#BYOM (BUILD YOUR OWN MUSEUM)
#BYOM (BUILD YOUR OWN MUSEUM)
The Lytlewode Press | Melbourne
2017
ISBN 1905611919, 9781905611911
Picture peepshow (6 double-sided panels), colour and black & white inkjet illustrations, bespoke clamshell box with blocking to spine and badge on front. Edition of 100.
21 x 31 x 4 cm
Box 24.1 x 32.4 x 5.2 cm
Kunsthaus Melbourne is a photomontage construction that borrows from the format of a Victorian picture peepshow. This imaginary museum examines the way in which we are subject to art fashions, as curators dictate them. The new museum is based on architectural elements of the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), housing many iconic and controversial avant-garde artworks, many of them particular to Melbourne. Its intimate peepshow format invites the viewer to look into its galleries through the NGV’s archway entrance, and its concertina sides (featuring the NGV’s iconic Leonard French stained glass ceiling) allow the museum to be folded down flush for transport or storage.
The six frames pay homage to the traditions of photomontage, both in the method of scalpel blade and glue, and in the representation of political (rather than aesthetic) concerns. The individual frames and galleries represent concerns from the post-human (genetic engineering as seen by Patricia Piccinini), late capitalism and branding (artworks notable for their commercial value and the “exit through the gift shop”), performance art and the interactive “selfie,” and finally the nude in Western art from a feminist viewpoint (the Guerrilla Girls 1989 poster “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?”). The social media hash tag #BYOM allows the author to become both artist and curator and bring together many iconic and infamous works of art that have become poignant in collective memory.