Chance Encounter

Editorial

Andre Breton was the somewhat self-appointed mastermind of the surrealist art movement; he wrote their manifesto and declared who was and who was not a surrealist. While his organisational style may have been somewhat dictatorial, he was great with words, uttering such absurdist phrases as, "As beautiful as the chance encounter, on a dissecting table, of a sewing-machine and an umbrella".

This uttering has formed the curatorial basis for a new exhibition opening at the South Australian School of Art Gallery, curated by Mary Knights and Maria Kunda and titled Chance Encounters. The two curators have sought out nine Australian artists who work to unsettle the viewer as much as Breton worked to unsettle the reader.

All the artists are linked in their utilisation of the bizarre and absurd, be it the performances of Barbara Campbell - whose artefacts from more than 20 years' worth of performances have been collected by many Australian gallery institutions - or the photographs of Bianca Barling, who creates and captures a world filled with characters that is aesthetically stunning, yet at the same time, not quite 'right'.

Julianne Gill