In talking about Robert Rauschenberg’s work, John Cage once remarked ‘beauty is now underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look’. His comment suggested the everyday — both materials and situations — could not only be transformed into art, but that this form of practice is potentially powerful.

Since the early twentieth century, everyday life has been the focus of wide ranging artistic investigations, including Dada and Surrealism, the Situationist International, Fluxus and conceptual art movements — just some antecedents informing works in this exhibition. The artists featured in ‘Everyday Magic’ (7 September 2013 to 16 March 2014) take the banal one step further and with characteristic wit turn it on its head — to make us laugh, to re-evaluate our taken-for-granted notions about art, and to draw our attention to what often goes unnoticed.

This turn to the ordinary sometimes simply states ‘here is value’. Rirkrit Tiravanija’s documentary-style photographs, for example, capture small details of daily life in Bangkok. Elsewhere, the accidentally miraculous is unveiled, as with Sandra Selig’s spiderwebs, which are reimagined as delicate drawings. For others, references to the commonplace are tongue in cheek: Charlie Sofo’s obsessive drawings, using hair, dust and lint, or Tony Schwensen’s performance video taking the mickey out of both the desire for bodily perfection and himself. From another perspective, commitment to the quotidian has a political tenor: Romuald Hazoumè’s assemblages, constructed from detritus, highlight the ongoing inequity in exchanges between Africa and Europe.

While the works in ‘Everyday Magic’ range in tone and effect, the artists are united in seeking languages of form that convey the elusiveness of the everyday. They are not aligned to any particular movement, but have in common an interest in process, small gestures and mucking around with materials. The everyday is not made strange, but simply rearranged, giving a refreshing take on what might otherwise remain ephemeral, fugitive and contingent. 

Feature image: Rivane Neuenschwander’s Mapa-mundi BR (postal) 2007 installed for ‘Everyday Magic’ / Purchased 2008 with funds from the Bequest of Grace Davies and Nell Davies through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / © Rivane Neuenschwander