The Thousands

If you’ve ever heard whispers about a man crawling into a ripped up mattress and covered in paint, the man you’ve heard about is Martin Heine. And if said performance has taken place at Kurb, the hole-in-the-wall gallery on William Street, then you should already be aware of David Bromfield. He started out as a lecturer and cut-throat reviewer, then founded the Kurb – a new kind of haven for artists, musicians, performers, all kicked to the proverbial and living on the edge.

For the past fifteen or so years, the two have been working together on a variety of performative works, mostly at the Kurb or somewhere equally irreverent. They’ve accrued more than 300 hours of recorded interviews, probably millions of photographs and have condensed the lot into a tome entitled NOW the HARD PART. This dry, wry, and intelligent publication is essential reading for anyone wanting to know the other side to Perth’s art history, which occupies a place somewhere between our oft-recited past and our uncertain future.