The Fourth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

44 187 works for the People's Republic of Spiritual Revolution (details) 1975-90 Watercolour, pencil, collage, ink Five of 187 compositions: 22.5 x 17.5cm each Courtesy: Bellas Gallery, Brisbane Viewers may discover a number of entry points to this collection of imagery - the spiritual abstraction of Malevich and Kandinsky, austere minimalist references to Joseph Beuys, or intricately patterned forms reminiscent of sacred geometry and arcane alchemical texts. These references are made in a spirit of homage (rather than postmodern irony and pastiche) to historical precedents of utopian hope and to optimistic visions of enlightened liberation. Malevich's suprematism, Kandinsky's spiritual imperative, and Beuys's program of 'social sculpture' were all utopian visions. Carchesio's admiration for Joseph Beuys has perhaps grown out of his recognition that Beuys encouraged and invited a collaborative process to evolve between art work and audience. Believing that everyone was intrinsically a creative being, Beuys used common materials, drawings and objects to act as mnemonic agents for viewers. (It is ironic that so often the 'sophistication' of audiences prevents such direct and unmediated communication from occurring .) Maurice Tuchman has discussed the relationships between early abstraction, spiritualism and the occult. 2 Carchesio's referencing of this particular era (c.1907-15), I suspect, is significant. The symbolist movement of fin-de-siecle Europe and the experimental, revolutionary climate of the pre-World War One years provided a milieu for intellectual, social and political experiment that was full of optimism and potential, before the mechanised brutality of the 1914-18 war erased the promise of those years. Carchesio has pursued a direction in his art which echoes some of that hopefulness. It manifests as delicate, poised and reserved but hope nonetheless. Hope is rarely heroic. Taking comfort in and surrendering to mystery, infinity and silence is a way of hoping. APT2002 The symbology of 187 works for the People's Republic of Spiritual Revolution, with its tessellated grids, geometric patterns, crosses, circles, clouds and skulls, draws on a variety of cultural, historical and cosmological sources. Christian, pagan and Eastern symbolisms merge with alchemical and quasi-Einsteinian equations to create a matrix of dualities and dynamic oppositions. Order-disorder, reason and chance, construction-collapse, chaos-balance, heaven and earth, spirit and matter - these are the limits we impose on our world, and reflect Carchesio's maxim that 'the opposite is also true'. 3 Musical terminology seems appropriate to his work, as harmony and discord, repetition, rhythm and improvisation play such an important role, punctuated with surprises and unpredictable turns and flourishes - just like the jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. Again, like music, this work is imbued with its own gradual fading away. As an artist, Carchesio is well aware that the arte povera status of much of his work leaves it vulnerable. The knowledge that these fragile sheets of paper will become brittle, fade, discolour and crumble, sooner rather than later, comes as no comfort to art museums and collectors of his work. Ultimately, however, this knowledge adds a poignant, minor key to work which is conceived and created with the span of a human life in mind, rather than with a sense of posterity or history. The humility and honesty of the work somehow adds a note of urgency to the idea of 'spiritual revolution'.