Fluxus and after

'ANYTHING CAN BE MADE INTO Paperclips ART, ART CAN BE MADE OUT Paperclips, filing box OF ANYThING...' box: 35x27x10cmco Small monument Foil balls ( R o b e r t MacPherson) Silver foil, filing beeCD box: 35 x 27 x iOnCD co Small monument: lied tape ball Legal tape with documentation formUJ LU cc: During the 1970s Robert MacPherson was at the forefront of conceptual art practice in Australia, circumference. 1 9 c m C D LLJ operating between Brisbane and New York. As a somewhat paradoxical result of his investigations 71 Small monument: Staple mound into artistic formalism a n d 0 0 CL UJ 00 more recently, systems of 1p Z Staples, paint tin lid, cutlery box CD CiT classification within the box. 32 x 27x10cm natural sciences (for . - z__ X AL X 3 - 3 L 930 M m7 Three books instance, the Frog Poems series which he began in 1988(, MacPherson's art has been consistently Typewritten text, magazine and newspaper clippings down-to-earth, reflecting a playful wit with visual/verbal puns. The Secular red collages were 30 x 21 cm (each) produced after the artist travelled to New York in 1977. There he became entranced by street litter From 'Relics of boredom sculpture 1978-1981' series 1978-81 which he collected, sent home, and integrated with other kitsch and distinctly Australian found objects. He says, 'With the 'Secular red' series I was taking very basic elements of what people These books with their free-form text drawn from ordinary, everyday conversation on activities would consider to be bad taste - foil, tourist postcards, whatever, and sanctifying them with such as sandwich making, have continued as part of Mac Pherson's work until the present. The human content'. (Interview with A. Kirker, 27 May 1993) artist sees them as following in the mode of Gertrude Stein's rhythmic, unpunctuated text. Collection. The artist, Brisbane No. 8(from Series I, 'Secular red' series) 1977 Collage 78x42cm No. 16)from Series I, 'Secular red' series) 1977 Collage00 -. UJ New York kangaroo )unnumbered, from "iUJ co Senesll Secular red series) 1978CD Collage UJ UJ A TO New York kangaroo, No. 6 (from Series)), ' 'Secular red' series) 1978 Cn CD Colage . 5 x 42cn-, ' - L . 78 . I Collection. Queensland Art Guile I While working as a cleaner for the Brisbane \, S R O B E R T A A C p T E R s o S LIJ City Council during the late 1970s, . . LU cc Mac Pherson's obsessive collecting continued. S Gathering the discarded remnants of public service bureacracy such as paperclips and staples, he produced the aptly titled 'Relics of boredom' a series which, Duchamp-like, exemplified the transformation of mundane elements into fine art. Importantly, the artist did not intervene in the actual shape of the found objects; the paperclips, . , , .Lw for instance, were already twisted and bent into random forms. The series was originally shown in A R T P R O J E C T S 5 6 6 L O N S D A L E ST., MELBOURNE W E D - F R I 2 3 0 - 5 - 0 0 P H . 6 0 1 1 9 1 Sm June 1981 at Art Projects, 566 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, an alternative artists space run by . T C 5',',,j ,'O . - , ' n ' , . . ' d 1 , , 5by ' John Nixon. The 'Relics of boredom' series is enormous, part of an expanding process whereby . " MacPherson has exchanged objects with fellow Australians PeterTyndall and Gunter Christmann. 5 5 89 3 off