Artists:
Antoniahhhh
Alden Epp
Bill Hawkins
Bridget Griffiths
Carla Milentis
Adelle Mills
Joshua Stevens
Kieren Seymour
Sheehan Hunter
Yuki Kishino
Guts Salon was held in a building that formerly housed a clinic offering beauty treatments and cosmetic procedures. Located just off Toorak Road in Melbourne, and behind prestigious selective school Melbourne High, the space spanned two floors. The lower storey was a ground level carpark and clinic foyer. The upper level had the decorative finishings of an average late 1990s office, and was comprised of 23 treatment rooms, a reception/waiting area, and a stairwell.
"Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of our Lives" - opening theme quote from Days of Our Lives, the longest running scripted television show of all time. NBC, 1965-present.
Guts Salon will express the authenticity of the fear of the passing of time, and both the material consequences and attendant emotions of that fear. It will be a representation of the markers of time's passage that are gladly released - ejaculations, phlegm, puke - and those that are helplessly repressed - grey hairs, wrinkles, memories of lost things, and the failure of relationships. These are things the bourgeoisie have time to mourn but not enough money to adequately prevent.
The social avoidance of the ostensibly depressing reality that the universe is meaningless/your body is decaying/ you will die, by injecting, masking, consuming and coveting superficial perfection takes a lot of energy. The tension between that energy and the relentless energy of time's steady march forward is something we would like to make some art about :-)
The show will make plain that the fear of death(s) - tiny and immense - is the ultimate fear that is the silent answer to every question, and lean the melodrama of this realization. We can only see that answer if we embrace a soupçon of naiveté , of sentimentality in that which is passé.
"Eh eh eh" - Rihanna, 'Umbrella'. Good Girl Gone Bad. Def Jam 2007.
Guts Salon will acknowledge that, in a clinical sense, things that do not die become Toxic, Cancerous. The stubbornness or evasion... denial of the flesh with all it's religious overtones, will undercut the exhibition.
“Lose Yourself” - you only have one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime, you better - " Eminem, 'Lose Yourself'. 8 Mile Soundtrack. Interscope 2002.
Curated by William Hawkins, Carla Milentis and Space Space Gallery
Documentation: Lauren Dunn