Concrete Playground

A standout talk at last years’ Biennale of Sydney was a confessional rant by visiting artist Ryan Gander. For an hour, Gander charged himself with the task of divulging every lie he had uttered in the course of making and promoting his work. This included admitting that a conceptual series of white cubes filled with various objects, exhibited at several notable venues, were in fact empty. And when realising he had lost the sacred stones used in one his works, Gander simply dug up some bricks in his backyard and shipped them off to be exhibited instead. Interestingly, the more confessions that tumbled from this pathological liar, the more I liked him and lapped up every word he uttered like a suckling babe. 
The artists exhibiting in Don’t Trust The Artist might not be as insatiable in their assault on audience-trust, but they tango with suspicion, delinquency, conspiracy and the sacrilegious like old pros. 
Curated by Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces director Alexie Glass-Kantor, Don’t Trust The Artist is an exhibition that will charm you with its wit and seduce you with its seeming availability, before leaving you scrambling trying to get the wool off your eyes. Image: Jackson Slattery, My Plastic Everything (detail from series), 2008.