After the exhibition

What happens to the art and the artist after the exhibition?

Storage. Reflection. Packaging up the work for collectors. More reflection. Perhaps some radical rest. And of course, getting stuck into the next project or projects in my exciting yet extensive list.

I speak for myself of course, when I say, the end of an exhibition feels a strange interlude. Sometimes it comes with a bit of a crash - my list of works to make far exceeds the time I have available to me + somehow overwhelm hits.

How do I get out of overwhelm? A bit of procrastination and a lot of fresh food, usually. Time in nature, all the usual things we put off when we become overworked.

But - what happens to the art? Do we store it forever? Well, that totally depends. Some of my work I will store until it finds it’s rightful collector, someone to love it and ponder the marks made.

Others, well others end up on a scrap pile, in the fire, torn into a new work, used for basket practice aka throwing into the waste paper basket. I cherish the practice of culling work. That is because, it has seen the light of day, people have enjoyed the adventure the works together have shown them + I have moved on - and I deem some art, experimental, part of the whole exhibition, yet not for continued rumination. Destroying some work helps me reset - I don’t go ham and destroy everything - I wait until I am ready to delve into the emotional labour of the work, sit with all the pieces + only then decide what I am ready to let go of.

I don’t recommend destroying all your work. And I certainly don’t recommend doing it in the fire of an emotion you may be having. Wait. Look. Listen to yourself - and only rid yourself of work that no longer serves this current version of you. Remember that we tread forward + carry the past with us - and yet, it does not need to define our next steps. Culling can be a cathartic practice, a further editing, more than curation, somehow a practice that brings me joy, an ending more final than de-install.

Culling has become a practice that ensures I can move towards my next project with the vivacity that it deserves.

Be an artist

My story begins as a bubba-seedling in Australia. Solidly working class no matter which way you look at it.

Be an artist, no one ever said.

Be what you want to be, my mother did say, frequently. …little did we know the cost of that aspiration, though always dream of that future I did, have always and still do.

Dream a while with me, think of a bubba-Caitlin as a faery-pirate princess. Yes the pink dress - but it's all home-made by my seamstress-grandmother-on-a-budget-with-love and I have stomping boots on. I have inherited a tongue lashing ability and can make spells with my words. No need for fussy wand waving here. I can also make potions because the matriliniage of mine taught me how to love a kitchen, how to pour love into chores + why love, care + gardening are the seeds of the wildfire in my soul.

It all begins with me. Well life should be about what I want to be, do + think. But side note - life begins with preconceived rules confined by binary world views - so really if you think about it, it all begins with my last name, of which, due to patriarchal tradition - I have inherited from the male line. Just because, man.

Follow your wildfire.

🖤 Caitlin Kozman

The gaze

When I began learning about modern art, it all began with the gaze + painting. It all began with the voice of the artist. I devoured the art history, written, by + for the art enthusiast, the art student, the art professional + the art world.

Then becomes the questioning everything mode. This was an achievement unlocked. I delved into the meta-data of the words I was contemplating. Whose were they?

Turns out; overwhelmingly - male painters, male critics, for maximum masculinity. The patriarchy had infiltrated every form of life + I was too busily learning to understand that book title does not equate to context, substance nor validity.

Turns out programmed learning is in full force + we need to worry about more than the gender pay gap.

The gaze becomes interesting to me when we centre the feminine. I need to be clear here + specific. The feminine gaze captured in art yes; yet also the feminine gaze in the audience, in the critique, in the management of, in the collaboration, in the care of, love and support of - not only the art itself - but the artist’s life.

When we centre queering perspectives + when we question every gaze that's been deemed ‘art’ + all the gazes that have been somehow captured, disseminated & are viewed & viewable in our global economy - what do we then begin to notice?

My practice truly colesced when I began interrogating every photomedia based gaze & the context of the circumstance of the subject presented to an audience.

I have a sturdy critique of the world I live in. Not fucking much is made with me in mind, and fucking less is made by & with the likes of me.

One truly positive I will add to that is…change is in the wind. Can you hear it too?