Green attitude

I have yet another excuse for not posting. I've moved cities and started some new adventures for a while. Now in Melbourne town, I see everything around me with fresh eyes. And yes...I'm still on the hunt for milk crates but I didn't have to try too hard to spot the humble crate incorporated for another handy use.

It's such a foreign concept in Sydney but it seems eveyone rides bikes here in Melbourne!!  A fair proportion between Collingwood and Carlton have a crate configuration. Is it a political statement by a bunch of acivists, with the brazen act of ripping off a crate in defiance of capitalism, slapping the'big M' companies right across the face? Perhaps it is an example of a cottage industry of sorts and just promotes a simple greenie DIY attitude...

green crate = green attitude. Fitzroy 2010

Take your time - Olafur Eliasson

Get in quick, it is the last days of the exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art!

This show is not to be missed, because it is also the first ever solo show of the Icelandic artist in Australia. Renowned for his Waterfall, superstructure installlation on the East River, New York, in 2008 and other large scale public architectural sculptures throughout Europe, Eliasson is worth the effort to see on local turf. This exhibition is a survey of more manageable and intimate proportions and shows work spanning his carreer from 1993 to 2008.

Looking at the exhibition as a whole, it appears Eliasson is somewhat a minimalist at heart, right down to the spacial planning and 'no labels' policy of each exhibit, but this doesn't diminish the visual feast and extraordinarily sumptuos experiences throughout. Eliasson is a master investigator and recreator of what often seem like highschool physics experiments and artistic creator of trompe l'oeil-like presentations. Believing there is some trickery at play, when all is in fact bared, is half the revelation of Eliasson's work.

I don't want to give too much away, but agree with the curators and recommend visitors do "take your time", particularly at the Mosswall 1994, to breath in the earthiness of the gigantic curtain of imported raindeer moss and at  Beauty 1993, where the continual shimmering mist of water develops rainbows before your eyes while the tunnel of volcanic ash still lingers on your senses.

Beauty 1993 Collection Museum Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Image courtesy and copyright the artist. Photography: Poul Pedersen

Even in the white cube gallery environment a strong identity of place prevails and a sense geological forces firmly roots the viewer in an Icelanding experience. Hopefully visitors will get swept away as much as I did, feeling this ominipresent environment, maybe then looking, seeing, sensing the exhibition rather than simply walking through it as a passive observer. The retinal shadow effect of Yellow versus purple 2003 is so simply presented  but so beguiling I revisited it again on the way out...(as I did with many of the exhibits).

Eliasson questions us as viewers and in turn assists us in questioning ourselves and our environment.  The exhibition provokes us to; take a new approach, enquire about our world, experience our surroundings differently for a change and make us realise that seeing as a process is a lot more complex than just 'looking'.

(NB: take your time also to read the room brochure!!!it will add a dimension to your overall enjoyment)

Museum of Conemporary Art
10 December 2009 - 11 April 2010
 $15 adult ticket
Circular Quay West
Sydney NSW 2000

Mythic Creatures - Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids

Upon visiting this exhibition, I have to admit I was sceptical about the what the content would be and whether the overall treatment of such subject matter could be anything else but 'sensationalism'. I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. As you'd expect, the show is mostly geared to the younger audiences but also includes some academic discussion about the origins of various myths and creatures.

Originating from American Museum of Natural History, New York, in collaboration with the Australian National Maritime Museum and Field Museum, Chicago, the exhibition shows some fascinating collection items from these institutions as well as other significant international collections. The Feejee mermaid (pictured below) from the Peabody Museum, Harvard University is fascinating addition, one of the highlights, not to be missed in the 100 objects on offer. This freaky skeleton is believed be from the famous Barnum circus hoax of 1841, where the head and torso of a monkey and tail of a fish were sewn together and presented to the public as a grotesque spectacle and 'physical evidence' of Mermaids. The range of cultural objects and imagery helps demonstrate the allure of mythical creatures throughout history and natural specimens add a reasonable range of scientific perspectives.

                Feejee mermaid copyright 2007 Harvard University, Peabody Museum

If you have little people in the family and are at a loose end this April school holidays, it'd be well worth taking them to enjoy the massive replica models and let their imaginations run wild. During my visit I couldn't help appreciate the overwhelming wonder and excitement of all the young visitors. Models of the Kraken, Roc, Dragon, Mermaids and Unicorns certainly invoked a suspension of disbelief to the point where, in one case, a particularly precocious 5 year old was repeatedly stunned into a frozen pose every time the model Dragon roared as he edged over for a friendly pat.

The exhibition is indeed sensational in being able to capture the imagination of the young target audience and I'm sure the big kid in us all will learn something too.

Australian National Maritime Museum
19 December 2009- 23 May 2010
9:30am - 5:00pm daily
FREE entry

2 Murray street
Darling Harbour
Sydney NSW 2000
(02) 9298 3777
where is it?

Watching and looking

This post is dedicated to J, whom I thank mercifully for reminding me that sometimes people might look at this space (and perhaps want to read something since February)...

Apologies for being tardy - you'll be glad to learn I have renewed determination to have a March listing, if not at least for the sake of a tidy archive list! I am thinking of a litany of excuses I could write here such as: a bout of flu that lasted two weeks and resembled meningitis; being attacked and clawed during a feirce netball match leaving my nose bloddied and missing a few layers of skin; falling from the doctor's bed during a check up and tearing tendons in my hand; limping with a swollen, bruised foot for days after a drunken punter walked across it in stilettos while i diligently worked, moonlighting in a nightclub on the weekend; but it would all sound like such fictitious hoop-la that noone would believe, let alone accept any such drivel as an excuse for my mediocre mood and absence from the computer...

                                     Milk crate hoop, Woolloomooloo, Bliss Jensen

Anyway, back to the matter of looking and watching - I am still on the hunt, to provide Sydney-siders with the most comprehensive digest and 'tour' of milk crates around town (refer earlier post). I thought I'd quickly share this little gem with you. It's worth noting, the nearest basketball court is a good kilometre away at the Cook and Philip Park sports complex where entry fetches a pretty premium so you can enjoy the top of the line equipment. But here in a quiet, leafy Woolloomooloo backstreet, the idea of basketball is democratised and set amongst the rustic charm of the neighbourhood. What I most enjoy about this milk crate is the intended pun. It is fastened to the exterior wall of a great heritage building that also happens to be the local community gymnasium. Remember to always look up!

Corner Dowling and Nicholson streets

Woolloomooloo

Sydney NSW

where on earth is that?

Martin Sharp - Sydney artist

Walking into the exhibition you can’t deny there is an immediate visual impact and WOW factor! Sharpe’s work IS instantly recognisable and from a truly brilliant and original mind.

The accompanying room brochure states this exhibition “shows discerning insight into the man, and social issues of our times...” but I’d disagree that merely hanging pictures ‘salon-style’ upon the walls does no more than illustrate how prolific the artist is, and reading the content of the pictures by themselves merely elaborates the personal taste and passion of the artist. Labels with basic catalogue information certainly do no more to unwrap the artist’s involvement in cultural and political contexts or present any deeper thinking about Sharpe’s involvement in other artistic causes such as the Yellow House.

Once I got over the initial frustration of the lack of interpretation, I could begin to appreciate the 120 paintings, posters and mixed media display for what they were. Perhaps this "art for art’s sake" approach was the basis of the curatorial brief? I did enjoy watching the audio visual of the Tiny Tim world record for professional non-stop singing; it was a classic Sharpe production, highly enjoyable, with 100% wit. Moving on, I came to acknowledge that Sharpe is indeed a Sydney talent worth dedicating and showcasing, but thought that perhaps the curator was hiding behind the glory and talents of this artistic master. In this case, there could have been so much more storytelling, than simply the idea of Sharpe’s work in terms of “the medium is the message”. Just because there was so much pop culture material and references surely doesn't mean it is not worthy of a few digestive words here or there? I felt that there was a certain amount of curatorial laziness in cobbling together a bunch of disparate media, that was this exhibition. Surely just delving into a couple of what may be hundreds of amazing personal stories about Martin Sharpe “the artist” could have brought a sense of life to this immense body of work.

Highlights included: Patrick White’s Signal Driver Belvoir st theatre poster 1980s, Sideshow in Burlesco, Nimrod theatre poster 1979, Eternity haymarket acrylic on board 1981 and David Gulpilil in The Thousand Dollar Bill painting 2002-2009, but overall the experience left me disappointed. If only the curator was as much a talented, artistic, individual thinker and activist as Martin Sharpe.

Ho-hum....

Museum of Sydney
Corner Bridge and Phillip St,
Sydney, NSW 2000
Saturday 31 October 2009 — Sunday 14 March 2010
9.30 – 5pm daily
$10 adults, $5, concession/child, family $20, members free

Femme Fatale: The female criminal

“As a double exception, the criminal woman is a true monster. Criminals are an exception in people and women are an exception among criminals.” I was really drawn to this quote at the beginning of the exhibition, probably because the statement illustrates attitudes of a time gone by so well and also cleverly introduces the provocative curatorial direction of the Femme Fatale exhibition.

This show takes a close look at women and crime in Australia from the convict era through the booming years of the infamous inner city Razor gangs of 1920s Sydney. It is a relatively small exhibition space but is absolutely crammed with fascinating historical artefacts and other objects, multimedia and pop-culture memorabilia. The content comes together to paint a vivid picture of the female as the screen siren, the comic vixen and the temptress and seductress of detective stories as well as the revengeful wife, murderous lover and underprivileged opportunist. The exhibition cleverly exemplifies how beliefs about wicked women are cross-cultural and have evolved from archetypal stories of Eve, Medusa and Witches, transcending myth over time, to be embedded in our popular consciousness today.

Don’t let the content of psychopathic murderers, incarcerated criminals, violent offenders, prostitution, sly grogging and stark criminal records with photographic evidence deter you from seeing this exhibition. It is a classy and sassy romp through culture and Sydney’s dark past, injected with just as much humour as there is chill-factor!


7 March, 2009 - 18 April 2010
Weekends 10-5 (booked school groups during the week only)
Closed Good Friday and Christmas day
Adult $8, child/concession $4, members free

Justice & Police Museum
Corner Albert and Phillip Streets
Circular Quay NSW 2001
http://www.hht.net.au/museums/justice_and_police_museum

Brett Whiteley Studio – Iconic Whiteley

Another hidden treasure of inner Sydney, the Brett Whiteley studio is a source for endless inspiration. If you have been living under a rock the past century and do not know who Brett Whiteley is to the Australian art scene, then this exhibition is for you. It is a survey of the many decades of Whiteley’s career from his lesser known work of his late teens and early twenties including landscape abstraction, Christie, and Zoo series, through to his popular Lavender Bay, Paris and Bird series.

The exhibition includes 33 paintings in the downstairs gallery including the self-portrait masterpieces that won him the Archibald Prize on more than one occasion and over half a dozen mixed media assemblages creating a smaller but dynamic and also significant survey of Whitley sculpture.

One of my favourite pieces would have to be the large canvas after French inspiration, titled Fifteen great dog pisses of Paris, 1989, hanging in the upstairs studio lounge. It is a large perspective view of the banks of the Seine with ominous patches intermittently staining the walls, distracting from the majestic, painterly view and upsetting the overall romantic oeuvre that has been recreated. To me this picture is true Whiteley slapping the viewer in the face with his warped and overtly subversive take on the world.

While, you couldn’t ever call Whiteley’s paintings ”pretty” , there is a world of beauty and seduction in his fluid lines, gestural brushwork and bright hued compositions, as there is humour. The unfinished six panel board upstairs in the studio is as fresh, interesting and whimsical today as the day it was left unfinished due to his tragic death in 1992. The studio itself is somewhat of a shrine to the artist with every accoutrement left in situ; the library of books, paints, bed, home furnishings, wall quotes, newspaper clippings and graffiti; giving a spooky sense the artist is still at work. Overall the environment of the studio is crammed with the back story of whitely. It’s worth picking up the old black telephone and listening in on the Andrew Olley interview, where you get a tangible sense of who the artist was and what made him tick. There is a candid discussion about Brett’s battle with drug addiction which perhaps plays a vital part in both the artist’s accomplishments and demise.

There is no denying Brett whitely has left a massive mark on Australian art, a legacy that continues to foster other artists’ talents through the Whitely Travelling Art Scholarship today.

The smaller changing upstairs exhibit of the annual prize this year displays the winner, Nicole Kelly. Her painterly freedom and lavish paint application creates modern and abstract landscapes “without baggage and clutter for the past” (as Whiteley himself would put it). For Whiteley, Abstraction was “Liberating... There is a freedom of mass, line and tone. A sensuality with things slightly out of focus”, and for Nicole Kelly this ethos is also strong.

I look forward to the next changing exhibit at the Whiteley Studio so I can return and discover some more hidden gems I missed this time round.



Brett Whiteley Studio
2 Raper St
Surry Hills NSW 2010
(02) 9225 1740
Free admission
10am-4pm Saturday & Sunday
Thursday & Friday booked school groups
12 September – April 2010
http://brettwhiteley.org/