#grant stevens

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Grant Stevens

 Really Really, 2007

video, 3 mins 27 secs

Monday March 18th 2013 – PSM Lecture Series – Grant Stevens

Any artist that opens a lecture with a work created from looping scenes from (one of my all time favorite films) Top Gun is all right by me. After what felt like the longest two-minute elevator ride of my life, Stevens launched into how his work examines the inability of language to communicate effectively. Perhaps it isn’t a hard idea to push to a room full of hopeful visual artists, but it’s an interesting thought to ponder nonetheless.

  (LA Louver 2013 - Installation Shot)

Many of his works, at least those he chose to share on this occasion, incorporate text on screen: moving, floating or rotating, accompanied by generic, lyric-less music. One particular piece, Really Really, created in attempt to communicate to the artist’s girlfriend living 8000 miles away in Los Angeles, just how much he loved and missed her possessed an element of cheesiness. Snickers were heard throughout the lecture hall and the audience struggled to decipher what it is they’re meant to be taking away. However, I imagine anyone sitting in that audience would be lying if they said they hadn’t at one time or another experienced some of what they were watching. Who hasn’t missed someone? Who hasn’t struggled with how to communicate that longing for another human being in a way that’s both honest and original? It’s no simple task. And from what I gather, that’s kind of Grant’s point… We all fall back on popular culture: be it films, song lyrics, or literature, to communicate love. We all appear lame or hopelessly romantic whilst existing in the privacy of our own love bubble.

(Stevens 2007) 

Grant followed up this work a couple years later, after the relationship unfortunately failed, using his art as a process to understand what was going on emotionally and intellectually. Stevens recalls listening to Willie Nelson as he wallowed in the initial stages of post break-up grief. He admits that he hopes someone might find a similar comfort while watching this work. Ironically, (irony being another point the artist touched upon), I did have my own rather emotional experience at AGNSW whilst exploring the Balnaves exhibit, We used to talk about love. I was there with my now ex, feeling melancholy about the relationship as it had recently developed that sensation of doom. Both independent people, we wandered in different directions. Some 30 minutes later he found me, (embarrassingly) near to tears watching Grants work, Crushing, he scoffed. I knew it was over. 

Image references:

Unknown, Installation Shot, 2013, LA Louver, viewed March 24th 2013,

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Grant Stevens, Really Really, 2007, Anna Schwartz Gallery, viewed March 24th 2013,