View Exhibition Catalogue in format

DAVID WATT
A TRIBUTE
GALERIE DÜSSELDORF
With fond memories of our seriously funny times together, thank you for your friendship - Magda + Doug
DavidWattTributeV5
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Magda and Douglas Sheerer wish to express sincere thanks to Stephanie Jones, wife of
the late David Watt, for her enthusiasm throughout this project, for collating much of the
material for this exhibition and publication and for assisting with the installation.
Thanks also to the writers for their thoughtful words :
Ted Snell
DAVID WATT
Writer and Art Critic
Associate Professor, Dean of Art, John Curtin Centre
Head of the School of Art, Curtin University of Technology, Perth
Gordon Bull
1952 - 1998
Head, Art Theory Workshop, Institute of the Arts
Australian National University, Canberra
Dr. David Bromfield Writer, Art Critic and Publisher, Perth
Photography credits are correct to the best of our knowledge.
Photo :
Digital :
35 mm :
35 mm :
35 mm :
35 mm :
Page 2
Pages 3, 4, 5, 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Pages 10, 11 + Rear Cover
35 mm :
35mm :
Front Cover, Pages 12, 13
Page 14
Catalogue Design :
Pagemaker pre-press :
Douglas Sheerer
Douglas Sheerer
John Austin
Steve Wigg
ACME Inc.
David Watt
Brenton McGeachie
Brenton McGeachie
Pippa Wischer
A TRIBUTE
DRAWINGS + 3D WORK
Magda and Douglas Sheerer
Douglas Sheerer
DAVID WATT - A TRIBUTE DRAWINGS + 3D WORK
ISBN 1-875482-02-4 May 2000
28 May - 22 June 2000
Published by Galerie Düsseldorf + Stephanie Jones
Perth, Western Australia, May 2000
Copyright The Estate of David Watt, Galerie Düsseldorf and contributing writers
The Estate of David Watt is represented exclusively by Galerie Düsseldorf
Front Cover :
Knowledge : Headgear Through the Ages 1995
Acrylic on MDF 165 x 260 cm
Rear Cover :
An Ideal Marriage of People, Places and Things 1986
Lead, Wax, Plaster - Installation PRAXIS, Fremantle, WA
GALERIE DÜSSELDORF
GALERIE DÜSSELDORF
contemporary art
9 Glyde Street, Mosman Park, WA 6012 Australia tel/fax 61 8 9384 0890
Gallery Hours : Tue - Fri 10 - 4.30 pm Sun 2 - 5 pm and by appointment
Members of ACGA + AWAAG Directors : Magda and Douglas Sheerer
Email: [email protected] Web Site: http://www.galeriedusseldorf.com.au
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Solo Performances
1980
Heroes, North Terrace War Memorial, Adelaide
1984
Boy Playing Aeroplanes: Dreams of Flight, Chameleon Gallery, Hobart
Mr Men, Chameleon Gallery, Hobart
1985/86
Praxis, Fremantle, WA
1989/90
Perth Institute of Contemporary Art
1994
be headed, Co-lateral Damage performance night, CCAS Manuka
Selected Group Performances (with Steve Wigg, unless otherwise stated)
1980
Adelaide Festival Centre
End of Section, installation and performances with Steve Wigg & Derek Kreckler
Adelaide Festival Centre Gallery
Reaction/Defense,Experimental Art Foundation Performance Week, Adelaide
Experimental Art Foundation Performance Week, Carclew House, Adelaide
(with Derek Kreckler and Bernard Sachs)
1983
Upon this Rock, ANZART, Hobart
1984
Upon this Rock, Eye to Eye, Grey Men, Artists Week, Adelaide Festival
Experimental Art Foundation, 10th birthday celebrations, Adelaide
Tower of Strength, Chameleon Gallery, Hobart
1985
Empire of silence, Artspace Sydney
Perspecta performance programme, The Performance Space, Sydney
Events from the lives of three friends, ANZART, Auckland
Magic Moments, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide
1986
Was that the human thing to do?, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide
1987
Was that the human thing to do?, Fly by Night Club, ARX ’87, Fremantle, WA
1988
Midnight for Two, Artists Week, Adelaide Festival of the Arts
1989
Collaborationists, Tour with Steve Wigg, Richard Grayson, Michele Luke,
Mark Rogers: Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
Wagga City Art Gallery; Canberra Contemporary Art Space; Institute of Modern Art
Brisbane, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide; Perspecta, Art Gallery of New South Wales;
Perth Institute of Contemporary Art
Collaborationists UK Tour: Drew Gallery, Canterbury, Chisenhale, London
Transmission Gallery, Glasgow; Projects UK, Newcastle; Humberside College, Hull
1992
Where was I ?, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide; Galerie Constantinople, Queanbeyan, NSW
1993
21,600 each 24 hours, with Kevin Henderson, Christopher Chapman,
Ruark Lewis, Gordon Bull and others: Rex Hotel, Canberra
1994
One Moment, during Living Breathing, season of performance,
Canberra School of Art Gallery
1995
Where are we now?, Artspace, Sydney
ACME performance group, Garage performance season, Canberra
1996
ACME presents Back Yard Performances, O’Connor, Canberra
ACME presents D Block, The Performance Space, Sydney
ACME presents D Block, Gorman House Arts Centre, Canberra
1997
ACME meets Splinters in Faust, University House, ANU Canberra
ACME presents A night at the flicks, Electric Shadows Cinema, Canberra
Awards, Grants and Commissions
1984
Commonwealth Graduate Scholarship, University of Tasmania
1989
Funding for Collaborationists performance tour
1996
Project Grant, Australia Council for the Arts
1996-97
Commission for the Tuggeranong Police Station, Canberra
1997-98
3 works for the Canberra Museum and Gallery
(2 posthumously completed by Hamilton Darroch)
Selected Bibliography (about the artist)
1980
Experimental Art Foundation performance week, Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide
1983
ANZART supplement, Island Magazine, no 16
Artlink Vol 3/3
1984
Jamming at the Jelly Factory, Judith A Hoffberg, Artlink Vol 4/2-3
1985
A Decade at the EAF: 1974 - 1984, Artlink publication
ANZART Auckland ‘85, event catalogue
on the one that got away.
David Watt’s work is seriously funny. As you will have noticed,
comedy is hard to do in the visual arts, a field where artists often
struggle for a lifetime to achieve a state of being-taken-seriously.
And comedy is particularly difficult from beyond the grave: taking
the joke can feel like stealing a coin from the mouth of a dead man.
Take it without guilt, is my advice. And laugh; it’s a gift. The stiff is
froze, the case is closed,1
Watt worked with a set of references that had a very particular place
in his own life. He worked in diverse mediums, making drawings,
sculptural objects and installations, and in performance; the latter
usually with his consistent partner Steve Wigg, but sometimes with
other groups, such as Acme in Canberra. Under this diversity stood
his constant interest in the popular culture of the 1950s and ‘60s,
from the point of view of the shifting present, especially as it related
to men and boys.
David had been seriously ill as a child in the ‘50s and early ‘60s. He
was bedridden for extended periods and his loving parents gave
the little boy books and lots of magazines. One of those magazines
was ‘Knowledge: the new colour magazine which grows into an
encyclopaedia’. Produced for children and marketed in the format
of weekly pamphlets sold at the newsagent or corner shop,
‘Knowledge’ was a commodity which promised growth and
development through accumulation. It was a boy’s own world of
information.
One of Watt’s projects of the 1990s was to work through
‘Knowledge’ and produce an MDF panel, carved in low relief and
painted in the tones of the cheaply printed pages of the magazine,
for each of the colour illustrations in the encyclopaedia. He returned
to this unfinished project intermittently over several years and
produced hundreds of objects, which he exhibited in selected groups.
Many of them are quite small: related to the size of the magazine
page rather than the scale of the illustration or its importance.
Others grew like Alice into incongruous, gigantic forms. These works
have a cheerful, distant optimism that the world can indeed be
explained in its fullness despite the inexplicable conjunctions of size
and scale, and the scrambling of categories and disciplines: where
natural history might meet physics, and modes of transport meet
biology, while both converse with myth.
He had found his copies of ‘Knowledge’ in second-hand stores, junk
shops and dumps. To the best of my knowledge his collection was
incomplete, but even if it had been complete, and even if the project
had been finished, the sets of objects would still be more or less
random fragments of a half-remembered past. The project wasn’t
pointless, just characteristically rambling and excessive. The project
of Knowledge was irresolvable both for the boy with a tenuous grip
on life and for the man wondering, through his art, what it is to grow
to be a man.
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67
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MYSTERY TOP
38 x 37 cm
85
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FLOWER POT TRAP
38 x 38 cm
61
HANDY HOUSEHOLD HELPER I
53 x 63 cm
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HANDY HOUSEHOLD HELPER II
78 x 51 cm
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LOVE SEAT
66.5 x 88 cm
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T.V.
71 x 53 cm
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Title Unknown
73 x 52 cm (Wash Basin)
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Title Unknown
36.5 x 36.5 cm (Pewter Mug)
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Title Unknown
39 x 37.3 cm (Small Radio)
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Title Unknown
54 x 51 cm (Hands and Electrical Appliance)
76
Title Unknown
48.5 x 67 cm (Hand and Air Cylinder)
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Title Unknown
60 x 84 cm (Hand and Needle Holder)
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Title Unknown
49 x 47 cm (Trouser Rack)
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Title Unknown
48 x 72 cm (Two Hands Fitting Something)
CONVERSATION PIECE
Charcoal and Acrylic on Wood
Table and 4 Elements 27.5 x 61 x 27.5 cm
Collection Douglas + Magda Sheerer
86
PROBE UNSEEN WONDERS 1991
Charcoal and Acrylic on Wood
20 x 80 x 80 cm
Collection Douglas + Magda Sheerer
87
KNOWLEDGE 1991 - 1995
Acrylic on MDF
Dimensions variable
Shelf length
Left 180 cm, Right 360 cm
88
UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE 1993
Acrylic on MDF
Dimensions variable
(tallest approx. 40 cm high)
89
PORTRAIT OF ARTIST AS A YOUNG VAN 1993
Acrylic on MDF
Approx. 140 x 400 x 250 cm (Not in Exhibition)
Collection Gordon Bull + Deborah Clark
90
KIT 1995
Metal Toolbox, Timber + 6 Drawings
Toolbox 14 x 35 x 16 cm, Drawings 15 x 35 cm
Collection Stephanie Jones
91
SOUVENIRS FROM AN OLDER WORLD ORDER 1995
Acrylic and Resin on Spoons
13 Sets of 4 spoons in hangers (12 x 14 cm)
Each spoon 12 x 3 x 2 cm (Originally 15 Sets)
2 Sets Collection Stephanie Jones
3 Sets Collection Douglas + Magda Sheerer
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KNOWLEDGE 1995
Acrylic on MDF
Dimensions variable (Train 100 x 300 cm
Hats approx. 30 x 30 cm each
Large Cactus 150 x 58 cm)
Total Installation as illustrated at
CCAS 240 x 910 cm
93
GHOSTS 1996
Carved MDF
Dimensions variable (Curtain 204 x 121 cm)
Installation approx. 204 x 300 cm
OTHER DRAWINGS
80
Title Unknown 1992
From Popular Mechanics Series
Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Paper
95 x 63 cm
81
Title Unknown 1992
From Popular Mechanics Series
Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Paper
107 x 70 cm
82
Title Unknown 1992
From Popular Mechanics Series
Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Paper
95 x 63 cm
David Watt
3D WORK
83
Title Unknown c 1997 - 1998
Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Paper
160 x 102 cm
84
SUMMER PUDDING ... FIT FOR A PARTY 1997
Pastel on Paper
37 x 37 cm (21” x 21”)
NB
Drawings included in the exhibition
From The Dustless House
(Galerie Düsseldorf 1989)
retain their original catalogue
number for this exhibition.
I first met David Watt in the mid-eighties when I was putting together an
exhibition about the struggle for memory in Western Australian art. It was
called Among the Souvenirs. He was a delightful man, a Scottish
expatriate artist without a trace of the anger most of us feel from time to
time for the stupidities all around us. His precise, considered sensitivity,
was always motivated by a concern for those around him, not in the
narrow sense of day to day ethics but in the broader realms of their well
being in the universe as whole. I'm afraid I cannot make it any clearer.
Watty came from the world of ‘Wallace and Grommit’ where you can
build a moon rocket in your backyard and the fate of mankind is
scribbled on the corner fish and chip shop wall for all to see.
He was obsessed with the air brushed illustrations in practical mechanics
and the other post war magazines that brought the quirky material
details of the science fiction future, that was being worked out in the wider
realms of popular culture by Asimov, Clark and Co, right down to your
living room sofa next to the Radio Times. His work for my exhibition was
Conversation Piece a variable mural of the black and white gouaches
inspired by them and other fantasies. You too could live in a patent
dustless house and cool your clothes in a combination fridge wardrobe.
(What a dream for the housewives of Sheffield whose washing turned
black if they left it on the line for an hour.) You could measure as you
walked, look backward with mirrors in your patent sun glasses and serve
yourself with a battery powered ice cream scoop.
Unlike Richard Hamilton and the other well fed proponents of Pop Art as
the latest version of southern middle class cool and condescension, David
Watt understood that these glowing magazine pages were about the
dreams, hopes and desperations of people who had about as much
chance of walking on the moon as they had of winning Littlewoods pools.
So much love for something so trivial, so automatic. Only people who had
been subjected to the tyranny of labour could understand the full meaning of those two words "labour saving".
Even if the labour was pointless in the first place it was still delightful to
find an easier way to do it, to rid your home of insects the modern way
and collect crumbs in a specially designed collector. The ghostly hands
that grip so many of the tools in his work indicate that the fascination was
in doing and making.
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David Watt provided a statement about his work in 1985. It reads as
amazingly confident in these postmodern times but still says all that can
be said about his astonishing social sensibility.
We carry with us a certain awareness, a certain
expectation of the objects in the world a familiarity with
which we feel comfortable to the extent that many of
these objects and the values for which they stand become
anaesthetised and unquestioned . . .
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Drawings from Kit 1995
Kit 1995
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From ACME presents A Night at the Flicks 1997
Electric Shadows Cinema
Knowledge .... 1995 ( Steam Train, The Main Parts and how they function; Momentum, Friction, Force, Work,
From ACME presents A Night at the Flicks 1997
Portrait of Artist as a Young Van 1993
Electric Shadows Cinema
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Knowledge 1991 - 1995
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David Watt
and Steve Wigg
Performance
Was that the Human
Thing to do ? 1986
Energy, Power; The Hen; Headgear Through The Ages; Plants of the Sandy Desert )
Ghosts 1996
Experimental Art
Foundation
Adelaide
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There is an underlying logic that links objects to each
other. It owes its existence to a social logic. It’s not
immediately apprehensible but rather clings dust like to
each and everything with which we are surrounded . . .
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This is not the triumphant amnesiac Pop Art view of consumer life in
which the social fabric from which the world emerges was irrelevant
to the throw away future. David Watt the true artist sensed that for
good or evil, life, labour and the imagination clung for eternity to every
object ever made. He would have agreed whole heartedly with John
Ruskin that the objects around us are crucial to our hopes and dreams,
that it is better to be inspired by something slightly silly than oppressed
by an advertising executive’s notion of the way we should live. Above
all he would have hated the way we waste our imagination fetishing
cheap plastic crap with no tale to tell.
Several of his extraordinary performances with Steve Wigg explored
the relation between the moral universe and the perverse life of
objects. I remember a hilarious armchair event with a briar pipe and
other objects though not the details. It had more than a whiff of
Magritte about it and we all laughed our heads off. I saw less of his
work in Canberra but what I did encounter suggested that he was on
the same track. Plaster casts of tools, personal objects strewn on the
steps of public buildings and the appearance of a dreamy nursery
book colour in his new work all suggested that he was on his way to
a much needed major statement.
Unfortunately the particular bitter-sweet ironic relation to objects that
he sought imposes a heavy burden on the artist. Any kind of
working class hero has a lot of explaining to do especially one who is
constantly putting up another kind of memory, a different way of
engaging the world. To many it would have seemed that he was
shadow boxing in the dark. Such critics might have used the torch
pen, for which "Writing in the Dark is no Difficulty ". Then they would
have discovered that the spirit of David Watt lives on. Only this
weekend I found that you can buy a battery powered pepper grinder
with a built in torch "for illuminating the spiced area."
That was what he did best !
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DAVID WATT - A TRIBUTE
DRAWINGS + 3D WORK
1
PRACTICALLY ELIMINATES THE
NECESSITY OF CONSTANTLY CHECKING
59 X 65 cm
28
QUILTED PLASTIC ADDS FINISHING TOUCH TO
THIS EXTREMELY MODERN LAMP
61 x 47.5 cm
2
COFFEE MEASURE IS USEFUL
38.5 x 65 cm
29
ICE STOPPER
70.5 x 41 cm
3
A BLOWTORCH APPLIED HAS NO EFFECT
58 x 44.5 cm
31
DON'T COME HOME MECHANISM
61 x 93.5 cm
4
SENSE OF TOUCH TOOL
47.5 x 48.5 cm
32
HAT HOLDER
67 x 128 cm
5
BRIEFCASE PICNIC GRILL
74 x 77.5 cm
Collection Douglas + Magda Sheerer
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SUNGLASSES HAVE SMALL MIRRORS TO
PROVIDE A BACKWARD VIEW
38 x 65 cm
6
PORTABLE BEAUTY SHOP
52 x 78 cm
34
BOTTLE CORKS ARE FINE GLASS CLEANERS
37 x 40 cm
8
TESTS GENUINENESS OF HARDWARE
47 x 59 cm
35
'PUMP - IT' IS PERFECT FOR YOURSELF
71 x 51 cm
10
SLIDING HEAVY GARMENTS
46.5 x 64 cm
36
BATTERY POWERED ICE CREAM SCOOP
66 x 48 cm
11
WHEELS FOR GARDEN RAKE
51.5 x 61 cm
37
THE DUSTLESS HOUSE
137 x 232 cm (Not in exhibition)
Collection Art Gallery of Western Australia
14
SELF ILLUMINATED
108 x 93 cm (Not in Exhibition)
Collection University of Western Australia
38
GIVE AN UNUSUAL BORDER TO
PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINTS
78 x 54 cm
39
NEON CHANDELIER
53 x 62 cm
41
WIND CONTROLS CHIMNEY
43 x 44 cm
15
TRIPLE DUTY GARDEN TOOL
57 x 55 cm
16
MADE OF DURABLE TRANSPARENT
PLASTIC THE DEVICE WON'T RUST,
SHATTER OR CHIP 48 x 73 cm
17
KNIFE SHARPENER
51.5 x 65.5 cm
42
PLUGS INTO ANY STANDARD OUTLET
65 x 53 cm
19
YOU CAN MEASURE AS YOU WALK
72 x 53 cm
43
20
TINY MAGNETRON
52 x 50 cm
INSERTED IN YOUR LAWN ORGARDEN READS
WET MOIST OR DRY (TRAY)
39.5 x 29 cm
Collection Stephanie Jones
44
21
HIGH FREQUENCY TRANSISTORS IN
EXPERIMENTAL RECEIVER
56 x 45 cm
COMBINATION SCOOP
(TRAY) 33 cm Dia.
45
NO GROPING AROUND IN A DARK ROOM
(TRAY) 42 x 34 cm
22
THIS GONG PRODUCES A LOUD NOISE
57 x 51.5 cm
50
CANNED BATTER MAKES LIFEEASIER FOR WIVES
72 x 53 cm
23
WRITING IN THE DARK IS NOPROBLEM
106 x 102.5 cm (Not in Exhibition)
Collection University of Western Australia
53
FIXTURE IS READY FOR USE IN 24 HOURS
53 x 62 cm
David Bromfield 21 April 2000.
24
READILY ACCESSIBLE MAGNET
IN YOUR SHIRT POCKET
38.5 x 78.5 cm
54
FURNACE HEAT IS TURNED DOWN
AT BEDTIME
66 x 50.5 cm
27
SOCK DRYERS ADJUST TO ALL SIZES
52 x 55 cm
55
THE HOMEMAKER CAN TELL AT A GLANCE
38 x 37 cm
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FROM THE DUSTLESS HOUSE 1987-89
DRAWINGS
Acrylic, Ink and Charcoal on Paper
11/5/00, 10:05 AM
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The autobiographical aspect of Watt’s work is important. He was moved
by his relationship with his family, particularly by his relationship to his
beloved father, and by his own disrupted role as father to his daughters.
In his work these autobiographical particularities were submerged under
an ocean of off-beat and unfashionable pop-cultural references. Born in
Paisley, Scotland, and emigrating to Adelaide with his family, the past
was also another country: a rather daggy post-war Britain.
His work constantly refers to the period of his childhood and to the gender-forming role of popular culture at that time. He returned to key sources
such as ‘Knowledge’ and the magazine ‘Popular Mechanics’, with its
hopeless gadgetry and projects for the home handyman; but an
occasional publication might draw his attention for just one work, such
as ‘The Ladybird Book of Trucks’ for Portrait of the Artist as a Young Van.
Similarly his persona in performance was consistently a dotty ‘50s male,
a relative of M. Hulot or Eric Morecombe, fumbling and bemused by the
pathetic symbols of his own beaming, pipe-chomping, disfunctional
masculinity.
His working process was intemperate, even fanatical. At the limit of his
physical capabilities he would typically make an excessive number of
drawings (filling the old Galerie Düsseldorf in Hay Street, Perth, for
From the Dustless House in 1989) or objects (hundreds of shoes, carved
in relief and painted for an installation in the risers of the steps of the
National Library for Inhabiting the Archive in 1997). Sometimes the sheer
size of an object could be excessive as with the awesome singularity of
The Classroom, a virtuoso pencil drawing which filled the walls of a whole
room at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1990. The effort
involved in making his work is palpable: as a viewer you are tested and
asked, is this really necessary? and, if so, for what?
There is a terrible edge to David’s work, both a sharpness and an
edginess that is produced by its excess and its demands on its audience.
His humour was serious and worked through pathos. As an audience
we’re asked, just what are you laughing at? when laughter, or silence, is
the only available response. I do not mean to cast his work in the shadow
of his death. His work was clearly not about death, but about the
absurdities of life. We are all caught in the absurd. The wit and flights of
fancy of Watt’s work are a great, quizzical enrichment and affirmation of
that life.
Gordon Bull
ANU, Institute of the Arts, May 2000
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“the stiff is froze, the case is closed, on the one that got away”.
is a quote from the song ‘The one that got away’ on Tom Waits’ album Small Change
David Watt was born on 7 May 1952 in Paisley, Scotland and emigrated to Australia (Adelaide) in 1966. He died
prematurely in Queanbeyan, NSW, on 7 May 1998. He gained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the South Australian School
of Art, Adelaide (1977-1980), and a Master of Fine Arts, from the University of Tasmania, Hobart (1983-1984)
Professional Experience
1984
Visiting artist Darwin Community College
1985-89
Organising Committee ARX, Perth (inaugural Chairperson 1987-89)
1985-90
Lecturer, Sculpture Department, Curtin University, Perth
1986-87
Board member, Praxis, Fremantle WA
1988-89
Member of interim board, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA)
1991
Curated Backwards Glance, a survey of WA sculpture, PICA
Co-curated (with Julie Ewington) Discrete Entity, exhibition of 6 installations
Canberra School of Art Gallery
1991-93
Board member, Canberra Contemporary Art Space
1991-98
Head, Sculpture Workshop, Canberra School of Art, ANU Institute of the Arts
1993-98
Board member, Canberra National Sculpture Forum (Chairperson 1995-98)
1996-97
Public artwork consultant with architects Collins Caddaye and Humphries
(Tuggeranong Police Station project)
1996-97
Board member, Capital Arts Patrons Organisation (CAPO), Canberra
Selected Solo Exhibitions
1979
From the Gaelic bi ann, to be with, in existence, being, installation
Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide
1981
Adelaide University Gallery
1984
The very thought of you and The Last Supper, installations, University of Tasmania, Hobart
1986
An ideal marriage of people, places and things, installation, Praxis, Fremantle WA
1989
From the Dustless House, Drawings and Objects, Galerie Düsseldorf, Perth
1992
An uncertain memory, installation, Spiral Arm Gallery, Canberra
1994
Unclear resemblances, installation, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
Installation for Garage exhibition space, Canberra
2000
David Watt - A Tribute, Drawings and 3D Work, Galerie Düsseldorf, Perth
Selected Group Exhibitions
1980
End of Section, installation and performances with Steve Wigg & Derek Kreckler
Adelaide Festival Centre Gallery
1981
First Australian Sculpture Triennial, La Trobe University, Melbourne
1985
Installation/performance, Artspace, Sydney
1986
Invisible Cities, Praxis, Fremantle WA
Expatriates and exiles, Adelaide Festival Centre
1987
Among the Souvenirs, Art Gallery of Western Australia
1988
A New A Gender, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art
1990
A spacious central location, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art
1991
Concealment, Galerie Düsseldorf, Perth
A Sideways Glance, Galerie Düsseldorf, Perth
Thirteen artists in three dimensions, CSA staff exhibition Canberra School of Art Gallery
Australian Perspecta, Art Gallery of NSW
1992
Catalysts, Nolan Gallery, Canberra
Drawings ’92, CSA staff exhibition, Canberra School of Art Gallery
1993
Excalibur, Geelong Art Gallery, VIC
Cloudbusting, CSA staff exhibition, Canberra School of Art Gallery
Decor, Old Canberra House, Canberra
Chameleon: a decade, Long Gallery, Hobart
1995
Capital Works, ANU Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra, toured to Singapore and Hong Kong
A Rose is a Rose is a Rose, Galerie Düsseldorf, Perth
1996
Breaching the Divide, Goulburn Regional Gallery, NSW
Cabinet of Curiosities, Australian National University
1997
Archives and the Everyday, National Library of Australia
(co-ordinated by Canberra Contemporary Art Space)
Multiplication: the multiple object in art, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne
Galerie Düsseldorf - 21 Years On, Galerie Düsseldorf, Perth
1998
All this and Heaven too, Adelaide Biennial of Art, Art Gallery of South Australia
1999
The Real Thing, Canberra Contemporary Art Space
1999/00
Hermanns Art Award, Span Galleries, Melbourne, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery
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WAVY DOT
It was typical of David that within a short time of his arrival at
Curtin's School of Art he had created a palpable camaraderie
and an intimacy that generated ribald, funny and revealing
nicknames. He was allocated a spoonerism of his own name
(by Barry Weston I think) and it fitted so well. Not a rigid full stop
that ends and sums up, but a wavy dot, a question mark,
David's beloved '… what if?'
1986
1986-87
1987
1987-88
1989
He blew into our lives straight from Tasmania, with the warm
easterly from Adelaide, his home town, speeding his flight.
Already established as a performance artist and rising star he
energized and enthused us all, staff and students, colleagues
and friends. An inquiring mind, restless and free ranging, linked
to an abundant energy source. His bonhomie and vitality
infected us, generating a vortex of ideas and activities whose
centre was the Wavy Dot.
Teacher, artist, provocateur - he changed things. A trip to Albany when the School was establishing a
satellite course 'down south' was a memorable event. I drove down with David and Barry Weston
picking up a parking ticket on the way. In Albany we worked hard and played hard (David always did)
and once tanked up he vented his frustrations with remarkable fluency considering his inebriated state.
Forceful and determined he made his point and things changed - and everyone still loved him.
1990
1991
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
His energy was legendary, whether performing at PICA or preparing work for his show at the Galerie
Düsseldorf or making work for group shows - he always seemed to have several projects on the boil at
any one time. He was also informed about other people's practice and a catalyst for student work and
initiatives. His generosity of spirit is remembered at Curtin through the 'Watts his name award', given
each year to the student who excels in the area of performance or time-based works.
'Around David' was an exciting place to be so when he announced that he was leaving to take up the
position in Canberra we were all extremely happy for him but saddened for ourselves. Typically he kept
in touch and whenever I made it to Canberra he was always ebullient and welcoming. No matter how
long it had been, time was brushed aside and we instantly reverted to that precious intimate space of
friendship.
In the years following his departure from Curtin he 'did good'. Revitalising the Sculpture Workshop in
Canberra, actively engaging in current debates and showing his work in many forums including Perspecta
and the Adelaide Biennial.
His death was a tragedy that sent shock waves out around the country and rocked art communities in
many cities. We all had to come to grips with his absence and with the depth of his sadness.
This exhibition and this publication will revive many memories and rekindle that incandescent spark
that illuminated so many lives.
Photo above : David Watt
In Magda + Doug’s Garden, Ord Street
Fremantle, Christmas 1988
Ted Snell
May 2000
1999
Australian Perspecta catalogue, AGNSW
Artlink, Vol 5/3-4
Art Network, Summer
PraxisM, No 11
Performance Magazine, No 42
Artlink, Vol 6/6
Catalogue essay, David Bromfield, Among the Souvenirs, Art Gallery of Western Australia
PraxisM, Invisible Cities, special issue
Art Monthly Australia, November
Cover image, Artlink, Vol 7/4
Performance review, Richard Grayson, Artlink, Vol 7/4, p. 11
Catalogue essay, John Barrett-Lennard, A Spacious Central Location,
Perth Institute of Contemporary Art
Catalogue essay, Marco Marcon, From the Dustless House,
Galerie Düsseldorf, Perth
No Substitute, anthology of images and prose, Fremantle Arts Centre Press
Dare to Know, catalogue essay, Gordon Bull, Australian Perspecta, AGNSW
Cat. essay, Steve Wigg, Unclear Resemblances, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
Knowledge, catalogue essay, Gordon Bull, Capital Works, ANU Drill Hall Gallery
Sending up the world of work, review of D-Block performance, Alana Maclean,
The Canberra Times, Oct 3
Performance review, Artlink, Vol. 17/4
Archives and the Everyday, Canberra Contemporary Art Space
A night at the flicks performance review, Sarah Roberts, Muse, September
Virtual handyman, catalogue essay, Gordon Bull, Adelaide Biennial,
Art Gallery of Southe Australia
Review of Archives and the Everyday, Gordon Bull, Like, No 6, Winter/Spring,
The West Australian, 9 May, p.95
Obituary, Gordon Bull, The Canberra Times, 18 May, p. 4
Obituaries, Jo Darbyshire, Michelle Slarke, Rick Hadlow
The Artists Foundation of WA, newsletter, Vol 7/2, May, p.5
Obituary, Kate Murphy and Meredith Hinchliffe, Muse, No 174, June, p. 12
Obituary, Gordon Bull and Deborah Clark, Art Monthly Australia, No 110, June, p. 37
Public art at the Canberra Museum and Gallery, Jacky Talbot, Artlink, Vol 18/2
Obituary, Richard Grayson, Artlink, Vol 18/2
Obituary, Artspace newsletter, No 71, July
Was that the human thing to do?, Steve Wigg, Broadsheet, Vol 27/3, pp. 14,15
Catalogue essay, Jane Barney, The Real Thing, Canberra Contemporary Art Space
Selected Bibliography (by the artist)
1985
Performance script, Chameleon Magazine, No 3
1986
The Living Rooms, Praxis M, No 12
An Incongruous Marriage, catalogue essay, Praxis
1991
Backward Glance, Backward Glance: a survey of Western Australian Sculpture from
the mid 1960s to the 1990s, catalogue, PICA
Curator’s note (with Julie Ewington), Discrete Entity catalogue, Canberra School of Art
1992
Review of Contemporary Australian Sculpture, by Graham Sturgeon
pub. Craftsman House 1991. Art Monthly No.52, p.11, 12, 14 August 1992
1995
Chameleon: a decade, special issue Contemporary Art Tasmania, No 6, p. 31
1996
From where they stand: artists & curators talk about installation art, artonview, No 7
Come to where the flavour is, catalogue essay for Michele Beevors, Artspace, Sydney
Public Collections
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Art Gallery of Western Australia
The Holmes à Court Collection
Curtin University of Technology
University of Western Australia
Hermanns Corporate Art Collection
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