so. my shows over now. And was it the right foot forward or the embarassing one? I never want to hear about the farm again and am worried about being coded as a autobiogrpher, something that I think can be incredably indulgent and hard to attack in art. but you cant fake where your up too. But I wish the information about the show mayeb had more of an 'international feel, Universal ideas' cause I think its a world thing and no just a white world thing, but I should only talk from my thing right? yo no anthropologist. I guess I did stuff about my recent past and the recovering hippie stuff to sought of talk about the worlds funny, and I think its really funny, struggle with "the alternative' and things going greener and food. I think the future is still going to be there, we have always thoght the sky is falling in. I do think the market will save the day. Green is already a seller, and that's good. And the smart business' are getting on board. It shouldn't require everyone to get dreads an smell like Patttchooolllyy, if that even exists anymore. Oil is only exspensive because we are worried about it getting exspensive. It's just a kick over in technology like from steam to the next one, ironage to machine age etc. Calm down. Maybe the ideas didn't matter any hoot any way.
I went to see something at Red gallery last night. Yes really, casue it was my old teacher Peter Jordan and Sara Freedman's show and they are bigger than cool and don't know a rip-off yet, two nice things, cause they are from Canberra, so they had a show Red gallery. Peter has been hidden in can can for tooo long and It will be great to have him hear. His titles reads like a Metal set list and are a good corruption of the creamy, brushy Medalllevy? Faux oil tricks paintings he does. There are some Morandi touches here. big call I know. And then there are Peter's 'Computer Drawings' I rember him trying to get us all to give up materials and do it on puter. Its a theory see. Drawing Theory. Drawing is a State of Mind. It would be good to be a teacher, get to be idealistic maybe, talk about art heaps and be a shiny influence. But, bet its not that romantic and what about the ones you hate?
I went to see something at Red gallery last night. Yes really, casue it was my old teacher Peter Jordan and Sara Freedman's show and they are bigger than cool and don't know a rip-off yet, two nice things, cause they are from Canberra, so they had a show Red gallery. Peter has been hidden in can can for tooo long and It will be great to have him hear. His titles reads like a Metal set list and are a good corruption of the creamy, brushy Medalllevy? Faux oil tricks paintings he does. There are some Morandi touches here. big call I know. And then there are Peter's 'Computer Drawings' I rember him trying to get us all to give up materials and do it on puter. Its a theory see. Drawing Theory. Drawing is a State of Mind. It would be good to be a teacher, get to be idealistic maybe, talk about art heaps and be a shiny influence. But, bet its not that romantic and what about the ones you hate?
my dumb show 'Whoops Kibbutz' opens friday the 23rd of may at Utopian Slumps.
http://www.utopianslumps.org/
David Noonan. Markus 2008 at Roslyn Oxley 9
'yeah, the surface is quite rough and over the duration of the show I have recently noticed a few edges on the different layers beginning to peel back... i really like this. The other thing is that the show has quite an intense smell about it... not a bad one but obviously the hessian has a particular odour and so it reminds me of something industrial yet rustic or parochial. its very cool. and there is a large carpet rug in the space to sort of give you the idea that the space is enveloped in this theatre of material and prints and performance. quite cool.'
Peta Bryant.
'yeah, the surface is quite rough and over the duration of the show I have recently noticed a few edges on the different layers beginning to peel back... i really like this. The other thing is that the show has quite an intense smell about it... not a bad one but obviously the hessian has a particular odour and so it reminds me of something industrial yet rustic or parochial. its very cool. and there is a large carpet rug in the space to sort of give you the idea that the space is enveloped in this theatre of material and prints and performance. quite cool.'
Peta Bryant.
A friend emailed these images to me of Loose Cannon by Dan Moynihan
at Victoria Park Gallery.
Its over now, but it was good.
outsider that old chelsnut
Monash Clayton today for oustsider thing. Good work of cause. Peter Fay and Glen Barkley know their you know. Glen and MCA whooooooo! G and P spoke and that was good, its been done in a historical way and this seems to introduce the oustsider thing well and established, because it is. I was weirded out that this was Melbournes first time to this sought of work, I am not sure I a right in feling this, probably just ill informed, but it was a bit 'that old chestnut' to me. I sought of thought MUMA didn't see it as a history thing as much as the curaters did, it was new territory for them. This kind of work was a big part of the Canberra art school experience, we got Home Sweet Home from Peter Fay's collection at NGA pretty early on. Some of us were like new oustsider artists Peter found in a way. Glen did say that now this outsider show has been completed he feels like moving on and bringing that stuff into galleries on equal footing. Good lets get freaking egalitatrian. Its just a shame that its might take the peps longer to get there, they may have just heard the word Oustsider.
But this doesn't take nothing from some awsome works in the show. Especially John Patrick Mckenzie's poetry.
But this doesn't take nothing from some awsome works in the show. Especially John Patrick Mckenzie's poetry.
will try to get to Nat Thomas at Until Never Gallery (above misty's). Nat has re-done the fake Rover Thomas' amongst other things. It feels freaking important! and smart cause I think it just might be.
chrome
I found a chromers plastic bag on the way to the studio today,well I imagined it was, but now I think about it some one had built or fixed it to carry a bit of paint, to chrome from? - plastic bag, the ones you buy, not the ones they give you at the supermarket. I picked it up. It's red down in one corner, kinder smashing up to the exit. they had tied a couple of tiny tidy knots to repair holes.
I think I decided it that was a chrome bag cause a boy got on the tram the other day - smashed out - chromer. paint was comming up and out of the corners of his mouth across his skin, the colour was silver, well chrome. It was beautiful.
Meredith Turnbull has a video in the world end show on at the carlton at the moment - she hangs upside down, her face changed by the gravity, she rocks back and forth revealing a full moon, like a sc fi bat in preparation. I am not sure if she is preparing to save or end the world. I like the thought of Meredith bothering to go out into night to get that moon and risk hanging upside down in the park alone.
Van Newton played at the Un magazine relaunch, I was there with a friend from boarding school and she asked me "so are they a covers band, and why is he wearing sunglasses?" I don't think their bad questions, but how do I answer, how do I start from scratch, cause it's dumb to wear sunglasses? I guess that's what galleries do to explain work, they have to start from scratch, and its usually uncomfortable.
reasons to be hetrosexual:
there is a pack of boys who go to the supermarket on swan street after school, they leave their bags at the door, one is a worn out, used to be green country road bag - they've scribbled over the brand, the zipper is broken and open, and some stuff falls out, it's a cheeky stand out in amongst the other private school crest, latin and maron bags.
I think I decided it that was a chrome bag cause a boy got on the tram the other day - smashed out - chromer. paint was comming up and out of the corners of his mouth across his skin, the colour was silver, well chrome. It was beautiful.
Meredith Turnbull has a video in the world end show on at the carlton at the moment - she hangs upside down, her face changed by the gravity, she rocks back and forth revealing a full moon, like a sc fi bat in preparation. I am not sure if she is preparing to save or end the world. I like the thought of Meredith bothering to go out into night to get that moon and risk hanging upside down in the park alone.
Van Newton played at the Un magazine relaunch, I was there with a friend from boarding school and she asked me "so are they a covers band, and why is he wearing sunglasses?" I don't think their bad questions, but how do I answer, how do I start from scratch, cause it's dumb to wear sunglasses? I guess that's what galleries do to explain work, they have to start from scratch, and its usually uncomfortable.
reasons to be hetrosexual:
there is a pack of boys who go to the supermarket on swan street after school, they leave their bags at the door, one is a worn out, used to be green country road bag - they've scribbled over the brand, the zipper is broken and open, and some stuff falls out, it's a cheeky stand out in amongst the other private school crest, latin and maron bags.
'From the utterly uncool peaks of some mountain somewhere'
I went to see Sam George's 'From the utterly uncool peaks of some mountain somewhere' at TCB a little while ago and introduced my half asleep dumb arse self again. The just about, penultimate ( i didn't want to use that word but oh well) and disappointed stuff in the title was in the work. Lots of scrunches of paper on the floor/corner that looked denim wash because of some blue bits. Sam said she'd made the work everywhere and not in one place, but all the pieces were the same even sizes, broken down from A4's. Some random sheets and some old essays. This is Sam's first show since art school. I liked that she was using some old essays, it's like a nice let down. burning your books. We talked about about grad show and after art school disappointment - it can feel a bit like a school formal you take years to get ready for and on the night you end up not feeling like yourself and pash none of them. The proposed exhibition was a waist height paper extravaganza, but it didn't happen....... Sam told me that at the TCB opening someone left her a note in the work, something about it being trite.............. yikes, but you know what I agree, cause they are on the right track and its not a negative thing, it suits what I think Sam has been up to. And I guess you have to try and remember that a show is a shrug in a whole practice and it don't have to have it all. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thelanguage
Helen has made a good desription of Televisiuals at Utopian Slumps by Elvis on her bloggy Triangualr Sun.
Elvis Richardson at Utopian Slumps
TELEVISUALS/SALUTEELVIS
Opens Friday 1 Feb at Utopian Slumps. Whoop!
also Michael Ciavarella, Ross Coulter, Deven Marriner and Laith McGregor are in a show called Fuck Your Heroes, opening at West Space the night before, sounds tuff.
looking at art on the internet.
My favourite comment from the Matt Griffin 'hoo haa' on Speech was by Tao, esp the bouncing Joey bit. the Larikin bit. It's so dumb but kinda hits on an australia-australiana bit maybe.
"Perhaps Anon. is instinctively and inarticulately responding to what I found to be a nihilistic aspect to Griffin's humor. Though I don't think this is the right word, in the face of work that provides no answers or solutions, no easy outs, the happy go lucky Joey will bounce him self silly and really get quite upset with all the hoo haa" Tao, Speech Review, Nov 5 2007.
Just re-read an Art Life comment on Fergus Binns at Chalkhorse, Feb 2007. I', kinda likng this cringe stuff, the cringe of something really local. When your tummy flips when Binns uses green and gold. Nadine Christensen's works Prospector and Crops on Mars, both 2007, get Aussie too. Prospector with its mirror Rozellas and farm art rustica sculpture and Crops on Mars, swings + Blue Heeler. Bringing home, but not quite, what I always saw as an Grand Canyon kinda place, a generic movie space, even that knocked out pastel pallete seemed kinda international school of painting maybe (term being used about, not even ure how to apply it?) . Well in these ones with the Australia the colour just sems high noon instead.
So if you stop and think Australia + picture = you get this swanston street souviner stuff. I saw a Countdown rerun on Rage the other night from 1982. It had The Gonna Band do Solid Rock in from of a Uluru backdrop, which I guess was Ayers Rock at then. They sung it ominous and warning. Then Kate Bush did Aborigine (?) Is how she sings it a rip off of an Australian accent? She dances at dawn with idigenious dancers, not so typical moves, there is lasers an outta space in the 80's too. So I guess Austrliana was big in the 80's. We have just had that whole fowl 80's things, so I guess it roles up naturally that kidz now tote bags from those Swanston St shops, hell I want one, and Ken Done, despite that listing in the top 3 worst on the art life - is gaining shaking ground - they didn't really want to slam him. Ken's been a bit of a Canberra favourite for a while. Unlike the artlife I would like to wear Done toggs and bed under Ken Doonas, that what its good at, I even had a calander at that was good at other stuff.
So anyway the cringe is good and not just ironic I hope. Trevs doing that uncomfortable aboriginal thing a bit. We have a recent RMIT graduate just moved into the studio and she is going hammer and tongs at the swanston street rip off of 'the dot', who owns the dot? ouch! Tim Price did some works last year calling the crass paintaings, pronounced like grass, Tim does this buyiny the newspaper each day, painting a pic from it, last year he was intervening, a noose might tether Howard on that fucking morning walk etc. So anyway the cringe is good and not just ironic I hope.
preparation 500, the vortex and mums garden
Modern Britain and the NGV is a good show. The grot and even the gesture is pretty refreshing, kinda links into my pet topic at the moment, the post war time, when platis was inventended and an exciting prospect from a great new future maybe. Unlike it is now, the default bad guy ruining our precious future. The house at mums n dads was built in the Modern Britain times, when they ripped up some out lino they found some Womens Weekleys that had been used as lining, there was a great article in one talking about this amazing invention called plastic. Now we are banning the bag.
Replay Marclay finishes up on the third of Feb. Its been nice to have it around as a reminder to make art about what you love and stuff it. Marclay loves music/sound and thats enough. Its funny how dated the tricks seem, but tat kinda cool, its becomming history.
shreddy christmas
So the galleries are closed and only the big ones open, its been an olden days / family time latley. Modern Britain at the NGV is really good. But I might write about that another time.
Our christmas tree from the last couple of years has been this thing made out of barbed wire, good bit of farm art rustica from mum, the star though, is a star of David, made out of barbed wire, do you see what I mean, that's not quite right. Mum doesn't know what she's done. My brother kinda gaps at it, cracks a few jew jokes, mum reminds us that our great grandad was called hezakia, ( spelling) we look at dads nose, oh dear, its all pretty bad really. But that's what happens there, stuff just gets jammed up wrong and all together despite the best intentions.
I do like christmas at home though, I like that there are only 5 people and not lots of presents. My brother and I speed wrapped, we usually try and do something dumb with the wrapping, making it really hard to get into, elctrical tape is pretty good! this year it was doing it and getting them to the tree as fast as possible, its silly and sought of undermines the whole thing and It's a bit of luxury to wrap nice stuff like crap.
So a garden shredder was a big hit this year, Dad got a saw too, so he and Jock went a bit nuts sawing bits off trees just to put them through the shreddy, even the shredder packaging got a go, shredded cardboard looks pretty good might try and use it sometime.
old masters (shut up po mo jerk)
peps ask me if I am going to do masters, that's ok, I should just get a better answer, like when people ask about comming from a farm and making art I should answer better, well I have one but it's really long, and if someone doesn't get that they are perfect for each other, dad spinning around on his heals in his workshop trying to find a solution asap is pretty familar, and that second generation intellectuals suck, creativity is a bit lame and adaption better and everyones parents are something else, well it would just take to long to help them get it maybe.
But Masters, I would like to do it if I could get a scholarship. I guess a double degree feels like a lot to have done so I havn't thought about masters, but miss art school a lot. I was not very good at research at art school, in that I would not go to the library with a topic and found the catalogue unsatisfying, the library as a whole was kinda more my topic, I would look at what people had looked at and left on the trolleys, I didn't really like looking at artists who my teachers directed me to casue they were making similar stuff, they suggested artists based on materials not ideas, Its disappointing if your not making in a realtionship to materials way, I kinda needed more advice on artist's as writers and text in work.
Masters seems lonely maybe? And too much navel gazing maybe? Though perhaps I wont be taken seriously unless I do it. Any advice would be welcome, I think their is a secret mannual someplace. I think I have convinced myself I should.
But Masters, I would like to do it if I could get a scholarship. I guess a double degree feels like a lot to have done so I havn't thought about masters, but miss art school a lot. I was not very good at research at art school, in that I would not go to the library with a topic and found the catalogue unsatisfying, the library as a whole was kinda more my topic, I would look at what people had looked at and left on the trolleys, I didn't really like looking at artists who my teachers directed me to casue they were making similar stuff, they suggested artists based on materials not ideas, Its disappointing if your not making in a realtionship to materials way, I kinda needed more advice on artist's as writers and text in work.
Masters seems lonely maybe? And too much navel gazing maybe? Though perhaps I wont be taken seriously unless I do it. Any advice would be welcome, I think their is a secret mannual someplace. I think I have convinced myself I should.
wednesday night
http://www.victoriaparkgallery.com/main.html
Victoria Park invites you to the opening of
'ART$MASH' VPG's 2nd annual fund raising show.
Opening Wednesday 19th December 2007 5.30 - 8.30pm. Exhibition runs 20th - 22nd December 2007.
250 Johnston St, Abbotsford
Wed - Sat, 12-5
Victoria Park invites you to the opening of
'ART$MASH' VPG's 2nd annual fund raising show.
Opening Wednesday 19th December 2007 5.30 - 8.30pm. Exhibition runs 20th - 22nd December 2007.
250 Johnston St, Abbotsford
Wed - Sat, 12-5
http://www.danielmcunningham.com/artist.html#funeral_songs
the catalgoue of songs that people chose is neat-o.
the catalgoue of songs that people chose is neat-o.
SAM GEORGE
a kind soul has let me know that Sam George made the -up the stairs to a fan piece at the VCA grad show, I wasn't sure who had. I wish I could have this one, I'd walk up the steps each morning and get my eyes dried out and be reminded not to be an idiot today.
bells and whistles
'bells and whistles' is something a friend says and I try to keep in mind. I hope she doesn't mind. This is what I think she means. Bells and Whistles talks about being florid. Florid in that from the push-pull between information and decoration, technique and device outdoes. Or in the other way an idea knows all about itself with certainty. She uses it about her time in New York, that art there was full of these bells and whistles. It could mean scaling up and down or hyper real . Jeff Koons puppy ......maybe. Or more like "Katie Moore creates ‘wooden’ objects using various materials, none of them actual wood" (from MCA Primavera notes). So bells and whistles can act a quip/tag to explain a practice, perhaps making a galleriests job easier. Though I think I might like Moore's stuff as the notes go on to say "The imitation woodenness of Moore’s sculptures is not sufficiently convincing to reduce the art work to a mere confidence trick". And b&w includes paintings trying hard not to be paintings, or like Tim Doolan's chrome ceramics not looking like ceramics, a kind of po-mo avantgardism. A system that seems to dislocates the object from having been made, in the usual maky way and what its made from.
I wanted to have no name for the blog, but it wont let you. 'White Child' was loaded and I kinda need to be on hand to explain it, I was getting hits from Texas, you know what I mean, and 'Daughter' is so Freud and Pearl Jam. So Bells and Whistles will do it for now.
http://www.mca.com.au/default.asp?page_id=10&content_id=3068
I wanted to have no name for the blog, but it wont let you. 'White Child' was loaded and I kinda need to be on hand to explain it, I was getting hits from Texas, you know what I mean, and 'Daughter' is so Freud and Pearl Jam. So Bells and Whistles will do it for now.
http://www.mca.com.au/default.asp?page_id=10&content_id=3068
Ed RuschaJaggy Daggers, 1977Pastel on paper23-1/8 x 29-1/8 inches (58.7 x 74 cm)
I am not sure who made a work I liked at the VCA graduate exhibition. It was a piece where you climbed to look in a slot and your eyes got dried up by fan burrring back and forth, sought of caught me before I could close them and get out of what was happening. Dry your eyes mate maybe .... I am guessing that it belonged to either Julian Medor's car bonnets or Tully Moore's paintings from photographs of graffiti on brick walls installed on a painted brick wall. David Griggs. I liked it cause it was light and dumb in amongst a whole lotta weight. I kinda expected to turn back into the gallery and the work that was there to have turned into a surprise party.
I also enjoyed Gennet Makonnen's oil on canvas, in a way again cause of their refreshing ability in that context, and that's cause of their painty-Matisseness. They almost seemed brave in a po-mo world. But I am a bit pro paint at the moment.
There were some tankstand/shed farm photo's that got me sentimental and were actually quite straight and crisp in amongst the angstorammma, sorry I can't match what I remember with the catalogue, so no name. I didn't see the drawing department, but apparently its pretty strong. Printmedia is it's own infinity in a grain of sand, I only say this as a drawing and printmedia graduate.
Ross Coulter's Waiting for Ted is so funny. This piece seems to have gently developed as a reaction to Ross' honours year, Ted is Ross' honours supervisor who seems unable to keep an appointment, leaving Ross stranded in the studio, straddling staying or going and what will I do in the mean time.
I am going to get a copy of Tim Hiller's DVD At Sea. When I got to this work I near walked straight away. fashion youf jacket paints need pulling up all the time. But then my friend started telling me about this particular jacket's cost and texture and by default I ended up watching the piece. It saved itself with an old little boy boat. When the boat gets tangled in reeds and he wades out to get it, its pretty endearing. It just tied in for me with a kinda boyhood thing that I read into Matthew Bradley's stuff and others, I mean he is meant to be THE bad guy right, affluent little fuck, he will grow into a white-male-fat-cat right.
There is a forum at Gertrude St. on Monday night called Feminisim never happened, or something like that. Amita did a good raunch culture show at CCAS called Oomph . I hear there was talk of a boy protest (he he) what, yups it did?
it's hard to explain. And not as oversimple as this camparison.
Anna Schwartz Gallery, the work is by Jan Nelson, (it's not about Jan Nelson)
Studio floor
Under
I made a comment on Speech2012 asking why the new posts, some good ones, about what's going on in Melbourne keep getting posted under the 'one word responses for the biennallleee de Lyon'. It's not so much that the new posts are about Melbourne in particular, it's nice thta there is stuff from all over, but just that they are new posts, new stuff is sought of how blogs seem to work maybe, and one could be forgiven for looking at Speech and think nothing is moving, but there is, it's just being moved underneath. My comment has been removed.
Drawing Show
| Trouble An exhibition of Drawing by Alumni from the ANU School of Art Printmedia and Drawing Workshop | ||
 | 1 - 26 October Contemporary drawing practice has come to inhabit an expanded territory beyond the page and the frame, a territory that can encompass a vast range of materials and outcomes. The focus of ‘Trouble’ is the potential for drawing to activate the space of a gallery in unexpected ways through site-specific installation. This approach to drawing can be troublesome for curators and writers, hard to pigeon hole and exciting for audiences as they are asked to engage with the gallery space in a way that has been affected by materials, placement or form of the drawings. | |
Looking at Frames.
The Guggenheim Collection: 1940's till now is over at the NGV on Sunday. The first room is the best for me, the first room as you turn right especially. There as you turn right is a bit of a cluster of yellowing oil, palette knifed and ochered stuff. Its all a bit pottery and twine. These post war abstractions plus the silly op and the kinetic works (except the Fontana upstairs is better) add up to something optimistic and playful and none too fearful. Post war I guess. Its like the 'funk' of the materials is enough. I think my liking the chunked oils is just the shock of seeing texture. Shit painted like it was painted, not mediated by an interface, T-shirt or sticky tape.As we chatted through the exhibition my friend and I kept talking about materials, but had started describing frames and mounts instead. We liked this, but not that, couldn't see the work cause of this etc. I don't mean the old stuff is better than the new stuff, but as works are forced into the similar longevity of oils, the frames , the compromises, the little hats and boots they have to wear so they don't hurt themselves don't escape comment.
Description of materials and matter and a common sensation with pals towards them can be sweet (SWEEEEET) communication.
But It's when you are going to shows and complimenting the hang and poo pooing the frames and not much else, nothing is fogging your glasses or making you want to make work, you sought of know perhaps that its all a bit polite and its all a bit mutual admiration society. Maybe this is a nice thing to do - you want to like someones work but sometimes you can be left clasping at straws and frames and hangs.
Elvis Richardson on TV
An interview with Elvis Richardson ( a favourite) finalist in the Ian Potter Art and Sport prize will be on ABC arts this Sunday afternoon.
Helen Johnson at Sutton
Hi Helen,
your current show at Sutton is on my way between the art supply shop and the studio, so have ducked in a few times - and its really growing on me-
Is it all about relational aesthetics?
someone suggested that, in the end, your work is hopeful, is it?
I feel the content of your show is almost undiscussable - that its still private conversation stuff- and there is no vocabulary for it in the art world yet, if you know what I mean - the 'alternative', communal etc has only just been accepted as the noble path in Australia- let alone a crit of that existing- have you found a stronger way to talk about these things in Europe?
Hi Kate,
The show at Sutton - to me it's not much to do with relational aesthetics. Though I am not generally one to be dictatorial about my ideas. Relational aesthetics seems to me something like a lava lamp in a gallery context, trying to transcend something but always as it approaches, it falls. (Walead Beshty is better at explaining this than me: http://backissues.textezurkunst.de/NR59/NEO-AVANTGARDE-AND-SERVICE-INDUSTRY_2.html)
To me the Sutton work is to do with trying to get your head around how individual actions become a part of, or exist within 'culture'. Especially now, when consumer culture is accepted as 'the way things are', sitting alongside ideas of environmentalism and sustainability which can never really be integrated into 'me' culture.
So the work is talking about broader cultural ideas which we are expected to accept, like 'man on the moon as progress' or 'western medicine is superior', and presenting moments when those ideas begin to fail for somebody.
It is difficult for me to talk about that show as a collective body of work because, though aesthetically in line with one another, each 'mis en scene' raises a different idea or presents a different circumstance, they are like film stills almost to me.
I think of it as being hopeful, hope through a cynical lense perhaps. But attempting to get people to think about their own position within society, their own everyday actions, though not in a pushy way.
These works are in some ways quite oblique, partly because they are embedded with references across the whole spectrum; socio-political, historical, art-historical, personal, mass-cultural.
I suppose there is vocabulary for everything in the art world, potentially. It is maybe more a matter of who is accessing or choosing to embrace those vocabularies, and why.
I did not find a stronger way to talk about these things in Europe. There is of course present in Germany the lineage of painting as socio-political commentary a'la Jorg Immendorf, Neo Rauch, Martin Kippenberger et al, but that school of approach sits these days more as a mainstay of the commercial market, it having evolved up to and during the demolition of the Berlin Wall, and in that way gained its historical relevance which has since been well and truly commodified. Not that that means it is bad or irrelevant now, but that it is within a sort of holding pattern of meaning, as other approaches branch off and spiral away.
The art world in Australia, though it may at times be catty and neurotic, is an interesting place to me, because it is dislocated from the 'global' art world, and so there is the continuing habit of gleaning some idea of an international standard to meet up to, and which more often than not is overshot, and so work in Australia is at times slicker in its presentation, more exhaustive in its ideas, than its global counterparts, it's something you notice in Europe, that often people are more comfortable with shabbiness or sloppiness in presentation than they are here. These points where Australian artists are looking in overseas magazines for what is current and then mixing it with something local and using the local vernacular to articulate its meaning, these points I think are very important for cultural production in Australia, latent identity-formation which will become more apparent in retrospect.
Sorry, what a rant!
Speak soon,
Helen x
your current show at Sutton is on my way between the art supply shop and the studio, so have ducked in a few times - and its really growing on me-
Is it all about relational aesthetics?
someone suggested that, in the end, your work is hopeful, is it?
I feel the content of your show is almost undiscussable - that its still private conversation stuff- and there is no vocabulary for it in the art world yet, if you know what I mean - the 'alternative', communal etc has only just been accepted as the noble path in Australia- let alone a crit of that existing- have you found a stronger way to talk about these things in Europe?
Hi Kate,
The show at Sutton - to me it's not much to do with relational aesthetics. Though I am not generally one to be dictatorial about my ideas. Relational aesthetics seems to me something like a lava lamp in a gallery context, trying to transcend something but always as it approaches, it falls. (Walead Beshty is better at explaining this than me: http://backissues.textezurkunst.de/NR59/NEO-AVANTGARDE-AND-SERVICE-INDUSTRY_2.html)
To me the Sutton work is to do with trying to get your head around how individual actions become a part of, or exist within 'culture'. Especially now, when consumer culture is accepted as 'the way things are', sitting alongside ideas of environmentalism and sustainability which can never really be integrated into 'me' culture.
So the work is talking about broader cultural ideas which we are expected to accept, like 'man on the moon as progress' or 'western medicine is superior', and presenting moments when those ideas begin to fail for somebody.
It is difficult for me to talk about that show as a collective body of work because, though aesthetically in line with one another, each 'mis en scene' raises a different idea or presents a different circumstance, they are like film stills almost to me.
I think of it as being hopeful, hope through a cynical lense perhaps. But attempting to get people to think about their own position within society, their own everyday actions, though not in a pushy way.
These works are in some ways quite oblique, partly because they are embedded with references across the whole spectrum; socio-political, historical, art-historical, personal, mass-cultural.
I suppose there is vocabulary for everything in the art world, potentially. It is maybe more a matter of who is accessing or choosing to embrace those vocabularies, and why.
I did not find a stronger way to talk about these things in Europe. There is of course present in Germany the lineage of painting as socio-political commentary a'la Jorg Immendorf, Neo Rauch, Martin Kippenberger et al, but that school of approach sits these days more as a mainstay of the commercial market, it having evolved up to and during the demolition of the Berlin Wall, and in that way gained its historical relevance which has since been well and truly commodified. Not that that means it is bad or irrelevant now, but that it is within a sort of holding pattern of meaning, as other approaches branch off and spiral away.
The art world in Australia, though it may at times be catty and neurotic, is an interesting place to me, because it is dislocated from the 'global' art world, and so there is the continuing habit of gleaning some idea of an international standard to meet up to, and which more often than not is overshot, and so work in Australia is at times slicker in its presentation, more exhaustive in its ideas, than its global counterparts, it's something you notice in Europe, that often people are more comfortable with shabbiness or sloppiness in presentation than they are here. These points where Australian artists are looking in overseas magazines for what is current and then mixing it with something local and using the local vernacular to articulate its meaning, these points I think are very important for cultural production in Australia, latent identity-formation which will become more apparent in retrospect.
Sorry, what a rant!
Speak soon,
Helen x
hello blog : sorry am in between jobs and soughting out a new place to blog from , can't do much at the City library image wise. And I think the font is being crazy to- big little bold?
But I will be back soon.
But I will be back soon.
Utopian Slumps
Poor Jess - Some fool at block gallery has taken her sweet gallery name and convoluted it into a terrible exhibition title. Its so blatant - he hasn't got a leg to stand on - where else would you come up with those words?
Lame.
Lame.
oh dear who cares
if its too blurry-
'remember folks,
sculpture is the stuff you walk into when you stand back to look at a painting.
Response: Um, how about Fuck Painting its gone for good'
Privacy
Viv Binns - sorry I am not sure of the titles, the one below is with Derrick O'connor too. I have been thinking about Viv so much. The catalogue for her recent retrospective is such a nice one - it holds in it her - if that makes sense ? I geuss I mean that it is less theoretical and more of a lifesyle explained. She's a trippy dynamo. Does the cosmic thing with gravity maybe, that psycadellic thing that we are doing with as much substance as designs for T-shirts maybe. She is so encouraging. I keep thinking about the weird carpark conversation I had with her after my honours assesment - bless her she really went in to bat for me - she did this smart thing I hadn't thought of - I would always have to answer for my choice of materials and would flop around in answering - but Viv managed to couch my using cardboard in Art History - she linked it to the modernists - one of there revolutions was to use cardboard - Picasso - so its actually a dated, daggy scrappy thing to use and not a cool kid thing to do, I didn't wish to be reactionary - I wasn't using cardboard to stick it to the establishment - how boring - but I was just a bit shy about making - and always feel a bit in between - not really and artist - but just want to think about art through making - anyways, Viv helped me get that across in my assessment - and I think she enjoyed the process we had this conversation wher she explained that after her initial show and the attention she had to shake it off and be a hedonist - what a lovely hedonist, it doesn't seem to be about self indulgence, but community projects and ladies. I miss those art school conversations - speaking in a egoless idea place. So I think about her choice a lot as I screw it up in this art town.
It's dissapointing, I thought of all the places in the world - you could be confussed- it would be in the 'art world' - but you can't you have to know stuff there too. Poor me ! I'll go now, sorry xo