Encyclopaedia of Spontaneous Art
To make this work of spontaneous art you must first enter a room in which there is a light blue rectangle with a green outline painted on the wall. In this room there is a chair about to fall. Spontaneously respond by reaching for a part of the rectangle and placing it under the chair. Record your unconstrained impulse on

[floor plan]

the ‘table more measuring spontaneous responses’ by asking someone close by the time [7:56 am] and date Monday 24.2.97 . Now return the Encyclopaedia to the ‘shelves for moments met’ beside the entrance. This work of spontaneous art is now complete.

—page 5 —

[floor plan details]
– window
– chair about to fall
– table for measuring spontaneous responses
– shelves for moments met
– shelves for moments missed

To make a work of spontaneous art

Specifications
To make a work of spontaneous art is made of acrylic on MDF, acrylic on wall surfaces, vinyl over sponge rubber, watercolour and lead pencil on paper (framed).

The work comprises seven components with an overall measurement of 141h x 380w x 65.85d cm.

Exhibitions, events & artist pages
29/09/1998 The Infinite Space: Women, Minimalism and the Sculptural Object, The Ian Potter Museum of Art (cur. Rachel Kent), Melbourne
05/03/1998 All This And Heaven Too: 1998 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia (cur. Juliana Engberg & Ewen McDonald), Adelaide
07/03/1997 Wall as Medium?, David Pestorius Gallery, Brisbane

Bibliography
Clabburn Anna, ‘When less is much’, The Age, Wednesday 9 Dec 1998, p.17.

For a project premised on ‘less is more’, there is a surprising richness to [Rachel] Kent’s choices. In the top space, [Susan] Norrie’s array of monochrome objects, in Inquisition and Shudder VI, establishes a sense of inquiry into the nature of art. Her search for technical meaning is continued in [Rosslynd] Piggott’s delicate Collection of Air and also reverberates in Hastings’ somewhat Dada-derived To Make a Work of Spontaneous Art.

Kent Rachel, ‘Minimalism: past and present’, in Rachel Kent (ed.), The Infinite Space: Women, Minimalism and the Sculptural Object, exhibition catalogue, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne 1998.

Murray Kevin, ‘All this and Heaven too’, Asialink, issue 18, no.2, June 1998, https://www.artlink.com.au/issues/1820/public-art-in-australia/.

[…] While their effect in his Prahran gallery was to dramatise a shift from vertical to horizontal, in a Biennial with so little on the wall, they seem solipsistic. The same can be said of Gail Hastings’ private art strategies.

The two Aboriginal artists, Robert Ambrose Cole and Linda Syddick Napaltjarri help us find a way out of this egocentrism. […] While I don’t always tune into complaints about political correctness, it seems clear that white artists in this exhibition speak either for themselves or the institutions that house them. The right to speak for one’s people, as arrogated in the traditions of painting, no longer holds for whitefellas. Feyness appears the alternative voice offered artists in the Adelaide Biennial. The license to explore curious nooks of the world, filled with private meaning, offers artists a territory safe from post-colonial crossfire. However, it’s hard to find a context for it outside some purely private recreation of the sacred.

[…] So, what is the risk with this Adelaide Biennial? If anything, the primary gambit seems to be solipsism: the freedom of artists to present purely personal reverie as public reality. This gamble sometimes pays off with startling poetic dividends. In many cases, however, the winning currency is for private tender only, with no legitimacy outside the museum. While we can enjoy a space made safe from the mortal coil of adult power games, someone at some point has to open the door.

[NB: A negative response to my work]

Holdings
Gail Hastings’ studio
To make a work of spontaneous art is available for acquisition. Please enquire about viewing the artwork.

Later artwork

Earlier artwork

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    Acknowledgement

    I acknowledge the Kulin Nation’s Yaluk-ut Weelam clan of the Boon Wurrung people as custodians of the lands, waterways and skies where I live and work. I pay my respect to their Elders past, present and emerging. I recognise their cultural faithfulness, strength and resilience against the trauma of colonisation. First Peoples’ sovereignty has never been ceded.
    Gail Hastings