SPIRIT
& VISION
Vernon
Ah Kee - - -
When someone has a deadly point to make,
it’s nice to have it delivered with style. A slap on the back
while sliding in the stiletto. Preferably with a laugh to spice up the
encounter. Vernon Ah Kee has been exhibiting for about five years, was
raised in North Queensland, has been based in Brisbane since the early
nineteen nineties, and studied at the Queensland College of Art, where
he also currently lectures.
Ah Kee’s no-nonsense, confrontational
text pieces about being Indigenous in contemporary Australia are built
around a use of common understandings, jokes and phrases that are taken,
twisted and handed back with a grin (sometimes) and a stiletto between
the ribs. Depending on who you are.
“whydidn’ttheracistcrosstheroad?becausehedidn’twanttoseetheotherside.”
By using this everyday source material, he strikes the chords of recognition
for a large audience – an audience that sees the work with the
familiarity of experience or the surprise of a revealed truth.
Ah Kee’s most successful works
depend on the self-evident, obvious truth of their texts. “I can’t
even buy Bandaids the same colour as my skin.” Part slogan, part
rumination, the words convey the casual sense of someone in a dialogue,
almost literally talking to the viewer – us – as we wander
through the work, at least in an exhibition setting. This is the kind
of conversation you have at a barbie, in the kitchen at a party or at
the pub. There’s a belligerent current running through the event,
although the belligerence seems to be framed around getting us to engage
– what do you think about this? Let’s hear what you have
to say.
This insistent voice is disconcerting
in the white cube setting, not because we aren’t used to art demanding
our attention, but because much of our experience of art is, to borrow
a theatre analogy, known through a proscenium with us as the invisible
audience. We look at a painting or video, we listen to sound, we pick
our way through an installation, watch a performance. We are seeing
into the artists’ mind or soul, watching from out there, sitting
in the theatre. The experience of Ah Kee’s art is more akin to
a one-on-one debate. The whole tone is aimed at provoking a response.
He’s there, in your ear, jabbing you in the chest with his forefinger
– all the while keeping you laughing.
Ah Kee speaks directly to a white
audience, with a black voice . In the work If I was White, made up of
thirty A3 text panels, we read observations such as “If I was
White I could say This land has been in my family for three generations.”
Or "If I was White I could walk down the street and people would
pay no particular attention to me." He delivers these messages
with a blunt familiarity – which he subtly accentuates by the
form of delivery – black Helvetica type on white background, the
most common font, for decades, in the Western world .
Michael Snelling
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This man is... This Woman
is... 2003
Projected Dissolving Images x 60
Courtesy of the Artist
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