On the ground floor of a quintessential Collingwood factory conversion, you’ll find Useful Objects, Dr. Simon Maidment’s latest genre-bending project. For the former curator of contemporary art at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Useful Objects is an opportunity to explore the possibilities that arise when designers and artists are given a provocation. At Useful Objects, where the paradigms of art and design dissolve, anything is possible.

A Google search for images of useful objects surfaces a plethora of random, yet useful items. A Swiss Army Knife — very useful for camping. A black bulldog clip — perhaps yet to become obsolete in an office driven by AI. A peculiar utensil with a spoon at one end, fork at the other — great for that avid camper to accompany their Swiss Army Knife.

Scattered like confetti throughout this array of Google image search tiles of weird and wonderful functional oddities are images of original work by some of Australia’s leading creators, makers and designers. Alexandra Blac’s contemporary pop-punk acrylic rings, bangles and console tables; Marlo Lyda’s lyrical camphor laurel floor lamps; and Marcus Piper’s geometric printed mirrored glass ‘prints’ that evoke an ultra-contemporary M.C Escher meets modernism in the engineering workshop.

There is no ghost in the machine. The AI is not hallucinating. This is the entirely intentional doing of Dr Simon Maidment, director of Useful Objects, a recently launched gallery in Collingwood that specialises in collectible design. The gallery’s ultimate goal is to elevate the work of Australia’s exceptional design talent and prove that useful objects can be objects of desire, worthy of collection on the same level as those of a painter, sculptor or photographer.

Maidment describes himself as an artist, curator, writer, art consultant and commissioner on his website. His career has taken him all over the world, from the golden beaches of India in the early 2000s, where he was involved in curating public art festivals, to the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), where he was the senior curator of contemporary art for the better part of the past decade.

Under his laser-focused yet thoughtful and empathetic eye, the collection of contemporary works held by the NGV doubled in size, and the gallery held its inaugural Triennial in 2017, elevating it into the upper echelon of contemporary art galleries globally. Despite his impressive and extensive CV, Maidment is remarkably humble, down to earth.

The two things that give away his pedigree are his eloquent, thoughtful turns of phrase, and his impeccable way of dressing. He has something of an Oscar Wilde air about him. His elegant, unfussy attire exhibits subtle sartorial details, such as an unexpected stitch on the cuff of a jacket, even when walking and talking in Fitzroy Gardens with his Rhodesian Ridgeback Augie by his side. It’s safe to say that in the contemporary art and design world, Maidment knows who’s who and he is completely uninterested in sybaritic machinations. 

For Maidment, it’s the art, the objects, the makers and the stories behind each that matter. Unlike many curators and gallery directors at both an institutional and dealer gallery level, Maidment did not study art history, rising through the ranks of academia before landing the ‘top job’ at the ‘top gallery’. Rather, his path was organic. “I studied journalism at RMIT and worked in publishing, which led me to design, which led me to art and wanting to be an artist. After art school, I worked as a studio assistant and then as a gallery director, at West Space, an artist-run space,” he says.

Musing on how the seemingly disparate activities of the early stages of his career coalesced into a cohesive whole, Maidment acknowledges that while he may not have been cognisant of it at the time, everything was ultimately leading him in one direction. “Working with artists and in programming opened the way to understanding curating and starting to practise it as a discipline, ” he says. “All the skills I had amassed to date including research, critical writing, editing and catalogue production, photography and retouching, understanding material processes and technique, spatial and temporal practice, putting theory to work, speaking and representing ideas and programs, business management — dovetailed into that practice.”

This atypical point of entry into the cloistered and occasionally elitist world of contemporary art and design has undoubtedly contributed to his success. Maidment is as enchanted with surfacing the conceptual design narrative that informs each piece and the story of the artist or maker as he is with bringing people together to experience art and design on an operational, affective level that transcends visual aesthetics alone.

From this perspective, opening the doors of Useful Objects is something of a homecoming. While the vaulted ceilings, expansive white walls and deliciously healthy programming budgets of the NGV may be in Maidment’s rearview, the comparatively small gallery space on the ground floor of a converted factory on Collingwood’s Easey Street is exactly what Maidment wants and needs. “I’d like Useful Objects to be seen as a place that showcases, in a modest footprint, what could be enacted on a larger footprint, particularly by architects and designers who have the opportunity to explore the potential that exists for an object — as art and as a functional piece of design — in a residential or commercial context,” he says.

Through this kaleidoscopic lens, where one thing is not one thing at all, what exactly Useful Objects is as a gallery, and where it sits within the art x design matrix, materialises with full technicolour clarity.  “I could not be less interested in debating the difference between art and design,” says Maidment, matter-of-factly. “For me, the question of the difference between the disciplines is redundant because they are impossible to pin down anyway, replete with internal contradictions and exceptions…instead, it’s an impetus to address a need and a gap.”

Expanding on the origin story and inspiration for his new endeavour, Maidment adds, “Part of the idea is to have a gallery aspect together with more generative work through design commissions”.

“The people I’ve chosen to work with initially come from a design discipline. They’ve situated themselves in the tradition of design.”

On the surface, this isn’t breaking new ground. There are plenty of gallery spaces that present the work of designers using a gallery model rather than a retail store model. What sets the proposition apart from these others is Maidment’s curation.

To curate, to be a curator, to have a curatorial direction. All phrases that now saturate our contemporary consciousness. Chances are you’ve seen at least one Instagram post today about someone somewhere curating something — most likely their outfit — unless, of course, you’ve curated your feed so carefully that you only see posts about design from Australian Design Review. Maidment, however, is a curator in the original and truest sense of the term.

The Art Gallery of South Australia states: “The word ‘curator’ originates from the Latin cura, which means to care. Curators are employed to take care of collections. Some curators however don’t have collections to care for; instead, they work with artists and ideas to make exhibitions.” This is exactly what Maidment does — works with artists and ideas — using the physical space of the Useful Objects gallery as the interstitial space in which art and object, form and function collide. Put another way, Maidment provokes designers – those who are makers of practical, useful things in possession of an inherent function – to think like artists. And vice versa.

This provocative curatorial approach can be seen in GAMUT, a collaborative exhibition featuring jewellery designer Alexandra Blac’s first foray into making sculptural furniture, and Marcus Piper, an internationally renowned graphic designer who explored how line and geometry could be applied to large mirrors. The show-stopping piece was certainly the site-specific installation: a 70s pop punk princess pink chandelier made up of dozens of translucent Perspex sheaths that cascade from the ceiling with graphic precision. Created by Blac and Piper, this piece exemplifies the way Maidment is able to draw inventiveness out of people, pushing and supporting them as needed.

Diego Super Bonza Store, which opened on 22 November, is the first solo show in Melbourne for Diego Faivre, a French designer and artist based in The Netherlands, known for his playful and conceptual approach to design.

A graduate of the famed Eindhoven Design Academy, Diego’s recent projects include the Mini Golf Extravaganza at the 2024 Salone del Mobile in Milan, where his design vision brought to life interactive installations that encouraged participants of all ages to play.

Inspired by the disappearing cultural icon of the suburban Milk Bar, Maidment describes the show as transforming the gallery into a performative space of rapid creation, community participation and exchange. “I have no idea how it’s going to turn out to be honest,” says Maidment, with a hint of bewilderment and trepidation, mixed with anticipatory delight.

Continuing the thought while gently tossing a ball to Augie, he continues: “The gallery looks like an artist’s studio. I’ve had to let go of my institutional curators’ perfectionism and let it happen. Diego is brilliant, so clever. I can’t wait to see how it all comes together and how the audience responds. Anything could happen!”

Which is exactly what a true curator would and should say.

Find out more about Diego Super Bonza Store and Useful Objects’ other artists and projects at usefulobjects.com.au