About ‘Finale: Bouquet’
Nike Savvas talks to Curator Contemporary Art Nina Tonga about Finale: Bouquet, on display until Jan 2020.
“Finales represent an end, and as such tend to be celebratory in tone. Historically, the first-ever parade [New York City, 1886] saw employees spontaneously throw ticker tape from their office windows to join the celebrations. This speaks directly to the spirit of the moment, to freedom, individuality and inclusion. While Finale may speak to closure, similarly it also alludes to new open-ended possibilities.
“This work is a finale for our current times – a time where I feel a major paradigm shift is well overdue. The so-termed Creative Industries has in recent times seen the development of the professionalisation of arts into a model whose main imperative is predicated on the administration of commerce. I feel I am tapping into the sentiment of this time.
“The work references abstraction as a historical and political precursor while inviting participation on many other levels.
“There is a sense that art has failed. That arts virtues have been corrupted or that faith in its ability to critically and meaningfully engage through protest, provocation, or reactive action has been diminished in the face of a branded, corporatised, culturally sanitised infrastructure that lies at the heart of arts current constitution.
“I hope the experience of Finale: Bouquet is empowering, that it engages the viewer’s sensory and interpretative faculties by encouraging participation on a physical, optical, perceptual, and experiential level to validate the viewer’s experience and their construction of personal meaning.”