'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
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
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