New, Next, Now - Unpacking Kaldor at the Art Gallery of NSW

Settling into a fold-out stool, in a cluster of art gallery visitors, the more flexible young fry folded up like pretzels on cushions  at the front, parents, grandparents and thy unaccompanied curious plumping out the crowd at the back, there is that "Ahhh" feeling as the the New, Next, Now show sets into motion.  Two whimsical dust-jacked workers from Art Storage? Meticulously measuring Curators? The silent characters - actors Russell Garbutt and Julia Cotton, founders of the now sadly retired Etcetera theatrical ensemble  - play with the ideas of collecting, stacking, wrapping and unwrapping in a whimsical homage to Christo- boxed and wrapped, Sol de Witt's units of construction, while Alek Danko's Log Dog is reprised in animated cardboard, and  Tony Cragg's 'bottle tree' and Ugo Rondinone's marvellous 'clockwork for oracles' are celebrated. While the links back to the art work might set up a satisfying sleuthing puzzle for the adults, the real delight was the celebration of wonder and transformation as we watch the characters find that it is these ordinary dust jacketed folk who are the artists.

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