March 2016

trouble 132

Photography Goes Poof!

Mathew Jones’ lost photoworks 1989–94 A new exhibition curated by Stephen Zagala, these important works from the early 1990s question the value of making identity, in this instance sexual identity, publically visible.

Between 1989 and 1994, the Australian artist Mathew Jones made a number of photographic works about gay identity. A gay man himself, Jones was uncomfortable with the way gay politics of the time were focused on making homosexuality more and more visible in the public sphere; to be a gay man was to be out and proud, and preferably flamboyant and spectacular.

The works in this exhibition question making private proclivities into public spectacles. They achieve this by critiquing clichés that define homosexuality in the public sphere, and by offering the audience aesthetic experiences that confuse and complicate visual clarity around identity.

All images by Matthew JONES, 1991, courtesy of the artist.

Photographer Jan McArthur.

Photography Goes Poof!, Monash Gallery of Art (MGA), 860 Ferntree Gully Road, Wheelers Hill (VIC), 27 February – 10 April 2016 - mga.org.au

CONTENTS PHOTOGRAPHY GOES POOF: MATTHEW JONES’ LOST PHOTOWORKS 1989-94 Monash Gallery of Art ................................................................................... 02 COMICS FACE

Ive Sorocuk ....................................................................................................

THE MADNESS OF ART: BLAH BLAH MA

Jim Kempner .................................................................................................

HANDY POEMS: ON THE GO

Darby Hudson ...............................................................................................

ANDREZ BERGEN: MAGPIE Social Work ..................................................................................................

MARCH SALON

Major Meltdown ............................................................................................

AG ART WEAR

Farm Fashion Fusion ....................................................................................

FINDING THE ART IN PHUKET

Anthony S. Cameron .....................................................................................

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COVER: Ron ROBERTSON-SWANN, Maquette for Vault 1978, synthetic polymer paint on balsa wood, 19.8 x 41.5 x 25.7 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased with the assistance of the NGV Foundation, 2005 (2005.243) © Ron Robertson-Swann/ Licensed by VISCOPY, Australia. Hard Edge: Abstract Sculpture 1960s – 70s, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia (VIC), 13 February – July 2016 - ngv.vic.gov.au Issue 132 MARCH 2016 trouble is an independent monthly mag for promotion of arts and culture Published by Trouble Magazine Pty Ltd. ISSN 1449-3926 EDITOR Steve Proposch CONTRIBUTORS Ive Sorocuk, Jim Kempner, Darby Hudson, Inga Walton, Anthony S. Cameron, love.

GET from AppStore FOLLOW on issuu & twitter SUBSCRIBE at troublemag.com READER ADVICE: Trouble magazine contains artistic content that may include nudity, adult concepts, coarse language, and the names, images or artworks of deceased Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. Treat Trouble intelligently, as you expect to be treated by others. Collect or dispose of thoughtfully.

DIS IS DE DISCLAIMER! The views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the publisher. To the best of our knowledge all details in this magazine were correct at the time of publication. The publisher does not accept responsibility for errors or omissions. All content in this publication is copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without prior permission of the publisher. Trouble is distributed online from the first of every month of publication but accepts no responsibility for any inconvenience or financial loss in the event of delays. Phew!

This comic first appeared in Trouble June 2011

art comedy series

Blah Blah Ma Jim learns the fate of artwork he entrusted to his Mother.

visit: themadnessofart.com/

Andrez Bergen / Magpie (writer)

SOCIAL WORK

Oi Oi Oi! Issue #7, published by Comicoz February 2016

Andrez Bergen is an Australian expat who’s lived in Tokyo these past fifteen years, working as a journalist, author, musician and artist. He makes music as Little Nobody and previously ran groundbreaking Melbourne record label IF? for over a decade, before setting up IF? Commix in 2013 in collusion with Matt Kyme.

On the side he’s authored five novels and published short stories with Crime Factory, Snubnose Press, Shotgun Honey, All Due Respect, and NoirCon. Bergen also occasionally works on adapting the English subtitles for anime features by Production I.G (creators of Ghost in the Shell) in Japan.

Sequentially, he’s published two graphic novels (Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat and Bullet Gal: It’s Not You, It’s Me) as well as three comic book series (Bullet Gal, Trista & Holt, and Tales to Admonish). With all of these, aside from Tales to Admonish where he collaborated with Kyme, Bergen worked as artist as well as writer.

With Magpie, Bergen has returned to writing alone, while art, lettering and colours are being done by Frantz Kantor.

Frantz – a 3D concept artist, illustrator, lecturer and production designer based in Melbourne – is a veteran of the Australian comic book scene, having worked on zines in the industry’s early 80s days, such as the groundbreaking Inkspots. He created a nationwide scandal (of sorts) when he drew a caricature of newsreader Anne Fullwood naked for Australian Penthouse in May 1993.

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Which member of your family influenced you the most?

Andrez Bergen: On the one hand, I’d like to say my mum and dad, since they pushed me onto the path of more eccentric art, my dad dug comics, and both of them were encyclopaedic about films, which set me up for life. On another hand my wife Yoko is a brilliant painter, and supports what I do even when she’s not into it. But if I had a third appendage, that would belong to my daughter Cocoa.

She approves (or shakes her head) at art and covers I’m working on. She loves the ‘Magpie’ comic, and is a great artist and dancer at just age ten.

What do you hope for?

AB: World peace? Cue sad laughter, ‘cos that’s hardly going to happen. But I guess I always hope people will be a little nicer to one another, support others’ work and dreams, and just be ... well, cool.

Do you think its ok to lie?

AB: My wife is brutally honest, and it cuts me to the quick. Telling people they’re fat if they’ve put on a couple of kilos, or saying to someone’s face that you hate their art is honest, yep, but you’re really taking a hatchet to their feelings. There’s such a thing as blunting the truth. But there is a line.

Outright lying is dangerous, hurtful, and cheap. So there.

What does freedom mean to you?

AB: Something that should never be tied to the word ‘fries’. Seriously, freedom has so many meanings, and it depends on your social standing, and the country or city or society you reside in. For some people freedom is associated closely with death, which is appalling to think of in the 21st century.

Most important (personally) is freedom to explore the world, to throw off expected shackles or constraints when you ply your hand at writing, music and art. To see things outside the accepted norm. The Dadaists did that a century ago this month, going against what society expected of them, and I’m still enthralled with their work.

What beliefs do you have that you think will never change?

AB: Supporting people with their art, loving my family, hanging out gasbagging with mates, and being totally into noir, electronic music, and comics.

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Do you believe in the supernatural?

AB: Nah. But a lot of Japanese are very superstitious, perhaps because of their Shintō upbringing. It’s amazing how many of my students do believe in ghosts.

Is any religious text important to you?

AB: Plundering religion for use in fiction can be fun and instructive, but for me a book is a book. Whatever people choose to believe, good on them, so long as it’s a personal thing and not used to dominate others.

What do you like the best about your body?

AB: It’s been incredibly reliable up till now, given all I’ve put it through over the years. I used to be quite proud of my bum, and got nice remarks from a girlfriend or two regarding same, but sadly it’s sagged a bit in recent times.

Who is the best teacher you have ever had?

AB: My Year 9 history teacher at Melbourne High School. I already loved history, but he was so passionate about the subject, and he shared that passion with his students in a fun, enlightening way. I still get excited about history, even if it does bore most of my friends stupid.

What was your favourite book as a child?

AB: Easy: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Dr. Seuss’s Fox in Socks was a runner-up, alongside Hergé’s ‘Tintin’ series and 1960s ‘Fantastic Four’ comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

If I asked a good friend of yours what you were good at, what would they say?

AB: Writing - I hope!

What stays the same in your life, no matter how much other things change?

AB: You can’t take the Melbourne out of me, even after 15 years in Tokyo and a year in London. Let me paraphrase Peter Allen here, singing out, ‘I still call Melbourne home’ ... yikes.

Andrez Bergen and Frantz Kantor’s Magpie features in Oi Oi Oi! Issue #7. On sale now ($7.95) at newsagents around the country.

To find your local stockist, checkout comicoz.com. See also iffybizness.weebly.com and frantzkantor.com

march salon

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PREVIOUS SPREAD: Elizabeth GOWER, he loves me, he loves me not, 2015. RMIT Gallery, 344 Swanston Street, Melbourne (VIC), 11 March – 23 April 2016 - rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery Image by John R Neeson. 1. Dani MARTI, Prelude (Purple) 2015, corner cube reflectors, glass beads on aluminium frame. Image courtesy of the artist. GAGPROJECTS Greenway Art Gallery, Adelaide and ARC ONE GALLERY, Melbourne. Dani Marti: Black Sun, Fremantle Arts Centre, 1 Finnerty Street Fremantle (WA), until 28 March 2016 - fac.org.au 2. David FRAZER, The Text Message 2016, linocut. Goldfields Printmakers: Elemental, La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre, 121 View Street Bendigo (VIC), 25 February – 10 April 2016 - latrobe.edu.au/vac NEXT SPREAD: St Louis Symphony performing From the Canyons to the Stars with David Robertson. Photo Steven Jarvi 2016. From the Canyons to the Stars (a new realisation), Sydney Opera House, Sydney (NSW), 9 – 12 March 2016 - sydneysymphony.com

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march salon

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3. Sam CRASSWELLER, The Prettiest Star 2016, oil on canvas. The Prettiest Star, The Bridge Hotel, Walker St, Castlemaine (VIC), 12 March – 9 April 2016 - bridgehotelcastlemaine.com 4. Ted SECOMBE, Beaded Vessel 2015, porcelain, satin matte crystalline glaze, 34 x 29 x 29cm. Photo: Adrienne Gilligan. Courtesy the artist and Skepsi Gallery. Ted Secombe: Pursuit of Beauty, Manningham Art Gallery, Manningham City Square (MC²), 687 Doncaster Road, Doncaster (VIC), 2 – 24 March 2016 - manningham.vic.gov.au/gallery

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Gareth SANSOM, A universal timeless allegory (detail) 2014, oil and enamel on linen, 213 x 274cm; Private collection, Brisbane. Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane. Photo: Sam Cranstoun. Magic Object, the 2016 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, Hawke Building, City West campus, 55 North Terrace, Adelaide (SA), 27 February – 15 May 2016 adelaidebiennial.com.au

PREVIOUS SPREAD: Cigdem AYDEMIR, Bombshell 2013, single channel video with sound, 11 min 3 sec. Giving Voice: The Art of Dissent, a Salamanca Arts Centre exhibition toured by Contemporary Art Tasmania. Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery, Horseshoe Bend Swan Hill (VIC), 4 March – 10 April 2016 gallery.swanhill.vic.gov.au THIS SPREAD: Leah BULLEN, Places you’d rather be (detail) 2015, monotype 37x93cm.

RETRONAUTS, an exhibition curated by Kathleen Linn, featuring work by Leah Bullen and Sara Roberts (all NSW), ANCA, 1 Rosevear Place Dickson (ACT) 16 March – 3 April 2016 - anca.net.au

Ag Art Wear

Farm Fashion Fusion 17 February – 17 April 2016 A display of creative designer garments from the Elmore Field days Ag Art Wear Competition. Bendigo Visitor Centre, 51-67 Pall Mall Bendigo (VIC) - bendigotourism.com.au

Pink Lilly

Empress of the Forest

Triangle Tangle

Shiny Clown

Majestic Blaze

FINDING THE ART IN

Phuket

by Anthony S. Cameron

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Phuket is a strange chunk of paradise. And after four years of living here, I still find it fascinating to watch the daily spectacle as it pours through my window, riding past me on a sidecar with eleven scruffy kids hanging off it, or flying off the roti dough as deft hands toss it in the air. I love the endless, mad scramble that is Phuket on any given day.

It is the staccato clang of the roller doors opening up along the street. Any street. Every street. It is the morning silence broken by the sound of slow sweeping and the Muslim call to prayer. It is the social occasion of the local daily markets. It is the scent of fresh fish and frying pork and the frantic feel to the traffic. It is the ubiquitous bass line blaring out of cheap speakers in over-lit tuk-tuks delivering drunk foreigners back to their hotels as the sun bores a hole through another day. It is small moments of kindness amidst the daily, desperate grab at the dollar. It is the beautiful thing saved from the ravages of the street. The art of the everyday is the spectacle of Phuket readying itself for another dose of tourism in overdrive.

Phuket is a coin that has been tossed in the air, over and over, in an endless game of two-up. It is the Gold Coast of Thailand; almost another world, but not quite. So over the top at times it’s hallucinatory. The place where the first and third world live in the same street.

And the beating heart of it all is Bangla Road, Patong.

21st century Patong is a messy place. I sometimes joke that, if there is a hell on earth, it would look a lot like Patong. Graft, corruption, drugs, mass tourism, ecodestruction, and prostitution is all out on the streets, needily grasping at the plump, passing hand of the tourist. Patong has a kind of twisted, tragic beauty that I

find inspiring. When something beautiful does happen, it really stands out against this kind of backdrop.

So how do I fit into this? An ex-Castlemaniac for over twenty years? To be honest, I don’t fit, and I seem to like it that way.

I’m the guy leaning down under your beach chair as you sunbake, retrieving the cigarette lighters and driftwood the ocean has left there. I have a slightly crazed look on my face as I add them to my collection, call my dog and continue along the line of beach chairs. I’m the guy smiling as you wonder what a farang (foreigner) is doing picking up rubbish on his holiday. But this isn’t a holiday for me, this is my life. I’m the guy rattling along in my sidecar full of driftwood with a grin from ear to ear, as you cruise past on the way to the resort with the infinity pool and breakfast buffet. I’m the guy that makes stuff out of things thrown away or blown away in a storm.

And I write about people like that, too.

Everything I find on the beach has a story; a lost beauty I try to reveal, whether it be with sandpaper or words.

Sometimes I don’t have to do anything at all. For a while I was finding all this stuff made by bored fisherman out in the Indian Ocean. The first was a perfect replica of a Thai fishing boat made from bits of rubber. Amazing work; so intricate, yet made with the most basic of tools. Next was a series of cigarette lighters with detailed carvings on them and tiny string wound tightly around their bases. Then, on a broken piece of timber a crude carving of a naked woman with long hair and Indonesian words scrawled above her that translated as “It is uncertain whether a virgin will have happiness”.

That one blew me away. It went straight ‘to the pool room’, becoming part of the front door of the house I was building out of driftwood.

Forget about the galleries, the works of decoration adorning pool villa walls, the copy artist banging out another Al Pacino from Scarface or Heath Ledger’s Joker. Forget about paintings of Buddha or the elephant reliefs nailed to unsuspecting walls. This stuff is boring, unimaginative and just there to match the curtains. To me, this fisherman art was the real thing, an outpouring of the soul.

Sadly, I soon discovered that these fisherman/artists were likely to be modern day slaves who got locked in tiny bamboo cages on remote islands when they weren’t being exploited for their labour on the boats. The knowledge made my finds even more valuable to me, because now I had a narrative to go with them. Like when a child’s lost flip-flop lies amongst the debris, it seems more poignant, more tragic, and more real.

So the next time you walk across the cracked pavement to the art exhibition in the gallery with the nice nibbles and South American shiraz and everyone politely agreeing on stuff, spare a thought for the scroungers of this world, and for art that comes out of pure struggle. Where I live there is art washing up on beaches and ending up in landfill, but only if you are very lucky does it end up nailed to your front door.

IMAGE CREDITS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE: Taken on Bangla Road in Patong, Thailand, 17 February 2015. Author: Ben Reeves from Phuket, Thailand. Source Wikimedia Commons. Road sign in Phuket. Road in the southern tip of the island, 2009. Author: Millevache.

Source Wikimedia Commons. Muay Thai Championship Boxing Match in Sterling, VA - This is the fighter, Jovan Davis, 2011. Author: David Maiolo. Source Wikimedia Commons. Motorcycle Taxis in Phuket, photo by Roxy Cameron. The temple of Wat Chalong, Phuket, Thailand, 2013. Author: Pekka Oilinki. Source Wikimedia Commons. Pollution and trash washed up on the beach in Phuket, 2015. Photo by Roxy Cameron.

ANTHONY S. CAMERON is an Australian ex-pat living in Phuket, Thailand, and the author of two novels, Driftwood (2014) and Butterfly on Bangla (2015).

Born in Melbourne, he escaped in his early twenties to central Victoria, where he designed and built a sustainable house and raised two sustainable children.

His books are available on Amazon here.