Director, Gallery A.S. & Publisher, Izrock Pressings
Time,
it seems, is a foreign concept to Joseph Allen Shea. In less than a decade, the
former graphic designer has established himself as integral to the health of
Sydney’s cultural landscape with a rich portfolio of curatorial, commercial and
publishing projects that challenge the established modes of traditional art
institutions. “I was getting so used to the small white cube approach to
exhibitions that I got to a point where I really wanted to try some more
ambitious things,” explains Mr Allen Shea, 34, of launching Gallery A.S.
following six years spent as gallerist at Monster Children. Under the banner of
Gallery A.S., the curator presents solo and group exhibitions in unusual
locations in a sort of rogue rebuttal to established galleries. Since 2010, Mr
Allen Shea has presented exhibitions of the work of artists including Daniel
Askill, Lisa Cooper and Anthony Lister in spaces such as a Christian Science
Church in Darlinghurst, the former Paramount Pictures building in Surry Hills,
and Cotton Duck, a restaurant in the same area. “It’s about spaces where you
wouldn’t expect to find contemporary art. Where there’s a conversation between
the architecture and the art.” This, he believes, allows the audience to
respond to the work in a way they might not otherwise in a more conventional
space. Given the culture that surrounds Gallery A.S. – a social scene
interconnected with Mr Allen Shea, the artists he presents and the projects he’s
directed – it stands to reason that such exhibitions should attract audiences
beyond traditional art patrons. A launch night night feels more like a Sydney
Festival event that it does an art opening, in line with the rise of
independent, offsite art programs that have come to define Sydney’s art culture
in recent years. But that said, and despite Mr Allen Shea’s relative youth as
an independent curator, there is a particular criticality in the way the
curates exhibitions which is so often lacking in the aforementioned public art
events. This, too, has something to do with the space acting as an interpreter
of sorts between the work and its audience; where the white gallery is intended
to fall away before the viewer, leaving just the artwork, Mr Allen Shea thwarts
this contemporary 20th century practice in favour of
an approach that is in some ways far more classical. In his first Gallery
A.S. exhibition, Modern Worship, Mr Allen Shea worked
collaboratively with the artist, filmmaker Daniel Askill, in steering a body of
work towards a unifying concept – worship, in this case – and sought an
exhibition space in which to present it. While he had in mind a church, the
curator was lucky in finding the recently-shuttered Christian Science Church:
an imposing, seemingly impenetrable building that has since been turned over to
a residential developer. That the artist’s single-channel video work – a
meeting of the two events that form the conceptual underpinning of the
exhibition: Michael Jackson’s death and the September 2011 terrorist attacks in New
York City – was screened in the pitch-black darkness of a church, replete with
pews, added a mournful reverence to the work. Similarly, the first
exhibition held at the former Paramount Pictures Building created a dialogue
between the space and the group works. Here, Mr Allen Shea researched the
building’s history – some say actors Bob Hope and Charles Heston have been
there – which subsequently informed his curation of the group show: motion
pictures-based. And just as he has stepped out of the box, so to speak, with
his approach to curation, so too is Mr Allen Shea unafraid to realise
exhibitions in tandem with commercial brands, as he did in late 2012 with a
three-day show, again at Paramount, commissioned by Adidas. “It is a world that
you have to gauge with a lot of diplomacy and ensure that everyone’s agendas
are harmonious,” he explains, “but in this case, Adidas were open to marketing
their brand by associating it with an art show.” In response, Mr Allen Shea’s show,
Synthesis, was made up of female artists whose work, in some way, connected to
Adidas’ business of sportswear: no work was statically hung on walls, but
instead comprised moving images or installations or sculptures that required
their audience to move around it. Traditionalists might argue that such
commercial underpinnings represent the demise of art’s pure intentions, but in
a post-critical art culture, and with contemporary artists more often working
outside of the regular bounds of the studio-to-dealer- to-buyer structure,
financial support like that of Adidas represents a new way to realise
interesting exhibitions. In doing so, it invites new audiences to engage with
art in a way that traditional art museums struggle to do. Mr Allen Shea
reaches an audience broader still with Izrock Pressings, an independent
publishing venture he established in 2007. This, he explains, was simply a way
of contributing to the subcultural art world with which he is engaged. “I got a
lot of enjoyment from seeing artists’ work but didn’t think they were being
seen. Though the distribution of a printed form, thousands more people have the
opportunity to engage with it.” The project remains ongoing, producing an
average of three to four projects on an annual basis, including small-scale
monographs by Jonathan Zawada, Rene Vaile and Marcus Oakley. Publishing, Mr
Allen Shea concedes, is challenging given the economic climate and thirst for
digital content. “But,” he says, “they’re important documentation. Historical
artefacts, in some ways.” That Izrock Pressings has been distributing
books globally for close to a decade has established Mr Allen Shea’s name far
beyond Australia, which will prove beneficial come September 2013 when he opens
a permanent gallery in Paris, Galerie Allen. “The idea,” he says, “is to create
a conversation between Paris and Sydney, taking Australian artists over there
and bringing European artists here,” though while the gallery will represent
its exhibiting artists commercially, he is keen to ensure it doesn’t become a
tokenistic Australian gallery. “Our Australianness will come through, but we
want it to be more than that.” As such, Mr Allen Shea will maintain an
independent curatorial agenda, creating offsite shows, too. “I feel as though
there’s great things happening here but, for the most part, people aren’t
looking at Australia, and we’re not well represented enough overseas," he
says. "I want to help change that.”
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