Mayhem on Monday

Brain is very slow this week

I wnet to a nice opening of monoprints and drawings by PTerea Felows on the weekend. These are all works based on her Brett Whitely shcolarship residency at the Cite in PAris.

Petrea is one of the very few artists who has the drawing skills to pull of a 19th century tres retro tribute to the ville lumiere - and so the boyd of work was fairly unsurprising and quite conservative but still engaging and pleasing collection of images.

My favourite was the gouache on the paper plate of the the inside of Napoleon 3rds deluxe apartment. this guy crapped over Donatella Versace - and you can see the original in stu on the top floor of the Louvre. The smoky birdman on the balcony at Notre Dame - was also pretty nice - she's not a big figure painter - so this was a nice surprise.

There's a lot hapepning this week - and I'm tyring to ignore it.

Tomorrow night a close friend of me has an opening at Legge Gallery tomorrow night. He ernestly assures me that it is complete crap - but the invite image featres the mask from the jelly wrestling champ "the somnambulist" aka micky quick.......... how this ended up in a Bathrust interior is a mystery but proof that the art world is very small.

Mr. & Mrs won the Lempriere cash. A very fair choice - coz it'll be shared between two artists. Mr. & Mrs. are actually married - and are a couple of collaborating cofa students who do performancy stuff together......... this peice is Barneyesque - and less unsettling that the scarey little Britney clone last year........

Primavera is the other hot item of art news: To make up for the strict opening night entry policy they have a free public meet and greet thing on wednesdya arvo at 2.30pm.

" Meet the artists! Gallery talks by Primavera 2005 artists Danie Mellor (ACT), Tom Mùller (WA), Pedro Wonaeamirri (NT), Michelle Ussher (VIC), Monika Behrens (NSW) and Fiona Lowry (NSW)."

Primavera is the MCA's annual and highly-regarded “talent spotting” art event, unveiling works by artists from across the country, many of them the stars of the future! Under the direction of guest curator Felicity Fenner Primavera 2005 questions and re-interprets landscape painting as a genre. In the hands of the younger generation the landscape becomes a place of leisure, a view from the car window, a playing field, home, and a place of environmental concern. Wide-ranging in perspective but sharing a common passion for the Australian landscape and for painting, Primavera 2005 is a great place to see the next generation of young artists showing what’s pertinent to them, and how they’re reworking an old tradition to become fresh and relevant to today’s world.

Artists included are: Monika Behrens (NSW), Madeleine Kelly (QLD), Fiona Lowry (NSW), Danie Mellor (ACT), Tom Mùller (WA), Yukultji Napangati (WA/NT), Michelle Ussher (VIC), Pedro Wonaeamirri (NT), Jemima Wyman (QLD).


The interesting thing will be the disobedience show - opening at Dockerty on Friday.

http://www.cofa.unsw.edu.au/galleries/idg/news/

Knowing the curators and the artists - i believe it will be a very seriously considered use of the gallery space to frame some cultural interventions in social life.

I don't think I can edit the 40 minute interview with Dimitri Vilensky in time. shit. He has 3 videos - exploring the triad of artist/worker/intellectual. This includes some rare footage of TOny Negri - so punters cna at least get a gander at whoat the fuss is about. Squatspace will also be there as well as Suzanne (don't step on my hair!) Victor.

I was at a talk recently where some people were gabbing on about "The death of the artist" (big fat yawn). I'm really into the death of 1980's stalinist structuralism. The ego game is tres vile - but Getting socially ocnsiocus artists do duck out of it in the name of the revolution, Brecht or CCDP, won't help anyone really - and it means that the art star turf gets hogged by boring boy egomaniacs.........

I went to another talk where someone was reviving HABERMAS (See frankfurtschool intellectuals) as an exploration of the gallery as a public forum - moreover - a forum where one could learn how to behave in hte public sphere - itself being a rather selective group.

I guess the blogosphere is more pressing at this point.

but in defence of the big white cube - I like the idea of phsyical proximity to objects and ideas - and having a space where we can learn to engage with them in an honest but reasonably polite manner. I'm not sure if anyone knows how to do this.

I went to Sin city the other night - and was the only person in the cinema screaming with schock, schlock and delight. Everyone else is either feigning or has acutally become "the jaded cinema viewer" - even in the dark! gosh.

So what hope is there in a well lit white cube, where people are even conscious of their haircuts? How can anyone actually pull a face or moan at some gory schlock - or giggle at some silly crap? If publics don't learn or find ways to articulate incomprehension or alienation or confusion - then we do end up with a polarisation of bland ennui of tolerance - or reactionary censorship.

I was provoked to think about this - be remembering when Monica Tichahek finished art school before winning the Lempriere. Her final year piece - showed her suspended from a heap of hooks for hours. Crikey. My hair stood on end and I screamed just looking at it. No one else did. Why the hell not? And I woder if anyone acutally cired when they saw mike parr wiht his face sewn up? OK reading aobut it - it sounds like a banal stunt - but actually seeing someone in the flesh - trying to represent refugees in cocnertration camps - who do the same and CAN'T BE SEEN is emotive stuff. It'd be nice if a gallery would be space where the spectacle of pain could be something other than numbing and silencing....... dunno how tho.