1 December – 5 March, 2023
Exhibition Opening: Wednesday 30 November, 6-8pm
Ground Floor Galleries
Midnight Cowboy focuses on works that harness the power of neon as their primary material. Drawing on works held in public collections and the Arts Trust Collection, with works by Bill Culbert, Paul Hartigan, Robert Jahnke, Gregor Kregar and Paul Johns, the exhibition also includes recent explorations by Mary-Louise Browne, Jacquelyn Greenbank and Bruce Parker.
Neon lighting is not only a relatively recent technology, but also one that finds itself on the brink of obsolescence. The use of neon in art thus draws our attention to the ways that artists negotiate the implicit contradictions around intention, form, function, and technology. Neon is a controlled but somehow quirky material. It reflects a very deliberate stance adopted by its maker. The works in the exhibition have been selected to highlight such contradictions, interrogating apparent oppositions while creatively derailing familiar binaries – light / dark, public / private, sacred / profane, mass / bespoke, explicit / implicit.
Light has always held a certain fascination for artists, featuring prominently in religious symbolism. Jahnke, in particular, uses neon to bridge indigenous knowledge and Western religious constructs, whilst adopting the symbolic language of commercial advertising.
Interestingly, as a result of the use of neon lighting, the works themselves reinterpret the space around them, capturing the details of the Pah Homestead’s interior spaces, and rejuvenating its Victorian architecture. Architraves, mouldings, and other period details of the building are highlighted in a gesture that simultaneously accentuates the historical character of the building whilst rendering it contemporary - light as renovation and renewal.
Midnight Cowboy takes its name from a modernist novel that charts the gradual failure of a country boy trying to make it in the big smoke. The idealism burning brightly within the character’s dream and the dazzling attraction of bright lights of the city lead to an exploration of the main character’s demise. Midnight Cowboy is about bright lights and artists’ dreams, but also about the less romantic aspect of the artworld - commercial realities, bottom lines, and the struggle to make it in the big city.