'Anything is Possible', 211-215

Exhibition text/review

Alteria Literecca details the expedition to install an artwork in an unconventional apartment lobby. This story sets forth a bts of the lives of Melbourne artists and gallerists in the form of a brief and choppy VR tour in prose. The text begins as a flashback to the night before where the narrator is hanging out with a friend from the established art scene, Lily. As readers, we are stimulated by Lily’s yarning and admire her interrelations with other art affiliated folk. We learn of the importance of Instagram in reputation, highlighting a contemporary measurement of kinship through social media. Alteria exchanges contacts with Alexis, one thing leads to the next and she is swept away to suburban South Melbourne the next day.

In first person frankness, Literecca’s apprehensive afternoon delight amongst artist Bella and gallerist Alexis is written in brief vignettes of hazy conversations and detached observations. In the apartment, Bella and Alexis form one entity; always seen together and in sync, they represent an unattainable life force that controls the narrator. Authorial disobedience is taken in the hands of A. Literecca with sprinkled short sentences of stark curtness. Anti-expository writing is key to this text, “There’s a pit in my stomach. I’m excited.” A sensitive narrator leaves most of the scenario up to our imagination and yet manages to push out a story in earnest exactitude. A bustling Melbourne leaves Alteria Literecca in an uneasy state.The text is anxious and fast paced, just like the city she lives in. Character descriptions are left to a minimum but the setting is clearly detailed, allowing readers to envision themselves in the apartment but not as the first person. One is happy to join the narrator in this small pocket of the world of southside swift art installation and smoking socialites. 

Reviewing a fictional short story has its own mimicry in the fantasy for freedom. The final character to be introduced is the artwork, the narrator has built enough suspense to anticipate the work. When unveiled it is a balanced assortment of the word ‘cry’ in the formation of a square. Installed inside the bulletin board of an apartment block, the words take on the color of the background, which is an office grey. The narrator sees the letters warping and pinching towards the center of the square, in her haze she tears up obeying the commands of the artwork. The final character is demanding and impulsive. Sensitivity in the grey cube at 211-215 is defined by the comfort of suburbia, Alteria Literecca’s home is a tram away so she makes a hasty escape.