My Head is a Map

Printmaking is the art form traditionally considered the most democratic of all. The purpose of this artform has been to reproduce original artists' works at the most accessible price to the public. Because printmaking is also used as a large part of the commercial system, its misuse has left it as the artform put to most fraudulent use. Last weekend the Australian National Gallery held a printmaking symposium, along with the opening of My Head is a Map, A Decade of Australian Prints Celebrating 10 Years of the Gordon Darling Australasian Print Fund 1982-1992.

Well-organised in content and attracting a capacity attendance, it was yet another successful celebration coup for the ANG, due largely to the work of the Curator of Prints, Roger Butler. There still remains in printmaking a dilemma caused by the dual nature of printmaking's purpose. It causes a state of schizophrenia more obvious than in other art forms. Printmaking is easily seduced by its mechanical technicality which often opposes its message-bearing tradition. As a story-telling aid to illiteracy, the ease in circulation of the artist's print was useful as the medium to get church and political propaganda across to the people. Commercial advertising inherited that story when its puritan side as fine art called for divorce. Printmaking as a propaganda medium was referred to in the symposium last weekend, but not discussed or debated even though the political reality of the problem is demonstrated in the associated exhibition.

My Head is a Map is the Exhibition which takes its title from the work of the symposium's super star and opening performer, Mike Parr. Parr maintains a popularity within the institutionalised art industry comparable with Ken Done in the commercial one. It is the disturbance in that separated cultural approach that often motivates Mike Parr. The head in My Head is a Map refers to Parr's obsession with his approach to the drawn and printed self-portrait. He uses his own head as an unsentimentalised object for the exploration of the drawn and printed line. Parr's method can be seen in the "Head" exhibition in three enormous abstract prints where his head is merely a starting point.

Parr's more political approach was revealed further in his opening performance at the symposium. The artist seated on a dimly-lit stage delivered a piece of monotonous repetition of deliberated length. He placed from folio to his own face, consecutively, one hundred life-size portraits, with sound effects of sucking the portrait and blowing it out again, details of the one hundred drawings remained invisible in the darkness. It all kept the well-behaved art audience politely mesmerised. In a following talk, Parr better explained his approach to performance. In recollection of a now-notorious act performed in the early 1970s, it is photographically recorded in the massive biography on Mike Parr by West Australian historian and critic, Dr David Bromfield. The event was when Parr bit into his body with the intentional ferocity to draw a lot of blood. Parr is a captivating talker because of the dead-pan earnest way he attempts to communicate the complex obscurity of this work. He admits that in his bloodletting performance a less art-sympathetic audience would have found him certifiable. Instead, the audience turned from the subject of the artist to rowing amongst themselves — some taking a position that medical attention should be sought, others advocating non-censorship in order to maintain the integrity of art.

Performance reveals an aspect in Parr that has been the conditioner of his whole life. Partly incapacitated (he has one arm), his work overall displays enormous confidence. There is never a sign of self-doubt or pity. Every aspect of his work is objectified which can be seen in the large abstracts at the ANG. As Brom field's book demonstrates, it began in childhood. As with many painters, Mike Parr's concepts are translated by the printmaker as technical collaborator, as an artist he is not a technician. Printmaking, however, does have a consistency with the critical dilemma of his aspirations. Bromfield, as one of the few arts administrators who can write English, reveals in the first chapters of his book on Parr, the necessity of art as the medium for Parr's general life survival. Art then seems to dominate Parr's life as it does his admiring followers.

David Bromfield's earnest honesty is similar to Parr's so that he has at least created a believable life as art story. No matter what moral side we take on Pair's work, belief in what he is doing cannot be doubted, even if there is some prob lem with his well-behaved audience. <<VTEW Technology — Impacts on IN Print Imagery" was a talk given on the Friday afternoon of the Print Symposium by Ann Kirker, Curator of Prints at the Queensland Art Gallery. It was one of several talks by curators who maintain the deadly seriousness of Parr without the humanity of his vendetta.

There now exists a curatorial style which Ms Kirker demonstrated. A curatorial hero like Parr is primarily supported because he best demonstrates art as a continuing process, rather than a precious end object top product. Belief in cultural process rather than product is what separates fine art aspiration from the commercial. From the beginning of Modern Art, artists depended on themselves and crit ical writes for avant garde direction, a communicating tradition of feeding off each other where the finished object was still part of the process. It is not paint ing's fault in itself to be the glamorous art form as an expensive product, one that is seen as separate from the creative process, unlike printmaking. The curatorial speakers identified more with the new technology in reference to the "Head" exhibition, defining the artist as separated individuals. There is no longer a movement where it is noticeable that artists hand down infor mation, talk, or even bitch about one another. Debate or contrary views were com pletely lacking in the symposium. It gave the impression that, like curators' talks, the general politeness was due to a lack of belief in anything but the art process. Curators are now likely to feed off each other as artists once did. There is a marked tendency for them to like and dislike the same art and artists. This conformity might make paperwork easi er while searching for greater diversity in styles, the diversity that is lacking in the disciplined order of their institutional structure. THE organisational success of the Print Symposium ends up as sym bolic of an art industry that still believes it can afford to cheer on the recognition of the art and craft of individuals talents. Outside in the real world contempo rary artists know the party is over. Four yeas ago in Sydney I had my most suc cessful exhibition in 30 years of exhibit ing. In a present exhibition at the same place I am told I was lucky to sell a couple of drawings, although the open ing was just as well attended. Contemporary art is being abandoned even though investment in the interna tional market has strengthened. Con temporary art was not just an investment but a culture where the artist attempted to adapt to the reality in a rapidly-changing situation of modern living. Printmaking is no longer the cheaper method for the artist to participate so cially, as it is another art form that no longer contains a social story of commit ment. It is yet another form of become exclusively "artworld". Performance art, such as Mike Parr's, is often developed by artists through a situation of financial necessity when overheads make the continued creation of the art object impossible. It doesn't cost much to bite ourselves. Patronising handouts may be a humane inducement for retirement. A well-fed artist in a house might at least soften the anger, even though the gallery is full of unsold works.