Around 13 years ago we saw an
intriguing work for sale at the Sarah Cottier Gallery in Sydney. It was simply
a cardboard box with a book of instructions, a felt pen and a piece of string.
Once you purchased this numbered but limitless edition though you had the right
to create six wall drawings by Australian artist Kerrie Poliness as many times
as you wanted to whatever scale you chose. As the form was determined by where
you put the initial markers and you had to measure by eye, the drawings never
looked quite the same. We liked the wonky renditions best. As in some many
things, if you made a slight error of judgement at the start, it amplified as
you went on. Now the Poliness drawings have been installed at the Dowse in
Lower Hutt so we'll be keen to play spot-the-difference when we eventually get to see them. Thanks to a time-lapse movie you can see the drawing in progress, along with a similar record of a more recent work being installed in Australia here.
Images: Top, Black-O installed at the Dunedin
Public Art Gallery, second row at the City Gallery and bottom at home around
2001
