Published April 2009
The Shock of the Old
It lies around us, ankle deep, the rich humus for current thoughts, actions, reactions – some think that overseas it’s up to their necks – the past that is. It’s up to us to gauge the depth though – to give it the gravity we choose, no matter what centre of cultural production we hark back to.
Is that the case? “The Old” – the smelly pair of socks we have to roll up and down. Not a burden, not necessarily a privilege but undeniably the thing that lies between what we walk on and the huge, dangerous ball spinning beneath our feet. In Australia the past and our history has been up for grabs in the rhetoric of politicians – ferreting their concerns ass-up in the high school syllabus. In our ‘Australian’ art the past beggars identity – driving us, through what has happened, to asking who we are.
This issue of Das Superpaper is looking at artists that find anchorage in the past, in the actions, events, traditions, techniques and values of days gone by. We are born from it and are forever making it but how are we relating to the past and what does the past mean to us?