Au Revoir, Salmiaki

Today was my last show for 3 months.
I'm heading off to the snowy banks of the Seine to work on my pristine pearl like complexion (at least the bits between the freckles).

Tim Hilton will be doing the show next week - followed by Lucas Ilheim until March - when Mayhem will return in the flesh.

while away - i'll keep updating this site from some internet cafe.

In Paris - I'm going to check out some grafitti art - which is saving the Ville lumiere from being a turgid 20th century hell hole (It's not great for modern art) - I guess all the great music must have finally sppread to people's eyeballs.

Afterwards - I'm heading to London for 10 days. I'll be YBAing out my eyeballs and can't wait for the TURNER! gosh!

then'm going to Finland for a fortnight - to hang out with some extremely cool installation & dollaborative video artists....I'm packing my parka and I can't wait!

OK for the record - I've decided to skip reviewing the art school shows. NAs had skateboards. Lots of people got drunk at all openings. Lots of art was seen. SOme of it is still up. SCA postgradute show is opening tuesday 6th December. some amazing COFA masters student has a show in KUDOS. It opens tomorow night.

on the show I discussed slowly and sensibly - (tried) the show by Fiona Hall and Fiona McDonald. titled "Strangely Famliar" its been on for all of november at the UTs gallery - level 4 of the design building in Harris street. In a word? GO. It closes this weekend. Its great.

Longer words? - ricky has done SOOOO amazingly well wiht the curation - because the works by boht artists acutally form a specific collaborative installation hich trasnforms the space. fiona Mcdonlands work is especiially goood - as an an art of immersion. Stepping inside her works - through the curtain on one side and flanked by the walls, chair, lamp on the other - her 'comfort and terror' juxtapositions were.... deeply affectively charged. - Prints of fighter planes arranged as snowfalkes across geographical topograhic maps - for me - worked far more strognly when the images themselves became bigger than a paper or art object - but architectural. and Fiona halls work is, just, incredible.

here's the blurb:

We comfort ourselves as best we can. We feather our nests and are kissed by consumption. We are flying toward something we do not know and yet someone, somewhere, always knows where we are.

The art of Fiona Hall and Fiona MacDonald will turn the gallery into an environment where we see the aftershadows of the collection and the complicated folds of capitalism. The setting is a haunted domesticity. The walls are draped and wallpapered, shopping bags frighten us and all our money seems able to blow away. But this is not a simple horror. We experience the paradoxical pleasures of seeing money made into an exquisite home and flows of consumption becoming a sail across the sea or a flight on a breeze. Curated by Ricky Subritzky.

Strangely Familiar: Fiona Hall and Fiona MacDonald runs to 2 December and is open Mon - Fri 12 - 6pm

UTS Gallery, Level 4 702 Harris St, Ultimo Sydney NSW 2007
T: 02 9514 1652
E: utsgallery@uts.edu.au


Opening this week is an entirely different collaboration - by community artists and activists: Deb Wall, Ali Golding and Vikki Golding. Ali Golding is well known as a local Elder and Reconciliation Leader, and Deb Wall received an OAM for her work in commnity development and multicutlurlalism.

The two have worked together in reconciliation and community development for over a decade, and both have campaigned for and mentored koori artists at the Redfern Community Centre. In this exhibition they are bringing together a variety of work that shows their activities, loves and passions and celebrates aspects of friendship and collaboration.

Called ‘In-dwelling’ to stress that artistic work basically comes from a spark within the self, the exhibition will include photographs, paintings and hand-made pottery. Deborah calls it ‘an evolving signature, a discovery, a search for deeper meaning’. Aunty Ali sees it as an expression of her culture and spirituality. For Victoria, it is like a ‘coming together’of raw ideas.

The exhibition opens this Thursday, 1st December, 7-9 pm, Alpha House Glint Gallery,
Level 1, 226 Union Street, ERSKINEVILLE (South Newtown) and runs until December 15th. the gallery will be open
11am-5pm wednesday to sunday - just for this show only.

Ciao.