Ian Milliss

Circular Tug of War, February 1971

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Drawing, 340mm w x 255mm h and rejected text of wall instructions Letraset on paper 220m w x 130mm h, Balls, 1970. Drawing, 340mm w x 255mm h

These drawings for a series of participatory artworks that began in early 1970 that included Walk Along This Line. Most of them have never been shown - "Balls" is presented here for the first time. Increasingly the works became games that required you to engage with other people present in the gallery space. This interaction varied from observing them, or asking them to co-operate in a competition, to active low level aggression towards them. I was rapidly moving towards an art that was indistinguishable from normal social interactions in all their variety without the mediating shield of the art environment.

Twenty Drawings https://77c60757.flowpaper.com/TwentyDrawings/

Ian Milliss has long argued that art is the process of constant cultural adaptation and that this now occurs in work that is not usually seen as art, produced by people who do not usually describe themselves as artists. As one of Australia's earliest conceptual artists, by 1971 Ian Milliss' participatory work became political and cultural activism beyond the conventional art world. This included involvement in the green ban and resident action movements, squatting, prison reform, trade unions, anti coal mining and the Australia Council's Art and Working Life Program. His numerous exhibitions include retrospectives at Macquarie University Art Gallery (2006) and Artspace Sydney (2013).
His recent interests have been land use, the commons, big data, and open source processes, resulting in the formation of the Kandos School of Cultural Adaptation; guest editing the March 2017 Artlink magazine on big data and data visualisation; a 2017 solo exhibition at Penrith Regional Gallery focused on the role of quarry workers in the Lewers family's modernist quest.
In 2019 he was one of four artists commissioned to produce new work at the Art Gallery of NSW to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Kaldor Public Art Projects.