Cultural Product

Cultural Product
Serving Suggestion

Saturday, December 22, 2012

The answer my friends is blowing in the wind

This week I had the fortune of installing my show at Margo Lewer's house in Penrith, for a solo exhibition titled Plastici. This show has been a long time in the making and was a delight to complete in this wonderful house, bequeathed by the wondrous Margo in 1978. The exhibition entails the works I'd made at Tokyp Wonder Site last year, on my Asialink scholarship, and further developed in Yokohama with Bec Dean as part of Life 3 by Bank Art at Shin-Minatomira. And finally completed here. I found the resolution of the works relatively easy, as the Gallery's resources provided exactly what I needed; re-inforcing my precepts concerning synchronicity. In fact, once again, during install I was comforted by the magic of things fitting together and trusting my intuition to a deep level. I would sit out in the garden, and a leaf would fall. Nature always delivers if you wait for long enough. Suffice to say, this was the best show I've ever done and the most amazing venue to install in. I felt a deep connection with all the other artists I've ever seen exhibit here or anywhere for that matter, as their work informs mine and we all do what we have to do. Art is wonderful, creating is wondrous, and being an artist sometimes makes me feel like the luckiest person alive. Plastici comes from a journal, I think by the same title that Georgio Morandi worked on in the early 20th Century.
Valori plastici was established in Rome by the painter and art collector Mario Broglio (1891-1948) in 1918.[1][2] He also edited the magazine which focused on aesthetic ideals and metaphysical artwork. It supported the art movement Return to order so as to create a change of direction from the extreme avant-garde art of the years up to 1918, taking its inspiration from traditional art instead.[3] The term "return to order" to describe this renewed interest in tradition is said to derive from Le rappel a l'ordre, a book of essays by the poet and artist Jean Cocteau published in 1926. The movement itself was a reaction to the War. Cubism was abandoned even by its creators, Braque and Picasso, and Futurism, which had praised machinery, violence and war, was rejected by most of its followers. The return to order was associated with a revival of classicism and realistic painting. The magazine theorised the retrieval of national and Italic values, as promoted by the cultural policies of fascism, but also looking at wider horizons within Europe and using a vivid artistic dialectics with a return to a classic figurative source. Alberto Savinio,[4] in the 1st issue of Valori plastici on 15 November 1918, announced a programme of total individualistic, anti-futurist and anti-Bolshevik restoration. In his first article of April–May 1919, entitled Anadioménon, Savinio expounds the intellective and enigmatically atemporal intuition which animates the world of this new "metaphysical classicism".[5] The Savinian principles on mataphisical poetics are applied to painting by Giorgio de Chirico, by Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Everything Falls Apart

Occupy Sydney Artspace 2012 following on from Cross Art earlier this year, I continued copying placards from the Wall Street movement.
images courtesy Silversalt

Friday, May 25, 2012

Art Bar

At the MCA, with Justene Williams. We made a karaoke room, it was called Karaoke Queenz.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Extra

Money
Other people's money Photo Jamie North

Saturday, April 28, 2012

FIRE! FIRE!

I had a Frasers studio from Jan-June this year. It was quite cold and dark, so I built a fire. This was then installed at the Appin Motel, in Appin Labyrinth a site specific exhibition curated by Lisa Andrew and Bronia Iwanczak in April. There was lots of fun to be had with all the other artists.
The work in Room 20 was called Meth Lab crime scene, as I created a small simulation of a meth lab.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Occupy Sydney

In 2011 the Wall Street protests in New York inspired me to go to Martin Place and commemorate the great placards that people were producing. I sat in on the Occupy Sydney's protest for the day and copied a whole bunch of slogans.
Cross Art Projects February 2012

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Kyoto Copy

This was reproduced in 2012 for the Panorama show at Casula Powerhouse curated by Toni Bailey. I made it in 2010 for Trashcan Dreams at The Performance Space. I don't usually exhibit the same works twice, but felt it was deserving of another airing. I included a slideshow of images of Lina Ritchie and Morita Yasuaki performing with the work in-situ.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Box Brownie

Early in January I felt a strong urge to make a Box Brownie camera. My friend, the great Vanessa Berry had given me a copy of her zine; I am a camera, which was exquisite. In return I wanted to give her a paper camera and was compelled to make one. Only weeks later, Kodak went into receivership.
It's only paper and has no capacity to even make a pinhole photo, I just thought it would be a cool gift for her.