Some kind of play on foot-in mouth/or cronyism/or between the gloved hand.
The art "scene" is not for the faint of heart. The other day, J and I hauled ass to the other side of town to see the first exhibition at [redacted] gallery's new aboveshopfront space. J laughs as she tells me I have foot-inmouth disease. Bashful and blushing, I frantically attempt to rebut this allegation. The truth is, I do have a problem with keeping things to myself, whether that be personal opinions or secrets. I am a sucker for gossip. I would like it known that despite this, I consider myself a very trustworthy person… lol.
We arrive in [redacted suburb] and bump into the star of the night as he screeches to a halt on his lime bike. Our wunderkind art boy has returned home briefly from life abroad for this show. The last time I saw him was probably in Berlin or a VCA Grad Show of yonder (yawn).
I haven't been to an opening in a while – it's a hard life being an unpaid gallerina.
I rarely make it out to other openings anymore. And yet, I know a majority of the
people here. The owner of this gallery once told me he wasn't very interested in my work. Another art boy wunderkind arrives, and we reminisce on our time working together at sociallysnubbed [redacted
gallery]. Behind us, a longterm personal art op of mine – who cancelled who? – hovers in the corner, meekly. Myself, J, and a myriad of VCA-grads-cum-staffmembers flock to the courtyard to smoke our Korean imports.
This city is held together by who you know. When I bring up the topic of "cronyism" at work, one of my fave IT girlies asks, "did you get that from [redacted]?" She is not the first member of the IT team to bring up the famed (former) Naarm fledgling.
In a sunny backyard in [redacted suburb], a peer – briefly returned from the U.S – tells me about how good the art is in Naarm. Yet, all that water surrounding this "great southern land"i is holding our artistic careers back. No great continental access… If only we could bring this greatness to the people? If only there were channels for exchange? So many artists I know (including myself) have longed to flee to the creative meccas of Europe and the U.S., only to return disappointed and longing for the camaraderie of home.
At the most recent Monash Grad Show, I am dismayed to see an esteemed bigwig, who just-so-recently flew the coop to [redacted], back in our humble city. “I really thought they were going to make it," I tell anyone who asks. Bigwig tells me [the scene] is way better here. In return, I make some naff joke about the fruit and veg being as lacklustre as [redacted] city's art prospects.
The [redacted] gallery I do my unpaid gallerina work has been accused of its fair share of cronyism. Twice now, we have even been lucky enough to be accused of stealing other's ideas, and that's just in my lifetime with the space… ;). Being an artist, putting on shows, running a gallery, etc. is a feral rat race. It is not for the faint-hearted, and it is not guaranteed to get you anywhere outside the seclusion of our proverbial front-door. Gossip, like cronyism and art scenes operate globally as a kind of "[parasocial] economy.”ii
Gossip is a low-fi vehicle of and for the collection and sharing of knowledge. It does not rely on factuality. Rather, gossip is a practice that revels in “...a principle of contamination, a law of impurity…of excess.”iii Gossip, a trivial framework that allows for the emergence of more serious discourse.iv For example, how can Australian artists be taken seriously internationally? How can artists make funny work? How can the girls get their shows off the ground, across the oceans, and into the galleries of the continental artistic meccas? Gossip! This girl is rich, salacious, and needs to be tapped!
In a recent e-flux Journal article, artist Martha Rosler suggested the art world is perhaps one of few spaces left in this post-Fordist, individualised economy that is not “invested professionally in cultivating niceness”.v So, if the currency in which we trade is premised upon who-youknow relationality and not niceties, let's hurry up and be friends.
i Icehouse, “Great Southern Land,” Primitive Man, Regular Records, 1982.
ii Derrida, Jacques, and Avital Ronell. “The Law of Genre.” Critical Inquiry 7, no. 1 (1980): 55–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/134317.
iii Derrida, Jacques, and Avital Ronell. “The Law of Genre.”
iv RogoA, Irit. "Gossip as testimony-a postmodern signature: Irit RogoA suggests ways of looking elsewhere." Women's Art Magazine, November-December 1995, 6+. Gale Academic OneFile (accessed February 18, 2026).
v Rosler, Martha. “Why Are People Being So Nice?.” e-flux Journal, no.77 (November 2016), https://www.ef lux.com/journal/77/76185/whyare-people-being-so-nice.
The art "scene" is not for the faint of heart. The other day, J and I hauled ass to the other side of town to see the first exhibition at [redacted] gallery's new aboveshopfront space. J laughs as she tells me I have foot-inmouth disease. Bashful and blushing, I frantically attempt to rebut this allegation. The truth is, I do have a problem with keeping things to myself, whether that be personal opinions or secrets. I am a sucker for gossip. I would like it known that despite this, I consider myself a very trustworthy person… lol.
We arrive in [redacted suburb] and bump into the star of the night as he screeches to a halt on his lime bike. Our wunderkind art boy has returned home briefly from life abroad for this show. The last time I saw him was probably in Berlin or a VCA Grad Show of yonder (yawn).
I haven't been to an opening in a while – it's a hard life being an unpaid gallerina.
I rarely make it out to other openings anymore. And yet, I know a majority of the
people here. The owner of this gallery once told me he wasn't very interested in my work. Another art boy wunderkind arrives, and we reminisce on our time working together at sociallysnubbed [redacted
gallery]. Behind us, a longterm personal art op of mine – who cancelled who? – hovers in the corner, meekly. Myself, J, and a myriad of VCA-grads-cum-staffmembers flock to the courtyard to smoke our Korean imports.
This city is held together by who you know. When I bring up the topic of "cronyism" at work, one of my fave IT girlies asks, "did you get that from [redacted]?" She is not the first member of the IT team to bring up the famed (former) Naarm fledgling.
In a sunny backyard in [redacted suburb], a peer – briefly returned from the U.S – tells me about how good the art is in Naarm. Yet, all that water surrounding this "great southern land"i is holding our artistic careers back. No great continental access… If only we could bring this greatness to the people? If only there were channels for exchange? So many artists I know (including myself) have longed to flee to the creative meccas of Europe and the U.S., only to return disappointed and longing for the camaraderie of home.
At the most recent Monash Grad Show, I am dismayed to see an esteemed bigwig, who just-so-recently flew the coop to [redacted], back in our humble city. “I really thought they were going to make it," I tell anyone who asks. Bigwig tells me [the scene] is way better here. In return, I make some naff joke about the fruit and veg being as lacklustre as [redacted] city's art prospects.
The [redacted] gallery I do my unpaid gallerina work has been accused of its fair share of cronyism. Twice now, we have even been lucky enough to be accused of stealing other's ideas, and that's just in my lifetime with the space… ;). Being an artist, putting on shows, running a gallery, etc. is a feral rat race. It is not for the faint-hearted, and it is not guaranteed to get you anywhere outside the seclusion of our proverbial front-door. Gossip, like cronyism and art scenes operate globally as a kind of "[parasocial] economy.”ii
Gossip is a low-fi vehicle of and for the collection and sharing of knowledge. It does not rely on factuality. Rather, gossip is a practice that revels in “...a principle of contamination, a law of impurity…of excess.”iii Gossip, a trivial framework that allows for the emergence of more serious discourse.iv For example, how can Australian artists be taken seriously internationally? How can artists make funny work? How can the girls get their shows off the ground, across the oceans, and into the galleries of the continental artistic meccas? Gossip! This girl is rich, salacious, and needs to be tapped!
In a recent e-flux Journal article, artist Martha Rosler suggested the art world is perhaps one of few spaces left in this post-Fordist, individualised economy that is not “invested professionally in cultivating niceness”.v So, if the currency in which we trade is premised upon who-youknow relationality and not niceties, let's hurry up and be friends.
i Icehouse, “Great Southern Land,” Primitive Man, Regular Records, 1982.
ii Derrida, Jacques, and Avital Ronell. “The Law of Genre.” Critical Inquiry 7, no. 1 (1980): 55–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/134317.
iii Derrida, Jacques, and Avital Ronell. “The Law of Genre.”
iv RogoA, Irit. "Gossip as testimony-a postmodern signature: Irit RogoA suggests ways of looking elsewhere." Women's Art Magazine, November-December 1995, 6+. Gale Academic OneFile (accessed February 18, 2026).
v Rosler, Martha. “Why Are People Being So Nice?.” e-flux Journal, no.77 (November 2016), https://www.ef lux.com/journal/77/76185/whyare-people-being-so-nice.
