When Good Curators Go Bad & Sixty Kilograms

Overview

This may shock you, but not all people who have Fine Arts qualifications end up as successful practising artists. I know, right? Who'da thought it. When Good Curators Go Bad is an exploration of what happens to the people who get degrees in art and are working in the arts but not as artists. "Was there a point?" the exhibition asks, and "What are you doing now?" and "Hey, wanna be in a show?" Conceived by Michael D'Agostino, who is Studio Co-ordinator at Parramatta Artists' Studios, the show features artists who are known for their careers as arts professionals. Kon Gouriotis is director of visual arts for the Australia Council, for instance, Lisa Havilah is CEO of CarriageWorks, and Bec Dean Michael Rolfe is CEO of Museums & Galleries NSW. These are people who are doing pretty well. But, one must ask, is it ART?

What art is comes up in a slightly different way in Jodie Whalen's Sixty Kilograms, a body of work that take the 'body' part of that phrase very seriously. The title comes from a weight that falls into the ideal zone for Whalen as calculated by BMI, and her work investigates and documents regimen and ritualisation as part of an attempt to 'succeed' both in reaching this 'ideal' weight and having her work displayed in an art gallery. It's a performance - including a live performance in the gallery space - but it's also a crossover between art practice and 'real life.'