Tagged and then some

unbeknownst to me, there's some kind of system in place that bloggers are inflicting on other bloggers to expose the inner flesh of those that hide behind the anonymity of a QWERTY keyboard and a user-friendly interface.

The aim is to reveal 5 things about yourself that not many people would probably know, then nominate another 5 people to tag and so forth.

so, thanks to Age from In My Atmosphere, it's my turn to let everyone in on some secrets. Well, maybe not secrets, but.. well, you know. and i'm not really that secretive, so this is gonna be painful.

top 5 reasons to keep my mouth shut

1. i hitchhiked with my 14 year-old sister to the northern beaches of Sydney on new year's eve in exchange for a cone-piece.

i haven't smoke pot for a ridiculously long time, but there was a time when i may or may not have been in the posession of smoking paraphernalia. trying to get a cab from Macquarie Uni after the fantastic Summersault festival to my hobbit hole in Frenchs Forest was impossible, so i rocked up to two girls, who were going to smoke out at Narrabeen beach and organised the deal. My sister and I got home in one piece, they got their fun and my mum was none-the-wiser.. until we let it slip last night reminiscing about old times!

2. i droped out of a science degree.

straight out of school, i started studying science at Sydney University, after moving from Melbourne the day after my last VCE exams. I had never done biology or physics, so struggled through my lectures, never went to biology which was on a monday afternoon after a 4 hour break and generally hated it. so i dropped out after 3 months. i'm college drop out! woo hoo!

3. i voted for Bronwyn Bishop in my first chance to vote.

what a fucking waste huh!! this is coming from a girl who is regularly jumping up on quite a left-wing soap box, loves to hang shit on any Liberal MP at the first opportunity and would not be caught dead within an inch of a blue-ribbon seat! What can i say, i was young, influenced by the chatter of my folks, and mistakenly thought that a woman being my local member would be better than a "stupid male". I have made my peace, done my penance since then, but it's still pretty shithouse, right?

4. i used to play bass guitar.

i saved up and bought my first guitar when i was 18. I shared it with my flatmate who also wanted to play guitar. it was solid wood and heavy as a muthafucker. my second bass is now currently the bass used by Jamie from Run For Cover. I exchanged it for a video of Tank Girl, one of my favourite films.

5. I can't touch velvet.

You know that feeling you get when someone scrapes their fingers down the blackboard, or cracks their knuckles, or whatever makes your hackles stand up on the back of your neck. well, the feel of velvet (or anything similar, like valour, flock or other materials in that genus) makes me get like that. i shiver, shake and jump around. ick. gag to many, not so much fun for me.

now that i've completely exposed myself to the vultures of the bloggin' world, here's my next top 5:

top 5 people who i'm taggin'

1. The Artswipe - Art bloggin' diva.

2. Ampersand Duck - A letterpress printer who works part-time at an art school, and the rest of the time as a freelance graphic design hoor and wannabe artist.

3. The Wooster Kids - rad street art collective blog crew. Anyone of them will do.

4. Banksy - i know he's way too busy to be doing silly little lists of self-disclosure, seeing as he's all about anonymity, but i'd still like to see it

5. Jade Pegler - an ace friend and a super-rad paper artist.

have fun kids!!

surprise, surprise, surprise!! GoMA and the APT5

OK, so it may be a severe case of Emperor's New Clothes, but honestly, i don't care right now. I've just touched down in Melbourne town after 3 days in Brisvegas and i spent half that time at the new Gallery of Modern Art and checking out APT5 and i'm going to rave about it. and no, i can't wait 'til after xmas 'cos there are other shows to see and blogger have got me on time & a half over the holidays! lol!

However, I can't be bothered spending time crafting a well-thought out introduction, conclusion and a body that flows, so i'm going to go point form. if it works for the art life, it can bloody well work for me :)

lauren's top 5 for the new GoMA

Rachel Whiteread25 Spacesthanks to the QAG website

1. Rachel Fucking Whiteread!! Rachel Whiteread is one of my favourite artists and on my trip to London next year, it's already my mission to check out as much of her work as i possibly can, so imagine my glee at seeing one in the flesh. there it was, Twenty-Five Spaces in all its resinous glory.

parochial reaction? you betcha!!

i saw it there, up on the top floor of the contemporary collections galleries, almost fainted as i'd already fried my brain from going through the other 3 floors of the gallery, did a little excited dance and then had to leave, so i wouldn't actually faint.

i came back the next day and was able to hang out with the twenty-five spaces for a while. i drew one of the blocks, sketched an aerial perspective, crafted some of my own space-based ideas and left, begrudgingly. it was love at first and second sight.

2. Vernon Ah Kee. This man is.. This woman is..

Dear Mr Ah Kee,
You bastard! In the many years i have spent in front of artworks, in galleries around Australia and around the world, i have never cried. I fucking cried in front of your work This Man Is.. This Woman Is. Yes, cried. I bawled my eyes out and instead of watching Tracy Moffat's work, i stood in the projection room sobbing. and instead of just glancing at your work, i read every single fucking piece. and i wrote as many as i could down. and i got cranky with anyone who couldn't give a fuck enough to read the pieces. so thanks a bunch. i couldn't just let the injustices of colonisation be swept under the carpet. i had to fucking feel something. you'll be hearing more about this later.

regards,
lauren

Yayoi Kusama, Soul Under The Moon

3. Yayoi Kusama Soul Under the Moon.
Kusama's silver balls in the watermall was the highlight of my last APT, but getting to experience the breadth and sheer vastness of the Soul Under Moon piece was fucking awesome! I do it any justice in describing it, but if you have the chance to step out in to the ether and gaze at infinity +1, do it. And make sure you're wearing at least some white 'cos it's all under blacklight and you'll look hot!

4. Liu Xiao Xian The Way We Eat.
Such a simple piece, but so clearly proving the superfluosity (well, it's a word now) of western culture through the basic symbols of our cutlery as the system of our consumption. On one side of the red velvet-lined cabinetm, made from slipcast porcelain is a full 'silver service' spread of butter knives, table knives, salad forks, desert forks, soup spoons, servers, etc, etc, etc. The other, two chopsticks.

5. Yasumasa Morimura Blinded By the Light
I really like Peter Breughel's Parable of the Blind, so i was so pleased to see Morimura's appropriation and comment on the power of western commercialisation on Asian culture

other works that rate a mention include Kentridge's Zeno Writing, Ah Xian's heads, Rosalie Gascoigne's street signs and Jon Cattapan's Passage Set 2004.



APT5 2006, the triennial on a leap year. to be honest, i was more blown away at the last APT, but this APT is solid. And what i liked about it was it was well-rounded. there seemed to be less artists, but more opportunity to explore some of the ideas of those artists, rather than a theme-based, biennale type thing where it's all about the token and squeezing everyone in.

the ground floors of each gallery featured work from the APT, which had a whole bunch of great works. here's the list:

lauren's top 5 for APT5

1. Anish Kapoor. Oh my goodness, this UK/Indian artist is the king of contemporary sculpture in my book! the extremely fragile pigment works that are in the APT are divine and i could have spent way more time in the cordoned area, except i was wary of all the people lining up to get in waiting for me. His 1000 Names steps were so luscious to my she sees red eyes and the womb-like tunnel of red love was so, well, yummmy! The book was $135, so unfortunately i couldn't take some Kapoor lovin' home with me, but it will be mine one day :)


2. Tsuyoshi Ozawa
Ozawa had several works that were really successful in this year's triennial. The first series, which was from the Vegetable Weapons series, initially reminded me of Simryn Gill's work from the 2004 Sydney Biennale. However, i felt that this work was far more poignant and well-presented. The arrangement of food to become weapons was fantastic and also challenged stereotypes of the images of fear that we are often exposed to.
As well as the vegetables, Ozawa curated the Nasubi Gallery: a collection of milk boxes as small galleries. Based in the Ginzu district of Japan and a piss-take of the Nabisu Gallery there, he invited all the artists from the APT to create works in these "galleries", my favourite of which was the Medicine Cabinet by Justine Cooper. The whole concept of Nasubi Gallery (translated as Eggplant Gallery) is right up my alley, appealing to my sense of cheekiness, and up there with Wrong Gallery in terms of turning gallery spaces on their heads.

Tsuyoshi Ozawa,Seafood Hot Pot

4. Yuken Teruya.
The Notice Forest by Teruya was such a simple display but filled with poignancy about commercialisation, globalisation and the disposable nature of western culture (yes, even the arts). The japanese artist creates these amazing tree paper sculptures in and with disposable paper bags from the likes of McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, Lush and even OzCo get a guernsey! Craft-wise, the works are exquisite and conceptually, they're sharp and witty as well. I loved it!

Yuken TeruyaBlue Tree
Thanks to Saatchi Gallery

5. Zhou Xiaohu
Part of the Long March Project, looking at the Cultural Revolution in China and the rise to power of Mao Tse-Tung, Xiaohu created an amazing diorama in the round of power and dictatorship in clay. It looked like chocolate (which was a fantastic aspect of the work) and the enormity of the piece, combining ceramic works and DVDs of sound and basic clay-animation was really engaging.

Zhou XiaohuUtopian theatre (detail)
Thanks to www.asiapacifictriennial.com

so, if you're umming and aahing about whether to make the trip to the APT, just do it. There is some great stuff there! I didn't even get a chance to go into the new State Library, which has a really snazzy new building, even if the cafe is a fucking rip off. I also didn't get to IMA or Rawspace, like i wanted to, so make sure you take your time there when you go!

Have a great holiday period everyone! For those who mourning the lack of blog action over the xmas break, don't worry, i got plenty coming :)

i know i said i wouldn't, but...

.. i went to the opening at first draft on wednesday night.

it was fucking great though - bit of xmas theme happening with striped candy canes and other coloured lollies, the 1/2 dozen boys were selling their 2006 catalogue, which i can highly recommend, and there were some really great artists on show.

in the front room, michael moran was showing not here (to make sad songs sincere)ink works on paper that were damn cool - text based works with just enough angst to be spicy, but no so much that i wanted to vomit. my favourite was the one attached to the front window of the front space. not a traditionally easy place to install a framed work, it actuallly fit perfectly and conveyed a bit of a philosophy in a way - it is what it is, because it is.

emma van leest, whose work from a homage to a private place i had previously seen in her studio (as a sneak peak walking past with her fellow studio buddy), was skating out the doors. they were beautiful cut paper dioramas, with a really oldy-worldy type feel. something about them reminded me of rudyard kipling and the jungle book, for some reason. maybe i had a pop-up book version that looked like one, but anyway, they were so delicate and inviting and cheap!




and to go with the jungle book theme (well, my jungle book theme) in the back room was the riki tik tavi installation. with a pile of rubble in the middle of the floor - the result of a performance of the smashing of huge bits of rock, some paper works and small video works. the video works were the strongest and my favourites were cabin fever and woodstock wood, featuring kate and marley playing 'games' of sorts - the friendly rivalry type. the first one was within a brown wooden bird-house type-thing (which, according to the room sheet is a dog kennel, but i prefer bird-house) which you peered into, and featured them piercing a can of woodstock bourbon mixer and skulling it. you didn't see them throwing up, but boy it was close. the one prior to that, (cabin fever) which i think was better viewed second ('cos that's how i viewed it, and it was hilarious) was them, in a sauna, with sailor hats on, saluting for as long as possible before one person faltered. thankfully i was able to talk to kate and got the low-down 'cos i didn't realise that they were in a sauna, or what the deal with the game was, but you still got the essence of competition and the fun of it all. it was all quite amusing.

it was a great way to end the year for sydney shows and a nice vibe, with lots of people, lots of chat, good art, good sales and nice weather. i left at exactly the right time, and as i was heading back to the country terminal, everything kind of felt right with the artworld. just like a rudyard kipling book.

thanks for coming.. or faking it at least.

this may not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but she sees red copped her 2000th hit today and i'm bursting with pride!

like a soccer mum who continues to barrack for her son who is hopeless at soccer, but tries his little heart out, i'm stoked about this weeny little milestone. i know that all the big kids probably get 2000 hits and 4000 page views per day, but for the blog that started off with 3 hits in her first week, before i realised how to turn off 'ignore visits', this is quite an achievement!

thanks to all the regular readers - i know who a few of you are, and the rest of you lurkers, well, it's nice to have your company too. even those who look for "two dogs fucking" or "taking pregnant ladies up the ass", i hope you eventually found what you were looking for. to all the international visitors, i know that i'm hopelessly anglo-centric, and thanks for putting up with it and congratulations to the person at Deutsche Bank who was my 2000th visitor. You probably had no idea.

and so, to celebrate of sorts, i'm going to create some more work for myself and finally haul my arse onto flickr!
thankfully i don't mean that literally, or we'd all be in strife. [and the crowd goes mild]

it has taken me many months, much hassling from jade and much procrastination on my part, but i've finally made the decision to join the yahoo crew and upload images of my work onto the much more accessible image-sharing site. from there you can cast your aspersions far and wide

so, here's to site meters, low expectations and binary forms of approval.. and many more posts to come :)

guerilla girls

cause of death: overdose

i'd heard about this happening, but i think i've officially overdosed on exhibitions. for a while.

or more to the point, i've overdosed on openings. for a while. i've been to 4 of the fuckers in the last 2 days, have my own happening tomorrow night and quite frankly i've had it up to here with them.

this ridiculous gallery hopping began on wednesday night with the Peloton openings: Material Culture by Rowan Conroy at P19 and the group show Examples at P25 featuring a wide range of contemporary artists: Daniel Argyle, Hany Armanious, Lesley Dumbrell, Matthys Gerber, Alison McGregor, Anna Kristensen and Giles Ryder. The shows were OK - although they left me feeling a little flat, especially the group show. Not that it wasn't absolutely packed with great work - it was. Most of it was extrememly professional and well-crafted/well-thought out, but i left just feeling a little bland. This may actually have more to do with the layout of the space, more than anything. Everything was laid out fairly evenly, 2D work on or attached from the walls, sculptures in the middle, enough space to walk around - i know, just how you want it when you go to a show. but for some reason, i wanted more. i wanted something that i could get sucked into. or spat out by. Rowan Conroy's work was not the most intriguing photography i've ever seen, with work investigating industrial and urban architecture (which i quite enjoy most of the time) but because the whole gallery was taken up by all of his works and there was a sense of theme encompassing the show, i actually enjoyed this more than the who's who show at number 25.

last night i squeezed 3 openings in on the one night and i think they pretty much encompassed the gamut of shows/spaces in sydney in one foul swoop.

firstly i headed to the quagmire of paddington for the last show for the year at Roslyn Oxley 9. If i thought the Peloton opening was a who's who, then Stolen Ritual at rosox proved far more so. the list of artists included James Angus, Hany Armanious, Angela Brennan, Tony Clark, Destiny Deacon, John Firth-Smith, Fiona Hall, Christopher Hanrahan, Newell Harry (the guy with the last name first, and the first name last), Lindy Lee, David Noonan, Rohan Wealleans and John Wolseley. phew!

Some of the art featured was kinda predictable. Not the art itself, but the presentation of it - glaringly aimed at hefty wallets looking for a wonderful christmas gift for dear aunt lady so-an-so. As a balance to the big hitters like Firth-Smith and Wolseley, there were some great works which were by some of the coolest kids on the block at the moment. I really enjoyed both James Angus' works: Soccer Ball Dropped from 35,000 Feet and Pi to One Million Decimal Places; David Noonan's screen print on birch plywood was beatiful and it looked like a portrait of Brandon Lee all made up like The Crow, but i could be disasterously wrong there. I had a good chuckle at Newell Harry's Mum and Dad/Dum and Mad drawings as well as the usual giggle at Christopher Hanrahan's work - this time he was cracking out the Jewish proverbs: As is the Gardener, Such is the Garden - (soul man) being more concise and generally amusing then the (table lamp).

And despite all that great work, i had the worst time! If someone ever sees me at a Roslyn Oxley opening ever again, could they tell me to go home and come back another day, when there are only the gallery staff around!! The ubiquitous mafia of the über cool are always at the openings and i invariably leave feeling like the biggest dickhead on the planet. I stutter my words, have no idea what to say, feel like a bit of a lost lamb and in trying to make up for being completely intimidated, make stupid remarks filled with bravado that have me looking like the biggest ignorant wanker on the face of this planet. well, maybe ol' johnny 'oward would give me a run for my money, but anyway. the weird and the worst thing is, it's not the rich-looking patrons, or the stylish artists that have been around forever that i lose it around - it's the around-my-age-but-more-successful-than-i-am-but hope-to-be types: usually male, usually drunk, and usually brats that i end up in a mess around. and that's what i fucking hate about openings - i swore that i would never go to an opening caring about who i was or wasn't and would just dig the art. yeah, well, in theory.

Petrina Hicks, Shenae & Jade thanks to www.acp.au.com

so, back to punching my weight, i popped into the ACP opening of the Pet Project, which was yet another feel of opening. A lot more women and quite a nice easy-going atmosphere. Not so much preening and more actual conversation going on. I didn't get a chance to see all the photos, thanks to there being so many people, but the new space was ace, there were some great photos of pets. To be honest, my favourite one was the front cover of the new Photophile - an image by Petrina Hicks, but I also really liked the cibachrome lightboxes featuring 'missing pets' - ornaments from shops in chinatown and the work by Beverley Veasey. I caught up with Izabela, which was great and after a juice, i left just as Sandy Edwards from Stills Gallery walked in with the largest, most beautiful dogs you've ever seen. Obviously to get her pic taken at the Pet Photo Booth by Justin Spiers and Yvonne Doherty. Obviously.

Justin Spiers and Yvonne Doherty, Andrea, Tristan, Valentino and Tatiana thanks to www.acp.au.com

And then to the other end of the spectrum: an ARI opening. medium rare's last show for the year, 21st Century Dreamtime. Jo Cuzzi and Rachael Lafferty are showing paintings with a slightly carnivalesque theme. I'm not sure whether it was intentional, but the crowd kind of reflected it too - lots of obvious art students (now on holidays), crazy costumes, hair styles and lounging around the odd-shaped space. Although the space felt a tonne more comfortable than either Rosox or ACP, unfortunately the work wasn't all that fab. I liked 2 paintings which were on quilted material, looking like they had been painted on children's changing tables, or matress protectors. Other than that, the works were quite all over the place, like Juan Davila minus the craft. Pity really.




And if you're not exhausted by this account already, then you should be, 'cos i was stuffed after all that traipsing. I was also incredibly intrigued at the pattern i discovered: the better the work, the more uncomfortable the gallery space is. which doesn't do much for making work accessible. but i guess you don't want art work to be too accessible. people might actually enjoy it, talk about it, want to have it, but not actually buy it. PR101: the more out of reach something appears to be, the more people actually want it and the more people will pay for it.

and finishing on that incredibly jaded note, now i'm going into hibernation. i'm not going to go to another art show to see others' work until i get to brisbane. i've had enough. i'm about ready to just stare at a blank wall for a while and sip some kind of cool drink and overdose on food instead of visual ephemera.

all art is quite useless

after recently discovering the joy of oscar wilde's company, i settled in to read the picture of dorian gray and was promptly hit with a preface which reaffirmed a view things, left me feeling like oscar's disapproval had washed over me and simultaneously amused me at how some things change over time and some just don't:

the artist is the creator of beautiful things
and should be rewarded accordingly

to reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim
considering that by the time wilde had written Dorian Gray, revealing the artist had long been a practice of art as well, perhaps mr wilde is showing his naivete. however, in terms of an antidote to the uber-ego of some artists, it does OK. where this maxim really shines is as a philosophical pat on the back when an artist is possibly getting lost with the purpose and intention of their work.

the critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things
if this isn't a basis for which to celebrate artsblogs and artist-run-initiatives like un and runway, then i don't know what is. to me, this validates artists as valid critics (especially as we're already creating beautiful things).

it also a reminder that critics are also just creating impressions. that no person's opinion is anything other than a response or reaction to something.

othewise know as: to reveal art and conceal the critic is criticism's aim.

the highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography
which effectively makes this blog the lowest of low. not only is it autobiographical, but it is from someone who should be creating beautiful things, but spends most of her time looking at them instead. it does, however, give weight to the argument for objectivity in criticism and for the use of third person/plural pronoun, which has been discussed previously here.

those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. this is a fault.
yeah, perverts.

those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. for these there is hope. they are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
I think i'm going to post this on my wall. i like being cultivated. i like finding beautiful meanings in beautiful things (as i create them, before i write about them). As to being elect and a capital B on beauty, while i love the idea of thinking about what Beauty is, and personifying it with a capital, these days, i think there are other considerations as well as Beauty that indicate being cultivated.

there is no such things as amoral or immoral book. books are well written or badly written. that is all.
well, not acccording to John Howard's new sedition laws, but we won't mention that one shall we!

the nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
the twenty-first century dislike of contemporary art is the rage of howard not seeing his own face is the mirror.

the nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
the twenty-first century dislike of political art and creative dissent is the rage of howard seeing his own face in a mirror

the moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consits in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
morals.. hmm.. do habits and choices come under that description?

no artist desires to prove anything. even things that are true can be proved.
whether you like political art or not, as few proper critics seem not to, i don't think this one is quite so true anymore. even if you're not trying to prove something overtly politically, you're trying to prove something conceptually, materially or symbolically. and if not to someone else, at least to yourself [or that nasty teacher in year 9 who said you'd never amount to nothing]. although if artists were rewarded accordingly, perhaps this might be true.

no artist has ethical sympathies. an ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
please, please, please may john mcdonald, sebastian smee or the artlife not read this blog. they have all argued, at some point, that art which has a bold political or ethical statement is either not worthwhile, or not art. i really don't want them to be right, because while i'm not a relational aesthete, i firmly, firmly, firmly, believe that art needs to say things that the shitty tabloids don't. it may not be beautiful with a capital B, but ethical sympathy in an artist is damn sexy! and unpardonable mannerism? isn't that what post-modernism supposed to be?

no artist is ever morbid. the artist can express everything.
except ethical sympthies, apparently. and there are a few morbid artists, but i guess that can still express. so perhaps the definition for morbidity is not the expression of something depressive, but the depression of an ability to express.

thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
a shoe in, really. i don't know any artist, great or awful, who doesn't, at least at some point, use thought or language of some sort. whether that be material, conceptual or symbolic language, or at least a bit of thought, like 'maybe if i put this blue here, it will look a bit like the sky'.

vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
this is a whole other kettle of fish and from a whole other generation, where vice and virtue were even words that you used to describe validity. thankfully, we had the 60s, which turned this whole thing upside down and gave us charming blank canvases, wacky lines all over the place, drug use like you wouldn't believe and children who love a good mash-up.

from the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. from the point of view of feeling, that actor’s craft is the type.

assuming that rhythm is a description of form, which, as a formalist of sorts (well, sorta), i'm inclined to agree with, i can dig this grand statements about musicians. but i'm sure that wilde isn't intending to completely osctracise the rest of the arts from being a type of all the arts. perhaps the various boards of the australia council can nut this one out. perhaps it's just a nice way of saying that musicians and actors, while being completely unhealthy and having the worst sleeping patterns, are still pretty good at floating our boats. vice, virtue and all that jazz aside.

all art is at once surface and symbol.
what a celebrity death match this would be if you had the abstract expressionists vs the symbolists. thankfully surface and symbol aren't meant quite as literally, otherwise we'd end up with sanctioned art looking like jackson pollock meets james ensor! ew!

those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril
i guess these days, this is for anyone who creates work that isn't intended to match the sofa. you do so at your own peril, but damn there are a bunch of spunks joining you in it!

those who read the symbol do so at their peril
see above

it is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
i can see the t-shirt now: life immitates audience. i really want one actually.. and a few marketing/advertising mates of mine might dig it too!

diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.
so, for once all those clashing opinions in the comments section of the artlife are actually right! all of them. by that definition, there's some interestingly new, complex and vital works. this also proves that a diversity of critical opinion is a vital element of any art scene. whether you like your tabloid, or your Broadsheet, discussion is vital.

when critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.
now, how to get the critics to disagree...

we can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. the only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
ah, the ol' form vs function argument. well, sorry mr wilde, but that one's been sorted for a good 50 years or so. since bakelite came into town. or maybe i'm wrong. maybe it's still a discussion we have to have, but i have long forgiven myself for admiring a quirky chair, oh-so-minimal ceramic tea set, pretty much anything at Object or Space

all art is quite useless
here here. great innit?

Landa, Landa, Landa... and other frat stories

The frat house that the nerds from Revenge of the Nerds ended up belonging to was Lambda Lambda Lambda and i have this vague memory of someone saying it in that movie, wearing a pink chearleaders outfit and kind of making it sound like Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! And when i went to the opening of the Anne Landa Award, it was all i could think of!

But that's not meant to reflect on the exhibition at all.

The opening was also the trustees' Christmas do and the last hurrah for chair David Gonsky, who is an all-time, super-top, mega-fantastic, supporter of the arts, and moving onto Chancellory duties for a large University in New South Wales (why i bother with subtlety sometimes, i don't know). David's speech was amusing and not too long and although others 'poo-poo'-ed his description of new media as 'new and fresh' in relation to it being lauded at Agnes, it was actually a pretty good speech. God knows i wish Edmund had just left us with it, rather than getting a word in.

Philip Brophy The Body Malleable 2002-04 - All so sexual!
thanks to www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

Anyway, the show, the show! In a nutshell, here are my pics: Daniel Crooks, Daniel Von Sturmer (swoon!), Philip Brophy and Monika Tickachek. The others were, well, meh. Tony Schwensen's work possibly suffered from being put in a veritable thoroughfare, but i just didn't dig it. And although James Lynch's backyard party-looking work, could possibly better from a different kind of venue, didn't really float my boat either. Grant Steven's text/sunset work just blatantly bored me. But sometimes i'm hard to please and i did actually giggle at the slow unveiling of the text across the screen, like a scene from Jumping Jack Flash when there's some serious secret online 'chatting' going on, although perhaps that wasn't the intention of the piece.

Basically, the work that i like, especially in this exhibition, but i think more broadly as well, is work with strength of character. And while naive, bitsy, and disparate work seems to be getting a lot of starring roles lately, i'm just not that into it. This possibly reveals my own naivete, ignorance or dagginess, but hey - i am the one that made the Revenge of the Nerds crack earlier!

And if there was any doubt about diversity between art schools, you just have to head to the grad shows this week. Being a NAS alumni, I have always felt a little out of my depth hanging out at COFA and heading to their grad show Annual 06 on Wednesday night, it was really obviously that that's where the cool kids are. I felt like a nerd walking into the Alpha Beta frat house. But at the same time, it was just like being at an ARI opening - cheap cans of beer and classy plastic cups of wine and loads of denim. General fashion for the crowd was skinny jeans, off the shoulder shirts and ballet slipper shoes for the girls, popped collars, fringes and more skinny jeans for the boys. And i don't usually notice fashion at these kinds of things, but it was scarily obvious!

images: Jirat James Patradoon, 2006, thanks to www.cofa.unsw.edu.au

Thankfully, some of the work i did manage to see amongst the throng of people seemed pretty sincere, or i might have vomited with boredom. There were a lot of good sculptural/installation gestures - some great kinetic work and a whole bunch of video work. The basement section was so industrial and gritty, it was great! I especially liked the fallen-down staircase underneath all those overpass walkways and the swinging door room in said basement. [Sorry, slack with taking down names...]

And if the COFA opening was an ARI opening, the NAS opening was like going to a commercial gallery opening. Lots of slightly older kids hanging around, a lot of flowy skirts, black natural fibres, the beer was imported and there was even food (although we all acted like seagulls when it arrived!). And the spaces for the show have been renovated and become very professional. Thankfully some of the work coming out of there has become playful and almost edgy, otherwise i think i might have suffocated with boredom. Louise Spent's photographs of her posing with cut-out bits from blow-up dolls was fantastic and getting to jump on Asha Zappa's fried egg ceramic works was easily the highlight of my night. [This may or may not have been for self-centered reasons as 'she' has also done works with broken eggs/walking on eggshells]

And so, with the SCA show happening this week, that's it for me for grad shows for another year. Thank god for that! great as they are, it's all a little, well, grad show.

Unfortunately it also heralds the death of the art scene for the year. Looking throught the Art Almanac the other day, i realised that there is going to be sweet fuck all on over the christmas break in Sydney or in Melbourne! (I'll go into the serious lack of the visual arts program for the Sydney Festival another day)..Lucky I'm heading up to Brisbane for the APT!!

the good, the bad and the beta

parties are funny things really. they can bring out the best and the worst in people.

organising them is both fun and awful at the same time. no matter how many i've thrown, there is still that inevitable fear that no one will turn up. or worse, 3 people will turn up and instead of a party, it becomes a wake commemorating the death of an idea i had that i'm somehow popular, good company or just fun to be around. and i guess, as an artist, i'm going to have to get used to that fear, 'cos unless i become so uproariously famous in the next 6 months and never have to organise an opening again, i've got a few more parties to throw.




thankfully the closing party for entropy at platform 2 went OK. not as pumping as i would have liked, but still a pretty cool little intimate affair, with a bunch of family, friends and a few platform regulars. the setting was pretty cool and if i had my time again, i would still cart a bunch of furniture into the subway and have a loungeroom party there. i sold a couple of pairs of undies and anita and din from platform were both taken with the little boxes of remnants i had there too.




the other thing about parties is being invited. or not being invited. there are some parties you don't need to be invited to - you just hear about them and rock up, the more the merrier and they're always fun. except when the house gets trashed and you have to fix a broken tap spouting water 15ft into the air at 3am. for example. then there are other parties where you get the invite: the special parties like weddings, 30th birthdays and golden anniversaries. or to transfer your blog to beta.

for the last month, while the rest of the cool art blogger kids were sprouting about beta blogger, i was left staring at my feet, wondering when i was going to get an invitation! i had flash backs of being chosen last for the lunchtime football team in grade 6 and not being invited at all to a princess party in grade 3 (who wants to be a stupid princess anyway).

thankfully, i've finally been asked to cross over to the dark side of the blog! she sees red will soon be in glorious beta technology and joining the ranks of the fully qualified again :)

new pics!

Thanks to Din and Anita at Platform for these little puppies! They're from week 2 of the exhibition, where entropy is well and truly making its mark on these cabinets :)









And don't forget kids: there's going to be a closing party on Friday 24th November - that's this Friday - in the subway at Platform 2 from 5-7pm! Come along and chill out in the lounge, bliss out to some jazz toons and muse over the decay with me!

bloodbaths and non-objective graffiti

went out last night for a bit of a test with some new fun stuff. didn't exactly work how i'd like it to, but sure got me started in a new direction!



using the same material as entropy, which will dry and flake off (when the weather finally does what it's supposed to)

photos: jade pegler doing some testing of her own

the bath may well feature again in a different role sometime soon too... watch this space.

come early or come often?

two possibly unrelated aspects about this ol' art game have struck me today.

firstly, i popped into the AGNSW today for a quick visit. primarily to pick up my free copy of the SMH-as i'm attempting to save for a trip to london by not buying the paper or coffee - my two major vices since giving up smoking. anyway, while i was there, i thought i'd pop in to check out the James Angus show, which i mistakenly thought was at Agnes (getting my angus and my agnes mixed up), rather than across the ditch at MCA. in having a quick scout around at the contemporary collection and a little peek into the shop before having to shoot back to work, i wondered if i was committing an artcrime in just 'popping in' to the gallery.

must one always spend a long time with the work, or will a lunchtime quickie do as well?

of course i spend other times lovingly in galleries for extended periods of time, paying close attention to all the ins and outs, but surely my appreciation for what's out there is enhanced by a quick peck every now and again. surely it's about keeping it exciting by having both kinds of experience. right?

and speaking of experiences, i might even take this whole thing a little further and spend the rest of my working weeks before christmas seeing one piece each day i pick up my paper. fully reacquaint myself with the collection and maybe even fall in love with some obscure work from the pre-raphelites that i've usually balked at. this could be the beginning of summer lovin' lunchtime styles!

and speaking of summer lovin', i think i'm about to jump on the robert hughes bandwagon after seeing the interview with andrew denton tonight.

i must confess that i never fell in love with ol' hughesy when everyone else was. i was rebelliously reading bachellard and beckett when i should have read bob. and i have a feeling it's time to repent.
something about his demeanour reminded me of francis bacon - something about the swingin' 60s, british cad kind of thing, and having fallen in love with frank a while back, it's time to borrow, or buy the shock of the new. having being introduced to mr hughes the first time around the time of american visions and that ol' accident, i'm going to avoid that phase until i've convinced myself that he's actually worth pursuing.

5 minutes into injury time

so, after being so ridiculously tired, you’d think I would have slept like a log! not so. all that caffeine, all that stress plus a few thousand head miles, I did not sleep at all! I’m pretty sure it was about 1:30 when I finally decided to stop stressing, got up, made a cup of pep tea and finally fell asleep until the wonderful time of 7:30am. beauty. I was so strung out that I had to go for a run to get myself back into kilter. go for a run? yeah, I know!

photos thanks to sarah mosca

so, back into the city at about 8:30 to dump more stuff and then find a park. I felt like absolute crap, so much of my memory about installing is a bit foggy, but I do remember us being quite organised and starting early. we used one of the cabinets kind of as a test piece – did a bit of cooking, painted it on and we were away. the key to stage 2 of the installation was always going to be about a production line. and apart from a few periods where we were cooking and applying in fits and starts, we mostly had it down pat. I had recruited 2 sets of friends, who I’m eternally grateful to, for the morning and afternoon shifts. I cooked, sarah mosca applied, dean sammut also applied and sarah barber was our dishpig for the morning session. as I finished cooking a pot of goo, 1 each of the painters would start and as each pot was finished, sarah b would wash them the tiny sink at sticky. and apart from having to deal with the waves of race goers, it was going pretty well. we had quite a long lunchbreak ‘cos I was exhausted and it was an opportunity for us to hang out with the afternoon crew, who took the installation to completion – sarah, paul turner and craig atkinson.

photos thanks to sarah mosca

the afternoon worked so well – we started off with sarah cooking, paul and I painting and craig as dishpig, then swapped ‘cos I was feeling pretty ratty and just needed to cook – so sarah got back on the cabinets. all was well until about 4pm, then we realized that we were running out of material, patience and time. we stretched it all out to cover a total of 10 cabinets, ran out of gas just as we finished (literally) and left our little installation of crumpled contact in the cabinets. it may not be refined, but what’s a bit of harmless fun in a subway :)

photos thanks to sarah mosca

did I mention I was strung out? holy crap – I think I almost cried a bunch of times and was relieved more than anything that the installation was over. it’s very hard to have a critical eye when you’re physically, mentally, emotionally and creatively exhausted. which is why preparation is the key.

photos thanks to sarah mosca

after we documented and packed it all up, it was off to the pub for much-needed refreshment! nothing puts punctuation to installing a show like a brew of some sort (or red lemonade for me) and hot chips!

and that’s about it. the work is now currently in a state of flux – which is what it’s all about anyway. and as far as I hear, it’s looking OK.

more photos to come later.

full body contact: installation day 1

it's a weird and wonderful thing this installation business. i think it's a lot like being a director/producer for a film - you plan it all out, you do all the preparation work you can, draw out plans/storyboards/ideas and then ultimately, when it comes to shooting, you have to just roll with the punches. there are just some things you just cannot plan for.

photo thanks to sarah mosca

with the best-laid plans, sarah mosca and i set sail for melbourne town at the charming time of 3:23am on friday morning to install entropy, the time-based, site-specific work i had been working towards for platform 2. my little 1990 model charade was packed to the gills with rolls of contact, bags of cornflour, food dye, our clothes, snacks for the road, my laptop and two large speakers (that sufficed as a car stereo, given the state of my current one) and we were function on an OK amount of sleep, but mostly hepped up with adrenalin and excitement (or fear).

i was hoping to make the trek in record time 'cos i knew that we would be pressed for time and every hour would count. i don't think i could have been more accurate - in fact the whole weekend was about making each hour as effective as possible and sometimes it worked, others it didn't.

out timing on the way down was pretty good really. we played road mind games with a bored truckie who decided that scaring the shit out of us in our little car was a good distraction at 4:30am, we watched the sun try to break through a cloudy sky at gundagai and tried to not sing that stupid song, we cursed roadworks and school zones at albury and dumped our uneaten apples at the ol' chiltern rest stop. finally we rocked up at the ranch (my friend carl's place) at 1pm exactly - approximately an hour after i would have liked, but still pretty good timing. after a cup of pep tea, a feeble attempt at a lie-down and a wicked, wicked shower, it was time to hit the road again. i had a meeting with jeff from next wave at 2:30 and we were making great timing, until spencer st happened. no dramas, just a shit-load of traffic. changed the meeting time, screamed into degraves st just on 2:30 and almost got a parking fine, saved by some sweet charm by sarah and those NSW number-plates of mine :)

after dumping all our stuff in the cabinets, which had just been vacated by Ben Ernst, it was time for a much-needed caffeine fix.



the cabinets needed to be covered in contact to prevent staining, so i started sarah on that while i got another caffeine fix and had my meeting with jeff, which was ultra productive! it was a bit of a rush-job for both of us, but certainly managed to set me on the right path. but that's another story.

i headed back to the gallery and where sarah had been working and realised that the measurements given for the size of the cabinets was based upon the visual measurements (ie from where the lights begin, to the bottom of the cabinet) - not the actual size of the cabinet. this was quite a bummer, to say the least. in fact, had i been able to do anything at all about it, i might have panicked. seeing as there was fuck all i could do, we just decided to run the contact from the bottom up and have space at the top and trusting that it would look OK. trust, or something resembling too-late-to-care.

photo thanks to sarah mosca

between the two of us - me in the cabinets and sarah yanking the backing off, we got the cabinets mostly covered by about 6:30pm. we had a small glitch, in that we were fast running out of time and although we could have stalled for time, we also discovered that some of the contact i had bought from a large supermarket chain, which shall remain nameless, was shit and kept fucking up. by this time, i was completely wrecked and decided to just fuck it, and leave it for the next day. otherwise i was going to have a coronary, or a major tantrum in a public place and frankly, i haven't quite made it to diva status so couldn't get away with that one.

photo thanks to sarah mosca

so after we squished everything into cabinets, packed up and headed back to the car to get changed, or at least spruced a little, we headed to ACMI to the opening of their Eyes, Lies and Illusions show, which Jaki had given me an invitation for. I was meeting my mum there and all three of us were going to check it out. Thankfully mum was running late as well, thanks to traffic - or at least that's what i gathered from her text saying 'I HATE THE CITY!!' but we all managed to make it in time for the speeches. Great. Actually, i'm assuming they were speeches, 'cos there were so many people talking, that i really couldn't work it out.

the foyer was packed so, once they'd opened it, we snuck downstairs to check out the exhibition. i was too off my face tired to really take anything in properly, but there was some bloody amazing stuff there! camera lucidas, stereoscopes, daguerrotypes, lenticular photographs, an amazing print of the cross sections of st. pauls drawn from a crows nest set up specifically for the artist to draw from, those circular moving plates which make your eyes go wacky, wacky eyes that follow you - but were just blinking on the night, jaki and david's piece the sound before you make it and one of those rooms that looks like a square when you look at it through a hole(lens) but is actually a trapezoid. heaps of fun! i really could go back and check it all out over a whole day - and recommend that everyone do that - there are some wicked, wicked things in there.

after that we went out to dinner with the rest of my family and started to wind down. unfortunately, i was so exhausted by this stage, that i could only eat rabbit food and had to slunk off early before it became ridiculously dangerous to drive back to my friend's house.

thankfully i had good hugs at the ready when i got back there and was able to crash reasonably early, say bout 11pm.

total time awake: 20.5 hours.
total ability to function: 1 star
stay tuned for day 2.

onwards and upwards

another weekend of fun and frivolity with art and music kids, and now she's exhausted!

on saturday i went up to the last first draft forum for twentylove: onwards. there were some great speakers.

highlights of the afternoon included Reuben Keehan speaking about artspace and the increase of contemporary art spaces and ARIs working collaboratively thanks to not having to fight quite so much for cash, thanks to the Myer Inquiry money. I've seen this happening most recently, with 4A being able to use equipment from MCA and artspace easily. Seems that the CAOs are beginning to take a leaf out of the ARIs books :)

revisiting soda_jerk's reign over the remix was great and i loved their pirate patch style of marketing, with the maxim from dan: "remember that your'e a curator (or artist), not a party organiser". and being able to speak with aaron seeto was great - aaron had exhibited quite a few times with project and then moved on to bigger and better things (proof again how tops ARIs are) so it was great to put face to name for both of us.

and then a major highlight for me was the 25 predictions for the future from the art life. in true TAL style, it was irreverant, poignant and beautifully executed, despite a case of cottonmouth, which seemed to affect most of the speakers. i laughed my ass off! even when i knew that i had been guilty of number 14, meaning that i'll probably be up for 25 years imprisonment for a recent post, i loved it! the thing i especially liked is that it was a nice tongue-in-cheek balance for some very in depth and serious discussion about ARIs, contemporary art, commercial galleries, etc.

and then all that seriousness and introspection was highlighted again by our architect swimmer guy, who introduced himself to everyone and made everyone re-introduce themselves, but for the life of me i can't remember his name. so for the sake of this post, his name is george. george is a regular visitor to first draft, so he's a persistant civilian, but he was an excellent reminder about contemporary art and art in general being relevant to the general public. we were all exposed as the bunch of haughty snobs we are, and it was fantastic!! favourite quote from george came after anthony whelan re-introduced himself: "sherman galleries hey.. i've never heard of it.... ha! just kidding" lol!!

so, after that, it was time for more frivolity at the runway launch at MOP with a trash theme, there was lots of haute plastique, trash couture, karaoke and a few second appearances for some of the forum kids, including Soda_Jerk in runway and Reuban Keehan in the Low show and fantastic Low catalogue interviews. But back to the karaoke. for all my fun and games, i can't stand karaoke usually. i have a very low cringe factor (see, i'm a snob, i admit it and proud of it) and people singing trashy songs with a variety of talent makes my skin crawl, it's not personal. however, on saturday night, i managed to stay in the main room for most of the time and even had a quiet trashy boogie with my gorgeous dancing friend Dave [although our best dancing was done in the corridor outside the loos to echo beach by martha and the muffins!]

with jelly shots, champagne, sour lollies and cheese rings, it was a classy night all round and damn impressive. and the issue is just as rad! i've only managed to read a few things since having it bought for me on sat, but it's been delicious. i've read the extended remix of the interview by Pete Volich with Christopher Hanrahan, the Chocolate Manifesto by Benedict Ernst, (which i had read previously) and Vicky Papageorgeopolous' work is really quite amusing, although i like the work i saw on Shut Up and Follow Me instead, where she did some collaborations with some great artists, like Gerhardt Richter (ie, she put her balls near a Richter painting.. was great!). Am looking forward to reading the other articles in the next couple of days.

I love that an ARI like runway exists: a non-space-based initiative and one that honours the ability of contemporary and emerging artists to straddle various creative forms - writing and printed work. I love that it's supported by various funding options and i hope it lasts a long, long time! are you listening Arts NSW and Ozco? Probably not, but it's worth the soap box. and besides, they put on a great party.

After lots of schmoozing and grooving, we then topped the night off by checking out a band called the Kill Devil Hills at the Hopetoun Hotel in Surry Hills: very Nick Cave/Dirty Three/Geraldine Fibbers. In fact it's the kind of music that makes couples want to fornicate! i watched 3 separate couples swing and sway, start making out, then leave! If there's a baby boom in 9 months' time, blame it on the Kill Devil Hills!

she sees red undies

Here’s a bit of a sneak preview of the new she sees red undies!

There’s only a limited number – the first range is only 4 of each design (3 for the guys) and I’ll be selling them at Sticky during the Entropy show.

they say "she sees red undies" on the bum!

So if cool knickers tickle your fancy, and you’re in Melbourne town, head into the Campbell Arcade subway from the 6th November onwards and grab a pair!

dancing in ACCA

Gillian Wearing, Dancing in Peckham
from www.accaonline.org.au

i'm a little behind in my gushing over my last trip to ACCA, but thankfully i was reminded this week to write about it, by seeing a work that was so glaringly derivative that it spurred me into action.

"what is she talking about?" i can hear you saying..

she is talking about one YBA called Gillian Wearing.

when i was in ol' melbourne town celebrating friends' birthdays, having meetings with board members and laying around in bed with a virus, i did manage to honour my committment to go and check out Living Proof at ACCA. I have been a huge fan of Gillian Wearing since my photography major days and was looking forward to seeing Dancing in Peckham, the video piece which introduced me to her, of which i had only ever seen stills (thanks to Sensation getting canned at the NGA).

Gillian Wearing for me highlights where Australian's get their sense of humour and taking-the-piss attitude from. Her ability to deride and glorify the british pathetic is awesome and she does so with just enough tongue-in-cheek to take the depression out of it all, but also has enough sadness in there so we have some compassion. When i think of Gillian Wearing, I think of 'Are You Being Served?'

The exhibition was a survey of her works including her other well-known photographic works Signs: about 30 images of regular brits holding up quite quirky signs that may or may not have related to them. The one i had seen before was the 'I'M DESPERATE ONE' held up by quite a suave looking chap with a nice Ray Martin style hair cut. I absoluted pissed myself laughing at two other of those works- one very refined older woman holding up a sign saying 'HELLO SAILOR' and an image of two young black twins, one holding up the sign saying 'I LOVE THE WILLIE'!! I laughed out loud, and i really wish that i hadn't been in a large, echoing room with a bunch of other people, because i would have laughed louder, believe me. I would have Rolled On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off. No, really.

All the other works were pretty fucking great as well. The self-portraits as members of her family were creepy in a Cindy Sherman kind of way and although I got bored with the video vignettes of people singing their favourite tunes, only because i had reaching my upload limit and there was some really bad singing, i still totally dug the pieces.

But back to Dancing in Peckham.

It wasn't the only piece there, but boy, it was the biggest drawcard for me. It is the epitome of her black humour, her focus on the vulnerability and dagginess (for want of a better term) of britlife and the schutzpah of saatchi-funded art practice that the YBAs embodied.

The video went for about 34 minutes and i didn't get to watch the whole thing, but i did go from the beginning and watched for about 10 minutes. The only reason i stopped watching is because i became self-conscious about the noise of my laughing! i pissed myself for about 8 of those minutes, just really enjoying the pastiche dance moves she did with such apparent seriousness, the looks she was getting from the crowds walking past and the absolute style with which she pulled the whole performance off. I couldn't imagine dancing in front of a camera in the middle of Frankston mall, or Penrith Plaza and be able to sustain it for as long as she did! It was great!

And if anyone has seen Rachel Scott's work as part of the fantastic show at First Draft at the moment, curated by Scott Donovan, you'll see the 'glaringly derivative'. Perhaps Rachel's work is supposed to be an appropriation, perhaps i didn't quite get the significance, maybe to some it wasn't derivative because Rachel was singing as well as groovin', but for me - i couldn't watch it. And unfortunately for Scott's work, this may just be a matter of timing. Perhaps if i hadn't so recently seen Peckham, i would have made the link and appreciated it. Unfortunately, it was just too close to home.

By the way, the rest of the work in that show is ace (including Rachel's other video work) and go check out the Invisible Reading Room - it's pretty close to heavenly with couches and lamps and loads of cool reading material!

And if you wanna do your own impersonation of Dancing in Peckham, head on down to Lanfranchi's for the Dance Off! I'll be there after the 4A opening!

"bite off more than you can chew, then chew it"

Quote from Ella Williams.


And that about sums up my life at the moment. There is so much happening, so this blog is going to be a mash-up of crap that you all need to hear about. I could have separated it into clearly defined blogs, but i can't be bothered, so here goes:

Simon Collins, Mine!

Avian
This is shameless plug #1. My good friend, painter Simon Collins is having a solo show at Canvas Gallery in Surry Hills. It opened last night and having been sick as a very sick thing, i couldn't make it. Which is really annoying actually 'cos he's a good painter and i was looking forward to going to a show of solid work, minus the sweety dahlink factor.

It runs until 21st October at Studio 47, 61-89 Buckingham St, Surry Hills in Sydney and i'm looking forward to popping in there. I haven't been to this gallery before so it will be great to check out yet another gallery.




Liminal Personae at Gallery 4A
For those who are regular readers of she sees red, you will know that she, i.e me, has also dabbled in a bit of curating this year, namely a huge project which we got Arts NSW funding for, called liminal personae.

Well, now the show is touring to Gallery 4A in Sydney, which is pretty darn exciting!

A bit of a blurb from the media release:
"This exhibition celebrates the idiosyncrasies of these artists – their particular practices, ideas, concepts, materials, living arrangements, physical or mental circumstances, histories, or lack thereof. The artists involved span a range of disciplines and experience: the curators have rejected the usual practice of showing work by only emerging artists, or only those who have been artists for 20 years or more. This reflects a tradition at 4a of showing the known and the unknown side by side."

Joanne Handley, one of the artists has a great set of images on her home page

The opening night is next Friday 20th October, 6-8pm at Gallery 4A. For those of you who are in Sydney and couldn't be assed making it to Wollongong for the first exhibition, you now have no excuse.

early stages of the decay

Update on Entropy at Platform 2: more red stuff
OK, so it's about 3 weeks now until I head back to Melbourne (again?!) to install at Platform 2. Following on from Benedict Ernst's Chocolate Manifesto, the cabinets at Platform 2 will be transformed into a mass of red chaos and degradation for your viewing pleasure.

All tests so far have been successful and i've started a collection of red corn paste detritus. Maybe I should donate some of it to Ella Dreyfus' red exhibition in a few years' time!

What will be happening is that Sarah Mosca and I are going down to install, which will be a barrel of laughs. seeing as i have to cook my 'paint', i'm hoping to film a mock cooking show as part of the installation too! Coming to a recently sold YouTube near you!

Plans for the closing party include an intimate party like 'room' at the end of the space and i'm crossing my fingers that i can get hold of a red carpet for the night! Seeing as the exhibition will have come to the end of its cycle by then, i'll be displaying the remnants of entropy in small frames and they will be for sale. A little souvenir of death and degradation, say.

I've also got a bit of a public mischief project up my sleeve for the weekend of installation as well, so if you're in Melbourne, keep at eye out!

Culture Jammers Rule OK
And speaking of public mischief, i've recently become reaquainted with some cool-as-fuck culture jammers and have decided that when i go overseas, i'm going to go into training to become a fully-fledged culture jammer! i'd do it here, but i've got no time, and what with these draconian sedition laws about to come into effect, i'd prefer to not spend time in jail.

cool shit i've been checking out includes:
graffiti research lab
ni9e.com
wooster collective
and
CutUp

CutUp's handywork, lovingly pinched from www.bigshinything.com

Match Makers
Being in Melbourne last weekend I missed First Draft's Porcelain Ball and the first round of forums for their Twentylove celebrations. I had a rad time in Melbourne, and i wish that i could've been at the forum - sounds like it was a fantastic time!

One great publication that has come out of it is the ARI Match Makers.

Produced by Invisible Inc (those responsible for Runway, in case you're unaware), it includes interviews with some of the key ARIs around Australia (MOP, Bus, Inflight and Rawspace), nuts'n'bolts info about exhibiting in an artist-run-initiative (which i would like to pass onto as many artists as i know!!!), a map of the Sydney ARIs (it finally got up off the ground, no thanks to the defunct Artport!) and which i'm hoping that gets reproduced a bunch of times, (although i'd like to see it give a shoutout to the regional kids, Project and Field) and a little bit of a description about what ARIs are, for the uninitiated, or the uninitiative.. ha! get it?.. ouch.

she came, she saw, she conquered. now go check out all that stuff!

from one extreme to the other

so after all that DIY action last week, i'm going to make you all swivel 180º and talk about the total high brow, super gloss art publication Australian Art Collector.

This isn't meant to be a blatant plug for them, in fact, i don't get a nickel for giving them a shoutout, but after hanging out at my new favourite hidey hole (magnation in elizabeth st melbourne), i bought this quarter's issue and have been incredibly impressed with it!

i first bought art collector 'cos Shaun Gladwell was on the front cover and he's a bit of a spunk, plus i really like his work. lol! and from then on, i kind of got sucked in. What i thought was going to be pure art wank, has turned out to be some pure art critical/journalistic genius sometimes. well, genius may be a little over-the-top, but it's been really good lately.

this issue features hany armanious, nick mangan, claire healy and sean cordeiro, bill and ann gregory from annandale galleries, fred cress, neon parc, richard bell and the contemporary collector andrew cameron.

this isn't a feature list of artists who are fuddy-duddy-match-with-your-sofa types - they are all living, contemporary/cutting edge artists (you can't get more cutting edge than fred cress turning his back on abstraction to go figurative, while driving a bentley!) and the collectors/gallery owners featured aren't exactly your aristocracy of dealers/collectors either - the neon parc kids are a couple of slick, smart slackers, annandale galleries has been pushing the boundaries of usual gallery representation in sydney for years and the interview with andrew cameron highlighted the excitement of branching out to collect contemporary works - he owns works by daniel von sturmer and shaun gladwell.

other features include an interview with alain de botton about aesthetics and architecture with regards to buying art, a short article on collectives like DAMP, NUCA and Slave as well as the upshot of the Melbourne Art Fair and art fairs in general.

ever since i've started buying the magazine regularly, these are the kinds of articles that have been appearing inside! i've been shocked!

the ads are still full of the same old same old guard of galleries and collector's artists that i associate with trad art collectors, but as an emerging artist, it's nice to see that at least the editorial is becoming a little more progressive and as a reader, actually interesting to read! i know that this magazine has the power to completely swing an art market, so seeing them profiling some fantastic contemporary artists restores a smattering of faith in the whole game.

This Is Not A Blog

wow!! I don't want to sound like an idiot, but BOY that was fun!

a slight change of plans saw Jade Pegler, Shivaun Weybury (that's Dr Shivaun Weybury to you) and I jump in the car on Saturday evening and head up to Newcastle for the This Is Not Art festival a little earlier than planned. Turned out to be a blessing and a curse at the same time. Not being able to speed on the highway thanks to double demerit points, i had to chug along at the 90kms my red provisional licence allows me, so we didn't rock into town until 10pm. Which is fine when you're crashing on a couch. Not so fun when you have to pitch a tent in the dark. It was hilarious!

Tent City had officially closed for the night, but thanks to Pat from SC Trash's instructions, I won over the security guard at the gate. And thank fuck for that, 'cos he practically did all the work pitching our tent, while we followed his lead and did our best to not look like the city slicker chicks we are!

After finally getting our tent sorted and putting on a bit of lippy to make ourselves look a little less crumpled after close to 5 hours on the road, we headed back into town to the Festival Club.

As the hub of the festival, the place was pumping! Dance music happening, people spilling out onto the streets, others (mostly my friends) flaunting the 'Alcohol Free Zone' by drinking longnecks (or tallies for you northerners) on the street, people just milling - it was great! A nice way to ease into festival mode.

And then we had to sleep in the tent. Having been ages since i'd slept in a tent, i forgot how fucking uncomfortable they are, and that those blue roll mat things are actually quite useless in preventing the hardness of the ground from distorting your internal organs and re-aligning your back. Jerkoffs threw bottles at our tent and I was freezing most of the night.Thankfully i had earplugs, otherwise it might have been even worse! Although i'm not quite sure how.

Tracey Emin, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With
Nothing at all like our tent

So, after about 4 hours disrupted sleep, i woke up as it started to get light-ish. time on my mobile? 5:45am. Great. Thankfully Tent City (in Sportsground 1) had the best showers in the world, complimented by free soap from Lush. So i dragged myself in there and wasted a ridiculous amount of water, coaxing my body and mind out of a state of shock and back into something resembling a human form. Then as the sun was starting to shine, i lay down on the grandstand bleachers for the best sleep of my life, even if it was only for an hour!


Once everyone else was ejected from their tents by the temperature of 7am sunlight, we all trouped off to Darby St to find a cafe for breakfast. Thanks to the TINA map, we found one that had great coffee and wicked toast.

And I haven't even got to the festival yet! OK, I'll hurry up..

People Not Looking at Art in Newcastle

I'd already had an idea of what i wanted to see, so it made it kind of easy, but after having fuck all sleep and knowing that i had to drive back to Wollongong that night, i knew i had to make a few sacrifices, so here's what i did go to:

Art Writing Art
This was a panel discussion facilitated by Jeff Khan featuring Lily Hibberd, of un magazine notoriety and The Art Life of the artlife blog notoriety and it was one of the highlights of the weekend for me.

There were all kinds of interesting factors in it for me. Lily Hibberd is a gorgeous character and her story was one that, for me, related as much to the whole ARI (artist-run-initiative) experience for me as the whole writing thing. She doesn't think of herself as a writer, despite writing a lot, and wanted to actually set un up as an experience for artists who write and an outlet for alternative viewpoints to art criticism. I miss un. I can't wait for it to come back and it was great to hear about the possiblities for the future for that outlet. she seemed to really stress the point of constantly evolving to avoid becoming stagnant and while this will keep un exciting, i'm also worried that it will evolve itself out of the consistency that art publication needs in order to be valuable to a wide range of people.

One important thing that Lily raised for me was the idea of writing by artists being as much an artist pursuit as creating art. I'm sure that writers may have a problem with this, and i had visions of bad art-based writing reflecting the spiritual/feeling-based abstraction that i bloody hate, but i guess at the top level, good artists writing well about other art and critical ideas is really fucking important. in the same way that a good book by a rad musician is just as mind-blowing as a classic literature piece by the masters.

The Art Life also discussed the need to provide an alternative to the mainstream of art critics and talked about the work that they put into it, the opportunities that have come from it and the importance of anonymity and more importantly, the second person pronoun as an important difference in art discourse. Listening to The Art Life's story, i ended up feeling like yet another blogger who writes in the first person and who is doing the same thing as everyone else. It wasn't his fault and i could totally see his point.

Apparently blogs are old. Which is kinda cool, 'cos i'm not so great at being a trendsetter. But between TAL and Lily, I did have to ask myself about this blog. What is it for me and what do i want it to become? Initially, probably like a lot of people, i started it to promote my artwork, personalise my practice, give myself a web-based presence withouth having to navigate hosting, web domains, the cost of both of those things and flash. It has since kind of grown for me to become something more. With regular critical musings and reviews on here, have i become a writer? And if so, should i treat myself more like one? Should i be a little more focused and specific about what i write about? Should i stop using the letter "i"?

Who knows, but it has been great to think about. There were some interesting questions asked, some great discussions started outside the rooms and Shivaun, Jade and I kept referring to it long after the session had finished.

zine fair 3 year ago, you get the drift

The Zine Fair.
After the panel, it was really quite close to lunchtime, we were all exhausted and it was getting very warm outside. While waiting to rendevouz with our other mates, we wandered around the zine fair. There was such a wide variety of stuff, that i didn't even get down one aisle before i'd spent more money than i had planned to and had to back away slowly. it seems i wasn't the only one, i saw Glenn Barkley walking away with a stack of zines and books about half a metre high! The only downer to the fair was the god-awful sound coming from the stage. This Is Not Music! It probably highlights my prejudices, but when i'm wandering around a fair full of interesting text and objects, i just want some music i can appreciate and ignore. Not very PC, but hey - it's what i want. I don't want to have to wince.

After the zine fair, we tried to find some food. We found out that the Hare Krshna place that used to be on Hunter St isn't there anymore so we circled the city, again, and ended up back on Darby St, scoffing down some wicked North Indian tucker. Yum. And then of course, back to Tent City for a nap. Talk about a bunch of nannas - it was ace!

By the time we packed our tents down and had some sleep, it was about 5:30 so we headed back into town for the night time festivities. We wandered around for a while, trying to figure out what time sound check was, who was where and who wanted food and finally decided to descend on The Haven. Apparently world-famous chip shop, but i was stuffed, had a headache and wasn't that impressed with the chips and gravy. Gundagai and the Oxford Tavern in Wollongong do it better Newcastle, hate to break it to you.

New!shop
We popped into new!shop before it closed to check out the interactive performance/installation. I'm not a huge audience participator. In fact the rebel in me gets triggered really easily in that stuff and i can become quite stubborn. So i just browsed and checked it out - didn't scan stuff or take a free sample of raw onion. I'm sure it was all part of the experience, but i hate that shit in real life, not to mention my art. I could have scanned some objects in, got my fortune, scored a badge, etc, but I really wasn't that into becoming part of the experiment. I know that i'm a consumerist. I know all too well how the whole shopping experience works, i wanted to critique it, not participate. and it's possible i was miss cranky pants with a headache at the time. i did, however, really enjoy the bottles of something with the labels:

my memory is
the same as before
not as good as i'd like it
much much worse
i can't remember anything and it scares me

OR

i feel scared and vulnerable
all the time
sometimes
often
weekly

or something along those lines. They kind of reminded me of the Radiohead track Fitter Happier on OK Computer with their reference to humanity's inherent vulnerability.

Despite my reaction to participating in the experience, i did find it an amazing piece and a really vital experience to be happening. It was perfect for the TINA festival in its combination of slick and DIY appearance.

Pixel Pirate II: Attack of the Astro Elvis Video Clone.
Screening at the Playhouse Theatrette, it was the second screening of Soda_Jerk and Sam Smith's mega sample feature. After loving Soda_Jerk's Speed flick at MAF06, i was looking forward to seeing their major opus. I was also prepared to be challenged because the film attacks the restrictive elements of Copyright law, especially in relation to sampling. I'm a huge fan of copyright law as an idea, so i'm glad i went in with an open mind and was able to chat with the gals afterwards.

The film was amazing, hilarious, well-crafted and poignant all at the same time. I thought all the mash-up stuff would give me the pips, but not in the slightest! It was quite interesting to notice, while laughing my ass off, who else was laughing with me. At times, different members of the audience were laughing or reminiscing at different times, depending on the splice of film that they were watching. It was a fantastic piece on identifiers as well. Often the audience would identify a film or audio piece from the smallest sample. Like a hook in a pop song, it was interesting to see what were the key identifiers in a film or soundtrack.

Having absorbed a lot of visual and cerebral info, it was time to boogie down. As part of the Lake Cowal benefit, SC Trash were playing, so we headed into the very sweaty Festival Club and let it rip. What better way to end a day of intellectual pursuit than some good ol' fashioned political cuntry rock. And no, that's not a typo. I danced my ass of for about an hour, then we piled in the car for a very long trip home.

Next time, i'm not going to try driving from one bookend to another at 11:30pm. Next time, i'm going to bring a mattress to sleep on, or maybe even stay in a motel/hotel. Next time, i'm going to bring lots more money to spend. Next time, i'm going to plan less and next time, i'm going to stay a little longer.

And just to add a note of seriousness to the whole shebang, i think that TINA does what other festivals don't do - they actually engage the public. There is space at TINA for the literati and the magazine readers, the high-art conceptualists and the 'i don't know much about art, but i know what i like' set and for the serious musician and that guy up on stage that i wanted to throttle. All of this while being neither elitist nor patronisingly populist. This in itself is a difficult task and somehow TINA have managed to balance it, thankfully. I appreciate the irony of such a festival being held in a regional centre. In fact there is no way that such a well-oiled machine could operate in Sydney. Maybe Melbourne - i haven't been to Next Wave yet, and i'm sure it's that kind of festival, but the sweety dahlinks of Sydney couldn't cope with the fraternity of a festival like TINA. So, thankfully for Newcastle, they can.

I just wish there was something similarly vibrant and exciting in Wollongong.


PS. bilateral's flickr pics of newcastle are much better than mine!