RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW (coming soon)

RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW (coming soon) [2021]

1110 x 920mm. Inkjet prints.

RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW (coming soon) is both the advertisement and the artwork for an ever possible, but never realised exhibition. The advertisement poster is accompanied by two posters: one a collection of application requirements for various grants, awards and gallery spaces; the other, correspondence with an arts festival which is ‘considering’ including the artist’s work in their program… providing an increasing amount of expectations are met.

This proposal plays on the existence of the Wide Open Road Art (WORA) windows in Hargraves Street, Castlemaine, their very presence, like any gallery space, provokes the expectation of an exhibition. RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW (Coming soon) will fulfill the intended function of the windows, while simultaneously not – as the exhibition will remain in its latent form.

Art theorist, Jan Verwoert, argues there’s a constant demand for us all to perform, and potential is only considered of value if it can be actualised “…right here, right now.” He advocates interrupting this pressure to perform or say I can, by saying I can’t – but in a way suggestive of I can.

Text-based artwork referencing commercial advertising, from Barbara Kruger’s iconic Untitled (I shop therefore I am), 1987, to Steven Rhall’s THE BIGGEST ABORIGINAL ARTWORK IN METRO MELBOURNE, 2014-2017, can comment on and reflect back the expectations of society. RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW (Coming soon) references the 1980s CHOOSE LIFE t-shirts designed by Katherine Hamnet.

Right Here, Right Now, is also the title of a Fatboy Slim track featuring a repeated vocal sample of those same words. The accompanying filmclip portrays a timeline of human evolution where modern man emerges wearing a t-shirt proclaiming ‘I’m #1 so why try harder’. The vocal sample comes from the film Strange Days, in a scene where Angela Bassett says “This is your life. Right Here. Right Now. It’s real time… Time to get real.” It is a call to be present, to act – to choose life.