KEY POINTS:
In the second half of last century the threat of nuclear destruction hung over the world. One unexpected consequence was that many artists abandoned any sense of permanence in their work and moved into areas such as performance art, gestural art and conceptual art. All had extraordinary ideas but no sense of being monumental or enduring.
That this feeling still persists is apparent in the exhibition by Meg Cranston called The Pleasure of Obvious Problems at Artspace until September 15. Cranston is the artist in residence at the Elam School of Fine Art and it is exciting to have a prominent American artist showing so extensively here.
The exhibition has some remarkable pleasures and some philosophical drawbacks. In keeping with this century's post-modern attitudes, all the objects have an extra spin on them.
There was a time when just creating a huge vinyl balloon exerting pressure on both ceiling and floor would have been thought satisfying as a thing in itself. Nowadays it must be described as The Complete Works of Jane Austen because the air inside is equivalent to the breathing that would be done if you read the author's complete works.
It gives shape to the invisible experience of reading, although the specific reference is a tenuous link.
The floor on which it sits is also a work of art. It is covered in paper printed with tile shapes and spots in black, which may represent blood. In two parts of the work the floor is covered with many publicity photos of rock groups, some famous, mostly ephemeral. The work is called Rock Bottom, but if you didn't read the label on the wall you might not be aware you were treading on a work of art.
These are lively, impressive things but not made to last. For all their visual impact they are nothing but a striking gesture carried out on a large scale.
In the small gallery is a work that talks about the process of change, a work that will have a continued existence as a video. It is called Volcano, Trash and Icecream and if you are prepared to give it half an hour or more it will tell you a lot about change as well as the general laws of matter.
Projected on the wall is a large, green icecream. It starts with a generous head and, while the head retains greater diameter than the cone, the icecream drips clear of the support. As it melts and becomes less in diameter it trickles down the side of the cone and drips from the point at the bottom. We are not shown the ultimate fate of the drips - they vanish. When the icecream is smaller than the diameter of the cone it becomes a liquid landscape, gradually subsiding in on itself.
It is the essence of mutability. It's also great fun and, in its own way, mesmerising. It is a modern, stylish version of Blake seeing the world in a grain of sand.
The paradoxical nature of the work is exemplified in Magical Death, the self-portrait of a woman hanging from the ceiling. The figure has purple boots, shorts and a mass of hair. The crude papier mache of the figure shows that if you make a work like this you have to keep it rough if it is going to be art. If you make it well it becomes a studio prop. Yet the crude making robs it of any magic. This is all of a piece with the fact that it will be beaten and destroyed at the end of the show. Self-destruction is added to the ephemeral.
There could be no greater contrast to the size and ironical wit of the Artspace show than the paintings of Herb Foley simply titled Earth, at Oedipus Rex until August 24. These works, full of charm and a potent, quiet emotion, take their origin in the bush but they are a vision.
Each is full of the spirit of the bush, featuring densely patterned foliage with fossils, insects and birds and - if you look hard - human figures, some naked as Adam and Eve. Everything is worked into a colourful unity.
The painter's technique is, in its unobtrusive way, as effective as ever. Individual elements are skilfully drawn and the colour is vibrantly rich.
The underpainting, often red, has been allowed to emerge through the upper layers, which are worked to make an intriguing surface. The only drawback is that this is made reflective by heavy varnish.
Some of the works, such as Four Trees, confer real majesty on each specimen. Others hint at the history of human occupation by making good design use of tiny flags suggesting people passing through on a variety of missions.
A special element is the quality of innocence, such as the primal ancestors naked in Have You Seen my Beetle?
Overall, this is a confident, rich exhibition, calm and quiet but filled with the magic of natural things and the processes of growth.
Elizabeth Thomson's spare and stylish exhibition at the Anna Bibby Gallery until August 31 is titled Studies for the Bigger Picture.
That's ironic. Substantial pieces of her work, which is based on exact replicas of natural forms, suffer the contrasting fates of having a national touring show and being hidden away by a national corporation.
The lovely Black Moths in bronze make the Anna Bibby show worth a visit.
