Evolved over the years

The titles of artworks are clues to their reading. What does a name like “Hazard” really mean?

Does the title pop out of an assemblage of concrete dividers or is it pointing the viewer in the dubious direction of meaning?

Two shows on in the Southbank Arts Precinct give a viewer a chance to work around the roadblocks.

At the Margaret Lawrence Gallery all of the works are Untitled and at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) they are like the answers to a cryptic crossword.

Artists like to play with narrative and Irish-born Eva Rothschild is no exception. Iceberg Hits 2018, for example, refers to a five-metre-high punching bag while Organic Threat is an over-sized play area with large, soft reclining shapes.

Some artists feel that their work speaks for itself. Consuelo Cavaniglia uses formal geometry such as the rhomboid, parabola and rectangle to make shapes in canvas, Perspex and ply.

These have to be experienced within the space of the gallery and titles would be distractions.

“A lot of people make untitled work,” said Alex Walker, who was viewing the show at the Margaret Lawrence. “If you can put it into words then you may as well be a writer or a poet.”

Is Untitled a category for those who prefer materials or does it have a wider cultural meaning?

Modernists were in favour of viewers making their own interpretations but post-modernists view all art as text, be it written, visual or performed. A title does not need to be prescriptive.

Technical Support (ACCA), a column extending to the ceiling and made out of old masking tape reels, lends itself to multiple readings. Is the artist supporting the roof or letting the curators have a say in construction or is the masking tape being honoured for being a useful old buddy?

Contemporary art prefers to set up a conversation rather than interpretation. Too many blurbs can become tiring. The visitor needs to sit down and have a cup of tea. At ACCA there’s a barista and the volunteers love a chat.

The bottom line for abstraction is aesthetics. Rothschild shows she can be beautiful as well as relevant to her audience.

Crystal Healing is an assemblage of squares and triangles, each joined at two corners, so that a thread of triangles intersects with one of squares.

This work requires no interpretation just admiration. Each shape is painted black and green or turquoise or yellow or red or purple.

The contemporary mind is over-heated, Crystal Healing seems to be saying. Pure beauty is what it needs.

“If you look at the work of Henson,” Ms Walker says, “He’s obsessed with in-between states. Roads that fade out. He uses a lot of Untitled. It’s everything and nothing at the same time, a kind of liminal state.”

For those who like to take sides, one thing is certain. Untitled as a title has evolved over the years.