This was one of an impressive series of 'Maori warriors' by the above-named artist.
Another one in the same series.
( cut for large and far more impressive version of the Dandy )
Another one in the same series.
( cut for large and far more impressive version of the Dandy )
This is nice. I like the idea of a half-Vietnamese with the same family name as the PM taking up the Palestinian cause.
Another Hong Kong picture. This was in an absolutely stunning shop window full of signs saying things like 'no photo' as well as lengthy explanations about how this is 'mammoth' ivory, not elephant ivory, and therefore perfectly legal. Anyway, the carving was exquisite.
Not sure quite what's happening to this basket full of fish, frogs and tortoises.
Note the bacchanalian tableau behind the very un-Chinese animals.
Not sure quite what's happening to this basket full of fish, frogs and tortoises.
Note the bacchanalian tableau behind the very un-Chinese animals.
... so says the sign in the top right of the picture. It looks like writing, but I can't read it.
Apparently not a legal graffiti wall:
Bus stop opposite Gleebooks in Glebe.
I've started reading another book!
Apparently not a legal graffiti wall:
Bus stop opposite Gleebooks in Glebe.
I've started reading another book!
Mount St, North Sydney has quite a lot of 'Federation Arts & Crafts' architecture - meaning that it dates from around the turn of the 20th century and was influenced by William Morris & co. Much of the street, including these buildings, now belongs to a Catholic school called Monte Sant Angelo. I particularly like the chimney.
Another house of the same era that has been taken over by the school.
Side view of the North Sydney Council Chambers across the road. Unfortunately the interior, where I have to renew my parking permit every year, has been destroyed by modernisation.
Another house of the same era that has been taken over by the school.
Side view of the North Sydney Council Chambers across the road. Unfortunately the interior, where I have to renew my parking permit every year, has been destroyed by modernisation.
Stella Bowen and Grace Cossington Smith were two painters. Bowen was born in Adelaide in 1893, went to Europe at the age of 20 and never returned. The other was born in Sydney in 1892 and, apart from a couple of 2 year trips to England (you had to go by ship in those days, so it was never a short trip), lived there all her long life. The book about their lives by Drusilla Modjeska is wonderful. Stella Bowen wrote an autobiography in 1940 Drawn from Life, left a raft of letters behind and is referred to in the papers of people like Ezra Pound, Margaret Cole (née Postgate) and Edith Sitwell, so her story is firmly based on documentary evidence. The story of Cossington Smith has a much more flimsy basis - there is way too much speculation for my rather academic taste. Nonetheless it presents an interesting puzzle, if only it could be unravelled. How could somebody produce such brilliant works and be a pioneer of modern art in Australia without ever having participated in the artistic life of London or Paris, having been taught by a Neapolitan impressionist émigré (Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo) and having lived all her life in an outer suburb (Turramurra) of Sydney? The two years living in Winchester, within a short train ride of London, must surely hold some kind of key, but there is no shred of evidence available! Moreover, in interviews given when she was 90 and in a nursing home, she denies such grand origins for her ideas. Yet in 1915 she had painted the first ever clearly modernist Australian painting . Surely you can't paint like Van Gogh or Cézanne when you’ve only ever seen reproductions of the work on the walls of your art teacher's studio?
Bowen was better known during her lifetime as the consort of Ford Madox Ford, a writer apparently well known in England and among the expatriate community in France,though his reputation never made it to the colonies. Her book is really about the difficulty of living with a man and trying to be an artist at the same time. In Modjeska's hands it makes a very gripping story and one from which Bowen emerges with huge dignity, as well as some bloody good paintings. (In her case, however, a lot of the paintings are lost). She and Ford separated in 1928 - he having spent her Australian middle-class capital already - and she struggled with poverty for the rest of her life. But it was only after the split that her painting came good. The story is a very moving one. I think Modjeska (or was it Bowen?) sets up a rather straw-mannish opposition between Love and Art, but it is surely the story of thousands of women of talent who have tried to make something of and for themselves in the face of ego-centric and demanding men.
The title of the book comes from a story of Stravinsky who,apparently, demanded total silence from his wife and kids while he was working,including during lunch!
But Love and being around to pick up the laundry are not the same thing. Cossington Smith also had a home drudge: for most of her life it was her younger sister Madge, who the parents kept at home to look after themselves and her painterly sister. Modjeska shows several pictures of Madge in which she looks unremittingly downcast. After WW2, when the parents were both dead, Madge went back to England and her pre-WW1 fiancé who, despite having married somebody else, had become single again. Of Grace, Modjeska says, "Her lack of domestic proficiency, maintained over a lifetime, was quite an achievement."
Neither woman achieved much recognition during their most productive years. Incredibly,there was a touring exhibition of modern art in 1939 (Picasso, Cézanne, Gauguin and everyone). It had to be shown in department stores because the state galleries (AGNSW and NGV) wouldn’t touch the stuff with a barge pole. In the end, all of the paintings were stored in a basement at the AGNSW for the duration of WW2. Despite protests, the Gallery refused to put them on show and not a single painting was purchased for any collection. They’re all now in major collections in Europe and North America. Modjeska quotes Robert Menzies, he was briefly Prime Minister in 1939, telling the modern artists that they would sink into oblivion because people like him (people with money) would never buy them!
In Cossington Smith's case there were extremely antagonistic reviews by male defenders of 'true art'. She and a handful of colleagues were virtually alone trying to do modern art in this country (and only she and Roland Wakelin didn’t really have the option or desire to escape abroad like Bowen). It wasn't until the Second World War that a new generation of male artists found modernism.They, of course, didn't acknowledge the legacy of their female forbears, but commanded attention as the pioneers of modern art in Australia. Cossington Smith's only champion before 1967 was a female art critic, Edith Anderson, who had access to the press because of her husband's position in the NSW Governor's office. But Anderson was also a lone voice among a chorus of anti-modernist male critics. GCS was by no means the only female modernist whose work had to overcome the male prejudices - there were also Grace Crowley, Dorrit Black, Margaret Preston (Bowen's teacher in Adelaide before the First War), Clarice Beckett, Thea Proctor and Nora Heysen. Roland Wakelin and Roy de Maistre got more attention, but the latter also felt he could survive better in Europe.
I wonder why it is that such a high proportion of these female modernists - Bowen, Preston, Black and Heysen - came from Adelaide?
Edith Anderson and her ear trumpet (from the book). I couldn't resist this - I thought ear trumpets were a myth.
Cossington, the house in Turramurra named after Grace's father's English home village. I drove up there this afternoon to have a look.
The street, Kuring-gai Avenue.
Added to my list:
Stella Bowen, Drawn from Life
VirginiaWoolf, To the Lighthouse
Christina Stead, For Love Alone
Bowen was better known during her lifetime as the consort of Ford Madox Ford, a writer apparently well known in England and among the expatriate community in France,though his reputation never made it to the colonies. Her book is really about the difficulty of living with a man and trying to be an artist at the same time. In Modjeska's hands it makes a very gripping story and one from which Bowen emerges with huge dignity, as well as some bloody good paintings. (In her case, however, a lot of the paintings are lost). She and Ford separated in 1928 - he having spent her Australian middle-class capital already - and she struggled with poverty for the rest of her life. But it was only after the split that her painting came good. The story is a very moving one. I think Modjeska (or was it Bowen?) sets up a rather straw-mannish opposition between Love and Art, but it is surely the story of thousands of women of talent who have tried to make something of and for themselves in the face of ego-centric and demanding men.
Ford never understood why I found it so difficult to paint whilst I was with him. He thought I lacked the will to do it at all costs. That was true, but he did not realise that if I had had the will to do it at all costs, my life would have been oriented quite differently. I should not have been available to nurse him through the daily strain of his own work; to walk and talk with him whenever he wanted, and to stand between him and circumstances. Pursuing an art is not just a matter of finding the time – it is a matter of having a free spirit to bring to it.
The title of the book comes from a story of Stravinsky who,apparently, demanded total silence from his wife and kids while he was working,including during lunch!
But Love and being around to pick up the laundry are not the same thing. Cossington Smith also had a home drudge: for most of her life it was her younger sister Madge, who the parents kept at home to look after themselves and her painterly sister. Modjeska shows several pictures of Madge in which she looks unremittingly downcast. After WW2, when the parents were both dead, Madge went back to England and her pre-WW1 fiancé who, despite having married somebody else, had become single again. Of Grace, Modjeska says, "Her lack of domestic proficiency, maintained over a lifetime, was quite an achievement."
Neither woman achieved much recognition during their most productive years. Incredibly,there was a touring exhibition of modern art in 1939 (Picasso, Cézanne, Gauguin and everyone). It had to be shown in department stores because the state galleries (AGNSW and NGV) wouldn’t touch the stuff with a barge pole. In the end, all of the paintings were stored in a basement at the AGNSW for the duration of WW2. Despite protests, the Gallery refused to put them on show and not a single painting was purchased for any collection. They’re all now in major collections in Europe and North America. Modjeska quotes Robert Menzies, he was briefly Prime Minister in 1939, telling the modern artists that they would sink into oblivion because people like him (people with money) would never buy them!
In Cossington Smith's case there were extremely antagonistic reviews by male defenders of 'true art'. She and a handful of colleagues were virtually alone trying to do modern art in this country (and only she and Roland Wakelin didn’t really have the option or desire to escape abroad like Bowen). It wasn't until the Second World War that a new generation of male artists found modernism.They, of course, didn't acknowledge the legacy of their female forbears, but commanded attention as the pioneers of modern art in Australia. Cossington Smith's only champion before 1967 was a female art critic, Edith Anderson, who had access to the press because of her husband's position in the NSW Governor's office. But Anderson was also a lone voice among a chorus of anti-modernist male critics. GCS was by no means the only female modernist whose work had to overcome the male prejudices - there were also Grace Crowley, Dorrit Black, Margaret Preston (Bowen's teacher in Adelaide before the First War), Clarice Beckett, Thea Proctor and Nora Heysen. Roland Wakelin and Roy de Maistre got more attention, but the latter also felt he could survive better in Europe.
I wonder why it is that such a high proportion of these female modernists - Bowen, Preston, Black and Heysen - came from Adelaide?
Edith Anderson and her ear trumpet (from the book). I couldn't resist this - I thought ear trumpets were a myth.
Cossington, the house in Turramurra named after Grace's father's English home village. I drove up there this afternoon to have a look.
The street, Kuring-gai Avenue.
Added to my list:
Stella Bowen, Drawn from Life
VirginiaWoolf, To the Lighthouse
Christina Stead, For Love Alone
1) Bo Diddley. I'm so glad I got to see him last year at the Byron Bay Bluesfest. Hey! Bo Diddley!
2) YSL. "Fashion expresses social change" said one of the commentators on my radio. It seems that his contribution was the pants suit. Which is great because when I was a teenager I used to have to buy jeans in the men's department, which was fine for me, but I remember a huge fight with mum over when and where it was OK to wear them. That's really funny because I haven't seen her wearing a skirt for decades now!
3) Somebody had the bright idea of sending the Bill Henson photos to the Film and Television Classification Board, something that has never been done before with still photos. The FTCB came up with a G classification (for general exhibition). The police are nothing if not dogged though; their investigation will continue.
2) YSL. "Fashion expresses social change" said one of the commentators on my radio. It seems that his contribution was the pants suit. Which is great because when I was a teenager I used to have to buy jeans in the men's department, which was fine for me, but I remember a huge fight with mum over when and where it was OK to wear them. That's really funny because I haven't seen her wearing a skirt for decades now!
3) Somebody had the bright idea of sending the Bill Henson photos to the Film and Television Classification Board, something that has never been done before with still photos. The FTCB came up with a G classification (for general exhibition). The police are nothing if not dogged though; their investigation will continue.
My post about Bill Henson has been cited in a strange blog run by the ABC. The ABC sees itself as required to provide 'balance' rather than 'truth', though here the balance seems weigh slightly towards the artist rather than to those who are 'revolted'.
The dominant thread running through the commentary that I've read so far is related to the hypocrisy of this kind of censorship. Somebody called melbourne art critic wrote:
The point was echoed by Cecilia Fogelberg, who recently had an exhibition of her own work shut down by Melbourne City Council on account of the depiction of naked males:
Fogelberg also points to the 'blame the victim' mentality that prevails when it comes to the naked body:
Australian culture contains a strongly prurient streak. The people who know what's best for us have at various times banned Freud and D.H. Lawrence (Lady Chatterly's Lover was banned for decades - I had to wait until I got to London in 1970 to be able to read it!). And this case is really not much different from all the others. It is particularly fascinating that the images are from an art gallery. The moral conservatives find art threatening, precisely because it provokes thought instead of certainty.
More of the photos are available here (thanks to![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
tcpip for the link). Apart from the black bars, I think they are rather beautiful. I suspect that anyone who has ever been a teenage girl could relate to them. Blogger Sauer-Thompson thinks that some of them are erotic: I think that's stretching it a bit - unless you find vulnerability erotic or you're the same age as the girl and just as uncertain about life. But who knows what goes on in the mind of the male! The fact that the Prime Minister found them "absolutely revolting" tells us more about the Prime Minister than it does about the pictures.
The following is Henson's own rationale for his choice of subject (with yet more photos), from a three year old interview:
The dominant thread running through the commentary that I've read so far is related to the hypocrisy of this kind of censorship. Somebody called melbourne art critic wrote:
It is not surprising that nudity in art is being regularly censored in Australia as it helps maintaining the failed illusion of decency.
The point was echoed by Cecilia Fogelberg, who recently had an exhibition of her own work shut down by Melbourne City Council on account of the depiction of naked males:
our entire media world is overloaded with intentionally sexual images; and often women wearing until nothing as the bait for the consumer in advertising, and further more the nonchalant acceptance of advertising of brothels around town on mobile billboards.
Fogelberg also points to the 'blame the victim' mentality that prevails when it comes to the naked body:
This has in it’s turn provoked me with questions regarding what can be read into the actual artwork and how clear the artist’s intentions ever can be, and how much is read into the artwork by the viewer, and how the interpretation of the work can be colored by the viewer’s (in this case I must say) ‘dirty minds’.
Australian culture contains a strongly prurient streak. The people who know what's best for us have at various times banned Freud and D.H. Lawrence (Lady Chatterly's Lover was banned for decades - I had to wait until I got to London in 1970 to be able to read it!). And this case is really not much different from all the others. It is particularly fascinating that the images are from an art gallery. The moral conservatives find art threatening, precisely because it provokes thought instead of certainty.
More of the photos are available here (thanks to
tcpip for the link). Apart from the black bars, I think they are rather beautiful. I suspect that anyone who has ever been a teenage girl could relate to them. Blogger Sauer-Thompson thinks that some of them are erotic: I think that's stretching it a bit - unless you find vulnerability erotic or you're the same age as the girl and just as uncertain about life. But who knows what goes on in the mind of the male! The fact that the Prime Minister found them "absolutely revolting" tells us more about the Prime Minister than it does about the pictures.The following is Henson's own rationale for his choice of subject (with yet more photos), from a three year old interview:
The reason I like working with teenagers is because they represent a kind of breach between the dimensions that people cross through. The classical root of the word “adolescence” means to grow towards something. I am fascinated with that interval, that sort of highly ambiguous and uncertain period where you have an exponential growth of experience and knowledge, but also a kind of tenuous grasp on the certainties of adult life..
The police have raided a local art gallery and taken away 20 photos of an allegedly 13 year-old girl from an exhibition by Bill Henson. The Prime Minister, presumably caught in the middle of discussing the budget, was shown some of the photos and found them "absolutely revolting." The police, as dirty-minded as ever, described the photos as being of a young girl in a "sexualised context". The curator of photography at the Art Gallery of NSW says they are "classical", like Greek vases. (I'll let you know what I think if I ever get to see one of them.)
The photographer is one of the best known of Australian artists, whose work is held by galleries all over the world. For 30 years a major focus of his work has been adolescence. Presumably for this very reason, he is taught in schools. I was buying a couple of bottles of wine this afternoon and the woman behind the counter interrupted her text messaging long enough to take my cash and glance at the front page of the afternoon paper. "Ah!" she said, "Bill Henson" and picked up the paper to read more. OK, maybe she's working her way through art school, but more likely she's just an ordinary young person working her way through some other course. The point is that both the artist and his work are very well known.
The art world is rushing to Henson's defence, with loads of references to Juliet. But in Shakespeare's day the representation of "children" in a "sexualised context" hadn't yet been thought of. Girls were married off, before puberty even - there was so much housework to do back then - and what happened to them after that was not a matter for public concern. Nowadays capitalism needs teenagers to stay in school longer without getting pregnant and they call it a victory for feminism when a woman has both a paid job and an unpaid one raising kids. Childhood thus needs to be prolonged for the sake of economic productivity, even though children are reaching puberty years earlier than their parents and grandparents did.
[In case I'm sounding critical here I should say that I approve of the prolongation of childhood for women. It gives them a bit more time and experience before they have to think about breeding and its consequences for their futures. It's just that I don't think it is something we've fought for and won. We have way too strong a tendency to let other, more powerful, people decide what's good for us.]
For women, the prolongation of childhood means that they are no longer simply house drudges or "unskilled" labourers, though whatever their talents they are still paid less, less likely to get promoted and generally derided if they act out of line. Moreover, during this prolonged childhood, at precisely the time when they're learning about being second class, they're confronted with all this stuff about their sexuality. Most notably, they learn that if they are beautiful and act sexy, people will pay more attention to them and show approval, while if they act nerdy, people will think they're weird and unacceptable. Could Bill Henson really capture this dilemma photographically? I haven't seen the photos that our Prime Minister has called 'revolting', but the ones I have seen do, I think, capture the mood brilliantly. Whether or not Henson himself gets it doesn't really matter - its what the viewer sees in the picture that counts.
It is really hard to say anything sensible about this case without seeing the offending pictures. The gallery has already caved in to the thought police and decided to eliminate them from the exhibition and if no less an art expert than the prime minister has decided that they affront his view of womanhood... um... childhood, what hope is there of ever forming a proper judgement?
ETA: This is pathetic. You can get a pretty good idea from the picture here of what the cops think is a "sexualised context". Oooh! Dirty old men! For fuck's sake.
The photographer is one of the best known of Australian artists, whose work is held by galleries all over the world. For 30 years a major focus of his work has been adolescence. Presumably for this very reason, he is taught in schools. I was buying a couple of bottles of wine this afternoon and the woman behind the counter interrupted her text messaging long enough to take my cash and glance at the front page of the afternoon paper. "Ah!" she said, "Bill Henson" and picked up the paper to read more. OK, maybe she's working her way through art school, but more likely she's just an ordinary young person working her way through some other course. The point is that both the artist and his work are very well known.
The art world is rushing to Henson's defence, with loads of references to Juliet. But in Shakespeare's day the representation of "children" in a "sexualised context" hadn't yet been thought of. Girls were married off, before puberty even - there was so much housework to do back then - and what happened to them after that was not a matter for public concern. Nowadays capitalism needs teenagers to stay in school longer without getting pregnant and they call it a victory for feminism when a woman has both a paid job and an unpaid one raising kids. Childhood thus needs to be prolonged for the sake of economic productivity, even though children are reaching puberty years earlier than their parents and grandparents did.
[In case I'm sounding critical here I should say that I approve of the prolongation of childhood for women. It gives them a bit more time and experience before they have to think about breeding and its consequences for their futures. It's just that I don't think it is something we've fought for and won. We have way too strong a tendency to let other, more powerful, people decide what's good for us.]
For women, the prolongation of childhood means that they are no longer simply house drudges or "unskilled" labourers, though whatever their talents they are still paid less, less likely to get promoted and generally derided if they act out of line. Moreover, during this prolonged childhood, at precisely the time when they're learning about being second class, they're confronted with all this stuff about their sexuality. Most notably, they learn that if they are beautiful and act sexy, people will pay more attention to them and show approval, while if they act nerdy, people will think they're weird and unacceptable. Could Bill Henson really capture this dilemma photographically? I haven't seen the photos that our Prime Minister has called 'revolting', but the ones I have seen do, I think, capture the mood brilliantly. Whether or not Henson himself gets it doesn't really matter - its what the viewer sees in the picture that counts.
It is really hard to say anything sensible about this case without seeing the offending pictures. The gallery has already caved in to the thought police and decided to eliminate them from the exhibition and if no less an art expert than the prime minister has decided that they affront his view of womanhood... um... childhood, what hope is there of ever forming a proper judgement?
ETA: This is pathetic. You can get a pretty good idea from the picture here of what the cops think is a "sexualised context". Oooh! Dirty old men! For fuck's sake.
More bad photos!! But I particularly liked this one in the series 'When my boat comes in'. Quite incredibly, the banknotes are from the Clydesdale Bank in Scotland, 1982! The leaf is Scotch elm.
Two pieces of beadwork from a piece called 'Understorey', which is a kind of tropical jungle except that besides fruits and flowers, it seems to include some human bits - kidneys (one can be seen on the right of the second photo), a brain, etc.
Two pieces of beadwork from a piece called 'Understorey', which is a kind of tropical jungle except that besides fruits and flowers, it seems to include some human bits - kidneys (one can be seen on the right of the second photo), a brain, etc.
Today I walked across the Bridge (see the people way up there just below the flag)...
... to the Museum of Contemporary Art.
I didn't go to see the San Diego collection however. I went to see the Fiona Hall exhibition. Thanks toandrokles for the tip. Ms Hall's work is fascinating - it's imaginative, funny (sometimes the jokes are cliches but the work is so fine that you're impressed anyway) and political. Sorry for the bad photos, but they will give the general impression.
In the first room there are two exhibits that struck me. One is a series of cardboard cartons, each one containing an object (or several) made of yellow soap. The soap sculptures include all sorts of things from everyday life: a mop, bowls, bits of plumbing, a cyclist's helmet, a torch, other things that I can't recall. The bottom tier of cartons contained nothing but soap sculptures of human turds. The second was a display called 'The price is right', consisting of bits of Tupperware made into wall lamps. Also there were Coke cans cut into thin strips and crocheted into baby clothes and other things. In the next room, she had done body parts and children's toys crocheted from video tape. Each item was still attached to a box announcing the name of the war movie from which the body parts were made.
The series 'Mourning Chorus' consists of 11 birds, 9 of which are extinct already. This one is the kokopo (sp?) which survives only on an offshore island of NZ where there are no introduced vermin.
One room was full of a series called 'When my boat comes in'. Ms Hall spent years collecting bank notes with pictures of boats and ships on them. Here's one of the results (in honour ofcongogirl). Did you know that okra originated in the Congo?
In recent years her themes have gotten more and more botanical. The above clearly refers to the way that international trade and colonisation has spread species all over the world. Another series is called 'Cash Crops' and consists of more soap sculptures. The carrot is somewhat obviously labelled 'Incentive Scheme', the opium poppy is called 'Hush Money', the mushroom is called 'Emerging Market', etc.
Another room is full of sardine cans with human body parts in them instead of fish parts. I absolutely loved these - even if some of them were rather hackneyed jokes (the flabby penis together with a banana tree, the erect penis with a grass tree, etc.). I will try to scan some more later (since I recently bought a scanner!)
Here is a detail from a series on the Garden of Eden. This one - only about a third of it is shown here - is called 'The Temptation of Eve'. The serpent in this case is an eel. The picture is full of pocket knives which are possibly emasculating, but in some cases are only designed to open wine bottles!
Yet another series called 'Cell Culture' - in this case a tupperware and glass bead jellyfish.
I emerged in the late afternoon. The MCA is at Circular Quay, across from the Opera House.
I was lucky. I has been quite a wet day and my walks in both directions seem to have coincided with gaps in the weather. Here's the view to the west as I walked back up the Cahill expressway to the Bridge:
And looking down the harbour to the east:
The little Nordic-type church in Kirribilli at dusk.
As I'm typing this, it is pouring again.
... to the Museum of Contemporary Art.
I didn't go to see the San Diego collection however. I went to see the Fiona Hall exhibition. Thanks to
androkles for the tip. Ms Hall's work is fascinating - it's imaginative, funny (sometimes the jokes are cliches but the work is so fine that you're impressed anyway) and political. Sorry for the bad photos, but they will give the general impression.In the first room there are two exhibits that struck me. One is a series of cardboard cartons, each one containing an object (or several) made of yellow soap. The soap sculptures include all sorts of things from everyday life: a mop, bowls, bits of plumbing, a cyclist's helmet, a torch, other things that I can't recall. The bottom tier of cartons contained nothing but soap sculptures of human turds. The second was a display called 'The price is right', consisting of bits of Tupperware made into wall lamps. Also there were Coke cans cut into thin strips and crocheted into baby clothes and other things. In the next room, she had done body parts and children's toys crocheted from video tape. Each item was still attached to a box announcing the name of the war movie from which the body parts were made.
The series 'Mourning Chorus' consists of 11 birds, 9 of which are extinct already. This one is the kokopo (sp?) which survives only on an offshore island of NZ where there are no introduced vermin.
One room was full of a series called 'When my boat comes in'. Ms Hall spent years collecting bank notes with pictures of boats and ships on them. Here's one of the results (in honour of
congogirl). Did you know that okra originated in the Congo?In recent years her themes have gotten more and more botanical. The above clearly refers to the way that international trade and colonisation has spread species all over the world. Another series is called 'Cash Crops' and consists of more soap sculptures. The carrot is somewhat obviously labelled 'Incentive Scheme', the opium poppy is called 'Hush Money', the mushroom is called 'Emerging Market', etc.
Another room is full of sardine cans with human body parts in them instead of fish parts. I absolutely loved these - even if some of them were rather hackneyed jokes (the flabby penis together with a banana tree, the erect penis with a grass tree, etc.). I will try to scan some more later (since I recently bought a scanner!)
Here is a detail from a series on the Garden of Eden. This one - only about a third of it is shown here - is called 'The Temptation of Eve'. The serpent in this case is an eel. The picture is full of pocket knives which are possibly emasculating, but in some cases are only designed to open wine bottles!
Yet another series called 'Cell Culture' - in this case a tupperware and glass bead jellyfish.
I emerged in the late afternoon. The MCA is at Circular Quay, across from the Opera House.
I was lucky. I has been quite a wet day and my walks in both directions seem to have coincided with gaps in the weather. Here's the view to the west as I walked back up the Cahill expressway to the Bridge:
And looking down the harbour to the east:
The little Nordic-type church in Kirribilli at dusk.
As I'm typing this, it is pouring again.
I spent the weekend in Melbourne. Had an all day meeting at LaTrobe on Friday. Out in the bush.
Friday night my friends and I went to a meeting of Sisters in Crime at a pub in South Melbourne (Bells in Moray St). The speakers were all really interesting: Dorothy Johnston from Canberra, Alison Goodman from Melbourne and Liz Somebody also from Melbourne (I wish I could remember her name because I'm really quite interested to read her book!). I've heard of Dorothy before, though not read her stuff, because she was in a group of writers in Canberra that an old friend of mine belonged to way back. The book (Eden) she was talking about starts off with a male politician who is found dead in a brothel wearing a dress. He wasn't murdered, but somebody else was and the story is really about money and influence. I read it on the plane coming home and in bed last night (couldn't finish it on the plane because I got talking to my neighbour - a nice woman who is making a film about Sidney Nolan).
Liz's book is a murder mystery set at an academic conference on school stories and written in the style of school stories. Since I was brought up on school stories, I found her talk interesting. Alison's is something to do with the genetics of reproduction and contract killing. They read bits out of their books and talked about what started them off on the particular story. They were all very different. It was fascinating and fun. And of course they had books for sale at the back of the room and I have come home with a small stack of murder mysteries (including one by a man). Apparently there is a chapter of Sisters in Crime in Sydney, so I might try going to some of their meetings.
On Saturday afternoon I went to see the Mediaeval Imagination exhibition at the State Library with another friend. That was a collection of illuminated manuscripts - starting with something from 8th century Northumbria and ending with a printed page of the Gutenburg Bible. Most of the books were, I realised, really picture books with just a few words on each page. The idea seems to have been that you read the words and mulled them over while contemplating the gorgeously coloured and finely detailed illustrations. They were quite stunning. I really liked the small section of more secular books - including a "Pythagorean theory of music" and the 15th century principles of brain surgery (luckily in Latin or I might have puked). Then we had coffee at Fiorentinos and went back to my friend's place for dinner. It was a really good catching up session since I haven't seen her for a couple of years and in her life a lot has happened.
On Sunday we went for a walk on St Kilda foreshore and had lunch in Fitzroy St.
Friday night my friends and I went to a meeting of Sisters in Crime at a pub in South Melbourne (Bells in Moray St). The speakers were all really interesting: Dorothy Johnston from Canberra, Alison Goodman from Melbourne and Liz Somebody also from Melbourne (I wish I could remember her name because I'm really quite interested to read her book!). I've heard of Dorothy before, though not read her stuff, because she was in a group of writers in Canberra that an old friend of mine belonged to way back. The book (Eden) she was talking about starts off with a male politician who is found dead in a brothel wearing a dress. He wasn't murdered, but somebody else was and the story is really about money and influence. I read it on the plane coming home and in bed last night (couldn't finish it on the plane because I got talking to my neighbour - a nice woman who is making a film about Sidney Nolan).
Liz's book is a murder mystery set at an academic conference on school stories and written in the style of school stories. Since I was brought up on school stories, I found her talk interesting. Alison's is something to do with the genetics of reproduction and contract killing. They read bits out of their books and talked about what started them off on the particular story. They were all very different. It was fascinating and fun. And of course they had books for sale at the back of the room and I have come home with a small stack of murder mysteries (including one by a man). Apparently there is a chapter of Sisters in Crime in Sydney, so I might try going to some of their meetings.
On Saturday afternoon I went to see the Mediaeval Imagination exhibition at the State Library with another friend. That was a collection of illuminated manuscripts - starting with something from 8th century Northumbria and ending with a printed page of the Gutenburg Bible. Most of the books were, I realised, really picture books with just a few words on each page. The idea seems to have been that you read the words and mulled them over while contemplating the gorgeously coloured and finely detailed illustrations. They were quite stunning. I really liked the small section of more secular books - including a "Pythagorean theory of music" and the 15th century principles of brain surgery (luckily in Latin or I might have puked). Then we had coffee at Fiorentinos and went back to my friend's place for dinner. It was a really good catching up session since I haven't seen her for a couple of years and in her life a lot has happened.
On Sunday we went for a walk on St Kilda foreshore and had lunch in Fitzroy St.
This mural in Newtown intrigued me. Was it originally an ad for the SMH that has been painted over? Or did the 'graffitist' do the whole thing.
I'm tired and bored out of my brain. But I will finish all this marking tomorrow.
I supposefrumiousb would classify this as a 'found object'. Anyway I did come across it on one of my meanderings. It appeared to belong to an off-duty road gang - on a Sunday and nobody nearby.
I should really try to get out of town for a bit on the weekend.
I suppose
frumiousb would classify this as a 'found object'. Anyway I did come across it on one of my meanderings. It appeared to belong to an off-duty road gang - on a Sunday and nobody nearby.I should really try to get out of town for a bit on the weekend.
I was looking again at the photos I posted from Melbourne. The thing that just struck me about the Aboriginal paintings is that of the seven I just randomly picked because I liked them, three were by women and another was by a big group of people that included both men and women. The thing that is interesting about this is that, unlike Western art, in which women have had to fight for recognition. For example, Margaret Preston, who was actually the first truly modernist painter in Australia and not only that, but she didn't simply copy European styles, she was the first white Australian painter (and until very recently the only one) to borrow extensively from Aboriginal ideas</a> of painting. During most of her lifetime, if not all of it, however, she was dismissed in the mainstream art world as a 'decorative' painter. It is really only now that she is getting due recognition for the innovative work that she did - there is a major retrospective of her art at the Art Gallery of NSW at this moment (until 23 October).
Within the Aboriginal art community, however, women have always played a prominent role. I think the reason is that in Aboriginal society art is not separated from normal life. There's no elitism about art. Mostly it is done by elderly people because they are the ones who know the stories that are always an integral part of the painting. In the past, doing art was a form of teaching and communicating. So as younger people learned about the culture, they inevitably picked it up in a highly visual way. The advent of acrylic paint and canvas, and the production of art as a commodity, has inevitably changed things - in particular it has produced new interpretations of old stories and it has separated the merely ordinary from the outstanding. But the point is that, at least in the areas where tradition remains strong, art hasn't been seized by men as an expression of their relative cultural importance. Commodification plays a role here too no doubt. A western art buyer, who doesn't know who did the painting, can't tell if it's a 'feminine' painting or not. Especially since Aborigines don't sign their paintings. When the movement started, people bought everything and there was actually quite a big struggle to get recognition for Aborigines of their intellectual property. It was like: 'Oh, that's a great painting, I'll have it. Huh? Someone called Emily painted it? You mean it's about women's business, well whaddya know!?'
Actually a lot of the pre-commodification art is graffiti. The technique of blowing a mouthful of paint over your hand on the rock face, or drawing a map in the sand as part of teaching the story to others, were essentially impermanent forms of art that were painted over or blown away by the wind. I used to think that the lack of variation in that kind of painting (at least within the territory of the relevant group) was a sign of a closed and fairly stagnant, or at least stable, society. But looking at the graffiti around Melbourne I'm not so sure. Have to think about that.
Within the Aboriginal art community, however, women have always played a prominent role. I think the reason is that in Aboriginal society art is not separated from normal life. There's no elitism about art. Mostly it is done by elderly people because they are the ones who know the stories that are always an integral part of the painting. In the past, doing art was a form of teaching and communicating. So as younger people learned about the culture, they inevitably picked it up in a highly visual way. The advent of acrylic paint and canvas, and the production of art as a commodity, has inevitably changed things - in particular it has produced new interpretations of old stories and it has separated the merely ordinary from the outstanding. But the point is that, at least in the areas where tradition remains strong, art hasn't been seized by men as an expression of their relative cultural importance. Commodification plays a role here too no doubt. A western art buyer, who doesn't know who did the painting, can't tell if it's a 'feminine' painting or not. Especially since Aborigines don't sign their paintings. When the movement started, people bought everything and there was actually quite a big struggle to get recognition for Aborigines of their intellectual property. It was like: 'Oh, that's a great painting, I'll have it. Huh? Someone called Emily painted it? You mean it's about women's business, well whaddya know!?'
Actually a lot of the pre-commodification art is graffiti. The technique of blowing a mouthful of paint over your hand on the rock face, or drawing a map in the sand as part of teaching the story to others, were essentially impermanent forms of art that were painted over or blown away by the wind. I used to think that the lack of variation in that kind of painting (at least within the territory of the relevant group) was a sign of a closed and fairly stagnant, or at least stable, society. But looking at the graffiti around Melbourne I'm not so sure. Have to think about that.
I am in Melbourne again for a few days. I have to give a lecture at Monash on Tuesday so I've come down early for a bit of a break. Everybody had their phones switched off when I got here, so I killed some time by looking at the collection of Aboriginal art at the Ian Potter Gallery in Fed Square. I love this stuff. The paintings are always accompanied by a story that hardly makes sense to the western mind. For example, a square painting with a sort of grid pattern is all about two sisters who travelled a long way north and did a dance and ate some emu, end of story. Or two women ancestors were weaving cloth, an old man in the top right corner whistled and called, but thought they didn't hear so he went away. I can't see any old man in the top right corner, just a bunch of black dots that could possibly be footprints. But they are very beautiful. I apologise for the blurry quality of the photos - there wasn't enough light. All come from either the Northern Territory - northwest of Alice Springs - or Western Australia.
This one is part of a huge canvas - actually a square tarpaulin with studs all around the edges. I couldn't fit the whole thing in my viewfinder. It was done by a large collection of painters - a list of names too long to read - and is a map of their country.
Here is a stunning painting by Emily Kngwarrye, one of the most famous Aboriginal painters. It is a painting of her country - some 200 km northwest of Alice Springs. I look at something like this and think of Jackson Pollock. Without the likes of him, paintings like this would never be recognized in the western art world as having artistic merit - which only says something about the power of western culture. There is a great quote from Emily K, full of alliterative words like 'wriggling, wormy, wobbly... etc. etc.' Yeah, I see that, but how in blazes is it a landscape?!?
This one, by Mick Tjapaltjira is about bandicoot dreaming. The bandicoot's nest is in the centre. The claw marks of the bandicoot, as he scraped the sticks and leaves to make his nest, are all around.
This one, way too blurry, is by another woman painter whose name I can't remember. The title says "Belonging to women".
This photo is of a small part of a joint work by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjira and another relative of his. Clifford Possum's style is very distinctive.
Another famous painter is Rover Thomas. The painting is of a willy willy - like a small tornado of dust. The storm starts in the top right corner and finishes up at a water hole where is is devoured by the Rainbow Serpent.
Limestone hills by Queenie McKenzie from the Western Desert.
This one is part of a huge canvas - actually a square tarpaulin with studs all around the edges. I couldn't fit the whole thing in my viewfinder. It was done by a large collection of painters - a list of names too long to read - and is a map of their country.
Here is a stunning painting by Emily Kngwarrye, one of the most famous Aboriginal painters. It is a painting of her country - some 200 km northwest of Alice Springs. I look at something like this and think of Jackson Pollock. Without the likes of him, paintings like this would never be recognized in the western art world as having artistic merit - which only says something about the power of western culture. There is a great quote from Emily K, full of alliterative words like 'wriggling, wormy, wobbly... etc. etc.' Yeah, I see that, but how in blazes is it a landscape?!?
This one, by Mick Tjapaltjira is about bandicoot dreaming. The bandicoot's nest is in the centre. The claw marks of the bandicoot, as he scraped the sticks and leaves to make his nest, are all around.
This one, way too blurry, is by another woman painter whose name I can't remember. The title says "Belonging to women".
This photo is of a small part of a joint work by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjira and another relative of his. Clifford Possum's style is very distinctive.
Another famous painter is Rover Thomas. The painting is of a willy willy - like a small tornado of dust. The storm starts in the top right corner and finishes up at a water hole where is is devoured by the Rainbow Serpent.
Limestone hills by Queenie McKenzie from the Western Desert.
The other day a friend and her husband were strolling around Darling Harbour looking for a place to eat when they had to step out of the way for a white stretch limo driving along the "pedestrian-only" path. She thought it must have been royalty - though there hopefully aren't any in the country and anyway they don't use the vehicles of the nouveau riche. A little further along, somebody in the back wound down the window and was immediately descended upon by a crowd of squealing females. Movie star or pop star - who knows.
A slightly different story is in the news today about another celebrity, David Gulpilil. He starred years ago in a Nicholas Roeg movie Walkabout (1971) in which he rescued a couple of white kids lost in the desert; more recently in The Tracker (dir. Rolf de Heer, 2002) in which he played the smart Aboriginal policeman in a great little film about white-black relations in the outback circa 1920. He also starred in Rabbit-proof Fence (2002) and, oh yeah, he was in Crocodile Dundee too! IMDb coyly describes him as "of Aboriginal descent". His self-description: "I am the son of generations of chief dancers of the Mandalbingu people."
A year ago his portrait by Craig Ruddy won the country's biggest art prize, the Archibald - it also won the People's Choice, only the second time in history that the public had agreed with the judges.
Despite all this celebrity, Gulpilil and his partner were ordered out of their camp in the stretch of bush behind the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly yesterday. He'd been living there in a traditional "humpy" so he could get some paintings done. Just another blackfella to the Darwin cops!
Edit: I had a closer look at the photo in the newspaper up at the local shop. It wasn't a traditional bark shelter at all, but a nylon tent!
A slightly different story is in the news today about another celebrity, David Gulpilil. He starred years ago in a Nicholas Roeg movie Walkabout (1971) in which he rescued a couple of white kids lost in the desert; more recently in The Tracker (dir. Rolf de Heer, 2002) in which he played the smart Aboriginal policeman in a great little film about white-black relations in the outback circa 1920. He also starred in Rabbit-proof Fence (2002) and, oh yeah, he was in Crocodile Dundee too! IMDb coyly describes him as "of Aboriginal descent". His self-description: "I am the son of generations of chief dancers of the Mandalbingu people."
A year ago his portrait by Craig Ruddy won the country's biggest art prize, the Archibald - it also won the People's Choice, only the second time in history that the public had agreed with the judges.
Despite all this celebrity, Gulpilil and his partner were ordered out of their camp in the stretch of bush behind the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly yesterday. He'd been living there in a traditional "humpy" so he could get some paintings done. Just another blackfella to the Darwin cops!
Edit: I had a closer look at the photo in the newspaper up at the local shop. It wasn't a traditional bark shelter at all, but a nylon tent!
I was trawling through some old photos and came across some I took inside Brett Whiteley's studio. He died in the early '90s of a heroin overdose, but he is easily Australia's best known artist of the 1960s-80s. He was influenced by Francis Bacon more than any other artist. The quotes below were scrawled on a wall of the studio, together with various photos, of Bacon, Dylan, and others.
The moment you know what you're doing, it's just another form of 'illustration'. (F.B.)
Good poets borrow, great poets thieve. (T.S. Eliot)
Where another mans life begins thats exactly where mine ends . (Bob Dylan)
Don't follow leaders an' watch the parkin' meters. (Bob Dylan)
The only problem with genius is the size of the G. (unattributed)
Each man kills the thing he loves. (illegible)
Creation is that wonderful benefit where god draws a halt to your intentions (illegible)
Great men are stupid. (C. Baudelaire)
If it looks all right, leave it. If it doesn't, change it. (Corot)
Once a philanderer, twice a pervert.
Love thy neighbour.
The moment you are no longer a child, you're already dead. (Brancusi)
(This one seems to capture the essence of Whiteley. It is next to a photo of a very ancient Salvador Dali with a tube up his nose, looking like he's on his death bed.)
E = MC²
The moment you know what you're doing, it's just another form of 'illustration'. (F.B.)
Good poets borrow, great poets thieve. (T.S. Eliot)
Where another mans life begins thats exactly where mine ends . (Bob Dylan)
Don't follow leaders an' watch the parkin' meters. (Bob Dylan)
The only problem with genius is the size of the G. (unattributed)
Each man kills the thing he loves. (illegible)
Creation is that wonderful benefit where god draws a halt to your intentions (illegible)
Great men are stupid. (C. Baudelaire)
If it looks all right, leave it. If it doesn't, change it. (Corot)
Once a philanderer, twice a pervert.
Love thy neighbour.
The moment you are no longer a child, you're already dead. (Brancusi)
(This one seems to capture the essence of Whiteley. It is next to a photo of a very ancient Salvador Dali with a tube up his nose, looking like he's on his death bed.)
E = MC²
