The Physician

The Physician (2012–2019) was a roaming clinic for the culturally afflicted — a public “treatment program” for art-related anxiety staged inside major institutions. Visitors suffering from familiar symptoms of contemporary art discomfort including frustration, bewilderment and disengagement were invited to book a one-on-one consultation.

Framed with all the trappings of a legitimate health service—complete with marketing campaigns, a hotline, and a dedicated website—the project blurred the roles of artist, host, and therapist. Patients were invited to self-actualise public rituals using handmade equipment and a process of “chromatic wound treatment.” Through this playful client-centred care, latent belief receptors were “activated,” metaphoric deposits “cleared,” and socio-poetic function “restored.”

Each appointment began in a private consulting room: a hand-built chamber stocked with diagnostic devices. Here, the Physician used conversation, humour, and parafictional procedures to uncover the patient’s condition, ranging from metaphobia and mild conceptual perturbation through to acute indifference disorder and severe relational deficiency. Depending on the “diagnosis,” treatments unfolded either quietly or spectacularly in the gallery: discreet prescriptions might include a whispered instruction, a talisman to carry, or a thumb restraint, while more dramatic interventions could involve a slow parade with props or orchestrated interruptions of the gallery’s flow.

Absurd yet sincere, intimate yet public, The Physician created a dual audience of patient and bystander while gently dismantling the codes of institutional hospitality. It asked what it means to be “well” in the presence of art, offering humour, ritual, and subversive care as unlikely remedies for cultural unease.

Team:

Equipment design and production - Jason Maling

Graphic design - Emma Rickards

Website design - Justine Henry

Commissioning organisation - Performance Space, Sydney

Residencies:

Global Positioning System (curated by Jeff Khan and Bec Dean), Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA, Sydney), 2012

Going Down, book launch, (curated by Sarah Rodigari and Jess Olivieri) ISCP Gallery, Brooklyn New York, USA, 2013

The Physician, (curated by Aaron Lister) City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, 2014

Camp, in collaboration with Back-to-Back Theatre, Geelong Gallery, Australia, 2017

Anxious Bodies for Unstable Environments, (curated by Mark Feary) Melbourne Art Fair, Australia (in collaboration with Gertrude Contemporary), 2018

Launch Party, Ian Potter Museum of Art Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, 2019

The Big Anxiety, (curated by Bec Dean) University of New South Wales Gallery, Australia, 2019