Just my cup of tea, art-wise…

Something Specific About Everything, photographs of nifty little assemblages by Samuel Henne.

These really tickle my art bone and remind me that it would be really nice to make less figurative work.

Via Triangulation Blog

I’m not usually one to fly the ‘fat chick’ freak flag…

…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…

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.

Disquiet Year

Disquiet Year closed on July 25th and due to a combo of unpacking the new house, starting full time work (!!!) and having a birthday, I have neglected to post.  But- there is a FB album of images here.

It consisted of two video works, this image, some large inkjet self-portraits doused in wine (called Blush 1-3) and a series of texts (Letters to M) made of cheap alphabet stickers dotted around the gallery and out into surroundings like the toilets, adjoining café and the carpark.  These texts are drawn from an ongoing correspondence I’ve mentioned here before, and drew some positive comments, which pleased me greatly but were also quite a suprise to receive.

Actually, the show generally drew positive comments from those few people I have talked to about it but, like most artists,  I am really interested in how it effected people either positively or negatively and their responses to this. There were many, many people at the opening for a start, many of whom I simply don’t really know.  If you were one and have stumbled across this posting, I would love you to share your thoughts on it in the comments below.

The two video works seemed to be rather polarising in that one or the other tended to be peoples favourite work in the show.  Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch played on a large monitor placed sideways on the floor with a long yellow tail of an extension cord trailing back to the socket at the wall.  The monitor shows an image of a glowing radiator laid over my face as I make the sound repeatedly, spitting and hyperventilating a little as I go.  The sideways monitor is a schtick of mine I have used a few times and gets trotted out as a device to indicate that all is not well and that things are somewhat askew.  The face with chattering teeth embedded inside a radiator has a whiff of that too.  I realised after making it that what the work actually does alongside these suggestions, is to replicate the stutter I developed when I broke down last year.  Throw in the fact that I had been listening to a lot of David Bowie (Ch-ch-changes…) and a curious identification I have with the mump-faced lady in the radiator from David Lynch’s Eraserhead and once I was done, the work made perfect sense (to me at least).

Funnily enough, I was told that ‘the lady in the radiator’ is precisely what the other video, VS reminded someone of.  I was actually trying to channel the figures of German expressionist cinema for that one.  Hang on, was I?  Or did I just observe the resemblance once it was shot…  Travel back in time through the blog to find out…

Projected onto a plastic screen through a wave-form of halloweeny blood that drips into a fringe of skulls, it’s the oldest work in the show but shown for the first time.  It features two Sallys that hate each other and hover, disembodied in an electrical hum and periodically snarl, spit big gobs at each other, or flip each other off, each insult augmented by an ‘action’ sound poached from a vintage video game.  It has the effect of a giant game of pong where no-one is in control. It is also the only work in the show not to turn out just as I had imagined, and that threw me for a bit.  But I think we’ve made our peace now, that work and I.

Overall I was pleased with it.  While there are lessons to be learned about testing EVERYTHING before installation (especially if you are as inflexible as I can be) I was glad I was restrained and cut back on the content to really give everything some space.  I’m glad the short run-up time meant that I had to show works that are a little more difficult for me to put out there.  If given more time I may have given myself an unearned slap, decided that no-one wants to see my ‘dirty laundry’  and whipped up something cheerier, sillier and a little more smart-arsed.  Mostly – in this instance if not in the case of Encore – I was also pleased people still managed to find some humour in there.

Maybe my darkness is not as dark as it feels when I’m there.  And that could be a good thing to know.

Thanks so much to the Inflight Board for asking me to do it and supporting me with such care through the process.

p.s.  My correspondence partner, Monique Germon wrote a wonderful essay for the little catalogue (which may have been more popular than the show come to think of it…).  I might ask her permission to post it here soon.

Rod Stewart Fan Club

51 E. Claremont St. Edinburgh, Scotland

EDIT: PARDON, BUT THEIR SITE SEEMS TO HAVE FALLEN AWAY LIKE A WET CAKE.
ALONG WITH THIS PIC.  BUGGER.  STILL, GO EXPLORE THE DETAIL YOURSELF. FUN.
PIC BACK NOW .  HURRAH!

“A street view image can give us a sense of what it feels like to have everything recorded, but no particular significance accorded to anything.“

Fascinating post by Jon Rafman on the accidental ‘art’ of Google Street View.
From Art Fag City, a blog that seems to warrant a lot more exploring, by me at the very least

Found via B3TA.com.

P.S. Sorry for absence.  Got a job.  Temporarily full-time.  Yes, it’s going well, thanks for asking.  Catch up posts soon.

new house, new life, new town

Disquiet Year

I’m back!  The ADSL is on!  We now live in a warm, cosy cabin with a fruiting tree of Granny Smiths and I nearly, nearly have the work for this,  my suprise-attack, sudden-death, solo show done.  It opens Friday so apologies for short notice and a shortage of recent pix of works in progress but perhaps some will come after.

It’s all works that have been conceived over the last difficult 18 months and most have been languishing incomplete until now.  If you are able to drop by for a natter and a drink at 6 on Friday at Inflight ARI you would be most welcome.

It’s good to be back!

P.S. There is a beautiful essay written by Monique Germon with a foreword by Scot Cotterell in a beautiful catalogue designed by Cath Robinson.  I don’t know how many there will be printed so try and snaffle one quick if you want one.

Quite possibly the finest photo ever taken

…so I wish I knew which genius to credit, but I got it from the Flying Dogs gallery at holytaco.com.
Warning: the rest of that site seems to be concerned with bosoms and the arse of somone named Keyra Augustina.  It looks like one of those novelty plastic ones.  Now I can probably be googled by the search term ‘Novelty Plastic Arse’.  Go me.

Edit:  Can I just be crystal clear?  If this is YOUR photo, I think you are amazing and deserve to have your name broadcast all across the interwebs.  Contact me and let me know who you are and I will attempt to do so by giving the credit that is due.  + I want to see more of your photos…

art outtake

… slighty more retarded than I was going for…

oh, to be in Beverly Hills

John Waters (yes, Pink Flamingos John Waters) has an exhibition of his photos and sculptures that has just opened at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly hills.

How much do I adore this self-portrait?  Self Portrait #4 from this year if you’re asking…