For Ballón Assemblé, now showing at Objectspace, artist Jack Hadley was invited to create a new work in response to the late Don Driver’s 1988 work Duraband 10, which features layers of vivid pink strips stitched onto plastic. In the resulting Ballón Assemblé, Hadley reimagined the original artwork in motion and added companion pieces – the corps de ballet, if you like. Together, the works explore the realm of things that wiggle and slide.
Here: Tell us what you do and why you do it.
Jack Hadley: My art practice is pretty erratic. I get super excited and obsessive about different materials, processes and learning new things. This week I’m working on aluminium flat-pack furniture, a motorised sculpture adorned with jewellery, and two lamps that turn on/off in a choreographed call and response pattern.
H: Why are you interested in Don Driver?
JH: I was once told that as a child Driver was an aspiring magician. Ever since, I’ve thought about his artworks as being like magic tricks. He transforms ordinary objects in unexpected ways.
H: Why is Duraband 10 special?
JH: Duraband 10 is a wonderful combination of the very rough and very pretty. For an improvised assemblage of industrial plastics, the artwork is surprisingly delicate and gleefully decorative. The packing-strap frills give Duraband 10 a sense of movement. I imagine the artwork bouncing gently.
H: How did you respond to it?
JH: I have designed a custom mobile display structure for Duraband 10, which emphasises the artwork’s potential for movement. The artwork will be presented upon wheels, and in the middle of the gallery space. I was thinking about classical ballet, where the male ballet dancer lifts up the female so that she appears weightless and more brilliant.
H: Objectspace describes you and Driver as tricksters. How are you a trickster?
JH: For Ballón Assemblé at Objectspace, I thought it would be funny to make unofficial merch, like a band T-shirt, but for an artwork. I’ve had “DON DRIVER DURABAND 10” digitally embroidered over a Taranaki Hardcore hoodie. I’m not sure how the Don Driver Estate would feel about this. Probably best if they don’t find out…
H: We can see glimpses of your studio too – tell us a bit about it.
JH: It’s a total pigsty. There are piles of failed ideas, weird stuff I have ordered from AliExpress and artworks I have previously exhibited that I am now cannibalising for parts. The floor is really sparkly because a year ago I spilled a box of several thousand synthetic gemstones.
Ballón Assemblé: Don Driver with Jack Hadley
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