et al.
et al.’s neo-brutalist playground
et al.’s work has always been rife with conflicts and misdirection, and impossible to pin down. It’s hard to distinguish what’s crucial, what’s contingent; what’s signal, what’s noise. While the collective famously engage in postmodern play with personae, persistently exhibiting under noms-de-plume and sidestepping interviewers, the work is instantly recognisable, astonishingly consistent even signature in style and content. et al. may use conceptual art formats and trowel on philosophy citations, yet, perversely, beneath this, the work feels almost expressionist—emphasising mood and sensibility. The work is haunted by ‘authority’ figures, but are they being celebrated or mocked? The work is full of references to things institutional, but it is never clear whether et al. are at war with the institution, conspiring with it, or both. et al.’s refusal to reveal their identity is promoted as a fighting-the-power, not playing the art system’s name-game, but it could equally be an assertion of institutional politics, an evocation of top secrecy and strictly-need-to-know-basis.
Of course et al.’s work is not exactly about analysing or attacking real institutions. It doesn’t offer concrete insights into al-Queda, Rio Tinto, Opus Dei or the Bush Government. It’s a fantasy, one cobbled together from motifs from dystopian literature, movies and art. From such sources et al. have perfected a bleak grungy aesthetic; a signature scenography; a penchant for detention camp decor; a dark world of monitoring devices, clipboards and desklamps. The mesh enclosures and brooding atmospheres of et al.’s recent installations allow the artists—and ourselves—to explore inner conflicts over authority. We can play prisoners or warders. We can rail against the system or perversely over-identify.
et al. give us cause to think that perhaps that eternal bogey, 'the institution', was only ever a fantasy, one which answers our needs, even as, and especially when, we feel ourselves done wrong by it. Which may be why some of us can only feel truly ourselves, only know ourselves, only feel release, when constrained. Prisons are us.
Robert Leonard
This text is an edited excerpt from Robert Leonard’s essay ‘et al.’s neo-brutalist playground’, et al. the second of the ordinary practices, Brisbane: Institute of Modern Art, 2006. Reproduced with the kind permission of Robert Leonard and the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
et al. exhibition info:
Selected solo exhibitions include: ‘the second of the ordinary practices’, IMA, Brisbane (2006); 'fundamental rekenenm - Nieuw York', Saatchi & Saatchi Gallery, New York (2006); 'fundamental rekennen Nieuw York - Auckland', Starkwhite, Auckland (2006); 'in the national interest - l budd & blanche readymade', Jonathan Smart Gallery, Christchurch (2006); 'the fundamental practice', New Zealand Representative, The 51st Venice Biennale 2005, Venezia (2005); ‘Invalidity of hermeneutic: Methods of Investigation' , Museum de Paviljoens, Almere, The Netherlands (2004); et al., 'abnormal mass delusions? blanche ready-made trust, bud shoop, cj (arthur) craig and sons, constance strange, l budd, lillian budd, lionel b, marlene cubewell, menerva betts, merit gröting, mythic investments (nz) ltd, p mule and popular productions.’, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth (2003).
Selected group exhibitions include: ‘SCAPE 2006 Biennial of Art in Public Space’, Christchurch Art Gallery, Christchurch (2006); ‘Walter’s Prize’, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland (2004); 'the seventeen practices'. Antipode: The Greenhouse, Mediankunst aus Neuseeland, ProKaB. Frankfurt am Main, Germany (2004); ‘Telecom Prospect 2004: New Art New Zealand’, City Gallery Wellington (2004); 'Public/Private', 2nd Auckland Triennial, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland (2004); ‘nine lives', Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, Auckland (2003).
Image credits:
et al.
further to the national interest 2006
audio and visual components, troffers, digital texts, neon tubes and metal easels
Courtesy of ibid industries