Today, The Art Gallery of Western Australia formally announced its winter blockbuster exhibition for 2024. No, it’s not an Impressionist survey, international touring show, nor big name retrospective, but a large-scale indulgence into the work of public art darling, Rone. Melbourne-based muralist Tyrone Wright, known as Rone, is renowned for transforming disused or overlooked locations with his signature commercial “big head” portraits. He had previously described the female subjects of his large-scale, fashion-ad-style murals as anonymous “Jane Does”. More recently, they have been modelled on Sydney-based fashion model, Teresa Oman, Rone’s “long-time collaborator and muse”.
I can imagine the planning meeting now: a room full of recently wowed Rone fans, hearts still palpitating from witnessing the muralist’s 2022-23 Flinders Street Station exhibition. Talk turns to what venue best matches Rone’s penchant for underappreciated, abandoned, underutilised, or unorthodox locations, and, naturally, AGWA springs to mind! In fairness, the exhibition will be mounted in parts of AGWA’s Centenary Galleries that have remained locked up for years. Yet, it is hard to imagine the back end of AGWA culminating in a “Freo Woolstores” moment, which was so pivotal to last year’s Fremantle Biennale. So, what can we expect from Rone? A quote from a recent op-ed in The Guardian about the recent Melbourne installation, TIME • RONE, helps to illustrate:
Often in muted tones, these “big head” murals are stock and trade for Rone, as is the case for many publicly funded muralists. The mural/installations are a saccharin recipe of steampunk-esque aesthetics and fashion illustrations. It is the soft serve variety of visual art that requires no thought to consume: creamy, easy to slurp up, and certainly bad for you.
There will certainly be more to AGWA’s show than just murals of models if the Flinders spectacle is anything to go by. Picture this: a strange labyrinth of books, papers, wine stains, European furniture, opulent and eccentric accoutrements, a few “big head” murals for good measure, and a sense of quirky luxuriousness. I doubt any of AGWA’s curators will be putting their names to this show, based on the press material released thus far. If the immense public cost and return (on ticket sales, merch, and foot traffic) at the Flinders show is any indicator, Rone's AGWA exhibition will be touted as a “people pleaser”—but acts of self gratification can often end up rubbing many the wrong way.
It won’t be long before we know more about what to expect from AGWA’s endeavour with Rone, least of all because of the inevitable Instagram advertising that will soon roll out. Of course, it is unfair to pass any judgement until witnessing it for oneself. Yet, it is impossible to resist speculating whether Rone will be AGWA’s worst exhibition to date, an unlikely winter hit, or, most unnervingly, both. Why so worrying? Because, as Giles Fielke remarked in a review in Memo, the success of TIME • RONE reveals “[...] the power of nostalgia. It is why Make America Great Again worked. It is dangerous.”[2] It is this uncritical nostalgia—mawkish and hazardous—that forms a perfect concoction to atrophy the mind.
Find out more at www.time-rone-agwa.com.
Footnotes:
1. Sian Cain, Rone takes over Flinders Street Station’s hidden ballroom: ‘It’s my biggest project yet’, 27 October 2022. https://amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/oct/27/rone-takes-over-flinders-street-stations-hidden-ballroom-its-my-biggest-project-yet
2. Giles Fielke, TIME•RONE, 4 February 2023. https://www.memoreview.net/reviews/timerone-by-giles-fielke
Image credit: RONE, The Glasshouse. Courtesy RONE.
I can imagine the planning meeting now: a room full of recently wowed Rone fans, hearts still palpitating from witnessing the muralist’s 2022-23 Flinders Street Station exhibition. Talk turns to what venue best matches Rone’s penchant for underappreciated, abandoned, underutilised, or unorthodox locations, and, naturally, AGWA springs to mind! In fairness, the exhibition will be mounted in parts of AGWA’s Centenary Galleries that have remained locked up for years. Yet, it is hard to imagine the back end of AGWA culminating in a “Freo Woolstores” moment, which was so pivotal to last year’s Fremantle Biennale. So, what can we expect from Rone? A quote from a recent op-ed in The Guardian about the recent Melbourne installation, TIME • RONE, helps to illustrate:
Rone specifically paints women’s faces as an answer to the “aggressive masculinity” he saw while painting on the streets two decades ago: “I decided to do the opposite and I felt this defiant strength in something so fragile.” These days, there are plenty of Rone copycats on the streets, which is a reason why he wanted to go big on the rest of the details in Time. “It’s very safe, it’s very consumable, to paint a portrait on the street,” he says. “I was getting a lot of offers from communities to come and paint a mural of a local, stuff like that. And it was great fun, but I realised that I was just doing the same thing in every town. It didn’t feel like my art any more.” [1]
Often in muted tones, these “big head” murals are stock and trade for Rone, as is the case for many publicly funded muralists. The mural/installations are a saccharin recipe of steampunk-esque aesthetics and fashion illustrations. It is the soft serve variety of visual art that requires no thought to consume: creamy, easy to slurp up, and certainly bad for you.
There will certainly be more to AGWA’s show than just murals of models if the Flinders spectacle is anything to go by. Picture this: a strange labyrinth of books, papers, wine stains, European furniture, opulent and eccentric accoutrements, a few “big head” murals for good measure, and a sense of quirky luxuriousness. I doubt any of AGWA’s curators will be putting their names to this show, based on the press material released thus far. If the immense public cost and return (on ticket sales, merch, and foot traffic) at the Flinders show is any indicator, Rone's AGWA exhibition will be touted as a “people pleaser”—but acts of self gratification can often end up rubbing many the wrong way.
It won’t be long before we know more about what to expect from AGWA’s endeavour with Rone, least of all because of the inevitable Instagram advertising that will soon roll out. Of course, it is unfair to pass any judgement until witnessing it for oneself. Yet, it is impossible to resist speculating whether Rone will be AGWA’s worst exhibition to date, an unlikely winter hit, or, most unnervingly, both. Why so worrying? Because, as Giles Fielke remarked in a review in Memo, the success of TIME • RONE reveals “[...] the power of nostalgia. It is why Make America Great Again worked. It is dangerous.”[2] It is this uncritical nostalgia—mawkish and hazardous—that forms a perfect concoction to atrophy the mind.
Find out more at www.time-rone-agwa.com.
Footnotes:
1. Sian Cain, Rone takes over Flinders Street Station’s hidden ballroom: ‘It’s my biggest project yet’, 27 October 2022. https://amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/oct/27/rone-takes-over-flinders-street-stations-hidden-ballroom-its-my-biggest-project-yet
2. Giles Fielke, TIME•RONE, 4 February 2023. https://www.memoreview.net/reviews/timerone-by-giles-fielke
Image credit: RONE, The Glasshouse. Courtesy RONE.