One day on my lunch break I walked from my office on Queen Street to my doctor on Bourke Street to have a corn on my toe seen to. My consultation ended up, in fact, becoming an analysis and diagnosis of my life based on clichés about being a gay professional living in East Melbourne.
After a brief look at my toe we discussed my life; seemingly based on his presumptions. Was I certain my partner was faithful? How many times a week did I take ecstasy or smoke weed? I was asked how many sexual partners I have currently or have had after saying I had been in a monogamous relationship for over two years.
He read aloud from an abridged diary he had written me; a life full of hard work, partying and sexual, drug-fuelled adventures. I was told I was going to lead a very sad life, ultimately ending up alone with no family or real friends – but free to live a selfish, materialistic, hedonistic existence unencumbered by any of the restraints of child rearing and real responsibility. With regards to my toe, he said to file it down with a nail file from my bathroom cupboard.
A Million Bucks is a snapshot of my doctor’s assumptions of who I am and where I am headed based on tired and ghettoized ideas about what gay people are supposed to be; a formulation in which art and objects of desire have replaced tangible, everyday objects or memories of the individual.
Justin Hinder
In A Million Bucks Hinder reflects on his domestic life and the importance of the artists with whom and art works with which he has formed ties. The installation reflects on his desire to possess works from each of these artists, instating an art promiscuity in place of a sexual one. The works channel a grunge aesthetic, a ‘realness’ with a nod to notions of fashion and luxury: from Lou Hubbard’s Persol-Persol – designer glasses on Georg Jensen coasters – to Kate Smith’s busy abstract painting Fonda with Dog.
