trouble 170 BIG
this issue is dedicated to: Russell Lindsay James 25-12-1957 - 22-11-2019
TERMINUS JESS JOHNSON AND SIMON WARD Heide Museum of Modern Art presents a mysterious universe of alien architecture populated by humanoid clones and cryptic symbols, explored via a network of travellators and gateways. 2 November 2019 – 1 March 2020 IMAGE CREDITS: All images stills and installation shots. Jess JOHNSON and Simon WARD. Terminus 2017-18, virtual reality experience in five parts: colour, sound. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Commissioned with the assistance of The Balnaves Foundation 2017. Purchased 2018 heide.com.au
CONTENTS TERMINUS : JESS JOHNSON & SIMON WARD
Heide Museum of Modern Art ..................................................................
PETER SINGER : THE LIFE YOU CAN SAVE (MAY BE YOUR OWN)
Deep Trouble Podcast ............................................................................
MEHMET OZALP : THE HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF ISLAM
Deep Trouble Podcast ............................................................................
ARTHUR BOYD : LANDSCAPE OF THE SOUL
Alexandra Sasse .....................................................................................
DECEMBER/JANUARY SALON
Decidedly Juicy ........................................................................................
THE ROAD TO DARWIN PART 2
Ben Laycock ...........................................................................................
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COVER: CHICAGO 2019 Australian Tour, pictured: Alinta Chidzey and Natalie Bassingthwaighte. Produced in Australia by John Frost and Suzanne Jones. Melbourne Season Details: State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne (VIC), until 23 February 2020 - chicagothemusical.com.au Issue 170 DECEMBER 2019 - JANUARY 2020 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 Mark Halloran, Ben Laycock, love. FOLLOW on issuu, facebook & 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!
Peter Singer : The Life You Can Save (May Be Your Own) In conversation with Prof. Peter Singer in regards to the 10th anniversary edition of his book The Life You Can Save and his foundation of the same name. We discuss his views on moral philosophy, his foundation’s aim to promote highly effective charities in their work attempting to help alleviate suffering in the world’s poorest countries, the psychology of giving, and whether true altruism actually exists. See also – thelifeyoucansave.org.au Listen to all of the Deep Trouble interviews we’ve run to date at troublemag.com or look for us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Mixcloud, etc.
SEASON 2 with Dr Mark Halloran
PODCAST
Mehmet Ozalp : The History & Philosophy of Islam In conversation with Associate Professor of Islamic studies Mehmet Ozalp in regards to the history of Islam’s Golden Age and the contribution of Islamic philosophy to Western culture, the challenges Islam faces in developing its own modernity in the 21st century as well as how to best interpret some of the more controversial passages of the Koran. See also – arts-ed.csu.edu.au/centres/cisac/home Listen to all of the Deep Trouble interviews we’ve run to date at troublemag.com or look for us on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Mixcloud, etc.
landscape of the soul
Arthur Boyd Alexandra Sasse
Have you had any lessons? The enquiry came from a woman and her friend who had been loitering behind me as I painted en plein air in a local park. It seemed a particularly stupid question, especially considering the genius that was unfolding on the canvas. But even artists have never quite settled this amongst themselves. Is intellect or imagination more important? My interlocutor seemed blessed with neither. Arthur Boyd and his circle chose imagination. Formal study, they held, sapped vitality. This was the view of the Angry Penguins, a group of Melbourne’s mid-twentieth century figurative artists which included Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker and Boyd himself. Primitivism, surrealism and expressionism nourished their artistic vision. A position more distant from today’s conceptual gridlock can hardly be conceived.
< Arthur Boyd painting en plein air at Bundanon, c1993. NEXT SPREAD: Arthur Boyd, House at Murrumbeena, ‘Open country’, 1932-33, oil on board. NEXT SPREAD: Arthur Boyd, Berwick landscape (detail), 1948, tempera on composition board. Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art.
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Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul is an exhibition selected from work donated by the artist and held by the Bundanon Trust. It begins not with Boyd, but with paintings by his grandparents Arthur Merric and Emma Minne Boyd. Two of their exquisite watercolours let us in on the fact that Arthur Boyd may not have needed art school. The Boyd family is Australian artistic royalty. My out of date copy of the Encyclopedia of Australian Art lists nine Boyds, and there have been a couple more generations since it was printed. Boyd grew up immersed in art and artists. He took lessons as it suited him – six months of night classes at the National Gallery school, occasional life drawing, and etching classes with Jessie Traill (who had studied with Frank Brangwyn). The earliest works by Boyd himself are landscapes painted in his teens. Arthur’s Seat on a misty morning (1936) is delicately observed in finely muted tones and muscularly worked in impasto. Orchard with Cherry Blossom (1939) flirts with vibrant colour and expressive brush-stroke evoking Van Gogh. The next room jumps us forward by a decade. Rhythmical forms replace directly observed nature in A’Beckett Rd, Harkaway (1949). The change to oil and tempura gives a smooth and glossy surface. The landscape has become darker, and colour is suppressed. He seems to have turned inward. The war has intervened between this work and the last. Boyd’s jumble of repertoire is extraordinary. He works variously with observed and imagined landscape; his pictorial space can be surreal, stylised, or conventional. Just when he seems to be heading in one direction, he diverts off into another, and then doubles back. ‘The waterhole, central Australia’ 1954 is close to Nolan in colour (but much better in composition), akin to Drysdale in sensibility and presages Tucker’s drought series. It’s a seriously good painting. This cannot be said for many of Boyd’s narrative landscapes in this exhibition, which became the larger focus of his work. Weighty with either foundational human anxieties, or contemporary social inequities, their quality varies widely. The expulsion (1947-48), a large oil and tempura work, depicts the angel driving Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden. The impossibility of either finding or making paradise on earth could have been
Landscape of the Soul: Arthur Boyd / Alexandra Sasse
moralistic or terrifying. Boyd paints it like a child’s story – the figures are naïve, the angel clumsy, almost comical. A melancholic longing pervades the image. Commentary throughout this exhibition presents Boyd as a somewhat tortured soul. Perhaps he was, but it is not in these works. The mood of his paintings is ingenuous. Comparisons to Goya are completely without foundation. Moving to London in 1959, Boyd’s first exhibition held at Zwemmer gallery, was predominantly his Bride series. Based on Aboriginal and white relations in the outback in the 1950s, these works are not represented here which is a serious limitation of the show. Instead we have the Nebuchadnezzar paintings, begun in London from 1966. These are said to have been a response to the Vietnam war and wall texts here also link them to his father’s epilepsy and unusual parental celibacy arrangements. Whatever the origin, there is a sense of powerlessness and futility in some of them. Others are over-sized and jarringly unsuccessful. Nebuchadnezzar on fire falling over a waterfall (196869) pushes the naïve style past its limit. A flaming frog like figure catapults through a pastel yellow, blue and pink sky over a sketchy gorge. It is hard to sense what Boyd is trying to communicate. His whimsical melancholy descends into farce. More effective is Red Nebuchadnezzar fallen in a forest with lion (1968-69). The landscape is no longer a place but a state of mind. Tree forms draw together at the top of the picture plane, ominously leaning in to frame a tiny sky. A bright crimson-and-black rudimentary head floats before the ‘lion’, a cylindrical yellow form with a gaping mouth and two blobs for eyes. The striking thing is the pathos of the image. Neb looks resigned to his fate. There is no malice in the lion. Etching brings a quite different mood to Boyd’s work. His Narcissus series are upbeat and delicately drawn. The clarity of the black and white print tempers the surreal qualities of the imagery. Narcissus looks quite bacchanalian in his revelry with goat, horse and seabirds.
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Boyd’s return to Australia around 1979 brought a reappraisal of the observed landscape. The southern margin of NSW is called the Sapphire Coast for good reason. Settling into the bush environment of Shoalhaven, jewel-like colour became the key note of his later work. Landscape ceases to be background and his painting is the better for it. A deep ultramarine blue sky is set against a pink, white and ochre bank in Shoalhaven as the River Styx (1996), with a mere calligraphic black brushstroke denoting a boat and figure. Boyd’s imaginative worlds can leave the viewer stranded. He was at his best when his feet touched the ground. Towards the end of his life, his fusion of place with narrative gave his work a power which imagination alone had not been able to conjure. Here endeth the lesson. Alexandra Sasse, 2019 Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul, A Bundanon Trust Touring Exhibition. See each venue for details. Bundanon Trust site - bundanon.com.au TOURING VENUES 2020/21 • Cairns Art Gallery, Cairns QLD, 3 April – 21 June, 2020 - cairnsartgallery.com.au • Glasshouse Regional Gallery, Port Macquarie, NSW, 3 July – 13 Sept, 2020 - glasshouse.org.au • Tweed Regional Gallery, Mullwillimbah, NSW, 11 Dec 2020 – 28 Feb 2021 - artgallery.tweed.nsw.gov.au • Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba, NSW, 12 March – 2 May 2021 - bluemountainsculturalcentre.com.au • Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, Lake Macquarie, NSW 24 July - 26 Sept 2021 - lakemac.com.au
< Arthur Boyd, Red Nebuchadnezzar fallen in a forest with lion, 1969, oil on canvas. All works are from the Bundanon Trust collection unless otherwise stated.
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december/january salon
ABOVE: Mark HOPPER, Shaun the Wanderer, 2019, photograph. Image courtesy of the artist. Linden Postcard Show 2019-20, Linden New Art, 26 Acland Street, St Kilda (VIC), until 9 February 2020 - lindenarts.org RIGHT: GĂŞ ORTHOF, mata ! mata, 2019, installation detail. Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Gorman Arts Centre (ACT), until 21 December 2019 - ccas.com.au NEXT SPREAD: Paul YORE, What a Horrid Fucking Mess, 2016, Textile wall hanging; mixed media, 210 x 342cm (irreg.). Purchased with Ararat Rural City Council acquisition allocation, 2016. Collection of Ararat Gallery TAMA. Image courtesy of Ararat Gallery TAMA, Ararat Rural City Council, the artist and MDP Photography. Let The World Burn: Paul Yore, Ararat Gallery TAMA, 82 Vincent Street, Ararat (VIC) - until 1st March 2020 - araratgallerytama.com.au
< Philip ZEC, Women of Britain: Come into the factories, 1941, lithograph, printed in colour, ARTV03534, Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial. HEARTS AND MINDS: Wartime Propaganda, an Australian War Memorial Touring Exhibition, Wangaratta Art Gallery, 56 Ovens Street, Wangaratta (VIC), 21 December 2019 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 16 February 2020 - wangarattaartgallery.com.au ABOVE: Tiwi artists performing, Tarnanthi 2019, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (SA). Photo: Nat Rogers. Tarnanthi: Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art - until 27 January 2019 - agsa.sa.gov.au NEXT SPREAD: Virginia Cuppaidge Shandica 1972, synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 197.5 x 304.5 cm (irregular). State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Gift of the artist, 2017. That Seventies Feeling...the Late Modern, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Cultural Centre, Perth (WA) - opens 7 December 2019 - artgallery.wa.gov.au
the road to
DARWIN part two Ben Laycock
Chapter 4 - The Alice Rolled into Alice Springs, literally: a strong head wind burnt up all the petrol. As the sun set in the west (I presume it was the west because thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s where the sun sets where I come from), we set about looking for a campsite. A blackfella aproached me, opening his overcoat to reveal a couple of rather nice little dot paintings. They seem to be all the rage up this way. Albert Namatjira must be turning in his grave. The man enquired politely if I would like to buy one of his original, hand made, authentic aboriginal works of art for a modest sum, but I explained I was an artist myself and could paint my own for free.
I asked him if he knew of a good place to camp. He looked at me like I was a half-wit as he spread his arms expansively, taking in the length and breadth of the Todd River, and said: “Anywhere you like, mate.” We were tempted to take up his generous offer of free accommodation, but mother’s wise words whispered in my head: “Never sleep in a dry river bed son, you could be washed away in a flash flood.” We settled for the Four Seasons Caravan Park, along with every second bogan in the country, here for the Desert Nats. (Not to be confused with the dessert gnats, that get stuck in your custard on hot summer nights, or the Summer Nats, which are held in The Bogan Capital of Australia.)
Bumped into an old swaggy (homeless person) rummaging in the bins. I offered him a glass of milk but he explained he was collecting bottles and cans. When he cashed them in for cash he gave it to The Royal Flying Doctor Service, as he was a ‘good Samaritan’. (Not like those Bad Samaritans.) He turned out to be quite a loquacious fellow (we couldn’t shut him up), waffling on about the last iteration of The Desert Nats, when a car exhaust incinerated some of the spectators. They were burnt
4 above photo from the Tatts Finke Desert Race Facbook page.
to a crisp and could only be identified by their dental records, except for one old digger who had dentures, but they found a bullet in his leg from the first world war, so it could be no one else, as he was the last surviving survivor of that particular war. Turns out it was the good old Flying Doctor that whisked them all off to Adelaide to be saved (or identified). Which brings me, by a round about route, to the kernel of this shaggy dog story: John Flynnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grave. As you are all no doubt aware, The Very Reverend John Flynn was buried at Mt. Gilen, some fifteen kilometres west of Alice Springs, in The Year of Our Lord 1955 (approximately). Being a devout member of the Presbyterian faith he asked on his death bed that a large rock be placed on his grave. A rock so large it would remind the faithful of the very rock that sealed the tomb of Jesus Christ himself. An unusual request, maybe a little presumptuous, even, but who could refuse the last wishes of a man who had devoted his entire life to good works in the service of that very same man/God. A suitable rock was procured, and not just any old rock. An exquisitely beautiful rock, an eight tonne monolith, as round and smooth as a babyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bottom. This rock was taken from a place we have all come to know as The Devilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Marbles. Maybe that is where the trouble began. The real name of the place is Karlu Karlu, which probably means double devil in Arrernte. The reverend seemed to rest in peace for quite some time under his chosen rock. Being the 1950s the local Arrernte people were not consulted or even told about the theft of what was definitely not your average common or garden rock. It was actually a very powerful and sacred rock. Of course the original owners of the rock were completely mortified once they discovered it missing. There was much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth and waling inconsolably. But, being the 1950s, it all fell on deaf ears. The Arrernte endured their humiliation and degradation and hurt and anger in abject silence, as was befitting their station. But they did not forget. As the years went by, the world at large became a little more civilized, and the non-black people of Alice Springs gradually came to see that the black people bore certain similarities with themselves, and could no longer be The Road to Darwin / Ben Laycock
Portrait of Reverend John Flynn [c.1929] B&W lantern slide; 8.2 x 8.2 cm From the Australian Inland Mission Collection Pictures Collection, National Library of Australia (nla.pic-an24680767) (No higher resolution available.)
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lumped in with the cows and sheep in the animal kingdom, but must be grudgingly accepted as members of the human family. They realised that the black people had feelings just like they did, and in these nascent stirrings they could not help but notice that those very same black people were not happy, so they asked their newfound kin, what was the matter? The non black people were shocked to hear the outpourings of pent up anguish from the Arrernte people, in answer to their question, over the theft of their sacred rock, and deep down inside the long dormant hearts of the non-black people a germ of empathy was sparked to life. For had
they not, also, imbued that very rock with sacred meaning of their own? So began the long and tortuous negotiations to right the wrong that had been done. These negotiations began in 1980 and continued intermittently and sporadically and spasmodically and interminably until 1996. Sixteen long years of toing and froing. But the Arrernte people have been around for a long time. They didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come down in the last shower, and they had the patience of Job, as the Presbyterians like to say. The problem was finding a replacement rock of equal grandeur, befitting a man of such stature as was the very Rev. John Flynn. In the spirit of above: fake photo by Ben Laycock. right: John Flynnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Memorial with the replacement boulder, Alice Springs, 2002 By I, WikiWookie.
accommodation that had began to permeate relations between the two tribes, Presbyterian and Arrernte, the blackfellas went out and found a rock as round and smooth and perfect as the first. A rock that had been lying around the desert for God knows how long, without accumulating a skeric of sacred meaning: a tabula rasa. All the stakeholders came to inspect the new rock: The Presbitarians, The Arrernte, the Warrumungu, the Kaytetye, The Central Land Council, Parks and Wildlife, The Royal Flying Doctor Service, the local council, the dog catcher, the lady across the road. They were all immensely pleased with
the new rock. Everything was going swimmingly until the Arrernte saw the parlous state of their special rock: it was covered with graffiti, some of it quite lewd. Although the non-black people claimed this was their version of ‘rock art’, the black people were not fooled for a minute. The rock was cleaned, and popped right back where it belonged, in Karlu Karlu. It is now gleaming white, a palimpsest. Sticks out like a dog’s ball, actually, but that odd and fateful rock is cherished just as much as all the other rocks. Maybe there is a lesson in there somewhere? Ben’s Blog - binsblog.org
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