Sturgeon Issue 3

Australian art, culture, etc.

Issue 3, 2015

aud $15.00

Artbank ... for when the penny drops

CONTENTS

Sturgeon Issue 3, 2015

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“When is cultural appropriation ok?� asked the white person in the audience...

Odette Kelada

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A Tale of Two Styles Stephen Crafti

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Contributors

Speaking Between Worlds: Tiwi Art and Contemporary Art Quentin Sprague

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Editorial: Marking Time Tony Stephens

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Fabricated Realities Fiona McGregor

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Words of Regret Megan Hicks

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Find Me, Follow Me Thea Costantino

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Missing in Action: Franck Gohier Glenn Barkley

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An instantaneous kinda chemical reaction Sebastian Goldspink & Holidays On Ice

Heavily Tattooed Helen Ennis

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Charged Material Miriam Kelly

Reflected Glory Rebecca Baumann & Romance Was Born

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Something More From a Distance Daniel Mudie Cunningham

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Turtle Eclipse of the Art Kenny Pittock

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The Parramatta Road Vanessa Berry

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Artbank 1

PARRAMATTA ARTISTS STUDIOS Level 1 & 2, 68 Macquarie St Parramatta NSW 2150 +61 2 9687 6090 studios@parracity.nsw.gov.au

STUDIOS RESIDENCIES EXHIBITIONS Joel Beerden’s studio 2014. Photo Alex Wisser.

www.parramattastudios.com

Parramatta Artists Studios is an initiative of Parramatta City Council and is supported by the NSW Government through Arts NSW.

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MASTHEAD

Sturgeon Guest Editor Tony Stephens Editor Daniel Mudie Cunningham Sub-Editor Miriam Kelly Editorial Committee Miriam Kelly Peter Lin Daniel Mudie Cunningham Tony Stephens Art Direction Collider Publisher Artbank Contributing Writers Aileen Sage Architects Glenn Barkley Rebecca Baumann Vanessa Berry Thea Costantino Stephen Crafti Helen Ennis Sebastian Goldspink Angie Hart Megan Hicks Odette Kelada Miriam Kelly Fiona McGregor Dean Manning Daniel Mudie Cunningham Kenny Pittock Anna Plunkett Luke Sales Quentin Sprague Contributing Artists Sarah Contos eX de Medici Saskia Doherty Juz Kitson Ramesh Mario Nithyendran

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Contributing Photographers Tom Ferguson Reuben Gates Petrina Tinslay Alex Wisser Artbank Artwork Photography Jenni Carter Jeremy Dillon Stephen Oxenbury Special Thanks All staff at Artbank Hyatt Regency Perth Geoff Ostling

‘Artbank’ Image Credits (pp. 104–110) Installation images, ‘Loose Canon’ 22 August to 15 September 2014 (pp 111–113) Penny Byrne H5N1 #3 2007 Antique figurine, found objects, epoxy resin, putty, and powder fragments, 19.5 x 10.5 x 13 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2007 Patrick Doherty Me and the Mysteries 2008 Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 132 x 192.5 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2008 Lucky Kngwarreye Untitled 1995 Natural earth pigments on wood, 76 x 12 x 12 cm Artbank collection, purchased 1995 Richard Lewer Me and Dad on Saturdays 2008 Synthetic polymer paint on billiard table felt, 110 x 193.5 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2008

Sturgeon is a conceptually driven publication which commissions original content addressing issues relevant to Australian cultural life. Sturgeon is an initiative of Artbank and seeks to further promote the value of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian contemporary art to both the public and private sectors nationally and internationally.

Ross Manning Spectra VII 2014 Fluorescent lights, fans, wood, synthetic polymer paint, steel cables, electrical cables, dimensions variable Artbank collection, commissioned 2014

sturgeonmagazine.com.au

Yasmin Smith Apprentice Welder 2013 Earthenware paper clay, satin matt base glaze, with copper carbonate, cobalt carbonate and chromium oxide, 65.5 x 31 x 36 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2013

Sturgeon Published by Artbank Unit 1, 198–222 Young Street Waterloo NSW 2017 +61 2 9662 8011 editorial@sturgeonmagazine.com.au subscription@sturgeonmagazine.com.au advertising@sturgeonmagazine.com.au Printing Spitting Image All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form without permission from the publisher.

Artworks from the Artbank collection have been reproduced under the Statutory Government License outlined in section 183 of the Copyright Act, 1968. All other images are reproduced with permission of the copyright holders.

ISSN 2202-5294 Typefaces Lyon Text, designed by Kai Bernau Founders Grotesk, designed by Kris Sowersby Cover eX de Medici Backjob for an Oil Executive 2014 (detail) Watercolour, 113 x 114 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2014 Disclaimer The opinions expressed in Sturgeon are those of the respective authors and are not necessarily those of the editors, publisher or the Australian Government.

Sturgeon may contain material which offends some readers.

Gwyn Hanssen Pigott Bottle, beaker and bowl 1997 Wood-fired porcelain, 20 x 25 x 25 cm Artbank collection, purchased 1997

Ken Thaiday Snr Hammerhead shark (beizam) headdress with bait fish 1996 Bamboo, plywood, feathers, wire, enamel paint, synthetic cord, plastic, 64 x 90 x 64 cm Artbank collection, purchased 1998 Samuel Tupou Anniversary Skulls 2006 Screenprint on acrylic, 78 x 61.5 cm (each) Artbank collection, purchased 2007 Artbank is a Commonwealth Government program mandated with a support (through collecting and commissioning) and promotion role for Australian contemporary visual art and artists. Artbank is one of the largest institutional collectors of Australian art in the world — making its collection available to the broader public through a leasing program operating nationally.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Contributors Glenn Barkley

is an independent curator, writer and gardener based in Sydney and Berry, New South Wales, and is the former Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Barkley is the Artistic Director for Art Month 2015 and founder of The Curators Department.

Rebecca Baumann

is a Perth based artist who works across kinetic sculpture, photography, animation and installation to explore ideas of human emotion, celebration and ritual. Baumann repurposes everyday materials—from confetti and tinsel to smoke and clock mechanisms— to sophisticated and spectacular ends.

Vanessa Berry

writes the Sydney exploration blog Mirror Sydney. She is the author of the memoirs Ninety9 (2013) and Strawberry Hills Forever (2007). She is also known as a visual artist and her work has been exhibited in zine events at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

She is a currently researching creative cartography and literary non-fiction for a doctorate at Macquarie University.

Thea Costantino

is an artist and writer who holds a doctorate from Curtin University, Perth, where she works in the School of Design and Art. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, has received numerous awards and is part of the collective ‘Hold Your Horses’ with artists Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont. Costantino is represented by Turner Galleries, Perth.

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Stephen Crafti

started writing on architecture and design in the early 1990s. After more than forty books, Crafti regularly contributes to newspapers, design magazines, has a radio podcast program—Talking Design—and operates design tours both in Melbourne and overseas.

eX de Medici

is a Canberra based artist whose intricate watercolours are continually shifting in subject matter are documents and investigations of human interventions and the relationship between life and death. de Medici is represented

by Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney.

Helen Ennis

is Director of the Centre for Art History and Art Theory at Australian National University, Canberra, and the Sir William Dobell Chair of Art History.

Sebastian Goldspink

is an artist, curator, writer, the founder of the artist run initiative Alaska Projects, Sydney, the Chair of dLux Media Arts and Public Programs Coordinator at Artbank.

Miriam Kelly

is Curator & Collection Coordinator at Artbank and Sub-Editor of Sturgeon.

Kelly is a former Assistant Curator of Australian Painting and Sculpture at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Fiona McGregor

is a Sydney based performance artist and author of novels, essays, articles and critiques. She is a regular reviewer of performance for RealTime and since 1993 has published five books.

Dean Manning

is a Sydney based composer, musician and visual artist working across media.

His band, Holidays On Ice is a decade long studio based project featuring Angie Hart and Stella Mozgawa.

Daniel Mudie Cunningham

is Senior Curator at Artbank and Editor of Sturgeon. His essay in this issue revisits his doctoral research on ‘white trash’ culture, completed at the University of Western Sydney in 2004.

Kenny Pittock

is a songwriter and performer in bands such as Frente, Holidays On Ice and Four Hours Sleep. She is also a solo artist and writes true stories.

is a Melbourne based artist who uses humor and sentimentality to respond to contemporary Australian culture.

He says: “I’ve been lucky enough to win some pretty amazing awards for my art, but nothing compares to the time I used my left foot to kick an apple through a basketball ring from half court.”

Megan Hicks

Romance Was Born

Angie Hart

is a noted pavement fancier and is an Adjunct Fellow with the Urban Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney. Her work on groundlevel inscriptions is documented in her websites pavementappreciation.net and meganix.net/pavement.

Odette Kelada

is a lecturer in the department of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Kelada has published widely on Australian Indigenous studies, race, whiteness and gender, with reference to Australian literature and the visual arts.

is a Sydney based fashion label by designers Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales. The label is known for its playful elegance, and since launching in 2005 the designers have received numerous awards.

Quentin Sprague

is an independent writer and curator based in Melbourne. His writing has appeared in publications including The Monthly, Discipline, Art & Australia and the forthcoming monograph Timothy Cook (UWAP, 2014). Between 2007 and 2009 he worked with artists on the Tiwi Islands as co-ordinator of Jilamara Arts.

Studio view: Richard Lewer, Studio 10, 2009 Photo: Andrew Curtis

Exhibitions, studio residencies, education and off-site programs.

GALLERY OPEN Tuesday to Friday 11:00am to 5:30pm Saturday 11:00am to 4:30pm 200 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy Victoria 3065 Australia www.gertrude.org.au

Gertrude Contemporary is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria; the Australia Council, the Federal Government’s arts funding and advisory body; and through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.

EDITORIAL

Editorial: Marking Time Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson I like this quote. I know it’s a bit obvious—a truism even—but still, there is something appealing about it when considered in the context of this iteration of Sturgeon.

Whether you read it as just another one of those buzzy affirmations plucked from the past to populate fridge magnets and bumper stickers, or as an instruction—you shouldn’t go where the path leads, it is better to make your own mark—the simplicity of the idea masks a deceptively complex reality. What does it really mean to traverse this new ground, to be a pioneer? And even more importantly, to realise you have taken on this role?

Every generation feels like they are the first to discover the world they inhabit. This process of discovery and rediscovery is a story told and retold, generation after generation. Whether in the music we listen to or the clothes we wear, or the even the series of ‘mistakes’ that punctuate our transition from adolescence to adulthood, there is an undeniable bravado that allows this pioneer spirit to be kept alive and well.

But then it happens. We grow up; we take on more and more responsibility; we have families and for most of us, we start the cycle over again. Generationally we are like the snake—shedding our collective skin to reveal something familiar underneath, albeit imbued with the experiences of those who have come before. It is within this idea of the surface or the skin, shaped and reshaped, that the discussion is located in this issue of Sturgeon. Across art, fashion, architecture, language and design we explore our ever changing relationship to the world we inhabit, identify and shape; both the trails we make and the paths we follow—for better or worse.

Tony Stephens Guest Editor, Sturgeon

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Fabricated Realities Fiona McGregor

Greg Semu describes himself as “ambiguous and articulate.” His very accent is worn by years of travel to a vague Pacific lilt. The New Zealand born, Sydney based, Samoan photographer has just returned from the Cook Islands where he began a new series ‘Symbols of Power’.

“It’s an umbrella term”, he explains, over a glass of wine in a Redfern bar. “It took a month. Three weeks production, one day shooting, one week debrief.” With twenty four locals, Semu re-enacted Louis John Steele and Charles F Goldie’s The Arrival of the Maori in New Zealand (1898), probably the nation’s best known history painting.

Semu’s reiterations of epic nineteenth century paintings are essentially community arts projects. Filmed on location, they channel funds back to the cultures they describe. The vision is Semu’s, the templates European, but the spirit enlivening the work is of the people—Maori, New Caledonian, Raratongan—and Samoan Semu.

Portraits Reuben Gates Clothing ASSIN Styling Rebecca Sheppard

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FABRICATED REALITIES

Beginning as a fashion model then switching to the other side of the camera, Semu has a casual sartorial finesse that can’t be learnt. Big boots, baggy jeans and recycled military jacket offset sleeve tattoos whose raised pigment speaks traditional methods. His thick hair is swept back, revealing the sculpted moustache of a European dandy. Self-taught with the camera, he is slippery on the subject of himself before it.

“It’s a community engagement project,” he insists.

“Not me.” A minute later he laughs, “I do these cameos because politically, every great art photographer photographs themselves, you know?” Then: “Only because we’re broke.

We are trying to do a lot with a limited amount, so I step in.” Finally: “Another reason is because I have the Samoan tattoo.” Birthright of all Samoan men, the pe’a’s dense geometric lines wrap from waist to knee. “It’s three thousand years old, never broken in its genealogy. It survived political colonisation, religious colonisation. It’s like my passport for the life after this one, the mark of my civilisation.”

Semu’s first series was ‘Battle of the Noble Savage’ (2007), commissioned by the Musée Quai de Branly. He had been living in Paris since 2000. “Near Père Lachaise, on the same side as Oscar Wilde”, he smiles. Initially successful but living without papers, Semu hit hard times. ‘Battle of the Noble Savage’ was a windfall.

Straddling fiction and non-fiction, past and present, it features actual Maori leaders with ta moko. The six images refer to the Aortearoa land wars, using as templates contemporaneous paintings such as Jacques Louis David’s Napoleon at the Saint Bernard Pass (1803).

The warriors grimace, weapons raised. One rears on a horse, another poses with scabbard in a black feather cloak.

The forest backdrop is native, costumes and weaponry carefully selected antiques. Mounted on lightboxes, the photographs emit a luminescence not dissimilar to the paintings they satirise. As grand in scale as they are in ambition, they are best seen in the flesh. The room occupied by Semu at the ‘The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (2013) had a hushed glow, part gallery of old, part modern day cinema, the theatre of war utterly compelling.

Just as rigorously conceived and composed is the series 15

‘Last Cannibal Supper (Because Tomorrow We Become Christians)’ (2010) commissioned by Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea. One version has Semu as Jesus, another a New Caledonian. Da Vinci is replicated to the finest gesture yet the setting is Pacific, the wall behind woven rushes, clothing minimal, the table laid with tropical victuals including a roast pig. Some disciples are women, a departure not just from the original but also Semu’s predominant focus on the masculine form. It was a budget compromise. “But it worked better for me in the end, it empowered the work even more. It gave it another assault on the Christian religion.”

Semu lights up when describing these shoots. “The gathering of people, the activation of the space and all of a sudden there is this moment of truth, this magic. But what my camera is capturing and what we are experiencing is two different things. It’s just a snapshot. The final product is almost disappointing in that it doesn’t represent at all what we had to go through to get there.”

Semu’s take on the Pacific invasions, with gun and God, that history’s dominant white voice has euphemised, has more layers. There is no overarching judgement, mischief and fun are ever present. His Samoan self amongst other Pacific Islanders creates an intercultural element special to the region. In ‘Battle of the Noble Savage’, Maori play both sides—the coloniser’s divide and conquer, and reclamation of story. Their fierceness could have personal implications as the place of Samoan in Aotaeroa is vexed. “They hate us”, he declares “because we are immigrants. My generation in New Zealand were raised to hate Maori. My adoptive parents went there to become white.”

Semu’s commercial background remains integral. His series of NRL players commissioned for Casula Powerhouse’s ‘Body Pacifica’ (2010) was an easy uptake of sportsman as modern warrior god. Stripped to the waist, the men pose with artefacts pertinent to island culture, their stunningly powerful physiques wittily rewritten.

Semu views the critical period 1750 to 1850 as “a collision of culture and fashion”, the impact of the British due to uniforms as much as firepower, the colour red hugely significant to the Indigenous. “These artefacts were cherished... I have a little fetish for obscure military pieces myself ”, he grins.

STURGEON

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FABRICATED REALITIES

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In a hall of mirrors, Steele and Goldie’s painting itself nods to Théodore Gericault’s Raft of Medusa (1818–19). “It’s controversial because it depicts a twin-hulled boat which is the wrong boat for a long voyage. We call that a waka taua, a war boat. They’d never make it. And the people are starving, lost and totally demoralised. What they’re saying is that the Maori just stumbled their way across the Pacific. What we’re saying is the Cook Islands is like a highway junction. It wasn’t some accident. People on those boats trained for months, physically and mentally. It’s a deliberate migration.”

“It’s a beautiful painting. I love the drama and the composition, but it was used like covert propaganda. Another great artwork to demoralise the Indigenous. It suggested the migration from England was justified because you Maori came here from somewhere else too.”

Semu says he finds photographers who only photograph themselves “quite boring.” Yet shy as he is, this thread is fundamental. Self Portrait with pe’a, Basque Road, Newton Valley (1995), led to his first exhibition ‘O le tatau Samoa’ in the same year. The front, back and sides with cropped head and legs recall Carl Marquardt and other ethnographic photographers, but as subject and object, Semu subverts. On the one hand the image objectifies, depicting tattoo only. Yet this unique cultural inscription is such a bold carte d’identité that a personalised version may be as telling a portrait as a mugshot. Framing the most intimate parts of the body, the pe’a itself dances between revelation and concealment.

The work launched Semu internationally. Tattooing was entering the mainstream and here was an image maker bearing the only extant form of the ancient art, conveying it to the world on his terms.

It became so iconic that Auckland Gallery commissioned another in 2012: Self Portrait with pe’a, Sentinel Road, Herne Bay. The pose, composition, and remarkably, Semu’s body, are unchanged. The evolution is in technique and materials.

Details leap out from the shadows with unforeseen clarity. In another ambiguous reinvention, digital technology reverses the tattoo’s normal process of fading.

Semu claims the pe’a is still threatened. “Every day religious leaders say, Stop this bestial, savage, unintelligent practise.” Coming from a Mormon background, his choice to undergo the rite created tension with his family. Returning

to Samoa was his first overseas journey. “It was quite a traumatising experience”, he says philosophically. “My birth parents live there. It didn’t feel like home.”

Yet family is one of his main themes. The first Semu works I saw were family portraits in ‘Strictly Samoa’ at Penrith Regional Gallery in 2008. Taken in the houses of western suburban Samoans, they enacted that crucial exchange.

“They gave us access, we gave them a family portrait.” Rueing the limited options for Pacific Islanders, the experience was also valuable for suggesting art, “a powerful medium for shifting paradigms.”

Access to such communities was a big draw card for Semu’s migration to Australia. He made another series with the Northern Territory Elcho Island community, and is with Melbourne’s Alcaston Gallery, who represent Aboriginal artists including senior luminaries like Ginger Riley. When asked if he feels kinship with Indigenous Australians, Semu cites Tracey Moffatt.

“I do want to contribute to the Australian art scene. It’s really important to be involved right now. When I moved here in 2010 I was like: “What does Australia need? Not another fucking fashion photographer, but an art photographer interested in working with Indigenous communities, creating dialogue. It’s a long term goal, not easy to access, for good reason Indigenous people need to protect themselves...

Australian history is rich in atrocities and I think that reenacting them would be a good way to re-evaluate them.”

Another ambition, for ‘Symbols of Power’, is the re-enactment of the death of Captain Cook, who was cannibalised by the Hawaiians; by necessity perhaps the biggest commission of all.

But right now Semu is leaving again. By the time you read this, he will be in Berlin for the prestigious Creative New Zealand, Künstlerhaus Bethanien residency, finally gained after ten years of applying. Unsure exactly what he will create, Semu will research Germany’s brief colonisation of Samoa, disrupted by the First World War. Semu doesn’t consider himself a hard worker in the conventional sense, but his body of work is as broad as it is deep. He takes nothing for granted. He is grinning as we walk out into the night. “I’m really excited about Berlin.

I can’t wait.”

FABRICATED REALITIES

Greg Semu Self Portrait with pe’a, Sentinel Road, Herne Bay 2012 Digital Type C photograph, 100 x 72 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2013

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An instantaneous kinda chemical reaction Sebastian Goldspink Holidays On Ice in conversation

Holidays on Ice, Bottle 2014 (music video stills) Super 8 animation, 3.41 min Courtesy of the artist and Cloudy But Fine/MGM

AN INSTANTANEOUS KINDA CHEMICAL REACTION

sebastian goldspink: So, let’s start at the start with how you guys met? dean manning: Do you wanna tell the story Angie? angie hart: No, you’ve got a better story. dm: Well... we share a mutual publisher and they set up a meeting with Angie and I. Angie was on tour, and she’d been up all night by the looks of it. She still looked divine. We met for breakfast and we chatted and there was just synchronicity. We both felt it and we just went straight to the studio and recorded a couple of tracks, then I drove her to the airport—this was all before midday!

That was our first experience. I listened back to the tracks and it was just magic. I went “Wow! This is something really special.” I don’t know how long it was before I spoke to you again, Angie? ah: Yeah, I don’t remember... dm: For me it was quite an instantaneous kinda chemical reaction. It doesn’t happen a lot. ah: It’s been the same for me. There’s been a great unspoken understanding about collaboration. It’s evolved without us really talking about where we are going. sg: Was the idea for Holidays on Ice a pre-existing concept? Or was it once this collaboration happened that you named it and ran with it? dm: Yeah, I think the initial thing was that I had just done a solo record and I was maybe thinking about collaborating on a few songs in view of the next solo record. But then having met and worked with Angie, it was like “Let’s just see how far we can go down that road.” Do you remember it like that Angie?

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clockwise from top left Holidays on Ice, Broken 2014 (music video still), Stop motion animation, 3.38 min, Courtesy of the artist and Cloudy But Fine/MGM Dean Manning, Riot 2014, Super 8 animation, 3.56 min, Courtesy of the artist Holidays on Ice, It’s So Easy 2013 (music video still), Digital video, 3.35 min, Courtesy of the artist and Cloudy But Fine/MGM Dean Manning, Rock 2014, Super 8 animation, 2.14 min, Courtesy of the artist

AN INSTANTANEOUS KINDA CHEMICAL REACTION

clockwise from top left Holidays on Ice, Like a Train 2014 (music video still), Super 8, 3.32 min, Courtesy of the artist and Cloudy But Fine/MGM Holidays on Ice, Frying Pan’s Theology 2014 (music video still), Super 8, 3.58 min, Courtesy of the artist and Cloudy But Fine/MGM Holidays on Ice, The Long Way Around 2014 (music video still), Found footage, 3.53 min, Courtesy of the artist and Cloudy But Fine/MGM Holidays on Ice, It’s So Easy 2013 (music video still), Digital video, 3.35 min, Courtesy of the artist and Cloudy But Fine/MGM

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ah: Yeah, the whole time we’ve been working together it’s been in batches; three or four songs at a time, if we’re lucky it will be six songs. And then I’ll go away and you’ll have some time with it. It’s just been like that the whole way. sg: It’s interesting to look at the similarities and differences between Holidays on Ice and the two bands that you guys are well known for back in the nineties: Leonardo’s Bride and Frente! Both bands defined by large commercial success and national exposure. How has this collaboration been different? Has Holidays on Ice been a liberating force as artists? ah: It definitely was for me. I met Dean right when I was trying to do my first solo album and kind of drowning a little bit. I’m not sure where I was going with it all. It really liberated my creativity. dm: I enjoy being free of record company pressures and just making choices that don’t need to be justified. I was quite miserable in the major label scenario. Angie understands that. We just release Holidays on Ice records ourselves. sg: Dean, you are also a visual artist, and you make most of the video clips for Holidays on Ice. I have noticed a strong focus on Super 8 film and animation, as well as found footage. Is it hard for you to make that transition from thinking musically to visually? Or do you think they come from the same creative source? Can you talk about this idea of marrying visual imagery with music in the different videos you’ve made for the group? dm: Yeah, I guess there’s no switch that I flick. The process for me of making a clip is very close to making a song. It’s an idea or it’s not an idea. Sometimes you set out with a concept and sometimes you don’t. For this record we made a video for every song.

I certainly work in blocks. So when we are writing or recording I’m not thinking visually. But when I’m making film it just switches and I kind of get obsessed with one thing for a few months. The transition between the two takes a little bit of time.

sg: What about for you Angie, how important to you is the visual aspect of Holidays on Ice? ah: I’m just focused on the music side. This is definitely one of Dean’s art babies, but it’s always beautiful to receive the packaging at the end. It’s a real passion of his and he has a clear vision for Holidays on Ice. I guess it’s just another one of those unspoken things. sg: Dean, could you talk about the inspiration for your animation commissioned by Artbank? dm: I was keen that the project should come out of music.

I’d been listening to lots of work by the Italian composer, Erik Satie and been thinking a lot about the piano. I then worked on a piece of music for piano, and the intention was to have a puppet dancing on the piano. sg: So it’s like a puppet tap dancing on the piano? dm: He’s tap dancing. That was the inspiration. That’s what I started with. sg: Where do you guys see Holidays on Ice heading?

Or is it more the point that it’s free, a free-flowing and undetermined adventure? ah: So far everything Dean and I have done—once we completed an album—seems like it’s the last thing we’ll do together. dm: [Laughter] Yeah, we broke up years ago! ah: Dean starts painting and he’s like “I love painting more than music, I don’t think I’ll do any more writing”, and that seems to be the end of that.

Then about six months later he’ll call me and be like “Angie, when can you come up to Sydney? I think I’ve got some songs.” And then we start all over again.

AN INSTANTANEOUS KINDA CHEMICAL REACTION

Dean Manning Ned on a Plain 2009 Oil on wood, 57.5 x 43 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2010

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Charged Material Miriam Kelly

“It comes from the earth, looks like shit and can be considered fundamental, corporeal matter”, explained Sydney based artist Ramesh Mario Nithyendran about his interest in working with clay. Delighting in this “charged material”, Nithiyendran’s richly organic, sexualised forms offer an engaged and highly personal exploration of identity and societal norms. They also possess a finely tuned balance between attraction and repulsion. It is this delightfully uncomfortable position, somewhere in between these two instinctual and highly subjective states that initiated the selection of the following work.

Featured here are a diverse group of artists who are part of a ‘renaissance’ of this ancient medium in the vernacular of popular contemporary media. Each of these artists celebrate the agency of the hand made and transformative potential of clay, from carefully crafted mimetic porcelain, to temporal installations of air-dried clay.

In an informed, vital and distinctly personal manner these artists exploit clay in varied consideration of perception and judgement, gender, history, spirituality and the beauty of the everyday.

Sarah Contos Emerge/ Retreat 2014 Screenprint on linen and lamé, plywood, PVC, poly-fil, upholstery studs, glazed earthenware and stoneware, rope, Bronte beach sand, 147 × 80 × 106 cm Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney

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Lawrence Omeenyo Ducky Boat 2011 Clay and glaze, 29 x 34 x 21 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2012

opposite Ramesh Mario Nithiyenrdran Elephant and Child 2014 Red terracotta, glaze, ceramic underglaze pencil and gold lustre, 57 x 25 x 35 cm Courtesy of the artist and Gallery 9, Sydney

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CHARGED MATERIAL

Peter Cooley Black Tailed Swamp Wallaby 7 2014 Earthenware, 72 x 47 x 51 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2014 opposite Saskia Doherty Touchstone (Lot’s Wife) 2014 Paper clay and artist book, dimensions variable Detail from installation at Westspace, Melbourne Courtesy of the artist Photography Christo Crocker

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following Honor Freeman An Airtight Container for Every Occasion 2005 Slip cast porcelain, 15 x 110 x 40 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2007

STURGEON

Yasmin Smith Apprentice Welder 2013 Clay, glaze, copper, carbonate, cobalt carbonate, chromium oxide, 121 x 74 x 36 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2013

opposite Lynda Draper Annette 2013 Ceramic and glaze, 45 x 54 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2014

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Jenny Orchard Marilyn 2007 Clay, resin and steel, 81.5 x 24 x 27 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2007

opposite Juz Kitson Re-stablishing Primal Repression: Renewed Ritual 2014 Southern ice porcelain and Jingdezhen porcelain, deer, goat and cow hides, fox fur, terracotta and raku clay, wool, bone, horse hair, paraffin wax, Chinese silk thread, 220 x 60 x 23 cm Courtesy of the artist and Greenaway Gallery, Adelaide Photography Brett East

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“When is cultural appropriation ok?” asked the white person in the audience...

Odette Kelada

I’ve removed myself from a lot of the cultural appropriation debates because as a person of colour, it is fucking exhausting trying to have your feelings and pain constantly invalidated by white folks.

—post on ‘My Culture is not a Trend’

“But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?” Then always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen!

—W E Dubois

“WHEN IS CULTURAL APPROPRIATION OK?” ASKED THE WHITE PERSON IN THE AUDIENCE...

The question in the title, “When is it ok for me to appropriate?” is taken from my experience during a 2013 forum on ‘cultural appropriation’ at Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne. It describes the genuine confusion of some members in the audience at hearing there may be something unable to be rightfully ‘acquired’ for their use. The nature of the continual questions— “What is the difference between exchange and appropriation?” indicate the problem. The fact that after all the writings on cultural appropriation, the tenets of how to act respectfully are still cause for wonder is the issue itself.

This is an article commissioned around the theme of cultural appropriation. It is going to be an article about whiteness. Why? I am writing this as someone of mixed cultural backgrounds, Egyptian-Irish heritage, brought up predominantly as white, so I understand why entitlement to ‘take’ is confusing when challenged, for whiteness does not get refused often. When presented with a barrier, the response can range from hurt, hostility, a rather stunned bewilderment before rallying to the ‘challenge’ or finding the anxiety ‘fascinating’ as cultural appropriation becomes a ‘hot’ topic, yet again.

A common definition of the term ‘whiteness’ used in the field of critical whiteness studies is that it: ...has a set of linked dimensions. First, whiteness is a location of structural advantage, of race privilege. Second, it is a “standpoint”, a place from which white people look at themselves, at others and at society. Third “whiteness” refers to a set of cultural practices that are usually unmarked and unnamed (Frankenberg, 1).

The quote on ‘ownership of the earth’ that introduces this article is from renowned African American scholar W E Dubois, who wrote about the connections between ideas of whiteness, imperialism and inherent rights to possess in his poem “The Souls of White Folks” (1920). The correlation between whiteness and the rights to own and represent any other culture is connected to its origins as an identity historically constructed as the apex of 41

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Darren Siwes Gold Puella 2008 Silver Puella 2008 Bronze Puella 2008 Type C photographs on metallic paper, 99 x 129 cm (each) Artbank collection, purchased 2010

“WHEN IS CULTURAL APPROPRIATION OK?” ASKED THE WHITE PERSON IN THE AUDIENCE...

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the racial hierarchy. To understand why there is still genuine confusion requires a look at the gaps in Australian school curricula. Colonial education continues with few lessons on the invention of ‘race’ but rather re-tells myths of peaceful ‘settlement’ and heroic ‘explorers’. The perspective of the coloniser pervades the nation’s psyche and teaches a strategic ignorance. Colonisers are called ‘pioneers’ as their labour fuelled ‘expansion’. When the theme of cultural appropriation in art arises, Gordon Bennett’s famous The Nine Ricochets (fall down black fella, jump up white fella) (1990) is often cited as a powerful response to the Imants Tillers work The Nine Shots (1985) , where a non-Indigenous artist appropriated Indigenous artwork. Critically, the image Bennett used was from a history book used in social studies for Australian schools; a commentary on the fact that “this is how our children were being socialized”. (Collective Identity (Ies)) The nation’s narrative of ‘Australia Day’, celebrating the time of invasion for Indigenous Peoples, maintains the assumed rights of white possession as foundational for the popular festivity. While growing up in a country where all the faces on television were predominantly white unless they were Muppets, I did not learn that the term ‘white’ first appeared in colonial laws on property, slavery and freedom around 1680. A historical fact I never studied in school was the existence of ‘human zoos’; exhibiting ‘savage’ peoples for viewing and sampling by the western public, along with their food, costume and culture. As Pascal Blanchard and others argue in Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Empire (2009) these: forgotten symbols of the colonial era, have been totally repressed in our collective memory... Through Barnum’s freak shows, Hagenbeck’s ‘ethnic shows’ (touring major European cities from their German base), French-style villages nègres, as well as the great universal and colonial exhibitions, the West invented the ‘savage’, exhibited the ‘peoples of the world’, whilst in many cases preparing for or contributing to their colonization... the ‘spectacularization’ of the Other, a process that is at the origin of contemporary stereotypes and of the construction of our own identities.

A poster printed in Frankfurt in 1885 to advertise “Male and Female Australian Cannibals” in R A Cunningham’s touring show, epitomises this fantastical racist spectatorship: The first and only obtained colony of these strange, savage,

disfigured and most brutal race ever lured from the remote interior wilds where they indulge in ceaseless bloody feuds and forays to feast upon each other (cited in Leetberg).

Imperial exhibitions and world fairs, including those held in Australia, provided access for families of the West to experience an exciting day of adventure, in a time of limited travel. These legacies continue as the Navajo of North America sue over use of their name by a fashion chain, the Sami protest the use of their traditional dress as elves costumes for a Christmas park in Finland, and the controversy of the football team The Washington Redskins ignites debate around the power of stereotypes across media and social forums.

The arguments outlining how appropriation of other cultures can continue and perpetuate colonisation are informed by a multitude of eloquent and powerful voices.

Given the continued questioning and controversies, there appears to be no point in continually explaining why ‘cultural appropriation’ by dominant Western cultures is a euphemism for stealing not ‘borrowing’.

The concern in writing again about the topic is that this will only add to the ‘taboo’ appeal of being a culturally appropriative white artist—apparently transgressive, ironic, and ‘unafraid’—all very ‘on trend’. Instead, here I want to reflect on why appropriation appears so ‘cool’ in dominant cultures, how that speaks to the histories of white identity construction and some contemporary desires for consumption. Also to consider why the hurt and outrage often expressed by marginalised Peoples, as described in the opening quote from the blog My Culture is Not a Trend, is met with bewilderment, and/or hostility, and/or declarations of said appropriation as respect and love for that culture, and/or apathy.

According to an article in The Huffington Post, the year 2013 was “The Year of Cultural Appropriation” when it came to pop culture, with the piece describing the time as “a tough year for black people.” Appropriations by celebrities from Miley Cyrus to Katy Perry were discussed but not those of numerous visual artists. There is an oft cited argument that art has always been culturally appropriative and such practice is an inherent right of artists as everything is ultimately derivative and cross-referential; but whose art and whose practice? There is a tension in writing and giving more

“WHEN IS CULTURAL APPROPRIATION OK?” ASKED THE WHITE PERSON IN THE AUDIENCE...

attention to works that intentionally or not, gain capital from pain, and establish a reputation as ‘edgy’ on the basis of a disregard for boundary crossings. For this reason while discussing artworks, I do not name the artists. In the example I use below the emphasis is on the viewer’s responses.

This excerpt, from an article in online journal Crikey, references an exhibit with various cardboard cut outs of a white woman dressed in African style clothing and painted across the face. The artists have created profitable controversy for selling ‘hip’ T-shirts with a mash up of cultural signifiers, cartoon caricatures with colonial phrases such as ‘The Natives are Restless’ and black faces scribbled out with features erased. The Crikey article includes quotes from visitors to the exhibit as Cathy Alexander writes: ... figures are in the lobby of the NGV building in central Melbourne (part of the Melbourne Now behemoth). Visitors seemed to like the display, and quite a few posed with it for smartphone pics. No one seemed to find it offensive, although most Crikey talked to could see why some might find it so.

Visitor Matthew Rehrmann, 18, said: “They are kind of stealing another culture, I’m not sure if that’s OK or not.”

His friend Freya Lauersen, 16, was less bothered. ”I think it’s cool. I didn’t really think about [whether it’s offensive], but if you really think about it, I guess it could be offensive,” she told Crikey.

Cathy Maloney thought the display was “gorgeous, it’s not sensitive cultural material. We have a strong African culture here, I think it’s great to celebrate it in this context.

One viewer does not know if stealing is ok or not, another requires prompting to think though instinctively feels it is cool, while the last positions herself as someone who can make the call that this is not sensitive material—for her. I’m reminded of an American cartoon in Elephant Journal on cultural appropriation in popular fashion. A white girl wearing a headdress of feathers asks her friend if this headdress was ‘ok’ for her to use as an accessory. Her friend replies, “No, its cool, it’s not like our ancestors murdered them or anything.”

In the United States, Dr Adrienne Keene writes a blog titled Native Appropriations and on this topic, spells it out: Back in the day, white people had the power to take away our culture, and now they have the power to wear it however they see fit ... your wearing of the headdress is an act of violence that continues the pain of colonization.

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What is so persistently cool in superficially sampling symbols, beliefs, images, all void of context or history? Is it that white culture is boring? This was the point made in protest stickers, “I’m so bored of being white”, pasted over the cardboard woman at the National Gallery of Victoria.

On this point, African American theorist bell hooks, observed that: “white culture is perceived as too Wonder Bread right now, not edgy enough, not dangerous enough.” Yes, assuming that there is even a perception of a ‘white’ culture, a racialised positionality, as opposed to assuming one exists as the universal human norm. Richard Dyer, a theorist on whiteness, makes the critical point: As long as Race is something only applied to non-white people, ... they/we function as a human norm... Other people are raced, we are just white. There is no more powerful position than that of being ‘just’ human. The claim to power is the claim to speak for the commonality of humanity. (1) In 2012, an article on appropriation of Indigenous culture in art was published in The Australian, titled “The Ethics of Cultural Borrowing”. The terminology itself is illuminating.

How does an article about appropriation become referred to as ‘borrowing’? When is it given back? Was Australia ‘borrowed’? The language indicates the ambiguity in the article around questions of ownership and permission. The author Bridget Cormack detailed examples of appropriation of Indigenous art and the controversies over the years, including Gordon Bennett’s. If The Nine Ricochets (fall down black fella, jump up white fella) did not penetrate the ignorance around why cultural appropriation of Indigenous cultures is not acceptable, then it is hard to contemplate what response possibly can. As Bennett quoted in an exhibition education kit for ‘Collective Identity (Ies)’ stated: “Tillers’s appropriation of Tjakamarra’s work without his consent was a further attempt at colonising another aspect of Indigenous culture.”

That education in strategic ignorance that has passed down generations is evident in the viewers’ responses cited in the Crikey article, in the questions asked at Gertrude Contemporary’s forum and possibly in the continuing work of non-Indigenous artists who trade in offensive imagery. As curator and writer, Djon Mundine describes regarding the art practice of one of such artists “He used (Aboriginal) designs in the vomit to create these patterns.” (cited in Cormack) How does one protest if the very emotions of shock and

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hurt in reaction to violence and the act of fighting itself can be transformed into fuel for artistic controversy and subsequent profit? It is interesting to contemplate what the conversations around this topic would look like if the school curricula were instead filled with images by contemporary Indigenous artists who like Bennett, take white artworks, colonial symbols and imagery, and subvert meanings to foreground colonial histories and the violence of the contemporary cultural frontier. Dianne Jones’s 2001 digital reworking of Tom Roberts’s painting the Shearing the Rams (1890) replaces the white shearers in the foreground with her father and brother who worked in the shearing sheds. According to the gallery tour guides, this piece has caused anger when some visitors believe they are presented with Roberts’s much loved original, only to be ‘deceived’ with Indigenous presence in place of the national embodiment of mythologised white labour. What if our coins, the very currency of ‘exchange’ and imperial capital, were minted with the images from Darren Siwes’s photographic coin series, ‘Oz Omnium Rex Et Regina’ (2008). As Ric Spencer states in the essay accompanying the exhibition of these works: The gold, silver and bronze of Siwes’s coins cleverly bring to mind another classical rote, that of the Great Chain of Being.

Within this classical imperialist theorem all things in the universe were given their “rightful” place in a chain of order.

At the top of the pile was the emperor, king or queen… white was superior to black of course as the Europeans wrote it, and so it went on all the way down to the soil we walk on. In his metallic generational portraits Siwes not only gives us hope of future change but memories of past incitements.

Would the question “When is it ok for me to appropriate?” be asked in the same way if the map of Australia became replaced in popular usage with Daniel Boyd’s image of the nation? The words ‘Treasure Island’ are printed across its expanse to speak to how fantasy, rape and pillage describe the exploitation and theft of Indigenous Peoples’ languages and land. Imagine stock images of ‘explorers’, ‘pioneers’ and the essential ‘Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay 1770’ circulating instead as Boyd’s reworked portraits complete with eye patches and parrots. The title of this series succinctly responds to literally ‘regurgitated’ debates around cultural appropriation, power and race histories: We Call Them Pirates Out Here (2006).

references Alexander, Cathy. “Selling Other People’s Culture at $184 a T-Shirt”. dailyreview.crikey.com.au. 23 January 2014.

Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery. “Gordon Bennett”. collectiveidentities.com.au. 2013.

Cormack, Bridget. “The Ethics of Cultural Borrowing”. theaustralian.com.au. 18 December 2012.

Dubois, W E. “The Souls of White Folks”. Darkwater: Voices from the Veil (etext.lib.virginia.edu). New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1920.

Dyer, Richard. White: Essays on Race and Culture.

New York: Routledge, 1997.

Frankenberg, R. White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. hooks, bell. “Cultural Criticism and Transformation”. mediaed.org.

Massachusetts: Northampton, 2005.

Keene, Adrienne. “Dear Christina Fallin”. nativeappropriations.com.

7 March 2014.

Leetberg, Ilmar. “The Savage Art of the Human Zoo”. theaustralian.com.au.

20 February 2010.

“My Culture is Not a Trend: A Dialogue about Cultural Appropriation”. mycultureisnotatrend.tumblr.com.

“No, It’s Cool. It’s Not Like Our Ancestors Killed Them All or Anything”. elephantjournal.com. 24 August 2010.

Blanchard, Pascal, et al eds. Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Empire. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009.

Spencer, Ric. “A Profile of Symbolic Exchange: Darren Siwes”. greenaway.com.au. 2008.

“2013 was the Year of Cultural Appropriation”. huffingtonpost.com.

23 December 2013.

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Daniel Boyd We Call them Pirates Out Here 2006 Oil on canvas, 226 x 276 cm Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the Coe and Mordant families, 2006 Image courtesy and © the artist

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Words of Regret Megan Hicks

Whenever I am out and about in the city I read what’s written on the crusty surfaces beneath my feet, but I often feel as if I’m being admonished. It’s not the written instructions that bother me. I generally Look Right when I’m supposed to. I Look Left. I Stand Behind the Yellow Line. But it’s those wordy public artworks embedded in the asphalt that are unsettling—those installations that I come across as I turn into a laneway, or cut across a park. Their text seems to envelope us all in some kind of collective regret for acts and omissions of the past.

Photography Alex Wisser 1 Will Coles Cambridge/Cavendish St Enmore 2 Town Hall Square, Sydney City 3 Will Coles Sydney City 4 Susane Milne and Greg Stonehouse Solander Park, Enmore 5 Michael Thomas Hill Angel Place, Sydney City

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At Sydney’s Town Hall Square there is one such installation paying tribute to the city’s most famous graffitist.

It takes a bit of finding. Located beside an artificial waterfall, it has been difficult to see since the space was leased to a coffee shop. But there it is, set into the pebblecrete among tables, chairs and cafe umbrellas, the word ‘Eternity’ in shiny aluminium script.

The story of Arthur Stace has been told many times. An alcoholic no-hoper and petty criminal who had converted to Christianity; he was transformed one day by a thundering sermon by the Reverend John Ridley. “Where will you spend eternity?” the preacher cried, and hearing this as a call from God Stace stooped to chalk the word ‘Eternity’ on the footpath outside the church. From 1932 until 1966 Stace continued to write the word on Sydney footpaths every morning in the pre-dawn light. ‘The Eternity Man’ has become an eccentric legend, memorialised in poetry, opera and film, in the paintings of Martin Sharp, in New Year’s Eve fireworks on Sydney Harbour Bridge, and on souvenir mugs at the National Museum of Australia.

But most replicas of his copperplate artwork miss the point. Only that horizontal aluminium plaque on Town Hall Square acknowledges that Stace’s word ‘Eternity’ and the surface of the pavement are elements of the same ritual. Stace rose from the gutter then got back down on his knees to express regret for his dissolute and wasted youth, finding absolution in the gritty union of chalk and asphalt.

His stealthy act of penitence repeated over and over for thirty years became his own sermon to the public. And if Sydneysiders have adopted his word as a symbol of our city, it is not only because of the mysteriousness and doggedness of its creator, but because it reminds us that we too have regrets for what has been lost. Our beautiful harbour, fringed with bushland and sandy beaches, is an ever-present memento of the once unspoilt land that has been crushed under the city’s asphalt and concrete.

These days other pavement artists have taken over where Stace left off, reproaching city dwellers for wrongdoings past and present. Guerrilla street artist and sculptor, Will Coles for example, understands the symbolism of the

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pavement. He knows that’s where the detritus of our urban life accumulates—the drifts of advertising leaflets, the thrown away takeaway coffee cups, the cleanup piles of electrical appliances not in working order, the homeless people with their cardboard begging signs. Coles makes concrete casts of consumerism’s cast-offs, often stamped with a single evocative word, and glued to the footpath. There they wait in ambush among the chewing-gum blisters, challenging us to think deeply about the shallowness of our lives: a remote control that reads ‘Memory’; a mobile phone embedded with ‘Nothing’; a discarded teddy bear inscribed ‘Culture’. Perhaps it was inevitable that Coles would eventually appropriate Arthur Stace’s word. He writes it on crumpled drink cans to rebuke us for our lazy wastefulness.

Officially commissioned word-works on the pavement carry a similar message, if less obliquely. In Angel Place, Michael Thomas Hill wants us to experience longing for nature long since lost and destroyed. His Forgotten Songs (2011) installation charms us with its hanging bird cages and piped calls of native birds. But the sting is on the roadway 51

where brass plaques inform us that the birds we are listening to “once sang in central Sydney, before Europeans settled and gradually forced them away.” The list of bird names inscribed there is like a wartime honour roll that we should follow along the laneway, lest we forget. The name label for the Regent Honeyeater is coincidentally positioned beside a manhole cover that, if opened up, would reveal the Tank Stream coursing beneath the lane in its modern-day guise as a stormwater pipe. Not only have trees been felled, Hill is reminding us the natural features of the landscape have been obliterated by the pavement itself.

Regret is more meaningful when we are reminded that it is not only birds that have been displaced by colonisation, but people. Pavement installations mimicking Indigenous rock art cannot make amends, but try to. Words only make the situation worse. In Brenda L Croft’s Wuganmagulya (Farm Cove) (2000) installation on a pathway in the Royal Botanic Gardens, the mosaic of rock carving figures is accompanied by words etched on the kerb—the names of “women and men, places, animals, tools and rituals from the many clans

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and language groups of Indigenous people in the Sydney area.” Here are words that are no longer spoken, words that were never written down by their original speakers, disconnected nouns in Roman lettering, strewn on the ground like the wreckage of some terrible culture clash— which of course they are.

But when unfamiliar Indigenous words are laid out among a vocabulary of nostalgic Australiana, the result can be more confusing than poignant. Susan Milne and Greg Stonehouse’s 2001 pavement artwork in Solander Park is one of those horizontal reproaches that you might come across while walking the dog. Lying in a corner of the park in Erskineville—an inner city working class suburb that is undergoing change—it takes the beautiful form of a giant leaf pressed into the pavers. If the dog allows you long enough to have a proper look you will find that the veins of the leaf are formed from lines of words: “Gadigal Nura With The First Daylight This Morn The Land Was Seen.” The lesson reads: “Wulara Rock Wallaby Wirriga Goanna Frog St Marys Primary Clothes Prop Green Grocer Redfern All Blacks War

Surplus Stores Tram Sheds Kookaburra Picnic Shears Creek Federal Match Metters Weetjellan Wattle Waratah...” A lament for the lost souls of this area’s former incarnations, the sculpture is like a catalogue of calamities, urging us to feel remorse for the cumulative sins of colonisation, urbanisation and gentrification.

I don’t think the need to throw verbal reproaches up at us is peculiar to Sydney’s public artists. When I pick my way over the cobblestones of Federation Square in Melbourne I must negotiate Paul Carter’s tangled ‘concrete poems’ of loss and change carved into the stone. Strolling the promenade at Oostende, Belgium, I tread on flagstones bearing passages from Fernando Pessoa’s Ode Maritime that suggest to me what the seascape might have looked like before the view was obscured by rows and rows of white beach cabins. Nature spoilt. Lives destroyed. Effort wasted. These sad reminders require us to pause and bow our heads in meditative reflection.

It seems that artists find the grey expanses of city pavements a fitting place to post expressions of regret for things that might have been done better, or were better left undone.

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Find Me, Follow Me Thea Costantino

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Tuesday

Bad sleep. Flaccid pillow and air conditioning are intolerable.

Window won’t open. I walk semi-naked across the suite before noticing the window cleaner hoisted outside. I don’t know if he saw.

Two days and I haven’t ventured outside this enclosed village: restaurants, shops, gymnasium, implausible politeness. Only in the transition from airport to taxi, taxi to hotel, have I breathed the air of this city. Dry. It was a mistake to come, so soon anyway. The location was too tempting. Six floors above the old Home, I watch miniature office workers ignore the plaque commemorating God’s Little Ones. At night its interior glows yellow through dimpled glass.

I’m not ready, despite my preparations. I’ve absorbed a list of dates, places, I’ve seen the records, the photographs.

The distance between individual lives and the seismic convulsions of nations and blood is unfathomable. I attempt to envisage the continuum linking the invaders and their flabby, amnesiac progeny.

I’ve been tempted by the convenience of an origins myth, which in reality tells me little about the woman and the boy she raised. More vivid is the compilation of anecdotes.

She told him that she tried to abort him; this failed attempt, the earliest evidence of R’s obstinacy. The harder she beat him, the stonier he grew. His deep set, lapis eyes: apparently he almost lost one once, an event, if my mother is to be believed, at the root of his aversion to dark skinned people.

I discovered a photo of his paternal great-great-great grandmother, an Irish farmer with those same hard eyes, squinting at the foreign sky. Searching the internet one night I learned that R’s father had died. The tears were real, wet and rolling, but probably a symptom of the whiskey. Still, I was relieved to produce some solid evidence of feeling.

I try to imagine how that gentle man fared in family life with his bruised, hardened children. He must have been ambivalent when his wife died on the table, ribs clamped open and viscera illumined by the medical eye. And she, perhaps she saw the Home through the anaesthetic fog as her heart arrested. I was too young to know that we are obliged to speak nicely about the dead. I saw R in a suit for the first time when he was about to fly back for the funeral: scratchy brown wool, like a hair shirt.

The room is conforming to my contours. I send the cleaner away; let me moulder.

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Wednesday

I explore the unfamiliar city via satellite on the screen of my laptop, intermittently peering through the window to confirm the view. I journey in Street View on a screen speckled with dust and food particles. Most of the historical city is submerged beneath recent developments, so I consult colonial surveyors’ maps to elucidate my search. The earliest buildings were in walking distance of the river. I imagine his ancestors dispersing the local people when they encroached on freshly seized farming land. Near the old law courts stands a bronze founding father, compass in hand, gun slung from the shoulder.

I continue to traverse this unknown territory, omniscient and disembodied. There is a man leaning on his car, his back to the nineteenth century cemetery, frozen as he scrutinises his mobile phone, the bones of the forgotten dead a few meters away. He is oblivious of my scrutiny as I hover beside him. I can’t read the stones along the roadside, and the view doesn’t extend into the heart of the graveyard.

I grow bored and fly to other places: the series of childhood homes, unrecognisable now.

I don’t even eat in the hotel restaurants; everything comes delivered. I won’t let them enter the room to place 57

the tray. I snatch it from them through a slit of doorway, and later expel used crockery and other indigestible remnants into the hall.

It was absurd to bring disguises. Of course I would never be bold enough to hunt R down. I’d planned to shadow him, mere paces away in a blonde wig and glasses. As he went about his daily routine I’d be drinking coffee at the next table, waiting in line behind him at the post office, always risking discovery. He’d seem smaller in his aged years, slower. His hands would tremble when he searched for the correct change.

Instead, I wear my costumes in a darkened room, watching television, deceiving no one. I think I trouble the hotel staff, but they are trained not to react.

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Thursday

I stand paralysed in the hallway before the open elevator.

I am not wearing a disguise, although I wear dark glasses that make visibility difficult. I try to rally myself to travel below and take a turn around the lobby, not to speak to anyone, merely to endure the awareness of strangers observing me. The gaze of others usually provokes discomfort; in a strange city, crammed into this hive, the prospect is agonising.

I allow the steel doors to swallow the warm interior of the elevator and return to my lair.

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Friday

Failure. I pick crumbs from half empty packets of rice crackers, licking my finger so they adhere. I am too paranoid to falsify my minibar account. My rubbish bin overflowed with empty bottles days ago. I close the door on the wreckage of my week and finally enter the elevator, pressing myself into its furthermost corner.

She doesn’t say, her face a wall of mineral bronzer, but certainly the concierge realises this is the first time I have left the building, perhaps even my room, since I arrived.

I pay my bill and a man drags my bags into the intense light beyond the automatic doors; I follow on fragile legs, hairs bristling at the sudden change in climate. The taxi’s windows are open. I squint and the city’s dust enters the depths of my absconder’s lungs.

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Something More From a Distance Daniel Mudie Cunningham

SOMETHING MORE FROM A DISTANCE

Twenty five years ago Tracey Moffatt’s series ‘Something More’ (1989) catapulted her into instant art stardom. The first image in the series of nine cibachrome prints is perhaps one of the most iconic photographs by a contemporary Australian artist and is now held in most major public collections, including that of Artbank. To even describe the image—Moffatt in a red dress playing a young aspirational woman from the sticks dreaming of a better life—feels anachronistic considering how widely it has been discussed.

Like most of Moffatt’s subsequent work, ‘Something More’ deployed narrative conventions appropriated from cinema and popular culture to tell a story drawing from personal experience, but imbued with universal resonances. Indeed Moffatt’s global success could be attributed to the canny way in which she has strategically positioned herself as an artist who refused to be pigeonholed by her Indigeneity, even though it is a strong anchor in much of what she has produced.

Some writings on ‘Something More’ point out the ‘mixed race’ of the character played by Moffatt; some even going so far as to identify her as ‘Eurasian’, quite possibly because of her tattered red cheongsam. As much as its various racial signifiers are important to the image, it is in the way her work speaks to a universally shared ‘human condition’ that this character comes to stand in for the ‘everyperson’. Most of us would have played that role: poised at a crossroads between where we’ve come from and where we want to be, longing for more. The stylised artifice of these images, now very much a hallmark of her oeuvre, is suggestive of the ‘constructedness’ of identity itself and the way it can shapeshift through masquerade and playacting.

Emerging at the tail end of the twentieth century, amid the heady realm of postmodern culture and identity politics, ‘Something More’ heralded Moffatt as an artist with a deft ability to appropriate cinema and popular culture and make it entirely her own. Partly drawn from life in its references to her Queensland origins, Moffatt conjures the steamy clichés of 1950s Southern American pulp fiction. In a 1999 interview with curator Marta Gili, Moffatt reflected: “My work has an uncool emotion and heat to it, my narratives have glaring clichéd aspects. People feel that they’ve seen it before—but I’m giving it to them all over again with my slant on it. People recognise the ‘clichés’ and don’t seem to mind them.” (105) 63

Tracey Moffatt ‘Something More’ 1989 Series of nine photographs Collection MONA Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart Courtesy of the artist, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery and MONA Photography Rémi Chauvin

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It’s easy to recognise the impact of Moffatt’s work in that of other artists. Australian artists including Christian Thompson and Tim Silver have appropriated Moffatt quite directly, yet arguably it is the ‘clichés’ or better yet, stereotypes of her work that makes it far-reaching and accessible for broad audiences. In an essay examining the way whiteness is represented in the black imagination, cultural critic bell hooks argues that stereotypes are “a fantasy, a projection onto the Other that makes them less threatening. Stereotypes abound when there is distance.” (170) A decade after this series—and with enough distance afforded by wide circulation and reproduction of Something More #1—a surprising appropriation appeared in the music video for white rap star Eminem’s 1999 hit, My Name Is. Standing in for Moffatt, Eminem switched the race and gender roles. By implication Eminem amplified the potential for a ‘white trash’ reading of the work, while also potentially revealing himself as the kind of ‘terrorising figure’ bell hooks targets in her impassioned essay on racism in American life and culture.

‘Something More’ clearly mines the stereotypes of trailer park visual culture of pulp classics like White Trash (1952)

by Beulah Poynter. The lurid cover artwork of one edition depicts a commonplace trope of pulp imagery, namely the image of an older ‘bawdy’ white mother leaning by the front door. Not quite inside or outside, she is as trapped by her own excess as she is by impoverishment; ironically framed by a door that can be entered or exited at will. Outside her daughter is locked in a melodramatic embrace with her suitor, the tattered red dress speaking volumes about the trouble she’s been in and the trouble for which she is inevitably destined—indeed “The Whole Town Pushed Her Around!”

Post-war American paperbacks like this one were a dime a dozen and “collectively functioned as a vast cultural unconscious”, argues Susan Stryker. “Deposited there were fantasies of fulfillment as well as desperate yearnings, petty betrayals, unrequited passions, and unreasoning violence that troubled the margins of the longed-for world... ‘the stuff dreams are made of ’.” (7) From the ‘cultural unconscious’ to the ‘stuff of dreams’, such images perpetuated, among other things, well-worn stereotypes of white trash identity. As a cultural category, ‘white trash’ is the open secret of whiteness, and it is this visibility and embarrassment that creates a class polarisation between whites.

What does it mean to appropriate an image so heavily steeped in a web of its own appropriations? Evoking Moffatt’s work more clearly than any similar images preceding it,

Eminem’s clip complicates how we understand ‘Something More’ because it situates the work back in direct contact with its pulpy white trash origins. The dominant narratives in Eminem’s music and imagery convey similar tales of poverty and ambition staged in the context of white trash culture. Further complicating these race and class politics, Eminem is typical of an at times awkward ‘white trash’ appropriation of rap, a genre rooted in African American culture. Given Eminem espoused provocative views from this platform, critics have leveled charges of racism, sexism and homophobia against him.

These tensions aside, it is worth noting that Eminem is essentially the product of a ‘black’ record label. As Marcia Dawkins writes: “Eminem ‘repays’ the African American hip-hop community because his sales fuel the success of African American hip-hop mogul Dr Dre’s label, a subsidiary of Interscope Records named Aftermath Records.” (Dr Dre co-directed My Name Is with African American filmmaker Philip Atwell). Whether this is taken into consideration, Eminem’s music abounds with the kind of ‘redneck’ sentiments from which much of the dominant culture would forge some distance. Yet, as a mainstream rap star, he is a cog in the machinery of a still dominant white culture, however ‘black’ the historical origins of rap music may be.

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Although framed by the African American tropes of rap, Eminem’s music and videos highlight a continuing fascination with white trash. Gael Sweeney defines white trash as “an aesthetic of the flashy, the inappropriate, the garish... White Trash is the denigrated aesthetic of a people marginalized socially, racially, and culturally. It is an aesthetic of bricolage, of random experimentation with bits and pieces of culture, but especially the out-of-style, the tasteless, the rejects of mainstream society.” (249) In this sense it has all the traits of postmodernism, a golden age of plunder where the original is lost to the copy of the copy of the copy.

Eminem fashioned personas such as ‘Slim Shady’ to create distance from Marshall Mathers—his birth name, hence his ‘real’ self endlessly mythologised by semiautobiographical trailer park narratives. 8 Mile (Curtis Hanson, 2002) starred Eminem in his acting debut as a young white rapper whose own ‘something more’ moment is to transcend his white trash origins. In doing so his whiteness becomes all the more visible through a highly gestural performance of another culture through rap music.

Eminem is an example of a class-anxious “Topdeck” (White Americans who seek to appropriate African American culture), writes Jane Stadler: “In moving into black culture, the Topdeck gives up his or her unlabeled position as a normative white subject and is exposed as a racial entity.” (14) After Eminem’s My Name Is video was released, Moffatt allegedly filed a lawsuit against Eminem’s record company.

(As a side note, Eminem’s mother Debbie Mathers filed a ten million dollar suit for slanderous lyrics in the same song, which are incidentally heard during the brief scene appropriating Moffatt’s image.) In short: Beulah Poynter’s 1952 book cover— with its blowsy mum protesting a rebellious daughter’s lust— morphed years later into Moffatt’s 1989 version, with revised racial implications set in Australia, only to be cast back into the white trash imagination by Eminem in 1999. Eminem’s whiteness is exposed in My Name Is through the construction of a stereotypical white trash persona, and quite literally, when he stands in for Moffatt’s already racially marked figure.

I recall when I first encountered this music video on late night television at the time it was released. I was stunned to see an image known so well in an Australian contemporary art context now absorbed into the broader Western popular culture from which it drew. In doing so, this obscure appropriation—it hasn’t been acknowledged in the discourse of Moffatt’s work—complicates the power relations and identity politics already associated with ‘Something More’.

Looking at Moffatt’s body of work to date, it is clear how 67

‘Something More’ set in chain an ongoing preoccupation with aestheticising the power relations between self and other in relation to race and class—albeit often filtered through allusions to the American South, where white trash culture proliferates.

From ‘Something More’ to ‘Laudanum’ (1999), ‘Invocations’ (2000), ‘Plantation’ (2010) and her video montage collaboration with Gary Hillberg, Other (2010), the relationship of self to other manifests within often hermetically sealed environments thick with claustrophobia and which inevitably erupt as desire turns into madness and hysteria. Remote colonial homesteads; steamy southern swamplands of the south; the tropics of Far North Queensland—such sites are part of the imaginary of otherness. For Moffatt they are one and the same.

It is as if Moffatt reaches to her own localised Australian experience, distancing it from the personal through its rich allusions to twentieth century melodrama and pulp. Although she may have played the ‘coloured girl’ in ‘Something More’, her racial identity was deliberately ambiguous. This seems to be the point of much of her work: the emphasis on persona and masquerade played out in a world theatre allows a certain level of ongoing transformation, as well as passing across identities and identifications.

references Dawkins, Marcia. “Close to the Edge: The Representational Tactics of Eminem”. The Journal of Popular Culture. 43.3. 2010: 463–485.

Gili, Marta. “An Interview with Tracey Moffatt”. Tracey Moffatt.

Barcelona: Fundació La Caixa; Paris: Centre national de la photographie.

1999: 105–108. hooks, bell [1992]. “Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination”.

Ed. Ruth Frankenberg. Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism. Durham N.C. & London: Duke University Press, 1997: 165–179.

Sweeney, Gael. “The King of White Trash Culture: Elvis Presley and the Aesthetics of Excess”. Eds. Matt Wray & Annalee Newitz. White Trash: Race and Class in America. New York & London: Routledge: 249–266.

Stadler, Jane. “Oreo, Topdeck and Eminem: Hybrid Identities and Media Flows”. International Journal of Cultural Studies. 14.2: 1–20.

Stryker, Susan. Queer Pulp. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001. opposite White Trash (cover) Beulah Poynter Uni-Book, 1952

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Turtle Eclipse of the Art Kenny Pittock

In June 2014 I left Australia for the first time and visited Italy. The thing I was most excited about was seeing art by each of the Ninja Turtles: Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael and Leonardo. In preparation for the trip I made a ceramic sculpture of each of the turtles modelled from the action figures I still have from when I was a kid. My hope was to try and document a reunion of the turtles with their most famous artwork.

The photographs presented are Michelangelo with David (at the Accademia, in Florence), Donatello with his David (at the Bargello, in Florence), Raphael with Madonna and Child (at the Uffizi, in Florence), and Leonardo with The Last Supper, (at the Santa Maria delle Grazie, in Milan).

Admittedly I think Leonardo’s Mona Lisa is more famous than The Last Supper, but that’s not in Italy.

Each photograph was taken in a gallery with a strict policy of “no photography”. If a security guard catches anyone taking a photo they make them delete it and ask them to leave. What made getting the photos especially difficult is that the angle I wanted to take them from meant I had to be lying down on the gallery floor.

Michelangelo was first and I figured out that a good way to be on the floor without being told off was to sit down and draw the artwork. I kept drawing until I felt that the guards had stopped watching me and at this point I pulled the turtle out of my pocket and took a photo on my phone.

The Italian summer was hot so I’d been wearing shorts and a singlet but I immediately realised that this attracts the attention of security, so before next heading to Donatello I went to a H&M store and for €45 I bought the most inconspicuous pants, shoes and polo shirt I could find.

Michelangelo’s David depicts David determined and on his way to face Goliath, whereas Donatello’s David portrays David smiling with his foot on Goliath’s severed head, so it made sense for me to see them in that order.

Raphael’s Madonna and Child was in an empty room with just me and one guard. This was a very different kind of intensity from the crowded David rooms. I sat on the floor drawing Madonna and thinking about her hit song “Like A Virgin” for at least forty five minutes as the guard and I pretended not to watch each other. Finally the guard received a text message and was distracted long enough for me to take the shot.

Maybe the most unexpected thing about all this was just how positive and enthusiastic strangers seemed to respond.

Tourists, cleaners, café staff, even the guards that x-ray you as you enter the museums, all seemed to light up and request photos when they noticed a turtle and realised what I was I doing. It was totally overwhelming because I was mostly travelling alone and couldn’t speak Italian so it was really

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only through the Ninja Turtles that I was able to get around the language barrier and share with people these amazing little moments.

Getting dragged across Italy, the turtles took a beating.

Most of the damage happened inside my backpack, but also because a lot of the galleries have paintings on their ceilings and people walk around looking up and occasionally kicked the turtles. I couldn’t find a store that sold good glue, so I would continuously mend the turtles in gallery bathrooms using chewing gum.

The last photo was The Last Supper. The only ticket I could get to see it was for an 8.45pm guided tour on a Friday night, the day before I left Italy. To get there I took a train to Milan and without making a seat reservation I had to stand up for the six-hour trip. As trains returning to Rome stopped at 8pm I had to book myself in to a backpackers in Milan, which meant I was paying for two rooms in separate cities. It was an expensive attempt at a photo. And because there was no chance I’d get another shot I felt so much pressure to not stuff it up.

The Santa Maria only allowed eight people at a time into the room with The Last Supper and only for fifteen minutes.

There were five security guards with us and three of them directly behind me. The tour guide was directly in front.

As well as them you have to be just as careful of the other tourists, you never know if they’ll have a Judas attitude of “If I can’t take photos then neither can you.” Almost every time 69

though it was the exact opposite and often if people saw me taking a photo they handed me their camera and asked: “Can you please take one for me?” In all these rooms with famous works of art most people weren’t looking at the art at all, instead they’re watching the guards and scheming as to how they can get away with taking a photo.

I pretended to look at The Last Supper, but I was really watching the little boy sitting next to me; he made me nervous because what I’d learnt during the trip is that when kids see the turtles they get excited and loud and they can blow everything. Fortunately, with one minute left of the tour the little boy started talking with his Dad. From what I could hear behind me, the guards sounded relaxed and in a conversation, and the tour guide in front wasn’t focusing on me because I was drawing. At that moment I dropped to the floor with Leonardo and took the photo.

Skipping out of the Santa Maria having taken the last photo I felt like I was the happiest person in the world. I was proud to have done it but more than anything I was just relieved it was over. I felt just like Donatello’s David.

In the lead up to the trip I’d thought that this was going to be a really fun thing to do but actually I think it just made the act of seeing some of the greatest artworks in history an experience of genuine anxiety.

A Tale of Two Styles Stephen Crafti

Melbourne’s rich architectural legacy has been formed partially by the diversity of its buildings, both in the domestic and commercial arenas. While there’s not a definitive demarcation of styles, architectural practices in this city tend to gravitate towards the recessive, discrete façade, or the bold and graphic. And of course there are a multitude of approaches along this broad continuum.

Those in the recessive camp could include some of Melbourne’s finest minimalists, such as Sean Godsell Architects, Denton Corker Marshall and Kerstin Thompson Architects. And in the more expressive group, the work of McBride Charles Ryan (MCR), ARM Architecture and Lyons Architecture, come to the fore of one’s mind.

“Architecture is integral to Melbourne’s culture,” says Debbie Ryan, co-director of MCR. “Historically, we have always had great patrons who support the arts, whether it’s dance and theatre or the built form.”

1 Park Street House Robert Simeoni Photography Trevor Mein 2 Queensberry Street House Robert Simeoni Photography John Gollings 3 Park Street House Robert Simeoni Photography Trevor Mein

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Since establishing their practice in the early 1990s, MCR have built a reputation for animated and expressive designs. The forms are “one out of a box” and colour, Ryan’s forte, is expressed both inside and out. “We’re not part of the ‘billboard’ school of architecture, where the façade is expressed like an advertising hoarding. It’s finding that ‘big idea’ and creating an appropriate form on a site,” says architect Rob McBride.

The Quays—two residential towers developed by MAB, in Docklands, Melbourne, and recently recipient of an Architecture Award from the Australian Institute of Architects (Victorian Chapter)—was partially inspired by sculptor Henry Moore. The sinuous forms, nestled between two adjoining high-rise towers, respond to both the city and waterfront views. They also engage with both residents and the wider public, with accessible thoroughfares within the development. Purple tinted glass features on the façades, with concrete balconies resembling ‘crumpled linen’. “We like to express materials in a different way. It could be giving concrete a sense of plasticity,” says McBride. Ryan cites the suffragette movement in the early twentieth century as one reason for the colour choice; the other is purple’s association with the modernist movement (think Le Corbusier).

The delights of the façade continue into the communal areas and the six hundred apartments. The treatment of MCR’s buildings, both inside and out, reflects their concern for providing residents with more than simply ‘X’ square metres. The Quays, includes a series of generous communal amenities, from living and dining areas, to a swimming pool and tennis court. “People shouldn’t live like battery hens,” says Ryan. Even if they live in an apartment, there should be a sense of domesticity, of coming home.”

The Yard Masters Building, wedged between the train tracks at Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station, is another example of MCR’s generous approach in their architecture.

Designed for the railway workers, they could have simply ticked all the boxes with a rudimentary steel shed. However, “the building is seen by everyone from those standing on the platform, to those moving past in a train. Why not offer something back to the public” explains Ryan, who believes contemporary architecture needs to satisfy this criteria.

MCR was the recipient of the prestigious Architizer Award in 2013. Presented to the duo in New York, the award itself exemplifies MCR’s design approach; the marble block opens to reveal a bed of foam, also made of marble rather than polystyrene.

The Yard Masters Building—which also saw MCR receive an Australian Institute of Architects Award (AIA Victorian Chapter) in 2010—causes train passengers to strain their necks upon passing. The concrete façade features a Persian inspired motif that has been highly polished to create the distinctive relief. “There’s a beautiful play of light, particularly in the afternoon. You’re not sure whether the building is made of concrete or something completely different,” says McBride, who appreciates the enquiries this building generates. “Our approach can be compared to working with a canvas. But you’re also conscious of the architectural and council parameters.”

Robert Simeoni takes a more ‘recessive’ approach to his architecture. He’s more than happy if people miss seeing one of his buildings, even though many have received architectural awards. “I always start with the ‘context’, something that many architects refer to,” Simeoni notes.

“There should be a sense that it fits in with the streetscape.”

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One of Simeoni’s homes, located in North Melbourne, exemplifies this approach. Brick factories built from the 1940s through to the 1960s surround the home, with a bluestone church directly opposite, and a 1920s brick apartment block just over a dividing laneway. Rather than using bluestone or the factory bricks, Simeoni selected a charcoal brown brick, with slithers of steel detailing for a contemporary edge, noting that “there has to be a dialogue with other buildings, not just producing similar forms.”

This house—which has received a number of accolades, including the Desbrowe-Annear Award in 2012 from the AIA (Victorian Chapter), and a commendation in the National Architectural Awards in the same year—includes ‘hit and miss’ brickwork, which allows the ‘skin’ of the house to breathe with cross-ventilation, as well as increased natural light. While Simeoni’s façade appears relatively simple, there is complexity in the design. As well as using the bricks to create a breezeway in the southwest elevation, the rear elevation includes a glazed pavilion on the first floor.

“You could see this as a contemporary Victorian pavilion or the lean-tos you often find with Victorian terraces,” says Simeoni, pointing out the Victorian terraces that line the main thoroughfare.

The interior of the house is less ‘robust’, “considerably softer,” says Simeoni, referring to the curtains rather than walls to separate the main bedroom from the ensuite. “The owners regularly go away. They wanted something secure, which could easily be locked up. But they also wanted an oasis when they were home.” Even the outdoor terraces are well covered, with a generous niche enclosing a front balcony.

While the house is reduced to a simple palette of materials, it is layered; in addition to the curtains throughout, there are 73

shutters on windows.. “Inside, it’s quite cocoon-like.

There’s a sense of protection,” says Simeoni.

As well as layering a house, Simeoni is mindful of the need for flexibility with twentieth century living: “people want spaces that are flexible and a house that can mutate several times over its lifespan. This house could function for a couple or the study could be transformed into an additional bedroom for a family”.

Simeoni’s own home, in North Fitzroy, also illustrates this architectural approach. Directly opposite a park, but similarly bordered by factories, the three-level concrete, zinc and glass building, features two sides: There’s the more protected masonry elevation, bordering the factories; while to the north, overlooking a local park, are generous glazed walls.

On a modest eighty square metre site, formerly a car park attached to the adjoining factory, the sixty five square metre house features a screen to diffuse northern light and create privacy. The vine, a Hardenbergia, flowers twice a year and provides a soft layer of purple and white flowers. “There’s obviously a connection to the parkland, but the vine functions as another layer,” adds Simeoni. Like the North Melbourne house, his home is softened by a series of curtains, with one of the curtains extending over two levels to create privacy for bedrooms.

While the façade speaks quietly to the neighbouring buildings, Simeoni’s choice of fruit trees planted in his pintsize garden reflects his concern for creating a community hub. “I planted different fruit trees to my neighbours, so there would always be a constant sharing of fruit. I think as we move forward, it’s those type of considerations that become as important as what a building looks like.”

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Speaking Between Worlds: Tiwi Art and Contemporary Art Quentin Sprague

Spend some time reading about the art of the Tiwi Islands, which lie one hundred kilometres off the coast of Darwin, and it’s hard not to notice a recurrent theme. The Tiwi, we are told, are a people unto themselves, distant both culturally and geographically. This theme extends to their very name, which is generally translated as ‘we, the people’, as if there are no others.

Timothy Cook Tutini 1, 2 and 3 2010–11 Ochre and acrylic binder on ironwood pole, carved by Patrick Freddy Puruntatameri Kulama 2011 Ochre and acrylic binder on linen Installation at Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide © The artists, courtesy of Jilamara Arts & Craft Association, Melville Island, Northern Territory and Aboriginal and Pacific Art, Sydney Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

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Laurie Nelson Mungatopi, Bob One Apuatimi, Jack Yarunga, Don Burakmadjua, Charlie Quiet Kwangdini and an unknown artist Tiwi, North region Tutini (Pukumani grave posts) Natural pigments on iron wood, 274 x 250 x 250 cm (overall) Art Gallery of New South Wales, gift of Dr Stuart Scougall 1959 Š The artists’ estates, courtesy of Jilamara Arts, Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney

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In addition, the Tiwi are “fierce defenders of their island home”, as a recent curatorial text put it.(Bullock and Glass-Kantor, 302) They were historically feared by settler Australians—who attempted, and failed to establish a military outpost there at the turn of last century—and largely avoided by the Macassan traders that for hundreds, and perhaps thousands of years made seasonal visits to surrounding areas. The Tiwi artist Pedro Wonaeamirri is among those who encourage this reading. He once stated, unequivocally, that “Tiwi art belongs to the people of the Tiwi Islands. We have completely different culture and different language from mainland Aboriginal people.”(Ryan, 73) There is a certain neatness to this narrative. As the art historian Darren Jorgensen recently noted: “The idea of the Tiwi as an isolated group, different to mainland Aboriginal Australian people, has suited the scholarship on the islands.”(147) This is of course partly because it is true that the Tiwi are culturally distinct; they are as different from mainland Aboriginal groups as the Yolngu people from Arnhem Land are from the Pintupi of the Western Desert.

It is worth noting however, that this position has a distinctly ethnographic ring to it. In relation to art the inference is clear: art provides a tool for one culture to understand another.

If this is all true, it presents a certain problem. If Tiwi art is focused squarely on the reaffirmation of tradition, how might we begin to truly picture it in terms of the dynamic currents of contemporary art within which it now flows?

The reason I begin here is simple. This question highlights the challenge that Aboriginal art, including the art of the Tiwi, has long presented to the art world. Aboriginal art, or so the thinking goes, lies in a tradition that has been unbroken for something like forty thousand years, yet it is equally of the present; institutionalised as one of the most vibrant aspects of contemporary art in Australia. Against this backdrop the term ‘contemporary’ is most often used loosely.

Grouping together a varied selection of Aboriginal artists, including the late Tiwi artist Jean Baptiste Apuatimi, the catalogue text accompanying the 2007 ‘National Indigenous Art Triennial: Culture Warriors’ addressed it like this: All of these artists are contemporary, irrespective of their domicile, their experiences, their connection to country and cultural practices—they are creating work in and of the here and now.(xi) There is truth to this, but statements like this also gloss over an understanding of what contemporary art actually is and in doing so only get us so far. Contemporary art is far more than art that is being made now: it represents a way of being and acting in a world marked by constant translation.

If we approach Tiwi art from this perspective it becomes clear

that the art of the ‘only people’ traced the contours of what has come to be referred to as contemporary art long before the Western art world had a means to recognise it.

When Charles P Mountford arrived on the Tiwi Islands in 1954 as the leader of an international team of ethnographers, he had a clear objective in mind. For him, the distinctive culture of the Tiwi was under threat from sustained contact; if it wasn’t recorded it would be lost forever. To this end he commissioned a series of paintings on bark, now known collectively as the ‘Mountford Barks’, and used them as a key interpretive tool. At the time these small-scale ochre paintings had little or no direct precedent on the Islands.

An earlier ethnographer, C W M Hart, had noted the local practice of painting on the side of seasonal bark shelters, but the designs that local artists painted for Mountford far surpassed the simple drawings Hart described.(Hart et al, 97–98) The Mountford barks were unique because they transfigured the highly detailed painting style that Tiwi used in ceremonial body painting and in decorating the local burial poles known as Tutuni into something entirely new.

Yet it was perhaps unavoidable that this innovative quality would go unobserved by Mountford, who saw in them only a means to understand Tiwi tradition. This was, of course, a perspective tightly bound to the ideology of the day. Regardless of the six months he spent living in the dynamic cultural space of the Tiwi, the overwhelming question that guides the study Mountford published four years later is not what might be gained through historical change, but what might be lost. Its concluding sentence casts this bleak sentiment in stark light: Mountford urges fellow ethnographers to continue the research he had begun “before civilization distorted or destroyed the interesting cultural life of the Tiwi.”(180) At the time the notion of a dynamic, changing art form was unimaginable.

It took two key events in the art world to uncouple the engagement of Tiwi material culture from the looming shadow of cultural demise that haunts accounts like Mountford’s. The first event took the form of another significant commission. The patron this time was Tony Tuckson, artist and Deputy Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He visited the Islands just as Mountford’s study was being published, but Tuckson’s belief in material culture was very different. He saw it first and foremost as art.

The seventeen Tutuni that artists including Bob One Apuatimi and Jack Yarunga made for Tuckson arguably provided the most important early Tiwi engagement with the broader context of the art world. Although these works were more closely aligned to existing cultural forms than the Mountford barks before them, their effect was ultimately

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much greater. This was simply a matter of context. In entering an art gallery rather than a natural history museum these striking sculptural objects famously prefigured the debate between ethnography and art that defined the early reception of Aboriginal art in Australia. Yet even this wasn’t enough.

The materiality of the Tutuni, which were roughly carved and painted with ochre, still made it easy for them to be dismissed as ethnographic artefacts. When it was finally won, the debate that these objects embodied played out in the desert, far from the shores of the Tiwi Islands.

This happened in the early 1970s in Papunya, a tiny settlement in the Western Desert, when a group of senior men formed Papunya Tula Artists. As is well known, the Papunya Tula painting collective became the foundation of the broader Aboriginal art movement. It was their art that provided the key precedent for the broad acceptance of contemporary Aboriginal art practices throughout Australia.

The subsequent spread of government funded Aboriginal art centres opened space for various regional inflections on collective themes. On the Tiwi Islands this held its own promise. By the 1990s individual Tiwi artists led by senior figures such as the late Kitty Kantilla, had entered the canon of Indigenous contemporary art in Australia.

In the decades since Tiwi art pegged out space on the art world’s map, things have both changed and remained the same. Artists including Kantilla, her late contemporaries Freda Warlapinni and Jean Baptiste Apuatimi, as well as younger generation artists such as Wonaeamirri, Timothy Cook and Marie Josette Orsto, have all achieved varying degrees of recognition in the broader Australian art world.

The approach that these and other Tiwi artists share essentially mirrors that of the artists behind the Mountford Barks. Jilamara—the intricate designs once used in body painting and in the decoration of Tutuni—continue to be re-addressed in paintings that now extend over canvas and paper supports, just as carved ironwood Tutuni continue to be made and sold as sculptural objects.

From the late 1990s to the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, Aboriginal art in Australia—much of it from remote centres like the Tiwi Islands—was collectively worth as much as one hundred million dollars a year. This occurred within local environments where independent economies are otherwise almost entirely non-existent. Art production strained to fill something of the vacuum that the failed economic and social policies of successive Australian governments have left at the heart of many Aboriginal communities. This is an impossible task, and often pushes the broader cultural function of art practice to breaking point. Some commentators argue that in this context it is the 79

retention of culture and language that presents the biggest threat to the sustainability of practices like Tiwi art. This may at one level be true, but it’s a perspective that ignores that fact that Tiwi art, like all forms of intercultural practice, was in its earliest days prompted by change rather than continuity. All cultures are subject to this kind of change. On the Tiwi Islands, art practice as we now know it was initially made possible by a space of translation that opened between cultures. Art provided a means of communication in the absence of shared language.

In this light it is unsurprising that it is within the broad context of contemporary practice where Tiwi art may now speak most convincingly. A recent example of this came in the inclusion of Timothy Cook’s works in ‘Parallel Collisions: 12th Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art’ (2012) at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Located between Tim Silver’s disintegrating self-portraits and Shaun Gladwell’s video of a surfer suspended beneath rolling waves, Cook’s works— a series of paintings and Tutuni that collectively referred to Tiwi ceremonies of life and death—effortlessly fitted in to a complex pattern of death, entropy and rebirth.

We may still follow Mountford’s prompt and recognise the spiraling motifs that an artist like Cook now paints in terms of ‘tradition’, but if we do we should understand that in keeping with other contemporary traditions it is, in its most successful forms, malleable rather than intransigent.

By that I mean it changes with the times. It offers space for dramatic innovation just as it re-defines the borders within which such gestures might be made. If we are speaking about contemporary art then this is the measure we should use.

references Bullock, Natasha and Glass-Kantor, Alexie. “Timothy Cook”. Parallel Collisions: The 12th Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art. Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2012 : 302–03.

Croft, Brenda L. “Cannot Buy My Soul”. Culture Warriors: Australian Indigenous Art Triennial. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2007: xi–xxvii.

Hart, C W M et al. The Tiwi of North Australia. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1960.

Jorgensen, Darren. “Jean Baptiste Apuatimi, Jilamara, and Art History on the Tiwi Islands”. Journal of Australian Studies. 37:2. 2013: 147–158.

Mountford, Charles. The Tiwi: Their Art, Myth and Ceremony. London: Phoenix House. Melbourne: Georgian House, 1958.

Wonaeamirri, Pedro. “Tiwi Art and Culture and the First Old Lady”.

Ed. Judith Ryan. Kitty Kantilla. Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2007: 71–73.

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Timothy Cook Kulama 2012 Natural earth pigments and synthetic polymer binder on canvas, 155 x 224 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2012

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Missing in Action: Franck Gohier Glenn Barkley

There is an issue in Australian contemporary art that seems to make a neat cleaving between the work of Indigenous artists from the Top End and ‘the rest’—pretty much everyone else in the country. There is still a reflective dominant thought in the value of separating artwork in museums and art galleries into geographical, social or cultural context, which ignores the fact that we all exist in the world, all the time, right now.

Franck Gohier The Tattoo Man 1997 Synthetic polymer paint, tin and nails on Milkwood, 55 x 23 x 16 cm Artbank collection, purchased 1998

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This is no more keenly felt in a regional space like Darwin, which every year is invaded by hordes from Melbourne and Sydney always after the next big thing at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA).

‘The Telstras’ are, rightfully so, a celebration of Indigenous art, but also an example of the art world at its rapacious worse.

How would you feel if you lived in Darwin?

I bring NATSIAA up in this context as for many in the art world their only glimpse of the complexity of Darwin is through their diligent yearly visits, while for others it comes from hearing their reports about the event. Conversely, for artists in Darwin their view of the southern art world is probably also equally askew.

One of the funniest things I have ever seen at an opening was standing with Franck Gohier at the doors of Darwin’s Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT), in 2003, just after the announcement that Richard Bell’s incredibly prescient painting Scientia E Metaphysica (Bells Theorem) (2003) was the NATSIAA winner; a painting that was causing a lot of hand wringing among some ‘traditional’ Aboriginal art dealers, and pre-empted what I was about to witness.

“It doesn’t seem so bad”, I said to Gohier, who had warned me of otherwise well behaved collector’s ‘bad behavior’ in trying to beat the art advisors from the big smoke into the galleries. “You wait”, he replied. As if on cue, a hoard of linen-wearing, sweaty white folk came running over the hill, looking as though they were playing parts in a zombie art version of The Sound of Music; and all heading straight for us!

We survived, but that incident always provides one of the subtexts to my perception of the art of the Northern Territory: funny, scary, surreal and driven. Gohier’s work reflects the diversity of views and cultures in Darwin, while also extending outwards in to the world. It could only come out of the Darwin culture, and Gohier is right in the middle of this mélange: now no longer such an avid participant as he once was, but rather a ‘senior established artist’; a sage like, bemused onlooker.

A notable and very important part of Gohier’s work is being a collector, which reveals his interest in popular culture, books, obsolete printmaking techniques and music. Gohier’s studio in Darwin—which is part rumpus room, library and clubhouse—is a draw for artists, curators, collectors and

fellow travellers who have connected with Gohier and his wife Chayni Henry, herself an established and respected artist.

I first came to know Franck work through his pioneering work at Red Hand Prints, the workshop he established with Shaun Poustie in 1996. By chance I had come across a print by Red Hand in 2003, in an academic’s office at the University of Wollongong where I was then curator of the art collection.

The work was part of a large group of screenprinted posters that Gohier and numerous collaborators had produced for all types of cultural, political and community groups—as well as for their own twisted kicks. One thing led to another and I tracked Gohier down. After ten minutes on the phone, Gohier had donated a whole set of Red Hand posters to the University and had extended an invitation to see him in Darwin.

Gohier’s screenprints really resonated with Wollongong audiences, having a direct link to the print workshops of Earthworks and Redback Graphics—which was for a period of its history based in Wollongong. The poster making tradition took on many regionally specific aspects— including a biting satire and quick wit—that Gohier and his collaborators also had.

But the posters are only one part of Gohier’s multifarious art output—including painting, sculpture and his own printmaking, as well as printing that he and Poustie have variously undertaken within remote Indigenous communities—which all seems blended into some a fecund, humid cultural mix out of which his works spring.

Gohier’s work with Aboriginal artists, many of whom are his friends as well as collaborators, has had a profound effect on his work. The sculpture, The Tattoo Man (1997) is typical of his blending of influences; many obvious, others much more subtle. The work is part fetish figure or voodoo doll, and maybe part self-portrait. A stand-in for a circus performer or stranded vagabond, the figure seems singular and demented—don’t forget this was made when tattoos still had an edge and sub-cultural potency. One imagines his little stripey pants are snatched from an old loved pair; the cloth is almost talismanic. His tattoos are wiped over as if obliterated Cowgirl and Ringer 2004 Synthetic polymer paint, tuna cans, nails and buttons on Ironwood and Stringybark, 53.5 x 27 x 16.5 cm and 41 x 20 x 14.5 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2005

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by time and sun. (Gohier later made a series of linocuts that depict similarly tattooed folk; something like a snapshot of The Tattoo Man’s extended carnival family).

Around the time The Tattoo Man was made, Gohier was working with the artist of Milikapiti, Melville Islands, most notably Kitty Kantilla. In his work there are traces of Kantilla, especially her carved and decorated sculptures.

Like Kantilla’s work, Gohier’s figure is constructed from rough forms, but purposefully so; capturing the animus of the spirit within. Similarly, the tracery of the tattoos find an echo in Kantilla’s owns tracery of webbed lines, drawn from body markings. It’s an oblique connection, but one that is incredibly rich and complex. The interplay between Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists is an important element in much recent Australian art, but in the art of the Top End it is far more palpable, honest and ‘real’.

Complex too is the relationship between this sculpture and the boats that have carried refugees from South East Asia into Darwin. Gohier used to salvage wood from some of these boats where they lay abandoned in the mangrove swamps near the city for furniture. In this is the avid up-cycler making do with what’s around him and reinventing materials in a clever pragmatic way. A group of these beautifully decorated, colourful, but sun worn crafts exist in the MAGNT—many more have been burnt or destroyed.

Later sculptural works broaden The Tattoo Man’s milieu.

If the figures in the linocuts can be seen as his brother and sisters, the sculptures Cowgirl and Ringer (2004) are his troubled children. There are quite a lot of teeth in Gohier’s sculptures nearly always gritted or shown with lips drawn back in a cadaver like rictus. They look troubled; a bit roughed up and worn down, anchored and lumpen. Maybe feeling a little abandoned, the joy that is evident in The Tattoo Man seems driven from these two.

The Phillip (2006) is the personification of the saying ‘gone troppo’—not unlike Conrad’s Mr Kurtz—and his appearance is based quite literally on comic book character The Phantom. The Phillip is superhero gone to seed. All his bad habits are catching up with him as he clutches to his past filling up the fetid air around him with old stories, “blah blah blah” and cigarette smoke.

The character in Missing in Action (1997) is yet another dressed up outcast: a Second World War pilot waiting for the

attack on Darwin and sweating bullets. What’s he doing down there in the reeds? Trying to hide? Has he done a runner?

Has his plane gone down? What’s he running from? The war itself? Fear?

This exemplifies Gohier’s interest in regional histories.

For a long time, the Second World War attack on Darwin by the Japanese was a hidden part of Australian history; bad for morale and all that, especially for those in the south where the idea of the north is kind of like a foreign exotic country. For Gohier though this chapter of Australian history was and is very real: the white pilot dropped in to an exotic locale mirrors the white artist dropped into a foreign culture. Sometimes this is difficult but often positive, life changing and life affirming. At other times it is patronising and cringe worthy.

You only have to see the most locally infamous of Red Hand’s posters—Missionary Wanker—to understand that.

The prevalence of the pilot, missionary, anthropologist or artist—all figures who somehow sit detached from what’s around them—might tell us that Gohier, although long settled in Darwin and very much part of a complex cultural network, still sees himself as an outsider. It’s far too easy to just see Gohier’s work and not pick up on its complexity. His recent pop inspired works, of which Artbank’s Beatrice (2006) is a perfect case in point, typify that. Gohier has natural aesthetic abilities, which are akin to a designer as much as an artist, and he foregrounds a work’s graphic quality and formal relationships in combination with political and cultural comment.

Gohier is also interested in design’s ability to deliver a message bluntly; something he may have learnt from poster making. The narrative in his works, the ‘meaning’ sit right at the front, in your face; as does his humour and cynicism.

However, you have to negate around those qualities to get to each work’s multitude of meanings. By doing this, a freedom ensues; one that drives a practice in which cultures move through and are celebrated.

The Phillip 2006 Synthetic polymer paint, buttons, bottle tops and nails on wood, 62 x 24 x 24 cm Artbank collection, purchased 2006

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Heavily Tattooed Helen Ennis

When Geoff Ostling and I met in Sydney this year, he had just returned from the Middle East with a new tattoo.

It’s of a Jerusalem cross which he explained to me he’d chosen because of its personal significance and association with the Crusades—his mother’s family can trace their ancestry back centuries to the Knight Templar. He showed me other new tattoos of lighthouses that are on the inside of each wrist: one refers to the famous candy-striped Hornby lighthouse at the entrance to Sydney Harbour and the other to a twin lighthouse at Nidingen in Sweden which has family connections (his great-great- grandfather was a Swedish lighthouse keeper). And on the back of his hands there are flowers he commissioned on the occasion of his sixty fifth birthday—a waratah that reminds him of his father is on his right hand and on his left is a Queen Elizabeth rose that was his mother’s favourite flower. Ostling made it clear in our conversation that his tattoos are part of an elaborate, self-conscious personal narrative and that they have an important commemorative function. He also expressed some ruefulness that, as he put it, “there’s no room left.”

Indeed, the only blanks spaces remaining on his body are his scalp, face, palms of his hands and soles of his feet.

Portraits Geoff Friend, 2011 Photo Library collection, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

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However, it is not for his individual or recent tattoos that Ostling has come to be known. Rather, it is for his full body tattoo, which is the outcome of a long term project he initiated in 1988, and which has now effectively concluded.

While he was aware of the traditional Japanese art of the full body tattoo, known as horishi, he explained to me that his inspiration for a full body tattoo came from an example closer to home; that of his friend the late Mervyn Chapman, whose body was tattooed by Sydney tattoo artist Max Chater, and others from around the world. Chapman had some good advice for Ostling, telling him not to follow fashion and to choose designs that were unique and had personal significance. He therefore settled on ‘a garden of flowers’ which owed some debt to Hieronymus Bosch’s painted triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (1503–04). Ostling’s tattoo garden initially comprised Australian natives, banksias and waratahs in particular, but in the quest for more colour it was later extended to incorporate such exotics as azaleas, rhododendrons, orchids and Hippeastrum (a South American lily). The other dominant imagery, which appears on his back, is of instantly recognisable Sydney landmarks, the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, and a number of teddy bears that have personal significance to Ostling and his partner.

From 1988 to the end of 2010, Ostling’s tattooist was Canberra based artist eX de Medici, and this project was her longest running artwork. There were periods of intense activity and numerous gaps arising from their respective commitments and inclinations but there was no wavering from the end goal of achieving a full body tattoo (despite the financial costs and what Ostling readily admitted was 91

sometimes considerable pain). When de Medici gave a keynote presentation at the National Gallery of Australia’s Print Symposium in 2010, Geoff Ostling sat on the stage with cameras projecting the details of his tattooed body on a screen for her fascinated audience to peruse. There was no doubt that it was de Medici’s works being displayed within the context of an extraordinary and provocative artistic career that encompasses performance, installation, photography, drawing and watercolour. What was curious however was Ostling’s presence as a living subject over whom the artist ultimately has no control. While Ostling’s full body suit represents a collaborative project in some ways—neither party could have realised the tattoos independently—the collaboration was complex in nature. In my conversation with Ostling and in his numerous published comments about the tattooing project, it is clear he has had less power than de Medici in their combined artistic enterprise. He greatly admires her work and is delighted to ‘host’ it. When he first encountered her tattoos more than twenty five years ago— he met her purely by chance—he was struck by the highly unusual and extremely beautiful work she was doing. He can remember bringing a book to de Medici who dismissed it, telling him that she didn’t do designs from books. And yet de Medici did not have full reign as the artist because the nature of the imagery was determined by Ostling, not by her, and is based on the construction of his own life story involving place, genealogy and important events. None of the motifs that have been fashionable in tattooing in recent years—Japanese koi, Celtic designs, dragons, daggers, owls clocks and other time pieces—are anywhere to be seen in Ostling’s garden.

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The personal narrative that the tattoos construct and commemorate is of course Ostling’s, but the images that represent it, their form and style, are all de Medici’s. Even though the tattoos were done in separate sessions over more than two decades, they are impressive in their cohesion. de Medici has successfully created an integrated, all-over design in which individual elements and motifs are woven together into an abundantly lush scene. What also stands out is her use of black to set off the colours, and the expansiveness of the imagery, especially of the flowers. There is no fiddly detail because detail itself is conceived as part of the whole, working towards the creation of a cumulative effect that is extravagantly and richly ornamental.

Before Ostling and I met, I knew that he had a long career as a high school history teacher and was now enjoying retirement and being able to pursue his love of history, whether personal and genealogical or more general. Not surprisingly given his background, he is also immersed in both the history of tattooing and its contemporary practices which he told me about in some detail. For example, during our conversation he referred to Japanese historical traditions—a group of tattoos in the Wellcome Trust collection in London that are currently being catalogued— and various Australian bikies’ tattooing practices (I had no idea that bikies sometimes arrange to have sections of tattoos preserved after death and framed for display). I mention these specific examples because they share a common link— all are preserved tattoos and therefore relate to Ostling’s own decision to preserve de Medici’s tattoos on his skin for posterity. He stressed that he personally finds flesh and skin

beautiful and is unequivocal in his acceptance of tattooed skin as works of art. He noted the irony in his case is that so long as he is alive his full body tattoo is generally invisible, revealed only if he is undressed.

Ostling has publicly announced his intention to bequeath his tattooed skin to the National Gallery of Australia as an example of eX de Medici’s artwork. (In terms of its categorisation it could be catalogued either as a painting or a drawing.) His decision has brought him some notoriety in recent years, notably through Rhys Graham’s documentary Skin (2008), commissioned and produced by Tony Ayres, which was shortlisted for Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. For the documentary, de Medici, Ostling and Ayres travelled to Japan and visited a number of tattoo studios. They also went to a museum of tattooed skins; Ostling relates that some of the Japanese tattoo artists he met were amazed to hear of this as its existence is not well known and public access is extremely limited. For his tattooed skin he envisages a display similar to those he saw in Japan and to this end has provided detailed instructions in his will: as soon as he dies his body will have to be frozen so that the skin does not deteriorate, then a taxidermist he has already identified will do her work (she specialises in taxidermy of marsupials).

She will remove the skin from his body and preserve it. If this scenario eventuates—it is obviously entirely dependent on the circumstances and timing of Ostling’s death—his body would then be cremated and his tattooed skin would remain intact.

In keeping with the political, spirited nature of de Medici’s practice, this unique art work would then make its final appearance in the art world for all to see.

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Reflected Glory Rebecca Baumann Romance Was Born in conversation

Romance Was Born & Rebecca Baumann ‘Reflected Glory’ 2014 Installation at Carriageworks, Sydney Photography Zan Wimberley

REFLECTED GLORY

rebecca baumann: Anna and Luke, you have a rich history of collaboration, firstly in your working relationship together, but also with visual artists including Del Kathryn Barton, Kate Rohde and Nell. What is it about the process of collaborating that interests you? anna plunkett: I think the process of collaborating for us is so unconscious, even how we started the brand, and started working together at college. It wasn’t like “Hey, let’s start a label together!” it was more like “Hey, let’s sit down and make some fun stuff that we really love.” I guess now we do have a brand and a formula of sorts to how we run our business there’s more to collaborating. Especially when it’s with people you don’t have an existing relationship with, it’s sort of like going on a date; you have to suss each other out and you get a bit nervous and all butterfly like sometimes when it’s people you have admired for such a long time. luke sales: Collaboration is how we started and even how Anna and I started working together really. We did projects and stuff together at fashion school cause they were so boring, and it’s kinda like that still.

It is exciting to collaborate with new people all the time, because the cycle of fashion is so monotonous and never ending; it’s nice to have some one new to mix it up. rb: One of the reasons I was interested in collaborating with you guys was to see what would happen when I relinquished some control. By nature I am a bit of a control freak—as most artists probably are—so it was a challenge to work within this different context, and to collaborate, which I had never actually done before.

Although in saying that, I consider the materials I work with to be collaborators of sorts. In many of my works I create a space for something to happen—a stage where the material I’m working with becomes the performer.

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Improvised Smoke Device (2010/11) is an example of a work where I lose control of the outcome. I never know exactly what’s going to happen. The work uses coloured smoke: canisters are placed in a line and ignited by a pyrotechnician, then the smoke billows skyward, slowly dissipating into the atmosphere. The smoke is at the mercy of the elements, where the wind can create these amazing forms, to the point where someone once asked me if I had choreographed it! Then on other occasions it has just blown away to little effect. So every time I restage it I always have a lot of nervous energy, about whether it’s going to ‘work’ or not, but then the potential for failure is an inherent part of the piece.iece.

For ‘Reflected Glory’, your collection had an element of narrative, with the garments reflecting different moments across the arc of someone’s lifetime. You also touched on your own personal history. Do you usually try to tell a story within your collections? ls: Yeah absolutely. And this is something we have done since we started. It’s not a message we are trying to convey or a statement we are trying to make, but there is a story behind the collection which we feel is important if for no other reason than for the audience to see the inspirations behind the collection and understand where we are coming from. This also helps, I think, with people jumping to conclusions and saying we’re ‘crazy’ or something.

Hopefully they will see the reason we have done something this way, or used that type of fabric etc.

It’s not just grabbing a bit of this and a bit of that for no reason.

With ‘Reflected Glory’, for example, I know we were all looking at this idea of ritual, and initiation and marking points in our lives with celebration.

The garments we created had a different celebration or party in mind: ‘New Year’s Eve’ was like a mirror ball; ‘Sweet 16’ was a pastel pink dress; ‘House Party’ we used a Madonna T-shirt that I was wearing the first time I met Anna. My point being, there is a method to the madness. rb: It was interesting to me that you took that approach, as my work plays within the language of abstraction and is purposefully devoid of any specific narrative. I use personal experiences, cultural rituals or materials as a launching point for many of my works, but I always remove the narrative to allow the audience to project their own story or experience onto the work. ap: In regards to our ready to wear collections, they too can be quite personal to us. We try to think of a mood or what feeling

different garments may reflect. It’s mainly what we really love so it often has a nostalgic memory to it or something, but now we are older than we were when we started things are a lot different in the market place and we are forced to think about a product at the end of the day: like what type of person may respond to different prints; the colours we have chosen; when would they wear it; and is the fabric suitable for their lifestyle. There’s all these different things we think about all the time, and so much communication constantly to makers, contractors, designers, etc. I really don’t think people understand how intense and fast paced it can be.

That’s why we love making show pieces. It just cuts all the mess out and is about more about a special shiny precious thing. This is what usually comes very instinctively.

Sometimes I wish that was what we had to do all day, as that’s how we started the brand. That’s what we enjoy doing and I think that’s why we connected when we met. Hopefully now we have created a space for this type of work that people can engage with. Hopefully they take away from it our passion for making, but also the fantasy that we try to create.

Rebecca can you tell us a bit about your installation for ‘Reflected Glory’? rb: My installation for ‘Reflected Glory’ follows on from a commissioned work I created by the same name, which was exhibited at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery in 2013. Working at Carriageworks was a very different experience to a white cube space, as there is a history that you can’t avoid. I used materials such as acrylic, mirrors, origami and wrapping paper and so forth. I enjoyed working with these seductive materials in the raw and industrial space of Carriageworks. It was a process of seeing what kind of ‘marks’ each material would make on the different surfaces, and considering how to work with, and create moments within the architecture.

I am interested in working with light as, like the smoke, it has an immaterial quality; something which has form, but is formless. Light is capable of transforming spatial environments; an intangible material which can be manipulated and sculpted. It allows us see the world around us, but remains something that we take for granted, or don’t think about too much. So I have used light to ‘activate’ the materials strewn on the floor, but once the lights are switched off, the reflections disappear and the work ceases to exist. That ephemerality has been something that I have been interested in across my practice. We all want to try and hold on to, or capture specific moments in time, and often live in the past or project into the future, without really existing in the present. So maybe the work can be thought of as a celebration of the changing, imperfect moment we are living in right now.

Romance Was Born & Rebecca Baumann ‘Reflected Glory’ 2014 Installation at Carriageworks, Sydney Photography Zan Wimberley

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Rebecca Baumann Reflected Glory 2013 (installation) Ellipsoidal reflector spotlights, mirror, origami paper, plexiglass, wrapping paper, dimensions variable Commissioned by Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth for ‘LUMINOUSFLUX: Lightworks’ (2013) Photography Bo Wong

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The Parramatta Road Vanessa Berry

fold-out Vanessa Berry Parramatta Road: Landmarks and Monuments 2014 Pen on paper, letraset, photocopy, 56 x 84 cm Courtesy of the artist

THE PARRAMATTA ROAD

At the start of the Patrick White short story “Five-Twenty” (1968), Royal and Ella Natwick, an elderly couple, watch peak hour traffic on Parramatta Road from their front veranda. The cars and trucks, “big steel insects”, move slowly past. Watching the choked road Royal says: “I reckon we’re a shingle short to’uv ended up on the Parramatta Road.”

Parramatta Road is a place to move through rather than end up, to view with frustration through a car window as the traffic creeps onwards. It’s Sydney’s oldest thoroughfare, running twenty kilometres east to west from the city to Parramatta. Along it, drivers have a view of run down shopping strips and warehouses, and sometimes a glimpse of a first floor apartment where the contemporary equivalents of White’s couple live. For many years I was one of them, living in close proximity to the road. From my bedroom window, through the veil of black diesel dust that coated the glass, I could see into the Stanmore McDonald’s car park. This was a twenty four hour set; host to drama, romance, action and the occasional moment of science fiction when the 3am ambience of seagulls, car stereos and burger wrappers swirling in the wind started to seem all too weird. Even when I wasn’t watching it, the sound of the road was omnipresent.

It crept into my dreams, a constant backdrop to my thoughts.

Parramatta Road is a resistant place. The endless traffic makes walking along it an almost unbearable combination of noise and exhaust fumes. Any business that tries to operate here is either a remnant from its past days, like the archetypally anachronistic Olympia Milk Bar, or fulfills some kind of niche that people have to specifically seek out: wedding dresses, guitars, kitchen equipment, canoes or—feeding the cycle of traffic—car dealerships. Car yards line the road from Sydney City Subaru at Petersham—where a four wheel drive rears up on top of a large concrete rock—to RA Motors in Granville— where since the 1980s a mannequin named Fiona has stood at the gate, subject to frequent costume changes and the occasional kidnapping.

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The Parramatta Road Vanessa Berry

fold-out Vanessa Berry Parramatta Road: Landmarks and Monuments 2014 Pen on paper, letraset, photocopy, 56 x 84 cm Courtesy of the artist

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Ruins, mannequins, milk bars: the road isn’t quite the wasteland it might seem to be. It has its own series of monuments, from the giant bears which stare out from the window of the Urban Flower florist at Burwood, to the AR Plastic compound at Lidcombe, made up of breeze blocks and shipping containers with a transmission tower on the roof like a suburban Eiffel Tower. At the road’s start, its head, is Sydney University, a thought factory that soon gives over to the shops and pubs of Camperdown. Then there’s the bedding stores and guitar shops of Annandale as the road rises to a tall orange building on Taverner’s Hill. Once this was a brewery and now is a Kennards Self Storage, but is best known as “the orange building” a landmark visible from far away and from the planes which fly above it on their way to the airport. The road then continues west and its landmarks continue until it dissolves into a web of crossroads at Granville.

For as long as it has existed, Parramatta Road has been a problem for Sydney. Take any moment from its history and there are descriptions of it as dangerous, poorly maintained, congested or dreary, or a combination of all of these miserable traits. In 1855 visiting English economist and urban chronicler Stanley Jevons decided that “a more disagreeable road it is impossible to conceive.” (51) This is an impression that still applies today for the motorists who sit with engines idling, stuck in relentless traffic. The road has a string of unlikely highlights for drivers to meditate upon during

peak hours. The billboard for Dental Evolutions, for example, which pictures a diagram of a replacement tooth with a screw attached to the base tunneling into a gum. On a particularly bad day of traffic, a trip to the dentist may seem a more favourable torturous experience.

Yet Parramatta Road has its fans, lovers of urban decay and anachronism, modern ruins and terrain vague.

Dysfunctional, unusual and threatened space has long been a preoccupation for artists, especially photographers, who undertake the activity of noticing as a documentary or redemptive act. The now iconic early twentieth century Paris photographs of Eugène Atget, with their deserted streets and gently smiling shop mannequins in demure fashions, were an explicit response to the changing city. The industrial architecture photographed by Bernd and Hilla Becher in the 1960s drew attention to the overlooked aesthetics of factories and functional structures and also document an era of industry now past.

Parramatta Road could hardly be said to be overlooked, as thousands of motorists use it daily, but celebrating its details and aesthetic is a subversive act that inverts the usual city narratives. The postcard Sydney—harbour and beaches— is far from the ruins of the Brescia furniture warehouse, burnt out in 2006, or the rows of car yards decorated by balloons and palm trees. This is the landscape of suburban Sydney, ragtag and illogical.

The Arnott’s bird eternally mid-nibble on a Sao on the railway bridge at Strathfield. In Homebush, the derelict Midnight Star Theatre as solid and tragic as a ruined wedding cake.

THE PARRAMATTA ROAD

The looming Costco warehouse at Auburn, across the road from the Lidcombe Power Centre, with stained fountains that suggest a shabby Las Vegas. These sites of utility, commerce or neglect can become places of mystery for those who care to look into their details.

The road attracts artists who find its presence—as a place both essential and maligned—worthy of exploration. In an ongoing project photographer Lyndal Irons documents the social and material life of Parramatta Road as it changes.

In the statement describing her work she explains how the road “quietly gets away with being more interesting than you might think.” Her photographs capture moments from the road’s everyday: a girl getting a tattoo in House of Pain while her friends watch on, boys in the McDonald’s carpark, a car yard owner in his fake wood-panelled office.

Other artists use the road as a performance space, such as De Quincey Co in Dancing the Parramatta Road (2000) and a series of similar performances that involved the difficult traversal of the road by walking its length.

The experience of walking the road is also the subject of the novel Great Western Highway: a love story (2012) by Anthony Macris. Here the walk along Parramatta Road from Stanmore to Leichhardt becomes an epic traversal of urban decay and late capitalism.

There’s something about Parramatta Road that heralds the end of an era. The ragged Victorian shopfronts and awnings decorated with real estate signs, await renewal or 103

obliteration. Less than a lifetime ago it was a lively stretch of local shops, the ghost signs for which can still be seen here and there. If the artist’s impressions on the WestConnex website can be believed, it will be this way again. In these images the road is transformed into a tree-lined boulevard.

The car yards have disappeared and the pavements are busy with people, their shapes slightly translucent and ghostly in the computer rendering as they stroll the streets and sit at street side cafes.

These future scenes of urban well-being are still far from realisation. For now the road remains a snarled jumble of traffic and weird features, there to notice or to ignore. In drawing its current landmarks I found it hard to redeem the aesthetic of Ziper Drive Thru Coffee, or a pair of drooping piano-playing mannequins on a carport awning. In compiling the landmarks together they form a motley collection. These places are the essence of Parramatta Road, a haphazard and deteriorating place, but compelling in spite of itself.

references Irons, Lyndal. Parramatta Road 2013-ongoing. lyndalirons.com.au.

Jevons, Stanley. Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons. London: McMillan and Co, 1886.

Macris, Anthony. Great Western Highway: a love story. Crawley, WA: UWA Publishing, 2012.

White, Patrick. “Five-Twenty”. The Cockatoos: shorter novels and stories.

London: Cape, 1974.

Artbank

Isabelle Toland and Amelia Holliday of the atelier Aileen Sage Architects have designed the very stylish and sophisticated Artbank headquarters in Waterloo. Comprising a collection store for some 3,500 artworks, a public gallery and offices for the staff, Artbank’s new headquarters are now open to the public—table tennis anyone?

Photography Tom Ferguson and Petrina Tinslay

ARTBANK

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ARTBANK

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Featuring works in the Artbank collection by: Penny Byrne, Patrick Doherty, Tjungkara Ken, Lucky Kngwarreye, Richard Lewer, Ross Manning, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, Yasmin Smith, Ken Thaiday Snr and Samuel Tupou (artwork credits p 7).

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International and Domestic Fine Art Transport Specialist Packing and Custom Crating Climate Controlled High Security Art Storage ASIC Accredited Insurance Representative

1300 365 804 www.kingandwilson.com.au

Chinoz designed by Jaime Hayon for Parachilna www.kezu.com.au | 1300 724 174