Crackle: Contemporary Art from the Middle of Nowhere

NHHHHNNNHHNNNNNNNNNHHH . . . beep . . . crackle. That s the sound of the transporter's malfunctioning in Star Trek . . . Ten years ago I wrote of Callum Morton s work, that it was as if it had got stuck between two material conditions a slightly reduced platonic form and grim reality; as if it were beamed into the real world from faraway, but only partially. I still find this image of the transporter a concise coda for contemporary Australian art. Much of it falls between different conditions or states, as if 'beamed up' incompletely, or obliquely, or in some radical admixture, or into the wrong place or time, producing an unstable fascinating amalgam or situation. Stuart Koop Crackle showcases the work of seventeen contemporary Australian artists: James Angus, Kate Benyon, Pat Brassington, A Constructed World, Michael Doolan, Fiona Foley, Marco Fusinato, Simryn Gill, Andrew Hurle, Mathew Jones, Danius Kesminas, Callum Morton, Patricia Piccinini, Tim Silver, Ricky Swallow, Louise Weaver, and Ah Xian. It includes short essays on each artist by Stuart Koop and lots of pictures. Supported by the Besen Family Foundation.