Exhibition floor talk | Retrotopia
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Output Type
Other
Publication Title
Exhibition floor talk | Retrotopia
Publisher
Edith Cowan University
School
School of Arts and Humanities; ECU Galleries
Description
Exhibition Statement | Retrotopia explores the direct effects of capitalism, on the small sole proprietor—Deli owners and subsistence farmers are discarded, and their personal and societal value undermined as the capitalist impulse moved into overdrive during the Global Financial Crisis and the current COVID-19 era. These works, consisting of paintings and retro-media, aim to reveal how nostalgia, through mass-media advertising, propagates the belief that desire-driven hyper consumerism can disguise our current dystopia. Fremantle based artist Mitchell, who was born and raised in Appalachia USA, knows first-hand how ‘big’ industry Capitalism exploits, and abandons whole sections of society, leaving those least able to adapt to endure in poverty and austerity. Mitchell posits consumerism as being the New Religion through mashup methods which juxtapose and merge disparate elements: figurative is spliced with abstract, street and studio techniques are dubbed with vintage and current visual technologies.
The title for this exhibition, Retrotopia, adopts philosopher Zygmunt Bauman’s concept to explore how nostalgia, through mass-media advertising, drives our desire to consume by conflating factual with fictional elements. Nostalgia can manipulate past memories into alternate realities, and, just as in the case of the Greek sirens, lure us through the promise of pleasure into self-destructive tendencies. The use of selective memory beguiles us into believing that contemporary dilemmas would resolve if only we could recreate the fantasy of a utopic past in the present.
This disparate pairing of outmoded and current technologies embodies Bauman’s transformation from solid modernity to liquid modernity: the flourishing solid modernity, a society of producers (roughly mid-20th century), transforming into and replaced by liquid modernity, a society of post-internet consumers.
Simultaneous fascination with and repulsion by rampant capitalism is reflected in the artworks through mash-up. In Mitchell’s images, Deli owners and subsistence farmers are overdubbed by Megastores and post-internet capitalism, evaporating into the economic austerity of our COVID-19 era.
The works embody the artist’s active engagement with existing retroscapes and creation of new mythologies in order to critique her own future anxieties, and her own desire to alleviate all discomfort through nostalgic escapism. Ultimately however, Mitchell invites the viewer to ponder their own personal and socio-political solutions in navigating liquid life, frenzied progress, marketing strategies and nostalgia epidemics.
Artist Bio | Laura Mitchell, hailing from Appalachia and anchored in Fremantle, is a contemporary artist and musician whose practice traverses these two locales. Her current practice-led PhD at Edith Cowan University (ECU), WA investigates use of digital music mashup methods in oil painting with imagery referred to as retroscapes, a tool used in nostalgia marketing. Theoretical frameworks are synthesised from art critic-historian Hal Foster’s theories on the impact of mass production-consumption cycles on art and artists and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman’s sociological theories of retrotopia and the survival of solid modern producers in today’s consumer-dominated liquid modernity.
Additional Information
Exhibition dates: 19 May - 21 Jul 2022 | Floor Talk: 11 May 2022 12.30 - 1.30pm