Frozen Blood

• Victoria Perin

If Neon Parc had a mum and dad, it would be Vivienne Binns and Mike Brown. A dysfunctional couple, these two protagonists of Australian art lend the commercial gallery so much nourishment that Neon Parc’s Director Geoff Newton keeps curating them into exhibitions (despite the fact that he represents neither). Brown and Binns are difficult parents. Two very good artists with very healthy egos, Neon Parc is the byproduct of their brief affair in 1965. A child of divorce, then, the gallery has never quite matured emotionally, spiritually, and sexually—it looks to the past to explain the present. For me, this sentimental aspect of Neon Parc has always been its distinguishing feature.

In the group exhibitions that Newton curates, like Frozen Blood—currently spread across all three Neon Parc venues—you can see how his eye wanders to the art of the 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, going no further back than the 1960s. He doesn’t do this with any great conceptual rigour. Or, at least, none that he would articulate if you asked him. The exhibition text claims that Frozen Blood evokes themes of “immortality” as well as “time” in addition to “Bad Taste.” I get the feeling that Newton periodically drags the gallery back forty-plus years as a sort of personal return to the well. Throw the bucket down, pull up the cool, cleansing waters of Oz art history. It’s not a problem that it’s a little sexist and overwhelmingly Caucasian down there—that’s just part of the vintage charm!