Ilton. He will also be exhibiting at Off The Kerb Gallery simultaneously, just in case all the other pieces disappear one must assume? I think the insurance policy is maybe unnecessary, but I guess we’ll soon see what stays and what goes…

For this show the potential ‘audience’ can sign up to a text message service (I wonder how expensive this will get? Better or worse than printing up invites?) to have the location of each work sms’d to them.

I think it’s really interesting to interrogate the idea that showing art involves placing it in a gallery. And Melbourne, with its protected graffiti and laneway commissions, seems a good place to just try putting it out there, to see what happens. What else can I say? I’ve signed up! See you on the streets…

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…and in news just to hand, via text message this morning I have been told that there is also a blog, and today’s location is “lygon st argyle square carlton”.