Multiple Personality

Mayhem ain't doin a lot right now except trying to cure my ice like addiction to facebook...

ohhhh what a slippery slide into chronic aphasia that is....

apart from my guest lecture at NAS tomorrow - i'll be going to the MOP show on thrushday coz the show is called multiple personality and it SOUNDS LIKE MY LIFE
also mop is an easy stroll form the sandstone castle I call home.

Multiple Personality
Mat de Moiser, Adrienne Doig, Matthew Hopkins, Robin Hungerford, Sari Kivinen, Ms & Mr, Luke Roberts, Pope Alice

Curated by Daniel Mudie Cunningham
MOP is on abercrombie street not very far from Broadway

Hell - I'm in the best pozzie to promote the show! I LIVE SCHIZO ANALYSIS! between schappylle, Nanna Madge, Protodoctor and the virgin mary - I ain't had the time to form a coherent sense of self.... Irigary would approve and so would Deleuze....

constructing a 'self' composed of networks of friends and amis on the platforms of facebook and my space has been an interesting exercise.... and I wonder if I'm much more than the threads of memory, and recounted stories, and connections made between my acquaintainces as well as those with me.....

also feel weird about asking for help... but err... time to bite the bullet.

and even though artists donate too much work and work for free anyway and that really sucks and I shouldn't be asking more from poor people.....

I REALLY WANT TO KEEP THE GREENS IN THE SENATE

and I don't know how else to raise campaign money, awareness, community goodness fast apart from hocking my hole(s) - and that might not fit in with my facebook profile, and as much as I respect my genitalia - I think art might give more pleasure to more people.....

so dear readers of this blog

If you are a art collector.... DONATE A PIECE OFF YOUR WALL OR STOREROOM and then go and buy some more art.

If you make saleable objects then DONATE ONE

If I have even bought one of your pieces then PLEASE DONATE ONE.

If you make non object based work: and do performance, video, happenings etc... then PLEASE participate in the looking for democracy show..... think what scragg would love and go for it.

I need expression of interest confirmed by this Saturday 22nd September (email: mayhemrox@gmail.com)

and work needs to be at mori gallery by 5pm on Saturday 29th September.
auction is on 4th October.

Just think how much more worthwhile this is than going in some Art competition or Prize.

You don't have to pay an entry fee
Your work will be on display in a well known international contemporary art space
You work will be hung in a reasonably unugly manner
you will get a catalogue and documentation of your participation
you will get an online published review of your work by mayhem
you will get a witty humorous review of your work by scragg
Your work will support a worthy cause

how many open entry group shows can top that?

Nuff and Stonsense

Mayhem went and saw some art.
Lots of it.
Drank lots of goon.
got very drunk.
then got very ill.
Now hiding from world

Writing lecture about blindness: cultural blindness, contoured blindness, visual blindness and the cultivation of the honest eye.... and drawing, and nudity and seeing as touch as impossibility

or something

I'm giving a lecture in relation to a bit of the tome in progress at me olde alma mater

this wednesday 19th October at 1pm at NAS

I'd better get back to writing it.

but briefly on art reviews:

the old fruit show at the tin sheds was TOPS - I think Simon cavanagh's hanging piece did a marvelous job of opening up the space into one of exquisite amorphous play.... my eyes went around the squiggled styrofoam, whizzing past the conduit piped ceiling, enjoying the space ballon around th form so everything became circular.

this process took about two minutes and I hadn't touched a drop of alcohol.

so as the space was ballooning and swirling in front of me, my eyes descended into the delicious shimmering light play of James rogers circles - and I was really glad to see large hollow ones, joined with the disks in a raked construction of pale glints that reminds me of light on water when I take my glasses off.....

And then I turned clockwise towards Sam whittakers bright bulbous forms on the wall bside me - they seemed to grab my forearm and beckon me closer... and THIS IS WHY I LOVE SCULPTURE - coz its all about objects in space that create weird shapes between them and beckon our bodies to head towards and away - and they distort and create spatial conversations that invite us to realy see with our bodies and not just our eyes......

I know most of the artists through the Stone Villa - and it was nice to see their work in a large enough space so that the pieces really were able to set up a substantial conversation between them and into the space.....

big fat smiley sigh

Afterwards I headed over to the whitely to see the brothers of the brush youf art show.... and I was heartily dismayed by the vast amount of greys and browns and beiges everywhere. there was a nice smattering of works from previous winners that was reminiscent of the sulman or something (especially since two whitely winners have become fixtures in the archi/sulman/wynn shows) and then a wall of some of brett's more subdued works..... early ashton's studies (groan) and some small textured landscapes, which were ok - but WHERE WAS WENDY'S BUM?

whatever the faults of the brett, his bright blue matissey buttocks had a vigour and energy and lyrical sexiness that has the same crothc grabbing brilliance of a guitar solo of Eddie Van Halen.... but the current curators have toned everything down to a dreary shania twain......

and so - the current crop of dripspent youf had their wares salonized into a corner enclave.... where each piece jostled and nestled and stared out like a bizarrely pathetic menagerie of a cat, a dog and a seagull - all begging for food.

It was hard to appproach.

None of the paintings were particularly bad - although quite a few were so earnestly boring I could barely look - the others were just earnest, and incongruous.

It's a hard call to hang a show of competing individuals - and, maybe it's a pointless exercise to even be saying this - but the lack of energy within or between any of the works was a tad depressing.

by contrast the Marrickville contemporary Art Prize was awash with screaming cacophanies of colour, form, movement and experimentation in every possible genre - including drip and scribble.

Most of the work was, as one would hope, deliciously bad - and mashed in together with crowds of punters - made for a delightful feeding frenzy of ambitous artlessness.

There were a few gems and prizes were given out for some of the 'serious notables' of the inner west art world.... but I liked the lack of ostentation of both exhibitions - basically they looked FUN - the work - impossibly overhung, impossibly incongruous wasn't trying to be anything but a jam packed eyballl, eardrum, spilly fest of creativity.

answer to the previous post

Ohhhh I've had long days and longer nights in the bowels of sydney uni's main quad.

But I'm popping my head up very briefly coz....

Marrickville contemporary Art Prize awards night is on tomorrow at 'at the vanishing point gallery" number six hundred and something king street newtown

AND - Don't Look have their first birthday and marricville ocntemproayr art prize show on Friday night

I'm acutally planning to head to the Brett Whitely shcolarship prize for budding boy painters - ohh and the odd girl.... and hope to do a quick squiz of 'youf' art talent in sydney...including primavera...

I feel *terrible* that I missed the Lempriere - but I've had a hard month...

watch this space

Where The Bloody Hell Are You? Spoof

towing the Party Line

Scragg ain't the only one taking a stand!

Mayhem is on the campaign trail: looking for democracy:

Part One comes courtesy of Get Up

The Prime Minister can now call the election any day, and many think as
soon he's finished at APEC he'll do just that. And when he does, the
gates of democracy will swing firmly shut.
That's because the Government has passed new laws closing the electoral
roll at 8pm on the very day the election is officially called. So click
here -- or forward this email -- to make sure that you and everyone you
know are properly enrolled:
Odds are, you're enrolled to vote -- but chances are you know someone
who isn't. What may surprise you is just how many people you know aren't
on the rolls. For instance, the Government recently admitted more than a
third of all Australians aged 18 to 25 are not enrolled. That's a
whopping 410,000 voters - four whole electorates' worth -- and we're
only talking about young people.

To make matters worse, you're not informed if you've been taken off the
electoral roll for some reason -- such as if a piece of mail addressed
to you from the AEC gets returned to sender -- so many people do not
find out until they turn up on election day, only to be denied their
vote. You may not be enrolled right now, and not even know it. You can
check your enrolment status here.
With all that's at stake in this election, let's all have our say.
Forward this email to everyone you know, because once the election is
called it will be too late.

Part Two comes courtesy of any willing artists to make, paint, shoot, scribble, graff, collect, perform, install... ANYTHING along the theme of Looking for Democracy.

Drop my a line at mayhemrox@gmail.com if you are... deadline is end of the month.

Part Three is where I out myself and my political affiliations - trying to ensure that the Greens stay in the senate - coz this country still needs a parliamentary opposition - even if we get Howard out of office!

Art, Activism, Newness

Mayhem has been seriously ensconsed in thesis land. My mind is currently somewhere between Bristol, Euston Road, TriBeCa and Darlinghurst in the mid 1970's, Rozelle in the 1990's and the lining of my nostrils.....

No don't ask any more - I sent off the 7th and 4th drafts of two chapters today.....

so - ahem I *ain't* seen any art - apart from "pimp my secs" on carolyn teo's myspace site..... (hee hee)

Even scragg had to opt out of her Sandon Point Auction Extravaganza on sat - so didn't get to see ANYFINK AT ALL

At such times of cultural lapse - it's lucky that the print media steps in - in a shock turnaround the SMH Spectrum DEVOTED AN ENTIRE FOUR PAGES TO VISUAL ART. Two pages were a biog feature on a melbourne artist... and two consisted of Frosty's state of the art commentary on great young stuff.... And it was a great piece and made me wish they'd put him on the payroll....

If anyone was inspired by frosty's plug for yours truly then welcome. Please ignore the byline about the 2SER version. Lucazoid and I WERE doing a verbal version of the blog - but our lives both got eaten by PhD's, and I went overseas for 6 months and he's about to do the same. but you should listen to monday overdrive anyway. It sounds NICE.

Usually I rant more better and more misspelt about more art. and usually I see art and rave about it EVERY WEEK. but my life is being eaten up by my PhD on postwar life drawing classes. But only for another 6 months - and I've been blogging on this site for over two years - so feel free to drop back any time.

also THE DRAWING WIFE has just updated her pics of sketches and stitches - so click on 'wifey bits' on the right hand side....

ahem. to the News:

Trajectories of dissent opens tomorrow (wednesday) night at 6pm - at Mori Gallery.
There's more info about it in last weeks post - but it will provide an ideal opportunity t experience the great wall of APEC first hand - and see some serious anti kappo agitprop in the CBD. Head down to 168 Day Street - across from Darling Harbour

Marrickville COntemporary Art Prize opens thursday night at 6pm at 'At the Vanishin Point' - which is at the arse end of King Street Newtown - right down near St. Peters station almost. since Marrickville is the Local Government Area with the highest proportion of artists of any locale in Australia this *should* be good.

and Friday - Life will imitate ART - as ratbags prepare to do lots of out there stuff like exercising democratic right to protest - or walk around in the CBD with balloons, funny hats or - even placquards.

Mayhem's bet is on the 11am peace party in Hyde Park - but what looks even more fun is the "ghost Dance" which is planned for 5-11pm also in Hyde park.

apparently peeps are going to dress up in whacky caspar clobber and whoosh around holding seances..... or something like that.

Art being the exercise of extreme sports genre slides - of activities arbirarily endowed with the cultural mystique of critical contestation or just plain old sublime beauty and wonder - should ideally provide a great umbrella for testing the waters of envelope pushing during the sppectacular security crackdown that is the APEC circus.

oh, and did I mention the fart lighting competition being held at Tamarama? someone thought it might be a good riposte to the sealing off of Festival of the winds....