Let There Be Coloured Light - Dan Flavin by Geoff Harrison

It was more than a coincidence that a nation that gave us Donald Judd could also produce the artist Dan Flavin.  In fact, the two met in 1962 at a gathering in a Brooklyn apartment organised to discuss the possibility of a cooperative artist-run gallery.  Their friendship developed and the two became known as “Flavin and Judd” for a while, indeed Judd named his son Flavin Starbuck Judd.

Untitled 1970

Untitled 1970

Many of Flavin’s installations were site-specific, such as the one above.  In the December 1965 issue of Artforum, Flavin wrote “I knew that the actual space of a room could be broken down and played with by planting illusions of real light (electric light) at crucial junctions in the room’s composition.”

In the final episode of his 1996 series “American Visions”, critic Robert Hughes referred to the age of anxiety in modern America, fed by the cold war and the general disillusionment with government following the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War.  He visited the Judd ‘shrine’ in Marfa, Texas to illustrate his point, but he could equally have visited a Flavin installation for while the play of coloured light could be construed as beautiful, there is an anxiousness with his vast empty scenes.

Untitled (for Ksenija) 1994

Untitled (for Ksenija) 1994

Flavin was born in New York in 1933.  He became a Catholic altar boy and trained to be a priest.  He recalled being ''curiously fond of the solemn high funeral Mass, which was so consummately rich in candlelight, music, chant, vestments, processions and incense.''  This, no doubt, became a major influence on his work as an artist.  He is described as a minimalist sculptor and is considered to be the first artist to employ electric light in a sustained way.

Installation at Menil’s Richmond Hall 1996

Installation at Menil’s Richmond Hall 1996

An article in the New York Times describes Flavin’s art as “brazenly radical and very much in the vein of Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades”, but apart from the use of manufactured materials, I don’t see any correlation at all.  But then the article goes on to describe Flavin’s installations as having an “ecstatic beauty that was at once painterly and architectural”.

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Flavin became adept at combining the intense lines of colour of the light tube with their softer diffuse glow and the geometric arrangements of the tubes.  In 1971, he illuminated the entire rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum, but he was just as successful illuminating a corner as below.

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It was very daring of Flavin to move sculpture away from the figurative to the impersonal use of industrial materials.  In 1989, he extended his range by illuminating the exterior of the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Baden Baden, Germany.  Works such as these have been described as symphonic.  I often wonder if he had an influence on artists such as Olafur Eliasson and Kimsooja who I covered in earlier blogs.

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Flavin arrived at the idea of using fluorescent tubes after several years of painting and drawing in the abstract expressionistic manner.  These were followed by a brief period in the late 1950's and early 60's of making boxy wall reliefs in strong monochromatic colours, to which he attached coloured light bulbs and fluorescent tubes.

According to the PBS program The Art Assignment, minimalist sculptors decided to abandon the pedestal to dismantle the separation between the viewer and the art.  Judd argued these works were neither painting nor sculpture but specific objects occupying space that didn’t necessarily reference anything.   And it’s worth noting that the artists themselves hated the term minimalism.

Work such as Flavin’s contains no secret, no hidden meaning, there is nothing to interpret.  It is what it is, and thus it was a complete break with the past where meaning may lie somewhere inside the object waiting to be unlocked.  Instead, the meaning lies in the viewer’s interaction with it, the context and the strong feelings it can evoke for presence, absence, space and light.  It is argued in the PBS program that in a world filled with complexity and information and “lots and lots of stuff”, minimalist art can be a balm.  I’m not about to argue.

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Flavin died in 1996 from complications arising from diabetes.  

It’s now hibernation time for me, I’ll be back around mid January.

References;

The New York Times

PBS: The Art Assignment

Art Forum



Henry Darger - Outsider Artist by Geoff Harrison

The term outsider artist seems to be applied to those who are self-taught or naïve art makers. Typically, they tend to have little or no contact with the mainstream art world and in many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths.  The term is also applied to artists with intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses as well as those on the margins of art and society: the homeless, ethnic minorities, migrants and folk artists.

An article in The Guardian in 2014 described outsider art as “hot”, art fairs are now dedicated to it and they draw big crowds and big money.  It’s interesting how the term outsider artist tends to be applied by gallerists, academics, psychologists and art school trained artists – that is, by those on the inside.

But what of the artists themselves?  One of the best known outsider artists is Henry Darger (1892-1973) who lived almost his entire life in Chicago.  In her book “The Lonely City”, author Olivia Laing describes how easy it is for people to vanish in cities, retreating into their apartments due to illness (mental and/or physical), bereavement or simply being unable to impress themselves into society.  Darger was just such a person.

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He was born in the slums of Chicago and when he was 4, his mother died of a fever shortly after giving birth to his sister who was immediately adopted.  His father became a cripple and when Henry was 8, he was sent initially to a Catholic boys home and then to the Illinois Asylum for the Feeble Minded.  He was considered a bright student at school but strange behavioural traits resulted in his incarceration.  He was aware of the injustice of all this, “I, a feeble minded kid.  I knew more than the whole shebang in that place”, he wrote in his journal.

Whilst there, Darger received the devastating news that his father had died.  He was subject to dreadful treatment at the asylum, images of which later appeared in his art.  He made several escape attempts, the first resulted in being caught by a cowboy who lassoed him and forced him to run behind a horse back to the asylum.  Instances of child abuse at the asylum are well documented.

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Eventually, Darger made it back to Chicago for good and found work as a janitor in a Catholic hospital where he would spend the next 54 years, working long and arduous hours. The only break was when he spent a year serving in World War One. He lived alone in a tiny apartment and filled it with illustrations, paintings and writings.

Darger’s apartment

Darger’s apartment

At around 1911, he began work on a novel called “The Realm Of The Unreal”, that would eventually run to over 15,000 pages.  After the war Darger began to illustrate the novel with watercolours.  No one knew of the existence of this novel until after his death and it is claimed that when he was on his deathbed, he asked his landlord to destroy it.  But the landlord, Nathan Lerner, saw the value in Darger’s work and saved it.  Some of it is now on permanent display at INTUIT: The Centre for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago.


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His novel, which is perhaps in the vein of Tolkien or the Game of Thrones, is about the Vivian girls; that is seven girls who are his heroines who lead an army to free a group of child slaves who are being held captive by an evil army.  So it is a classic good versus evil story.  It is likely the genesis of this novel was his experiences at the asylum and his war service plus his appalling loneliness.  But Darger has left no information about why he produced this vast quantity of work.  It is believed he saw no value in it.

Thus it could be argued that it’s the intrigue surrounding Darger’s work that has contributed to the aura around it.  If he had been actively pushing these works during his lifetime it is possible they would not have the popularity they enjoy today, where prices in the $100,000s are not uncommon.  There is a bitter irony to this story of course, as it would appear he produced this art just for himself, perhaps in order to make his life more bearable.

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With so little to go on, Darger’s life and art have been the subject of extensive analysis which have included suggestions of paedophilia.  Yet from his journals, we know child protection was a major concern of his.  We also know that he was a devout Catholic who regularly attended mass, that he had one good friend called William Schloeder who he possibly met during the war and called on regularly until Schloeder’s mother died in 1956.  Schloeder then moved to San Antonio to live with his sister and died 3 years later.  This left Darger entirely friendless.

We also know he taught himself to draw by collecting and tracing thousands of images and he also used collage and free hand drawing. 

Laing suggests it would be foolish to suggest Darger was not undamaged by his past, not the subject of some kind of breach with the external world. But she quotes a declaration of child independence he made in the “Realms” which include, “the right to play, to be happy and to dream, the right to normal sleep during the night’s season, the right to an education, that we may have an equality of opportunity for developing all that are in us of mind and heart”.

References;

The Guardian

Olivia Laing - The Lonely City

The Good Stuff - The Secret Life & Art of Henry Darger



Art From The Heart - Kimsooja by Geoff Harrison

In my art practice, I aim to provide the viewer with an immersive experience – not an easy thing to achieve with paintings on a wall.  Other artists employ different methodologies to achieve this end, and one of them is the remarkable Kimsooja from Korea.  She is an artist, nomad and humanist all rolled into one.

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Her work is regarded as deeply insightful, intelligent and calls for a deeper consciousness in the world.  “Art for me is a way of understanding myself and the world around me especially in this era of destruction and violence.  I often feel powerless but I still believe in art, culture, spirit and truth in the world that is the oxygen in our lives.”

She has studios in New York, Paris and Seoul but is essentially a nomad.  She describes her body as her studio and she always feels at home on her travels.  A nomadic existence has been part of her life since she was born, her father worked in the military so they were constantly on the move – at one time living near the Demilitarization Zone in Korea.

She initially studied painting at art school but became dissatisfied with the flat canvas.  Sometime later she was sewing quilts with her mother when she had a breakthrough moment.  Inserting the needle into the fabric she realised how she could use the needle as a tool to break through the 2 dimensional tableau.

From 1983 onwards, Kimsooja’s art took on a more 3 dimensional structure straddling the realms of painting and sculpture. But her career really took off when she was invited to a residency at MOMA’s PS1 in 1991. It was here she produced work based around the bottari – a cloth to wrap personal effects that women would carry around with them. This was her way of finding her own identity in New York.

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She puts the lives of others into her bottari works as the contents are clothes donated anonymously.  The concept being that these lives coexist.  She regards bottari as a 3 dimensional way of sewing.

In 1994 Kimsooja moved to video work culminating with her Needle Woman series where she filmed herself in 14 cities around the world.   Here she uses her body as a needle to weave various cultures together and she had to go into a deep meditative state whilst crowds of people brushed past her.

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She speaks of having feelings of peace and love whilst looking at the oceans of people in front of her, which suggests to me that she was able to enter a psychedelic state.  She enjoyed a sense of affection and compassion towards these people which was very important for her entire career.  She explores the human condition and universal values that often goes beyond form and material values.

Kimsooja’s more recent work involves installations and it is here that she moved to another dimension – filling spaces with the sounds of her breathing.  In 2006 she installed “To Breathe – The Mirror Woman” at the Crystal Palace in Madrid.  She wrapped the entire exterior of the building in diffraction film and covered the floor with mirrors.  With this work, Kimsooja has moved from the physical to the transcendental.  She saw the palace as a perfect installation, an architectural bottari and decided it didn’t need anything in it.

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Her work can encourage moments of self reflection, a Zen like experience that gives her work a universal appeal. 


To Breathe, The Centre Pompidou-Metz 2015

To Breathe, The Centre Pompidou-Metz 2015

While Kimsooja’s work is undeniable feminine, it would be incorrect to describe it as feminist.  Some critics argue the latter description is far too limiting in the context of her work.

One of her more recent works is an interactive piece called Archive of Mind which consists of a 19 metre table where people are encouraged to mould balls from lumps of clay.  She considers the actions of working with the clay as a form of bottari where the actions of the hands are akin to wrapping.  Whilst forming the balls, the participants hear sounds of Kimsooja gurgling and the balls rolling thus creating a meditative, even spiritual experience.

So why the title Archive Of Mind?  Kimsooja wanted the participants to allow their minds to become absent and feel the transcendent moment which is permanently frozen in the finished clay balls. 

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Her art practice is seen as a strong heart felt gesture and this is what makes her an artist of international stature.  Rather than comment on individual issues plaguing the world, Kimsooja seeks a peaceful, collective understanding of what it means to be human and to share this world as one humanity.

Zone Of Nowhere, Perth Festival, 2018

Zone Of Nowhere, Perth Festival, 2018

“Living as an artist is like breathing for me.”

Ref: Kimsooja Explores The Notion Of Being Human - Brilliant Ideas Ep. 45





The Space Man - Olafur Eliasson by Geoff Harrison

These days Danish artist Olafur Eliasson is described as an arts corporation rather than an artist.  Not that this is meant to be derogatory – far from it.  But he appears to have an imagination on an industrial scale, his studio now employs 100 people and he has branched out into the fields of architecture, engineering, product design and global politics.  He is also a passionate advocate for action on climate change. 

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He is consumed by the concept of space, how we interpret it and interact with it.

“What makes a space productive, makes it tolerable, challenging, exciting, including, hospitable and so on?  I aim to challenge an existing space by introducing some qualities and amplifying those qualities into the space.  It is not like starting with a blank canvas as the space is already charged with meanings and intentionalities.

“It’s important to ask to what extent do we have an impact on our world, to participate or not participate?  Does it matter that we are here in the first place?”

Beauty 1993, Nozzles attached to a punctured hose spray a fine mist into light.

Beauty 1993, Nozzles attached to a punctured hose spray a fine mist into light.

“When I make something that may be a work of art, I want it to be in the world, to be sincerely, responsibly and honestly in the world….to have an impact somehow.”

Eliasson describes his studio as a laboratory where he and his collaborators experiment a lot and try out ideas.  He says the studio needs to embrace doubt that something may not be working, that it may turn into nothing. 

One of his most significant early works was the Weather Project installed in the massive turbine hall of London’s Tate Modern in 2003.

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Critic Waldemar Januszczak credits Eliasson with bringing the outdoors inside.  People were turning up at the Tate with beach towels so they could lie on the floor and see themselves being reflected on the foil covered ceiling. 

“When I work with a project, I ask how is the work being constituted, who determines whether it’s real or not?   And I want to hand that determination to the spectator.  Which means I need to include the spectator into the objecthood.  How do people allow themselves to get involved with their surroundings?”

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New York City Waterfalls, 2008

New York City Waterfalls, 2008

He allows a project to evolve over time, he does not have a fixed picture of how a project would appear in its final form from the outset. 

“I do not claim sole authorship of the project, I rely on the audience, the context, the quality of the situation to claim authorship.  If I set out a Utopian vision and tell people what to expect I would limiting, I would be normative and I would be commodifying the project.

“I often talk about making a machine that produces a phenomena and it’s the relationship people develop with that phenomena that is interesting to me.  I like to show people how this machine works so they can coproduce the work with me.” 

By doing this, Eliasson hopes to make a world that is more open, more negotiable and inclusive rather than exclusive.  He aims to make art that is inclusive rather than exclusive.

Your Chance Encounter, 2009, a mist filled room with different coloured lights in different areas

Your Chance Encounter, 2009, a mist filled room with different coloured lights in different areas

“My interest goes in the way of participating in a dialogue and I see my work as a response to something I see in the world and I use my studio to amplify my response.

“The unique quality of the language that art speaks is that it doesn’t take the world for granted, it looks at the world as if the world is a model, that it’s a constructed world and there is not an objective truth out there. If you successfully start a dialogue with that world then you can change that reality, make it negotiable.”

Eliasson also appears to be a humanitarian.

“A work of art can embrace different people having different experiences at the same time.  Where else in society does this happen?  And where in society is this embraced as a good thing?  If you are different you are typically, in the world I live in, not welcome. Art can show that this is wrong and investigate this in a productive way and constitute a community that is based on differences – being part of a group and yet being able to work as an individual.”

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Your Rainbow Panorama, 2011, ARoS Museum of Art, Denmark

Your Rainbow Panorama, 2011, ARoS Museum of Art, Denmark

“It’s about the balance between form and content which allows you to solve complex questions.  It‘s possible to get caught up with form and forget about content ie. what is this about, where does it go, how do people engage with it and why?  So the form needs to be secondary to the content.  It is necessary to go out and research (workshop) the content and then return to the studio.”

There is a retrospective of Eliasson’s work on show at Tate Modern until January 5, 2020. 

References; ‘Space Is Progress’,  JJ Films, 2009

Waldemar.TV – Eliasson In Real Life, Tate Modern









A Real Artist Murdered By A Failed One by Geoff Harrison

The failed artist is, of course, Adolf Hitler who showed his contempt for the arts establishment by holding his “Exhibition of Degenerate Art” in 1937.  This was payback time, his revenge on all those who had the temerity to reject him as an art student.

Friedl Dicker devoted her life to art and art education – even in a Nazi concentration camp she used art to offer the children “a little bit of normality.”

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She was born in Vienna in 1898 and her mother died when she was four.  She was raised alone by her father who was an assistant in a stationary store and it was in here she found all the material she needed to give full reign to her imagination.  When she was in her mid-teens she studied at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts and earned money on the side at the theatre, where she organised props, made costumes, performed on stage and wrote plays.

Dicker eventually studied at the Bauhaus in Weimar and found like minded students who shared her interest in the functions of objects.  She produced marionettes for a state fair in Weimar which drew and captivated children.  She also studied textiles and the lithographic process and when her favourite painter Paul Klee arrived at the Bauhaus, she attended his lectures on the nature of art and the childlike imagination.

Friedl Dicker, Design for a recital evening at the Bauhaus

Friedl Dicker, Design for a recital evening at the Bauhaus

Dicker became involved in a theatre troupe along with Franz Singer with whom she had a long-standing relationship which continued even after Singer got married.  She fell pregnant to him several times, but at Singer’s insistence, she had several abortions. 

In 1923 the two of them founded the 'Werkstätten Bildender Kunst' (Workshops for visual art), which produced toys, jewellery, textiles and bookbindings, graphic designs and theatre sets.  Thus they travelled regularly between several European cities.  They later set up an architecture office and won several awards.  Their relationship ended when Singer’s son died.

Friedl Brandeis, Begonias At The Window, 1936, Tempera on paper

Friedl Brandeis, Begonias At The Window, 1936, Tempera on paper

In 1931 Friedl Dicker opened up a new chapter in her life when she ran courses for kindergarten teachers.  The focus was on art and sensitizing adults to recognise the children’s personalities and artistic abilities, and to encourage the children to concentrate on a creative process.

Dicker became an active member of the Communist Party and when Hitler came to power in 1933, the party went underground.  Dicker’s studio was searched and when forged identity papers were found, she was jailed.  On the testimony of Singer, she was later released and then fled to Prague.  It was here where she married Pavel Brandeis in 1936 whilst working on renovating homes and developing textile designs.

Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938, and Friedl’s friends pleaded with her to emigrate but she refused to leave her husband who by now could not get a visa.  Meanwhile the art dealer Paul Weingraf was exhibiting some of Friedl’s paintings in the Arcadia Gallery in London.

Friedl Brandeis, View Of Theresienstadt, 1944 , Pastel

Friedl Brandeis, View Of Theresienstadt, 1944 , Pastel

In 1942 she and Pavel were transported to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt where she became a carer in one of the girls’ homes.  She taught them painting and drawing with the intention of publishing (after the war) her own study on art therapy for children.  Theatre became part of the lessons and the students painted stage sets and dressed up in costumes.  With her work as a carer and Pavel’s work as a carpenter, they began to decorate the children’s’ homes thus making life a little more bearable in a bleak environment.

Display at the Museum Of Tolerance, Los Angeles, 2004

Display at the Museum Of Tolerance, Los Angeles, 2004

In the autumn of 1944, Friedl and Pavel Brandeis were transported by rail to Auschwitz concentration camp.  Shortly before leaving, Friedl packed a suitcase full of the children’s drawings and they were hidden before being delivered to the Jewish community in Prague in August 1945.  Pavel survived Auschwitz.  Friedl didn’t.  She died on 9th October 1944, childless and just one day after arriving at Auschwitz.

Source: American PBS

Bauhaus100.com





The Highs And Lows Of The Archibald by Geoff Harrison

Visiting the Archibald Prize is akin to viewing a weather map.  But if droughts are caused by an excess of ‘Highs’ and not enough ‘Lows’, some recent Archibald’s would have had me reaching for the life jackets.  This most prestigious of art awards has been courting controversy since at least 1943 with William Dobell’s winning portrait of fellow artist Joshua Smith.  So incensed were 2 Sydney artists with the decision, they took the matter to the Supreme Court alleging the portrait was a caricature. 

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Dobell has been described by some art historians as a timid rabbit who suddenly found the spotlight rudely thrust upon him.  Interviewed many years later, Dobell said he became so distressed over the episode that he developed severe dermatitis as well as temporarily losing the sight of one eye and the use of one leg.  He said he could never forgive those responsible.  Dobell won the case, but he shied away from portraiture for a while before making a triumphant return to the Archibald in 1948 with his winning a portrait of Margaret Ollie.  He won again in 1959.  The Smith portrait was later almost totally destroyed by fire before being sent to the UK for the “less-than-successful” restoration seen above.


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Dobell died in 1970 and given the events around the Smith painting, one wonders what he would have made of Adam Cullen’s winning portrait of actor David Wenham in 2000. About all that can be said of it is that it meets the three key criteria for winning the Archibald these days; it’s big, the subject is well known and it’s topical as Wenham was starring alongside Sigrid Thornton in the ABC TV series Seachange at the time.

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To me, one of the more memorable recent winners was Craig Ruddy’s 2004 portrait of actor David Gulpilil.  This image does the work no favours at all.  I saw it in the flesh and it was a stunner. 

And so to the 2019 prize currently on show at Tarrawarra and Anh Do’s entry left me even more convinced he would make a very good plasterer of feature walls.  In recent years I have found the Archibald a rather cold and alienating experience.  Perhaps it’s a sign of the times and some of the works in this award fit that description, but not all.

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There’s Tsering Hannaford’s studied portrait of Adelaide philanthropist Mrs. Singh, superbly executed but perhaps too conventional?

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Jude Rae’s portrait of actor Sarah Peirse performing the role of Miss Docker in Patrick White’s “A Cheery Soul” is emotive and powerful.

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There’s Katherine Edney’s exquisite little “Self Portrait With Ariel”.  She was 37 weeks pregnant with her first child at the time.

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Last year, Jun Chen was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to paint Li Cunxin, the Chinese-Australian former ballet dancer who is now artistic director of Queensland Ballet.  The title ‘Mao’s Last Dancer’ is also the title of Cunxin’s autobiography that was later made into a film.  There is something ethereal about this painting, almost as if the figure is not really there.

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And the winner is………..Tony Costa with his portrait of fellow artist Lindy Lee.  Viewed at close range this work is unconvincing, but step back at least 10 metres and there is a real presence about it.  The figure appears to be floating in space.

The Archibald continues at the Tarrawarra Museum of Art until 5th November.

Reality In 21C by Geoff Harrison

A question came to my mind after leaving the exhibition “Civilization – The Way We Live Now” at NGV Australia.  What exactly constitutes living these days?  Author Sasha Grishin makes it plain how he felt about the exhibition “powerful, troubling photographs of a crowded planet with an uncertain future.” 

Sami and the Panguna mine 2009–10 (Bougainville), Taloi Havini & Stuart Miller

Sami and the Panguna mine 2009–10 (Bougainville), Taloi Havini & Stuart Miller

The show brings together over 100 contemporary photographers from Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and Australia with over 200 photographs. Some of the works are large in scale and all are thought provoking. There are very few images of people in rural settings, highlighting the fact that most of the world’s population now live in cities.

Desigual, Nathan Dvir, 2013

Desigual, Nathan Dvir, 2013

“For the first time, there is a real prospect that the human species stands to comprehensively annihilate itself, not through an act of war, but through man-made climate change and over consumption. It is also the first time that photographers are virtually everywhere and are photographing virtually everything.” GRISHIN

Brookes Brothers New York, WTC, Sept 12,2001, Sean Hemmerle

Brookes Brothers New York, WTC, Sept 12,2001, Sean Hemmerle

The exhibition is divided into 8 broad themes which, we are told, occupy many of the world’s photographers today.  There are images of military conflict, mass migration as a result of it and poignant scenes of the bedrooms of US servicemen who have died during the Iraq conflict.

Caribbean Princess 2015, from the Cruise Ships series 2014, Jeffrey Milstein

Caribbean Princess 2015, from the Cruise Ships series 2014, Jeffrey Milstein

“A hallmark of a memorable exhibition is that it seduces the viewer through its sheer beauty, while at the same time making us question the reality that we inhabit.”  An example of this is the theme Escape which, for some people, involves fleeing from a war zone while for others it involves the positive connotation of  ‘getting away from it all’ – hence the blossoming pleasure business.

Migrants walk past the temple as they are escorted by Slovenian riot police to the registration camp outside Dobova, Slovenia, Thursday October, 22, 2015, Sergey Ponomarev

Migrants walk past the temple as they are escorted by Slovenian riot police to the registration camp outside Dobova, Slovenia, Thursday October, 22, 2015, Sergey Ponomarev

One of the photographers featured in the exhibition, Nick Hannes, believes our civilization is reaching social and ecological limits.  His ambiguous and ironic imagery expresses his confusion and incomprehension with what’s going on.  He hopes to hold a mirror up to ourselves and create a moment of self-reflection.

f.D-2, KDK (this room really exists)

f.D-2, KDK (this room really exists)

The exhibition will run until February 2020 after which it will travel to Auckland.





Death By A Thousand Brushes by Geoff Harrison

If the creators of Midsomer Murders ever run out of ideas (and after 20 seasons they surely have), they could do a lot worse than attend an arts fair.  DCI Barnaby would have been kept very busy at the Affordable Arts Fair in Melbourne where the death rate, in artistic terms, was phenomenal.  I saw illustration, décor and crass commercialism but very little art.  Have a good look at the logo…..is it any wonder the artist has hidden her face?

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One of the more appalling stands was the online gallery, Bluethumb.  It had me realizing that I’m mixing with the wrong crowd.  Yes, I have sold 2 paintings on that site, but none recently and clearly I am out of step with their main focus – colour, surface, texture.  Interestingly, the Bluethumb people gave me a wide berth whilst I was there – was it the expression on my face?  Or did they recognise me from a few months ago when they sent me false sale notifications on 2 consecutive days and I spread the word far and wide?

There were some gems in the ocean of detritus, if you were prepared to look hard enough, and I have included images of them below.  There may have been others but after an hour or so I’d had enough.  So it was off to the Hophaus Restaurant in Southbank to detox.


Shannon Smiley,  Near The Harbour Bridge,  oil on canvas

Shannon Smiley, Near The Harbour Bridge, oil on canvas

Katsutoshi Yuasa,  Tread Softly Because You Tread On My Dreams,  Oil-based Woodcut

Katsutoshi Yuasa, Tread Softly Because You Tread On My Dreams, Oil-based Woodcut

Wayne Fogden,  Le Venaria Reale,  Inkjet Print

Wayne Fogden, Le Venaria Reale, Inkjet Print

Luis Fuentes,   Home,   Oil On Canvas

Luis Fuentes, Home, Oil On Canvas