The Shilo Project

Overview

He ain’t heavy, he's Neil Diamond. People like his songs, his shirts and his album covers. Chris McAuliffe, director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art at Melbourne University, liked the cover of Shilo enough to curate an entire exhibition devoted to it.

One hundred artists were sent copies of the record sleeve, which has a connect-the-dots of Diamond's face against a white background. The results are as varied as you would expect. Some have connected the dots with string, paper or paint, others have obscured them entirely or collaged around them. There is a lot of crosshatching, a lot of colour and a lot of string.

The exhibition is light and fun, and the artists have obviously enjoyed creating their contributions, but the works would benefit from a bit of backstory. Perhaps it's against the artistic spirit, but I wanted to know why Adam Cullen sees Neil Diamond as the devil or why Mitch Cairns used brown paper words. Some of the artists are interviewed in videos, but these are too reminiscent of Behind the News to be informative.

Some of the greatest works in the show are original covers, found in op-shops, which the previous owners have taken to with pencil or blue biro. Anonymous #8 shows Diamond with fangs, a nose ring and a goatee and features the words "Greg 'O' co-starring Real Rage Material", while Anonymous #4 leaves him with a feather earring and a love bite helpfully labelled "love bite" — artistic interpretation at its homemade best.

Catch the curator's talk with Dr Chris McAuliffe, Director, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, on Sunday, July 11, at 3pm.