Stripping Back

I had a WONDERFUL DAY
IN THE MCA
it was today

but no, I didn't mention it on radio - coz I was too het up about this UWS affair

University of Western Sydney arts students have set up a petition to protest the decision on the part of the University's College of Arts/School of Communication Arts to suspend its Fine Arts and Electronic Arts programs and abandon its Performance program. The Fine Arts and Electronic Arts programs as they currently exist are being taught out, and the plan is for a Bachelor of Contemporary Arts to replace them. Intake for this program has been indefinitely suspended.

with the NAS likely to merge with COFA and now the UWS 'suspension", basically it looks like Sydney's art schools are gonna be HALVED in 2008.Unless poeple seriosuly start kicking up a stink.

Can't we introduce art into the winter olympics? - Koji roji's polystyrene sculptures would go down a treat in the opening ceremony, Owen Leong and the wildboys would look great on the skating rink, Ron Swan could make some great forms for the snowboarders, and we could slop some paint down on the curling rink! there's gotta be an ARC /AIS research grant in there somewhere, surely!

while plugging the audio presence of the art and mayhem blog (whihc I was too blonde to record - so sorry no podcasting) allow me to give a sneak preview of next weeks show:

In which I will not only review the wonders of Primavera and Davila

(stay tuned for lingering reviews of "effluvial mass of celebrated wrongness and self assured rudeness" coming to this site soon).

but next week (monday 23rd October from 4-6pm) I'll be blabbing in the background of the entire Monday Overdrive show - for 2 hours! (wow!)

and removing my clothes for cash!

Next week is radiothon and so Daz & I thought we'd sex up the show - by conducting an on air stripathon: listeners phone in and pledge cash to the station and we remove articles of clothing.

Nude radio may seem like a bit of a pointless exercise - but we promise to make it stimulating and worthwhile.

Besides, since UTs & Macquarie Uni's pulled the plug on funding 2SER, and FBi stol the cool music cred - 2SEr is pretty much solely reliant on the loving cash of listeners and the volunteer efforts of its presenters......

In the meantime, there are some great openings this week with two on Regent street in Redfern.
Alan Jones has "the Human Show" Opening on Tuesday Night at Legge.

Its the same night as Craig Waddell's opening - but I'm all for diversity. Some poeple hate blue and have serious allergies to Glenmore Road. Al Jones has chunky impasto heads and bodies in incongruous housing scapes. the catalogue essay is a bit frightening but the paintings are cute.


ON Wednesday evening - there's a Guan Wei show opening at Sherman 16-20 Goodhope Street, Paddington

guan Wei is AMAZING - with the political bite of davila - but he has a slick subtlety that can even slide down the throats of the grande bourgeouis art art circuit. apaprently the Powerhouse also have a show of his works on paper.

I've got no idea what the latest show "ECHO" will be ilke but for more details about this exhibition, check the
sherman website.

Exhibition dates: 19 October - 4 November 2006


On thursday - across the road at no 70 Regent Street Medium Rare Gallery has an opening called "Vespertine".

I imagined that this involved sexy looking lolitas on scooters but apparently that has nothing to do with it.

Apparently:

vespertine /ves-per-tine / is an adjective meaning:


1. of, pertaining to, or occurring in the evening: vespertine stillness.
2. Botany. opening or expanding in the evening, as certain flowers.
3. Zoology. appearing or flying in the early evening; crepuscular.

the invite sez:

The Vespertine Project brings together 3 emerging artists working within the field of Contemporary Sculpture and Installation.

The works showcased in the exhibition involve the body as well as challenge the mind, combining to produce a completely visceral experience.

Perran's "In Memory of." series recreates the sublime qualities and light of the natural world via artificial means in an exploration of memory, space and the senses.

Edward Horne's installation investigates the relationship between architectural space and the viewer by immersing the participant in a contradictory world which at first seems fun but has a darker side of surveillance and imprisonment.

Robyn Buchanan's symmetrical sculptures seep into the viewers subconscious and gently hypnotize the mind and body, while her photographic installation investigates our internal world.

I'm not sure if any of that is true, at all. (btw)

On Saturday there's an opening at Cross Arts (33 Roslyn Street, Kings Cross, Sydney - opposite St Lukes Hospital gates)of:
CONVERSATION: CLINTON GAROFANO & CAROLE ROBERTS

Craig Judd is doing the honours from 4-6pm

Exhibition Ends: Saturday 4 November 2006 at 6pm
Information: Jo Holder 9357 2058 or 0406 537933

CONVERSATION: CLINTON GAROFANO & CAROLE ROBERTS

Absolute truths are not the concern of the works in this exhibition. Clinton Garofano and Carole Roberts come together through their paintings to create a dialogue between Garofano's interest in Buddhist teachings on impermanence and Roberts's interest in changing energy within nature.

In this exhibition their works appear to sit in completely different registers: dark and foreboding from Garofano, light and animated from Roberts. However, what we are shown is not simple dualism but different aspects from the same focus of contemplation.

The installation by Garafano consists of 10 darkly painted antique frames, modest in scale. Inside each is text in a comic-strip typeface, painted with a black background on glass. Each frame contains a colloquial statement, dead obvious and dead serious are examples, which prescribe a meaning of absoluteness to the word death. But death may also be seen as just a transition point in this life, not absolute or finite.

Carole Roberts's interest in spatial concerns has manifested in both her public design projects and art works, incorporating ancient architectural motifs and using primary materials such as tree branches and metals such as lead. The alchemists' dream of transmuting base metal into gold was a process they often symbolised as the purification of the soul. These new Energy Paintings mobilize the metaphysical properties of her earlier works into intense pigments of gold, blue and pink suspended within leaf motifs that rest upon a white ground.

Garafano and Roberts have been colleagues since the mid 1980s. As well as their solo exhibition career, they have participated in several group exhibitions together.


The artlife has a nice list of fun events this week, as does fluffy town.

The wild boys and girls at artspace are always happy for visitors, real or virtual - so check out "it's a new day".