A Decadent Defecation

It’s almost a REECE plumbing store, or concept retail outlet when you first enter Gallery 1 at Bus. A low-fi pixellated fake marble texture decal is lining the bottom half of the space, there are icons and artefacts that remind you of bathroom decor​. These artefacts are almost non-objects - a towel with the middle cut out, a plastic potted plant with no leaves, a mirror graffitied with white paint splashes, a convenience glass shelf with a glass of water installed inconveniently too high out of reach. At first the work is frustrating; fetishized minimalism, the dystopian attempt at jokes, the cartoon installation of a bathroom that doesn’t make sense. It’s in the writing in the artist statement essay that things really begin to get interesting, for me. David Attwood writes about shit. Literally. His artist statment essay explores our relationship with defection in ways that are interesting, revealing and exciting as a metaphor and vessel of action as symbol. His previous work; “My Beloved Shit,” referred to within the essay, explores those intimate and repulsive notions of abjection with the “product” of human waste. Ideas of ‘value’ which Attwood writes so fluently about, were almost clumsily punch-lined within the execution of the exhibition (where fake chocolate-mousse looking shit is smeared amongst the gallery) and doesn’t quite make it to the level in which his writing brings you on board. I want to see real shit. I want the confrontation - the “humanity” amongst this absurdist prop, this theatre set of a bathroom. He speaks of the contradictory nature of “luxury bathrooms” with 24 karat gold toilet bowls, for the 1% to shit in hedonistic glory. But nothing in “A Decadent Defecation” reflects this decadency, as the print quality of the low-fi marble texture, or the sunglasses hiding under toilet seats à-la redback spiders under the dunny seat, speak to cheapness, to kitsch. Kitsch is also a cultural marker of Attwood’s, as mentioned in a previous work “Human Shit” but whereas he makes a great argument for the use of the poop emoji as a signifier of the powers of kitsch in relation to human shit, the “kitsch”-ness of “A Decadent Defecation” doesn’t go far enough. Attwood references so many artists who have previously explored the human medium within his essay, perhaps Attawood could have taken a precursor from Gilbert and George in regards to kitsch and shit. I have been reading Gilda Williams “How To Write About Contemporary Art” recently. I picked it up from the pop-up Readings in Carlton quite cheaply, in a moment where I was questioning why I had even started Melbourne Art Review. On the back of the book, Williams states that she has written this compendium for those who work in the arts and with art writing in order to help them remember why they started. Why we write about art. I am yet halfway through Williams’ book, but it is (re)exciting me about why I started, why I want to, and the forms which I can, write about contemporary art. It is this excitement, and this deliciousness I found in Attawood’s artist essay, which I greedily devoured, art history, social and political contexts, humour and biography are woven so easily, and interestingly together, by the time I finished the short three page pamphlet, I was a fan. A fan of his work, of his writing and his humour. I just want more. You can read David Attwood’s essay here.