Following the blind leading the blind
(1997)
- Medium
- synthetic polymer and enamel paint on wood
- Measurements
- 144.6 × 142.6 × 29.8 cm
- Accession Number
- 1999.384
- Department
- Contemporary Art
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1999
© Janet Burchill/Licensed by Copyright Agency, Australia - Gallery location
- Not on display
- About this work
-
Janet Burchill references the sculpture The blind leading the blind, 1941–48, by American artist Louise Bourgeois, in this work. In Bourgeois’s sculpture, a double row of slender legs evokes traumatic childhood memories of events she witnessed from beneath the family dining table. In Burchill’s version, Bourgeois’s tapered legs are replaced with upturned picket-fence palings – a suburban ‘readymade’ material. Made upon Burchill’s return to Australia after spending six years living in Berlin, this work can be understood as a critical comment about cultural complacency and the lack of originality the artist felt characterised the Australian art world at the time.