A Fictional Retrospective: Gertrude’s First Decade 1985 – 1995

There was a feeling that this was a place for us as a generation.
– Melinda Harper

We were young and full of the devil, and we wanted to make something happen.
– Jon Campbell

When 200 Gertrude Street opened in 1985 it quickly became a focus for the creativity and aspirations of a generation of young artists. When asked for their reflections, those who exhibited or had studios during the gallery's first decade passionately conveyed Gertrude's pivotal role in fostering community and the enduring impact of the opportunities provided. One artist recalls thinking, 'Gertrude would change the world!' while another was, 'over the moon,' when their exhibition application was accepted. Many remember the newfound camaraderie that developed among artists, curators and writers at Gertrude. The building was rambling, not swish, but it felt like 'an energetic and challenging force,' and the place where many saw 'their most instructive and important shows.' Someone noted that 'friends and lovers, allies and enemies, changed places with great rapidity.' Several artists credit 200 Gertrude Street with launching their careers through the support they received and their involvement in the gallery's programs.'

So how to convey all of this in a single exhibition? With a depth of riches to draw from it is surely an impossible task. We are honoured to curate this exhibition and especially touched to have been invited by Gertrude as a mother-daughter pairing. Coming from different generations, we bring unique perspectives to this curatorial challenge. One of us experienced Gertrude's programs first-hand in the 1980s and 1990s, while the other views this formative period through the lens of today. We have called our survey A Fictional Retrospective in acknowledgment that our account is necessarily incomplete-a fiction of sorts woven together from excerpts, fragments or glimpses into Gertrude's early years. We borrowed our title from Melbourne artist and curator Sandra Bridie, referencing her long-term project of creating fictional artists. This began at Gertrude in 1991 with Bridie's exhibition Susan Fielder: A Fictional Retrospective, curated by Kevin Murray. This survey of paintings, supposedly by Fielder, with accompanying interpretative texts, a biography and even an artist's photo were all entirely fabricated. As curators what interests us is Bridie's exploration of the construction of authorship and the narratives that shape our understanding of art and artists.

Our exhibition is shaped around themes characteristic of our focus decade that speak to today's concerns-cultural and artistic identities; painting both figurative and abstract; the staged and cinematic. We have included artworks that were either exhibited at Gertrude during these years or produced during a studio residency, and in cases where such works were inaccessible or no longer exist, we have chosen a related or indicative example. Our approach recognises that there is no universal truth to the telling of history, and that subjectivity and chance will inevitably play a role in the curatorial process. We acknowledge that the artworld at the time of Gertude's emergence did not accurately represent First Nations' perspectives, Australia's multi-culturalism or diversity in the way it strives to today. Gertrude's anniversary, along with our project, is sure to spark conversations and debates and this too is the stuff of history. Through these informal exchanges, more memories and perspectives will surface than can possibly be captured in this exhibition or text, but which are equally vital to the shaping and reshaping of our cultural and social narratives.

Part A: It's Not Yesterday Anymore
Sue Cramer

In her small two-panel painting Untitled (1992) Angela Brennan quotes a line from the American New Wave band Talking Heads: 'It's not yesterday anymore.' These borrowed words, the opening line of their 1977 song New Feeling, signal the advent of a new era. In response, the painting's second panel declares, 'It's never yesterday,' grounding us in a perpetual present–yesterday is gone, and all we have is now.

Quotations from pop culture were commonplace during this time, as I recall, fuelled by Postmodernism and art's increased relationship to broader cultural spheres. I was a young curator working at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) when Gertrude first opened and quickly became a regular visitor. Louise Neri, then twenty years of age, was the gallery's inaugural Director, with Rose Lang, also in her twenties, taking up the position part way through 1989. Melbourne in the 1980s provided a vibrant cultural atmosphere in which to start out in the art world. This was a period when visual art, music, fashion, art magazine publishing, independent film and design intersected to create a dynamic and alternative cultural landscape. These years saw the emergence of artist-run initiatives in Melbourne­ notably Store 5 (from 1989 to 1993) and Temple Studio (from 1991 to 2001)–and the rise of independent creative platforms such as the Fashion Design Council which challenged and expanded the boundaries of the mainstream. The establishment of forums for art writing and critical theory was particularly significant. Social and creative energies converged around the production of influential art magazines such as Art & Text (1981-1999/2000), Tension Magazine (from 1983 to 1990), and Agenda­ Contemporary Art (from 1988 to 1995).

After the cooler conceptualism of 1970s art many photographers-several of them Sydney-based-shifted their critical focus in the 1980s to the seductive power of images within a media-saturated landscape. Several created avowedly fictional or cinematic scenes using the vibrant colour saturation of Cibachrome prints. Robyn Stacey's Ice (1989), from her exhibition Redlands, exemplifies this with a femme noir aesthetic–a red­ lipped female face dramatically lit against the hazy black-and­ white backdrop of a nighttime cityscape. The theme of seduction continues in the hyperreal roses of Rosemary Laing's from PARADISE work (1990). Laing uses high-key colour and a cropped, close-up perspective to reframe these excessive, almost-too­ perfect blooms as commodified objects. In The Collector(self­ portrait) (1988), Anne Zahalka crafts a staged and symbolic interior scene–showing the artist in her Sydney home–in a manner reminiscent of a 17th-century Dutch genre painting.

Adapting art historical styles and themes to enrich present-day practices was not uncommon during the 1980s. The Gothic: Its Perversity and Pleasure, curated by Robyn McKenzie in 1987 and presented at 200 Gertrude Street, proposed a synergy between the excesses of Gothic style–its transgression against classical order–and the dark and rebellious feminine expressions embodied in the selected works. Among these was Vivienne Shark LeWitt's intimately scaled painting Nightmare Alley (1985), which, through a mysterious mise-en­ scene, evokes the dramatic allure of gothic tales. In a striking example of exhibition design, Vasari Revisited: A Kunstkammer in Melbourne, curated by artist Michael Graf in 1988, replicated sections of the 16th-century Studiolo di Francesco in Florence. This latter-day Italianate 'chamber of art'-encompassing a wooden framing device constructed by architect David Brand­ provided a metaphorical setting for the display of commissioned artworks by twenty-four artists, including Graf, whose painting A Plate from the Encyclopaedia: The Soap Factory (1988), still in the original customised frame, appears in A Fictional Retrospective.

Mathew Jones' exhibition Silence = Death (1991) addressed the AIDS epidemic, critiquing the reductive public messaging that surrounded it. Jones says, 'Being gay at the VCA in the early 1980s was no fun...l graduated in 1984 without any support network.'² Jones found validation through the Gertrude community. A damning review of his exhibition published in The Age motivated Juan Davila to write a rousing counter review in Art & Text, launching Jones' career. Janet Burchill's Mute (3rd Version) (1985-1990) also raises issues of language and the complexities of communication. Resembling signwriting, the painting grabs our attention with graphic lettering and fluro colours yet its tone is neutral and meaning ambivalent. Does it imply silent or-more ominously-to be silenced? The 1989 group exhibition Resistance, curated by artist Melinda Harper, positioned abstract painting as a counterpoint to the prevailing large-scale figuration of the time. Inspired by the histories of the early twentieth-century avant-garde, their works were materially diverse, predominantly geometric and, as Harper described, 'humble, sparse, and simple.'³ Several of the artists in the exhibition were associated with the influential artist-run gallery Store 5. Stephen Bram's geometric paintings in A Fictional Retrospective, similar to those in Resistance, are early examples of his use of two-point perspective to shatter pictorial space. Meanwhile, Harper, Rose Nolan and Anne-Marie May held solo exhibitions at Gertrude. Nolan's exhibition in 1989 was a striking floor-to-ceiling wall display of paintings on unstretched hessian with simple, emblematic motifs. In her 1992 exhibition, Harper presented vibrant multi-coloured paintings with jostling and intersecting shapes, while May in 1994 showed fabric paintings made with strips of coloured felt wrapped diagonally around wooden stretchers. A studio artist at Gertrude between 1993 and 1995, David Jolly also pursued an abstract approach applying paint experimentally to the back of glass for a screen-like effect. For her exhibition at Gertrude, Nike Sawas in Nice Bubbles (1994) took abstraction into the realm of wall installation. Amassed together, the work's hand-blown, glass spheres-gently evocative of soap suds-create optical and kinetic effects, with iridescent colours that shimmer as the viewer walks by.

An artist equally fluent in abstract and figurative styles, Matthys Gerber in his painting Landscape I (1990) leans into the splendour of kitsch picturesque, infusing this often-dismissed style with unexpected charisma. Gerber presented a similar large-scale landscape in his cheekily named exhibition For Her Highness Princess Caroline of Monaco in 1990, concealing within the painting a secret message to his idol Caroline. Brett Colquhoun strikes a different note with his stark palette of black and white in Lure (1987). A moth, silhouetted by light, is irresistibly drawn toward its own image both transfixed and imperilled by the glow. Rossylnd Piggott's paintings and drawings suggest landscapes of the mind, or as she wrote in 1987, 'a peeling back of skin to see what is underneath.'⁴ Eyelashes, Jewels and a Piece of Paris (1987) draws dream-like connections through painterly evocations of bodily presence and a city filled with promise. Her line and brush sketches capture more fleeting images and ideas. Hany Armanious' Woodsman (1998) also imparts otherworldly qualities. Rendered in watercolour are two spectral figures, one seemingly dreaming of the other. An old-fashioned carved timber frame, undoubtedly secondhand, brings a storybook quality to the work, while a gesso layer on Styrofoam mimics textured stucco. Moving away from painting, Carolyn Eskdale's The Archive (1991) incorporates a vintage wooden frame, and a pair of callipers and tinsnips, her interest in hand tools being partly inspired by Man Ray's photograph Egg Beater (1918). Eskdale's deep-set frame serves as a stage-like setting where the tools surreally resemble figures, with levers as legs and rounded blades as heads and arms.

All of these works convey the tussle of ideas and the issues at stake as young artists forged contending positions, shaping their identities and artistic paths. For many, their involvement with Gertrude became a rite of passage, with their formative years as artists paralleling the gallery's rise as a central force in the contemporary art scene.

Part B: It's Never Yesterday
Emma Nixon

The past holds within it the promise of something lost. From 1985 to 1995 seems to have been the golden era of art, camaraderie, and an explosion of growth within the art world. It's hard to feel like the glory days are behind us and that we live on in their shadow.

In 2025, a time when art funding feels dried up and over professionalised, this exhibition marks a return to local history and helps to evoke for my generation whiffs of the oily rag which the art world used to run on. The historical artworks we have found often house a roughness, a quickness, a raw or pure energy which stands in opposition to the often polished, research-based art of today. By bringing them to light again, we endorse the idea that we can learn from the past and transport this energy into the present.

Jon Campbell's The Party (1986) included in his Gertrude exhibition Suburban Stomp is an emblem or anthem for how I imagine Naarm Melbourne at that time. The gig, the gang, the social scene, the painting gives us a glimpse into Australian suburbia.

But as Angela Brennan's painting probes, nostalgic ideas of the past are often romantic falsehoods. Perhaps yesterday was never quite as good as it sounds, nor so different from today. One exhibiting artist remembers being so offended by an unsuccessful studio application, they never applied again. We heard other stories of artists only being paid exhibition fees if they knew to ask for one. Many of my friends and peers apply for studios at Gertrude now and-due to the even higher competitiveness of the Australian art scene-most aren't accepted to much dismay.

So many important artworks from that time no longer exist, destroyed due to storage issues, or sold and sent out into the ether, simply lost to time. Forty years is a long time and its curious how hazy memories can become. Campbell muses on the nature of memory here:

It's interesting thinking back...trying to remember the details of what went on, did this actually happen and who did what? I guess the participants all have their own version of events and maybe it's the variety of these stories that give an indication of what probably happened rather than the correct or definitive history.⁵

It's remarkable to see the strong links between what artists made decades ago and their work now. For example, certain motifs used early on by Elizabeth Newman-such as tree logs or paintings of paintings-remain central to her practice today. Her work Painting (1985) signals Newman's clarity of vision in the language she was building. Similarly, Louise Paramor's shimmering chandelier Rhapsodesia (1996, one red section remade 2025), constructed from delicate foils, foreshadows the 'honeycomb' paper-cut technique which transforms flat shapes into three-dimensional sculptures, for which she is now well known.

Displayed parallel to Paramor in the foyer is Gail Hastings' sculptural situation Room for Love (1990, remade 2005) which was made in Hasting's studio at Gertrude. The work demarcates an architectural space laid out on the floor, left open at the front to welcome you in; two romance novels; and a tete-a­ tete, or conversation chair to be sat in. Room for Love represents for us the coming together of two different generational perspectives, one looking to the future, the other to the past, but meeting in dialogue in the middle.

Destiny Deacon's photographic series Dance Little Lady (1994) takes its title from Tina Charles' 1976 disco hit. A brown­ skinned plastic doll wears a t-shirt featuring the Aboriginal Flag, and in each image the doll's limbs change positions, simulating movement and dance. Drawn from her extensive collection of Aboriginal kitsch, Deacon's dolls exemplify, as writer Hannah Fink describes, 'the grotesque incongruity between real and imagined lndigeneity.'⁶ This series suggests an enforced performance of identity for the entertainment of others. By rescuing her doll from its racist origins and dressing it in a symbol of cultural pride, Deacon's images speak of strength and empowerment.

Also dealing with the iconography of flags is Constanze Zikos' work Jubilee (1995), a portrait version of the Australian flag rendered in silver and gold glitzy glomesh material with velvet and satin trimmings. Exploring regal and colonial iconography through a subversive use of seemly ostentatious (but ultimately cheap) materials, Zikos' series of fake flags brought a flamboyant sensibility more akin to punk fashion designer Vivienne Westwood than Queen Elizabeth. Jubilee was included in the group exhibition Wall Drawings curated by Max Delany in 1995, alongside a commissioned mural by Tony Clark, painted onto the central architectural column in Gertrude's main gallery. For A Fictional Retrospective, Clark has recreated this work in a related but reimagined form.

Kathy Temin and Mikala Dwyer both combine the abject with their love of soft haberdashery. Temin's Black and Yellow Corner Problem (1992) takes the form of a bedraggled striped bee sitting in a corner, its fur teased and scrappy, while Problem (1991) spills out from the wall in pink furry glory; a white, tail-like form gently rambles to the ground. Dwyer's Tubeweight (1996) features coloured organza tubes hung in series on the wall, accompanied by small strange sculptures which mesh clay with dismembered toys on the floor. Sewing pins piercing furry limbs invoke the power of voodoo dolls, or as Dwyer suggests transitional objects' -which bridge a child's internal and external worlds.

Raafat lshak's first exhibition at Gertrude coincided, he says, with 'a time when I imagined, rightly or wrongly, that I was beginning to reconcile two languages and two cultures.'⁸ His series And government mixes coded symbols pertaining to Egypt, art history, personal relationships, sport, animals and architecture. One painting is a personal letter blending English language and Arabic script, atop the outlines of mud-brick buildings common in Egypt's countryside. David Noonan's painting Untitled (1993) also references architectural structures. Painted from a magazine photograph of an architect's model, a white structure indicative of modernism's utopian style appears floating hazily in space, like an 'afterimage' of modernism, architect Paul Morgan suggests in his exhibition text.⁹

In his 1988 exhibition Casual Works: Working Drawing, Source Materials, Doodles, Howard Arkley displayed large, spray-painted studies surrounded by smaller sketches and pop­ cultural sources. Untitled [Zappa Study] (1983) is a preparatory work for the colour painting Zappa (1983), its title a reference to drugs and their effects. A mask, cactus, giant screw, and picture frame come in and out of focus amidst the frenzied spray-paint and zigzagging shapes. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, a pivotal group exhibition at Gertrude curated by artist Geoff Lowe in 1986 also focused on preparatory and informal drawings. Lowe said, 'Drawing can show where things begin and end...and most importantly, how fragile meaning and representation can be.'¹⁰

Incredibly, from today's perspective, Louise Neri became the inaugural Director of Gertrude before her twenty-first birthday. Now based in New York, Neri went on to establish a stellar international career as a writer, editor and curator and was a Director at Gagosian Gallery for nearly twenty years. She told us, 'My segue into international life was all because of Gertrude,'" and that working at Gertrude lay the blueprint for how she works with artists today. These days museum jobs often require PhDs and institutions are almost always run by an older generation.

Gertrude now is more aligned with a professionalised stability, as would be expected after forty years-the institution has grown up. It seems to me that the youth driven DIV attitude has moved into the backyard artist-run initiatives, young commercial galleries and the growing number of studio complexes run by artists. All still riffing off the energy of art school.

The art of today celebrates identity and lived experience through a politically, socially and historically dilated lens. In contrast to the speculative narratives that we have explored from the 1980s and 1990s, the contexts for proudly claiming the authentic realities of race, gender and sexuality have been challenged and expanded. In our new post-colonial setting art historians and curators in Melbourne and around the world are rewriting the canon and rethinking modes of visibility, opening the artworld to be wider, more inclusive, and less Western-centric.

What survey exhibitions reveal is that works created by artists early in their careers can be just as significant as those produced later. This exhibition should serve as a motivating time capsule which celebrates the longevity of art practices and brings to light work made by artists before they were known as some of Australia's most renowned. Human existence follows the inevitable logic of life and then death-as captured by Diena Georgetti's faux language written in chalk on blackboard, 'ENeRGie und Die'. But the beauty of art is that its energy lives on.