Tricky Walsh also designed this beautiful web-poster. Musn’t let it go to waste…
07
Feb
10
…and…
07
Feb
10
Oh… and here’s your invite…
Friday @ 6.
Do come.
07
Feb
10
replacing the Snowglobe rabbits
…beacause I left the originals at the Auberge in Montreal.
Our kitchen has been a veritable plague for the last 3 days.
First day installing today. Wish us luck.
Still from video with stereo sound. Sally Rees + Matt Warren, 2008 – 2010
One of works FINALLY picked up and finished after 2 years which will be in our show, Of Heaven and Earth: works from Montreal opening at 6A on February 12.
21
Jan
10
Language
January is fast disappearing and I am pretty well at my desk as much as I can be, getting ready for these two Feb shows, so still not blogging as much as I would like to be.
The art is the thing though eh? I know my priorities…
For the Jazz Festival project, I am working with two wonderful translators for the deaf, Roey and John, to develop a video for the Jazz Café. I will start shooting the video in about a week but in the meantime, at our meeting last week, Roey generously did some on the spot translations for my still camera of one of the great classics (and a strong childhood memory song for me), Summertime.
While never really having mastered any other languages (I just ‘get by’ overseas) I am always fascinated with the changes in construct, syntax and logic that happen in translation so this part of the project is really interesting. I enjoy being amazed about how much I don’t know; in this case about how many signed languages are in use in any one place and about how many things cease to make sense or change meaning as they are converted – translation is truly an art.
When the translators (among other people) ask me where the idea came from for the work, I have to confess that I think I lifted the idea from my old friend Louise. A gifted writer and eternally original thinker, about fifteen years ago Louise expressed interest in submitting some work to a local festival of erotic writing. There was to be an evening of writers reading their prose for an audience and she had the idea to ask a deaf performer to sign the work for her instead. She was fascinated by the idea of how the physical signs for her words might heighten their erotic effect.
Unfortunately it seemed to be too touchy a request and she was unable to get any leads to find an appropriate and willing performer so it never happened. But I never forgot it.
It’s actually a much better idea than mine but I hope in my case a visual translation of these classic jazz lyrics will at least bring something new to them for the fans of the genre.
…and I hope Louise still writes. I have no doubt she still thinks!
…but this happened just before Christmas. It was so great that M’s Dad, Graham, Sisters Mel and Jayne and niece Abbey were able to come down for the ceremony.
Dr Art is now also in his second week of his new job as Inflight Gallery Coordinator.
Congrats Doc, there’s so much to be proud of. 
…but whoa! Check out this fashion shoot styled by Nicole Formichetti for an upcoming V Magazine.
Hot. Maybe pregnant ladies will be the new black next…
04
Jan
10
I’ll put a spell on you 2
The incomparable Diamanda Galas. Devil, devil, devil…
04
Jan
10
I’ll put a spell on you
…and while I was working on the Jazz Festival project today I followed a musical path (via Nina Simone if you’re asking) back to one of my all time fave guys.
What a song. What a performer. What an awesome loon for the ages.
I give you… Screamin’ Jay Hawkins…
04
Jan
10
On the cards…
So what’s happening art-wise so far in 2010?
Well for starters, there will be a show at 6A opening in early February. Of Heaven and Earth (works from Montreal) will be an extension of the tiny exhibition Matt and I had in Montreal in 2008, ably and kindly supported by Angela Reeve and the Auberge Alternative (where it was also held) after initial plans for that trip went somewhat pear-shaped. The show over there consisted of a single work each of which we are both really fond and are looking forward to showing again. But there are other works – one collaborative and a few other individual pieces that we made over there – that have been neither finished nor shown, for various reasons but mostly I think just because we were a bit bummed out by the experience. Now however is the time to dot the i’s, finish it up and put these things we made out into the world because the ‘bits’ of them (as yet unassembled) are really quite lovely. And then draw a firm line under the experience. I hear Angela (whose ‘home’ has always straddled both Montreal and Hobart) is now living here again – I really hope we can get her at least to the opening and maybe involve her some other way if possible…
At the same time as OH&E is still running I will be installing a series of video works, indoors and out, at The Barn at the Rosny Farm Site. These have been commissioned by the Clarence City Council to coincide with the Clarence Jazz Festival so will be able to be seen on those three nights that the Jazz Café runs in the last week of February. I’m doing some Ousler-ish karaoke works outdoors, and some sign-language karaoke works indoors. That karaoke thing just won’t go away (but that’s a good thing really). I talked to my interpreters today and got quite giddy-up about it. Sometimes just the very concept of language can make my mind spin.
Then I’m going to have a baby in-between a couple of writing gigs (of which there are never too many and I’m not ashamed to use this blog to tout for business. This gun’s for hire. Want some words? I’ll write ‘em!).
Then, 3 weeks after the baby is due (eep) near the end of May I have a humble little show in the window of GRANTPIRRIE in Sydney where some new print-works will be installed. There are fallback plans in case Tiny Rees-Warren and I can’t go to install it ourselves of course but I really hope we can. It’s only the second time I’ve had work in Sydney and it might be nice to make a quick jaunt upwards to waggle the offspring at my sister in Pacific Palms while we’re there. We’ll see, I guess.
Closing out the year there is a lovely, ruminatory, collaborative and performative project with two other artists; someone I always love to collaborate with, El Husbando, and another artist I have been longing to have the opportunity to work with again, having done so many years ago now and having learned so much from her when I did. I shall stay stumm and not name her or the project for the time being as it is quite a mysterious process and while I am confident it will go ahead – I am not sure if it’s official and ‘out there’ just yet. ‘Citing though eh? Nice to have a little secret up your sleeve.
There’s a nice big space to fill in the middle – much of which is to be taken up with working out how to look after a small, squealy, squirting person of course - but I hope to fill it in with a couple of other shows and projects and words and things too.
I like this year already. It feels all different and nice and spacious.
