But is it art?

The sight of this unusual barrow being pushed past the NSW Art Gallery was enough for me to interrupt my early morning bike ride to find out what was going on.

It turned out to be, in fact, art, on its way to the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the current exhibition ‘In the balance – art for a changing world’.

The group show is all about green sustainable issues, and this cart is the brainchild of Karl Khoe and Tessa Zettel, artists from Woolloomooloo.

The cart, which was made with the help of the Cheeky Monkey bike shop contains hives of native bees which the couple keep in their backyard. They park it outside the museum and supply passersby with fresh pikelets and honey, making a point about food miles. The native honey is scarce and not very sweet, so they use honey produced by East Sydney residents George and Charis Schwarz. Co-incidentally Mr Schwarz has a new photo art exhibition currently at the Stills Gallery in Paddington.

So how do two ‘Loo residents end up in a group show at the MCA?

Karl and Tessa are refugees from teaching Design at COFA and UTS.

“We studied design together, but have now switched to the art field because we are unhappy with the way design is politicised,” said Karl.

“Design realistically shapes the way we do things – the profession maps out general patterns of behaviour.”

Green bags bagged
“A good example is the green bags everyone is offered for shopping. They are perceived as green but really they are made from petro-chemical spinoffs. They are dyed bright green, which flags a message from the user, ‘Hey  look at me, I’m doing a good job for the environment.’

“The older style calico bags are much more sustainable and work better – you can roll them up and easily take them with you when you go out, much more conveniently than a green bag.”

But the calico bags would require a redesign of checkouts which are crafted for plastic bags and the green bags which have a piece of plastic inserted to form a flat bottom.

“The green bags are just an upscaling of disposability, and design is usually made to feed into mass production,” said Mr Khoe.

“But art is more about a one-off quality experience which gives you more freedom.”

by Michael Gormly