Avoiding Myth & Message

A frame hangs on a wall. Within the frame is a poem. Is this art, or just a framed poem? The poem asks you to imagine a rectangle with images in it: images of your choosing, images that make you happy. Okay, it's art. No, it's both.

This print by Robert MacPherson, 'Little Pictures for the Poor' (1983), is part of current MCA exhibition, Avoiding Myth and Message, which explores the relationship between the worlds of Australian art and literature from the 1970s to the present day.

"In the early 70s the intermingling of figures from the visual and poetic world was much more fluid than in the contemporary scene," says curator Glenn Barkley. "Also, the MCA collection started around then, so the period has a lot of significance for this exhibition."

Around 70 per cent of the pieces on show are drawn from the MCA's storehouse, with supplementary works on loan from the artists. They include some playful installations by Mike Parr that have not been displayed in their current configuration since they were shown at Sydney's Inhibodress Gallery in 1971. In 'Black Box of Word Situations (Version 3)', Parr shows just how much fun you can have with semiotics and a typewriter, creating a blue triangle using only the word "yellow" and bissecting a page with an unbroken line made up of the word "line".  

Poems are reproduced directly onto walls, and there's a series devoted to concrete (or visual) poetry. "Concrete poetry is a fusion between text and image and treats words, letters and punctuation as the medium of the work itself," explains Barkley. 'Iz az ez oz' (2008) by Melbourne performance artist TT O is a good example - seemingly random letters are printed on the wall in circles, while a video recording of the artist "reading" - or yodelling - the artwork loops next to it.

Christopher Dean's poem 'Concret Poetry (After Rudi Krausmann, 1975)' (1996-2009) actually forms part of the concrete floor. Vernon Ah Kee's 'Many Lies' (2004) has words cascading down an 11 metre wall. There's also an impressive selection of work by Vanessa Berry - a Sydney author who has created around 120 zines over the last 10 years. (The show coincides with the MCA's popular annual Zine Fair on Sunday 24 May.)

The title Avoiding Myth and Message is a quote from one of the poems in the show ('On the Beach' by John Forbes, 1977). According to Barkley, it's in reference to how artists saw themselves in the 70s. "They were becoming workmanlike, trying to negate the image of the romantic creative genius. They wanted to avoid that mythology." Sarah Theeboom