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Winner— 2014 Geelong contemporary art prize Rob McHaffie Preserve this fruit 2013 oil on linen Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney
2014 Geelong contemporary art prize until 23 November
Geelong Gallery Little Malop Street Geelong VIC 3220 T +61 3 5229 3645
Showcasing the best of contemporary Australian painting practice.
Free entry
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Open daily 10am – 5pm Drop-in tours of the permanent collection Saturday at 2pm
geelonggallery.org.au
Sponsored by Dimmick Charitable Trust
Geelong Gallery is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria
FEATURES (05) COMICS FACE Ive Sorocuk (12) THE MADNESS OF ART Jim Kempner (14) WADE CLARKE / AERIAE
Social Work
(22) OF GODS & MORTALS: THE BODY BEAUTIFUL IN ANCIENT GREECE Inga Walton (30) ALASDAIR MCLUCKIE: GERTRUDE STREET MODERNISM
Naima Morelli
(42) WE CAN MAKE ANOTHER FUTURE SPECIAL SALON FEATURE Far out (54) OCTOBER SALON Outer sight (64) CATHERINE PILGRIM: THE ESSENCE OF WHAT YOU SEE
Klare Lanson
(72) GREETINGS FROM BEYOND THE PALE Ben Laycock
COVER: Yasumasa MORIMURA (Japan b.1951), Doublonnage (Marcel) 1988 Type C photograph on paper bonded to aluminium Purchased 1989. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. We can make another future: Japanese art after 1989, Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Brisbane (QLD), 6 September 2014 – 20 September 2015 - qagoma.qld.gov.au/ Issue 117: OCTOBER 2014 trouble is an independent monthly mag for promotion of arts and culture Published by Trouble Magazine Pty Ltd. ISSN 1449-3926 CONTRIBUTORS Ive Sorocuk, Jim Kempner, Klare Lanson, Naima Morelli, Inga Walton, Ben Laycock, love. Find our app at the AppStore follow us on issuu or twitter, or 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!
He can’t tell you about our season... but you can find out more at thecapital.com.au
SeaSon
2014
A CRAFT AND NETS VICTORIA TOURING EXHIBITION CURATED BY NELLA THEMELIOS AND KIM BROCKETT Signature Style La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre To 30 November 121 View Street Bendigo, VIC, 3550 +61 3 5441 8724 latrobe.edu.au/vacentre
JACQUELINE FELSTEAD Gatwick Private Hotel To 30 November
La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre 121 View Street, Bendigo, VIC, 3550 T: 03 5441 8724 121 View Street E: vac@latrobe.edu.au Bendigo, VIC, 3550 W: latrobe.edu.au/vac +61 3 5441 8724 Gallery hours: Tue – Fri 10am-5pm. Weekends 12-5pm latrobe.edu.au/vacentre La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre
.. Image: Milly Flemming & Danielle Maugeri, Is this something? 2012 – 2013, ceramic, copper and sterling silver. Dimensions variable. Courtesy the artists. Photography Marc Morel
A P S A C
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n i a m e l t s a c / http:/
. 4 1 0 2 r e b m e v o N d n e e s lo c s n io s Submis
we’re all about the ear COMMUNITY RADIO FOR CASTLEMAINE AND BEYOND
www.mainfm.net 03 5472 4376
Reproduced with the permission of the Sidney Nolan Trust / Bridgeman Images
art comedy series
season 3, episode 5: SHOCKOR Jim and Dru are both in for fun and surprises as Randy Regier brings his toy store and rocket ship to the gallery.
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back to back
season 3, episode 6: Slaughter on Tenth Avenue Jim visits Tom Slaughter’s studio to get him to sign up with the gallery.
visit: themadnessofart.com/
Mad keyboard licks kick off Sydney-based producer Aeriae’s second album, Victris. Somehow fittingly described as “hypersequenced excitation” in the Clan Analogue PR, opener ‘Revered Daughter’ is a gateway to ten tracks that explore musical possibilities from dancefloor volition (‘Nurse 2 Alyssa Type’) to sub bass scale (‘Sword of State’), classic counterpoint (‘The Book of Peace’) to sculpted beats (‘Heiress’). Aeriae is Sydney-based electronic composer and producer Wade Clarke. His grandfather was an engineer and almost-concert pianist, and Wade grew up playing the piano by ear. Aeriae’s novel aesthetic is informed as much by Warp figureheads like Autechre as by classical music and 80s electronic film scores like Tron and Escape From New York. Wade’s other involvements include writing, reviewing, Interactive Fiction, illustration and the Apple II. Photo by Mim Stirling
SOCIAL WORK
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SOCIAL WORK
Which member of your family influenced you the most? Wade Clarke: Probably my dad, by taking me to lots of movies when I was a kid, getting me started in programming the Apple II computer, and also through his ornery political behaviour. How do your values differ from those of your family? Wade: They find it easy to hold to party political lines in a black and white sense. I think about things so much that my ultimate positions on them can come really slowly, or never settle. This is a strength for writing fiction, as I can imagine anyone’s point of view. It can be a liability in day to day life, when you meet less thoughtful people who bark out ill-considered views loudly, and are heard over yourself. What do you think is your main purpose in life? Wade: My purpose is to create things. I hope what I compose or write or draw can take others to a higher state, whether that’s having fun or something more exalted. I’ve realised I’m also good at helping other people to get where they’re going in creative work, so I try to do that when I can. Do you think its ok to lie? Wade: Per se, it’s definitely OK. I’m a big fan of psychiatrists, and they tell me we’re all lying frequently, and that this is fine within typical ranges. What does freedom mean to you? Wade: To go to philosophy, a fave writer of mine, Colin Wilson, criticised the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau for his famous statement, ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ Wilson didn’t think we are born free, and his books persuaded me of the same. I think humans created the conditions for our freedom through a lot of work over time, and that we all have a responsibility to maintain those conditions. We’ve got a good degree of freedom in Australia, but freedom doesn’t come for free. The Abbott government is scraping parts off our freedom at the moment. What do you think are the most important social issues today? Wade: The increasing gap between the richest and poorest is the big one for me. I can’t stand that the government funds rich private schools. Education is the cornerstone of a healthy society. If you do the best job in education for everyone when they’re young, you minimise an infinite number of problems later. Money for private schools is money drained directly from the core education resources flagged for everyone.
Photo by Amanda Cole
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Do you think things happen for a reason? Wade: Definitely not! What beliefs do you have that you think will never change? Wade: My general atheism. That we shouldn’t sell human nature short. That art and fiction are truth. Do you believe in the supernatural? Wade: No. I love horror movies, but soon as I stop watching one, the ghosties in it vanish. What do you like the best about your body? Wade: My hands. I think they look OK, or sufficiently ‘tapering’ as writers like to say, and they’re the vessels for everything I can make. What do you think would be the best thing about being the opposite gender? Wade: Do you mean opposite sex? To quote Steve Martin in the film L.A. Story, “I could never be a woman, ‘cause I’d just stay home and play with my breasts all day.” If you mean gender, I believe or fantasise that females have more freedom to express themselves emotionally. That’s why I prefer to write female characters in fiction and games. The track names on my album Victris have a feminine bent, too. So if I was a woman, I figure the best thing would be the increased acceptance of my emotional range. But it’d probably be gained at the expense of freedoms I have now, which women don’t. Who is the best teacher you have ever had? Wade: I had an English teacher in high school, Ms Fretze, who encouraged me to follow my passions, even though I was pretty unknowable. And my English and French teacher Mr Sheehan had high expectations of me, which made me try to live up to them. Plus he was unapologetically novel and eccentric. What was your favourite book as a child? Wade: Probably any and all of those little Peanuts comic paperbacks. I enjoyed those more than any one book. If I asked a good friend of yours what you were good at, what would they say? Wade: Without false modesty, it would depend which friend you ask. If you’re good at a lot of things, not everyone who knows you sees all of them. Some know me by my music, some by illustration, some by my writing or criticism, some by my games. At my age, I can make an honest assessment that I’ve done some good work in all these areas. I know that I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunities to develop these abilities as far as I have already, but predictably I feel like each one will never get as much time as I’d like.
Photo courtesy the artist
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SOCIAL WORK
What stays the same in your life, no matter how much other things change? Wade: Apart from pub trivia, I don’t know that I’ve found many whole new activities that I like since I was little. I liked films, music, drawing, computers and stories back then, and I like all the same things now. What is stopping you? Wade: My nature isn’t conducive to doing something like touring other countries. I think I could play more often and to more people if I lived in Europe, for instance, but I’d just never do that. There was a time when I had such anxiety that I could barely function or leave the house. That extremity is well in the past now, thanks to much help and treatment, but I’m a homebody at heart. A lot of social events are onerous for me and I have no interest in travelling or moving. So, my nature probably stops me in some things, but I’ve interrogated myself and at least I know my nature. On a day to to day basis, I’m more concerned that I still don’t say what I’m thinking often enough. That is a hangover of anxiety, and fearing that I will be negatively assessed by others, and it’s kind of always there. Victris is available through MGM Distribution in CD and non-physical formats from usual sources. Witness Aeriae’s controllerism live in action at performances in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. A thirteen-page booklet by Wade with notes on each of Victris’s tracks can be downloaded at aeriae.com/victris.pdf
SOCIAL WORK
Photo by Amanda Cole
OF GODS & MORTALS
The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece
Inga Walton
The British Museum touring exhibition The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece, currently at Bendigo Art Gallery (until 9 November, 2014), aims to give viewers an insight into the aesthetic and cultural values that coursed through this most deeply influential and historically resonant civilisation. Dr. Ian Jenkins, senior curator of the ancient Greek collection at the British Museum, with assistant curator Victoria Turner, have selected over 100 items from the collection, spanning over two millennia. These explore aspects of the human form that are expressive the Greek ideal, and the understanding that physical beauty, vigour, and strength could also reflect moral character, virtue, rectitude, and a sense of civic responsibility and purpose. For the upper classes in ancient Greece, the achievement of arete or ‘excellence’ was closely aligned to notions of honour, and loyalty to the polis, or city. Physical fitness was an important aspect of this male-dominated culture whereby the tradition of athletic competitions denoted a more general preparedness for war as soldier-citizens. Independent city-states jostled for power, and were often in conflict with one another, but also sought alliances against invaders such as the Persians. The idea of manly virtue in the sixth century BC was expressed in the figure of the kouros, or ‘young man’. Similar in style to statues produced by the Egyptians, with whom the Greeks had contact from at least the time of Pharaoh Psamtik I, this sculptural template incorporated the essential elements for successful manhood: even features, long groomed hair, broad shoulders, well-developed muscles, wasp waist, flat stomach, and a clear division of torso and pelvis. These sculptures were often used as grave markers to represent the deceased, and to indicate that, in life, they were well regarded. Pentelic Marble Grave Relief (4th century BC), shows a comely youth, naked but for a cloak artfully draped over his arm and shoulder. He holds a strigil (scraper), a small metal tool used to scrape dirt and sweat from the body, suggesting he was an athlete. Special honour was accorded to those who had met the ‘beautiful death’ (kalos thanatos) on the field of battle. Carved towards the end of the archaic period, Parian Marble Statue of a Boy (The Strangford Apollo) (c. 490 BC) demonstrates the critical difference between Pharaonic and ancient Greek statuary; the Greeks depicted their kouroi nude, thus adapting the Egyptian style to better suit their own traditions. Although public nudity was not common, particularly in mixed company, in the pictorial language of Greek art gods, heroes, warriors and athletes are depicted unclothed to emphasise their resplendence. Some statues adopt a
< Bronze Figure of Aphrodite (200-100 BC), said to be from near Patras, (without base) 55.5 (h) x 26 (w) x 15.5 (d) cm.
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(L) Parian Marble Statue of a Boy (The Strangford Apollo) (c. 490 BC), said to be from Anaphe, Cyclades, Greece, 101 cm (h). (R) Marble Group of a Nymph Trying To Escape From a Satyr (detail) (2nd century AD), found near Tivoli, Italy, her head restored in the 19th century, 77 (h) x 68 (w) x 52 (d) cm. Photography by Inga Walton.
more demure downward glance, demonstrating the attribute of aidos (‘natural modesty’) as a response to admiration. The statue is named after the AngloIrish diplomat Percy Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford and Baron Penshurst (1780-1855). He served as ambassador to the Sublime Porte (a metonym for the government of the Ottoman Empire) in 1820, which allowed him to collect various examples of Greek sculpture, including this piece formerly in Strangford’s collection. With the exception of sex workers, slaves, certain fertility cult manifestations, and the demigod race of nymphs, female nudity was largely taboo in ancient Greek art. The female equivalent of the kouros, the kore, ‘young girl’ or maiden, wears layers of drapery and has an elaborate braided hairstyle reflecting a life lived in relative seclusion, as seen in the partial work Marble Sculpture of a Girl (kore) (100-30 BC). Marble Gravestone (c. 330-317 BC), of a lovely young girl holding a mirror, would have been viewed as particularly tragic. Girls who died unmarried were seen as especially pitiable, and symbolic efforts were made in the funerary ritual and grave monuments to compensate them for this ‘unnatural’ end; a denial of their anticipated role as wife, mother, and mistress of a household. Athena (goddess of Wisdom), Nike (goddess of Victory), Hera (wife of Zeus) and Eos (goddess of the Dawn) are also depicted clothed in the context of these various objects. The artistic convention to eschew female nudity in Greek art of this period did not apply to Aphrodite (goddess of Love), however. The prolific sculptor Praxiteles of Athens, whom Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus) (23-79 AD), tells us was working at the time of the 104th Olympiad (c. 375 BC) is responsible for the most famous representation, the full-height Aphrodite of Knidos. Thought to be either Of Gods & Mortals / Inga Walton
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a son or nephew of the sculptor Kephisodotos the Elder (fl. 400-c. 360 BC), Praxiteles is also believed to have been a lover of the famous courtesan (hetaira) Phryne of Thespiae, the likely model for the statue. Pliny contends that Praxiteles made two statues of the goddess: one which was clothed and was purchased by the island people of Kos, the other- of infinite acclaim and notoriety- was installed at a temple in the city of Knidos (in southwest Turkey) around 360 BC. Executed originally in marble and reputed to have been extraordinarily lifelike, Aphrodite was depicted in the act of discarding her robe in preparation for her ritual bath; a work designed to inspire both religious awe and ecstatic desire in equal measure. An epigram attributed to Plato, and preserved in the Greek Anthology (Anthologia Graeca), has the goddess visiting her own statue, such was its fame, Paphian Cytherca [Aphrodite] came through the waves to Cnidus, desiring to look upon her own image. Once she had viewed it from all angles in its open shrine, She cried, ‘Wherever did Praxiteles see me naked? (Vol. V, Book 16.160). An anonymous wit has her declaring, “Paris, Anchises, and Adonis saw me naked. Those are all I know of, but how did Praxiteles contrive it?” (Vol. V, Book 16.168). The Aphrodite of Knidos inspired numerous copies, both in its own time and well into the Roman period, such as the examples included here, Marble Bust of Aphrodite, and Parian Marble Statue of Aphrodite. Bronze Figure of Aphrodite (200-100 BC), shows the later development of a variety of poses for the bathing ritual: the goddess, poised on one foot, is removing her sandal. In the much smaller work, Terracotta Group of Aphrodite and Eros (300-100 BC), the goddess-as-mother is more conventionally clothed in a long tunic. Mesomedes of Crete, the Roman-era Greek lyric poet and composer of the early second century AD, has an epigram recorded in the Greek Anthology on the curious nature of the Sphinx, who is said to have guarded the entrance to the Greek city of Thebes, A creeping, flying, walking maiden; a lioness lifting up feet not her own as she ran; she was a woman winged in front, in the middle a roaring lioness, and behind a curling snake. She ran away neither making a trail nor as a woman, nor either bird or beast in her whole body; for she seemed to be a maiden without feet, and the roaring beast had no head. She had an irregularly mixed nature, made up of imperfect and perfect parts. (Vol. V, Book 14.63). Of Gods & Mortals / Inga Walton
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Marble Sphinx, probably a support for a table (120-140 AD), shows the enduring popularity of this mythic creature whose peculiar and composite status – and her reputed temper – challenged the boundaries of gender. Associated with the legend of Oedipus, and the riddles she put to him, the Sphinx was another common motif for grave markers, as a guardian of the tomb. The exhibition’s central work, Marble Statue of a Discus Thrower (Diskobólos) (2nd century, AD), is displayed in a designated space separate from the other objects. It is one of a number of copies of a lost bronze original (c. 450-440 BC) made by the much-admired sculptor Myron of Eleutherae (fl. 480-440 BC) in the middle of the fifth century BC. Myron’s work is mentioned both by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History (Naturalis Historia) (c. 77-79 AD) and by Lucian of Samosata (c. 125-after 180 AD) in his Philopseudes (c. 150 AD).
Of Gods & Mortals / Inga Walton
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Myron is recorded as having produced seven statues of athletes that stood in the sanctuary at Olympia, comprising the Diskob贸los, as a generic representation, and six likenesses of victors in the Games. Ironically, given the athletic ideal of physical proportion and rhythmos (harmony and balance) the sculpture embodies, the head is not original, and has been incorrectly restored. Although it is certainly ancient, the head is not from this statue and looks down, instead of back towards the clasped discus poised for release. This particular Diskob贸los was excavated from the Villa Adriana, built for the Roman Emperor Hadrian (76-138 AD) at Tivoli, in 1790. It was purchased at a public auction in Rome by the art dealer and cicerone Thomas Jenkins (c.1722-98) in 1792. He then sold the sculpture for 拢400 (approximately 拢42,500 today) the same year to his long-term client, the wealthy Lancashire
(L) Marble Sphinx, probably a support for a table (120-140 AD), from Monte Cagnolo, outside Lanuvium, near Rome, 84 (h) x 80 (w) x 55 (d). (R) Marble Statue of a Discus Thrower (Diskobolus) (2nd century AD), Roman period, copy of a lost bronze original (c. 450-440 BC) by Myron, from the villa of Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli, 169 (h) x 105 (w) x 63 (d) cm. Photo by Inga Walton.
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(Attributed to the Euphiletos Painter from Vulci, Italy), Black-figured Panathenaic Prize-Amphora (530-520 BC), 61.8 (h) x 41 cm (diameter).
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Catholic antiquary and collector Charles Townley (or Towneley) (1737-1805), after whom it is sometimes named. Townley amassed an impressive collection of Graeco-Roman sculptures and other artefacts such as terracottas, smaller bronze vessels and objects, coins and intaglios from his extensive travels over the course of three Grand Tours. These he displayed within his house at 7 Park Street, Westminster, and encouraged visitors to view the collection. It soon became one of the significant sights of London, depicted in the painting Charles Townley and Friends in His Library at Park Street, Westminster (178292) by Johann Zoffany, RA (1733-1810). Now on display at his former family seat of Towneley Hall in Burnley, the work shows the collector and three fellow connoisseurs; palaeographer Thomas Astle (1735-1803), politician Hon. Charles Francis Greville (1749-1809), and Pierre-François Hugues (1719-1805), the self-styled ‘Baron d’Hancarville’. They are surrounded by an imaginary arrangement of Townley’s major sculptural acquisitions, including the Diskobólos, which Townley later asked Zoffany to add to the grouping. Townley was made a trustee of the British Museum in 1791, and the institution bought the bulk of ‘Townley’s marbles’ and larger bronzes in July, 1805, followed by the smaller antiquities in 1814. A documentary presentation, The Discus Thrower (26 mins), features commentary from Ian Jenkins and fellow British Museum staff Dr. Judith Swaddling (curator of Etruscan and other Antiquities from pre-Roman Italy), and Karen Birkhoelzer (senior conservator). Contemporary English sculptor Marcus Cornish and artist Clara Drummond from the Prince’s Drawing School, London, provide some commentary on the physical process of working with marble, and the Diskobólos as subject for drawing students, respectively. A practical demonstration of stance, posture and release is provided by Lawrence Okoye, the current British record holder in the discus event, and his then coach John Hillier. A Red-figured drinking cup (kylix) attributed to Pheidippose (c. 500 BC) depicts a number of athletes, including a discus thrower, who is seen grappling with the heavy flattened sphere as he prepares to throw. • The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece, Bendigo Art Gallery, 42 View Street, Bendigo, (VIC) until 9 November - bendigoartgallery.com.au • All works © The Trustees of the British Museum - britishmuseum.org
Inga Walton is a writer and arts consultant based in Melbourne who contributes to numerous Australian and international publications. She has submitted copy, of an inceasingly verbose nature, to Trouble since 2008. She is under the impression that readers are not morons with a short attention span, and would like to know lots of things.
Alasdair McLuckie Modernism on Gertrude
INTERVIEW Naima Morelli
In his studio at Gertrude Contemporary, Alasdair McLuckie has finally found some peace. As I followed the artist up the stairs leading to his studio, he recalled the period when he was working from his home in Fitzroy, attending openings every night. “It was fun, but that lifestyle was definitely exhausting. You just live twenty four hours a day. That was too much and I needed breathing space. I really like to work here, in this studio, being part of this Gertrude Street community. I feel really connected and I can meet other artists. I’m in the middle of what’s going on, but then it is also kind of nine-to-five. At the end of the day you can go home and not feel the need to be there all the time.” Walking around the studio, the artist’s favourite palette of deep blue, orange, saffron yellow, pink, pale violet, grey, black and mustard green is evident. Alasdair himself wears a long red beard and a deep blue shirt that has a pattern of similar colours, confirming for me the old adage that artists often start to resemble their own art. He shows me some notebooks that are orderly disposed on a table. Many of his collages, prints and drawings are collected in these notebooks, which aree meant to be browsed through. “In the notebooks there is a sort of inherent narrative in the simple fact that one page comes after another,” he says. “I like them as objects. For me it’s also a structure to begin with and build on.” Alasdair’s love for paper isn’t exhausted in artist books. It also goes into creating grid-based sculptures and collages. Altogether, the object-filled room reflects an interest in primitive art and cultures, which Alasdair inherited from his father. It is through tribal art that the artist discovered modernism. For me Alasdair’s work represents the widespread approach of young Australian artists towards European art history. In his work Alasdair is definitely postmodern. He takes inputs from art history and foreign cultures at face value, for their aesthetics alone. He talks of modernism as a mythology, rather than referencing the concepts and impact it has on art history. Alasdair sees modernism as an update of tribal art, and for his own practice he sources from both Picasso and North America Indian culture with the same modalities. While Alasdair shows me a series of collages on his table, I am struck by the order and the cleanness of his work. In one series of collages he has juxtaposed the head of a lion and a tiger onto old photographs. In another collage I recognize Picasso and Brigitte Bardot ...
Photo by Naima Morelli
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In this series you decided to use the lion and the tiger, what do they represent? A.M. I’m not sure what they represent, apart the fact that as a kid I associated the lion with the male and tiger with the female. But that’s just a random association, I mean, there was not much thinking involved. In art school I was interested in this sort of primitive folk art and not at all in a Western art history trajectory. I had been working up to then without that mythology, and I focused instead on storytelling. Then about two years ago I got to a point when I discovered Western history by myself, and modernism in particular, like Matisse, Picasso, all those guys … Modernism was heavily influenced by the so-called tribal art of the day after all … A.M. Yes, and I was really excited to find that. Modernism is almost an updated version of that sort of mythology. Where does your interest for primitivism and folk art come from? A.M. My dad is an architect, and he had an inexplicable interest in history and drawing because he was a creative himself. He was really interested in primitive art too. In his travels to London, when he was younger, he bought primitive objects and brought them back to Australia. It was easier to do that back then. So he had a small collection of precious little things that I grew up with. I think I inherited that interest and that’s where my bead work comes from. My dad was trying to learn as much as he could about primitive art, in particular North America Indian arts, which is in large part bead work. At one point he taught himself how to loom, and so when I was in art school I asked him to teach me how to work with those materials, because I found them beautiful. Needless to say, he was very happy to do it. That’s why my art practice has no basis in history or ancient cultures. It’s this sort of weirdly private thing. So for your work you don’t source from any culture in particular? A.M. Well, I mean, you have to acknowledge that beads, as a material, are loaded, so I cannot just enter into a culture without acknowledging it. But in my work I tend to engage more with the concept of ritual, because the beading process is ritualistic and repetitive. I’m just engaging at a really formal level. I’m more interested in the aesthetic and the beauty of the material, so in my work you can find a completely abstract pattern that isn’t referencing anything in the past. It’s completely made up. That’s how I deal with a culture, by embracing and celebrating the materials, the process and a particular style. That, and also the fact that for me these cultures are part of my own story. So that’s where I come from. Do you have the same approach when it comes to using different media? A.M. I always tend to be meticulous. Because of this meticulousness each project makes a step toward the next one. With the beads you almost get fed up working for such a long time with such a repetitive process. The more I work on the beads the more I want to go back to drawing. And then with the drawing ...
> Alasdair McLuckie, Modern Love, 2013, inkjet print on paper, 48 x 33 cm.
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it’s a different process, but because it becomes again such a meticulous process, eventually I will get up to a point when I don’t want to draw anymore either. So, okay, back to collage! Then it gets to a point where I have enough of that and go back to the beadwork. To have this bigger studio has been an interesting experience. Here I can more directly have the space and the time I need to work on the beads one day, and return the next day to work on the drawing. In a small space I simply didn’t have room to accommodate having that many projects on the go. What about your three-dimensional modernist sculptures? A.M. That was a Picassoesque series of just ten drawings on paper. I wanted to engage with that modernist aesthetic and push it a little bit further. Mostly I was inspired by this beautiful recycled paper that I’ve found for the prints. Because it was card, it opened up the potential of expanding what I was doing with the drawings. I like the idea of a three-dimensional surface to create a sculpture that sort of stands up by itself, occupying space. As soon as I did the first sculpture and stood it up, it felt interesting sharing the space with this sort of weird character. But I’ve only been working on them for a couple of weeks so I’m not sure about their final form. In your collages the gridded paper underneath is visible. Is that a way for you to expose the bones of the work? A.M. I see the collage work as a way to break up the meticulous nature that is pretty much inherent in how I work. Because I was much more spontaneous in the process, the grid came about in order to put down a structure to work on. With the collage I got all the pieces from the start. I put down a piece of paper and then I figure out what shape or colour is most appropriate to put next to it. It’s literally just responding to each move that I make. In a way that’s what I do with the drawings as well. I work with a very basic grid structure. I create a nose, eyes, mouth, and a really broad shape for the head, then it’s more about just making lines and responding from one move to the other. As you said earlier, you discovered modernism by yourself. Didn’t you study that in art school? A.M. I did study modernism year after year in school, but I just wasn’t interested, you know? Looking back at all the institutions that educated me I think I always have been lazy and kind of not interested in learning. I always think that if I could go back and be re-taught the things that they tried to teach me then, I would be in a place where I would be much more open. Learning is an active exercise and back then I wasn’t interested in participating. It wasn’t for lack of trying, it’s just that I switched it off, like, it’s not relevant to me, I don’t care. I mean, I find that interesting too, having to learn modernism by myself and get to that point where I discovered how much it’s relevant and ties in.
> Alasdair McLuckie, Sculpture People 2013, 42 x 30 x 5cm.
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> Alasdair McLuckie, Untitled 2014, woven and embroidered glass seed beads on found fabric mounted on wood, 50 cm diameter.
I guess at the time you didn’t see how modernism could have something to do with your artistic practice … A.M. Yes, and now for some reason I have found that something made two thousand years earlier by some other culture on another continent is incredibly relevant to me. Modernism still has a huge visual impact and there is a reason why it’s so prominent in art today. It’s crazy to think you can’t be engaged, it’s impossible not to be engaged. Does living in Melbourne influence your work at all? A.M. Well, I think it has to, consciously or unconsciously, in terms of personal history and interests. The one thing I was conscious of is that I made this series of drawings responding to my discovery of modernism and falling in love with Picasso and his work. That has been in part fuelled by the fact that the National Gallery of Victoria has a Picasso painting. I still find it incredible that I’m able to walk down the street and go and see it in the flesh. I find it the most beautiful painting that Picasso did at that time. It’s really interesting that it is precisely the one that is the most accessible and also part of the Melbourne identity and psychology. I ended up finding it in almost all Picasso’s catalogues to be one of the most beautiful paintings of his. Being in this studio you are both in contact with the art scene and you have your quiet little corner. Do you reckon it’s important for an artist to keep on being engaged with art scene? A.M. I think it’s important. I mean, it has its place, you know. I think it would be hard to completely remove yourself from the scene, unless you are already established enough to maintain contacts simply by necessity. I have a commercial gallery, so I feel I’ve done enough to entrench myself. I think it arrives at a point where you sort of step out from that social aspect, but you have to have roots planted. So, yeah, there is something to the social scene, but most of all I believe that if you are doing beautiful work, that is going to penetrate. Melbourne is not a huge city, so word of mouth can go around quite easily. If you know someone you probably are one or two steps removed from knowing someone you should know, or you want to know. Good work is going to permeate. If you are doing amazing art and you actively apply for shows and opportunities, people won’t ignore it. Alasdair McLuckie is represented by Murray White Room, Melbourne and Mother’s Tankstation, Dublin. Artist site - alasdairmcluckie.com/ Naima Morelli is a freelance ar ts writer and journalist with a particular interest in contemporary ar t from Italy, the Asia Pacific region and art in a global context. She is also an independent curator focusing on Italian, Indonesian and Australian emerging ar tists. At the moment she is working on a book about contemporary ar t in Indonesia.
october salon special We can make another future: Japanese art after 1989 until 20 September 2015 Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA)
october salon special We can make another future: Japanese art after 1989 until 20 September 2015 Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA)
PREVIOUS SPREAD: Sachiko KAZAMA (Japan b.1972), Nonhuman crossing 2013, woodcut, sumi ink on Japanese paper on wood panel The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased 2014 with funds from Michael Sidney Myer through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. THIS SPREAD: Kohei NAWA (Japan b.1975), PixCell-Double Deer#4 2010, mixed media. Purchased 2010 with funds from the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Diversity Foundation through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. NEXT SPREAD: Hiroshi SUGIMOTO (Japan/United States b.1948), Hall of ThirtyThree Bays (nos 1-24) 1995, gelatin silver photograph on paper. The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased 1999 with funds from The Myer Foundation, a project of the Sidney Myer Centenary Celebration 1899-1999, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery.
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october salon special We can make another future: Japanese art after 1989 until 20 September 2015 Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA)
PREVIOUS SPREAD: Yayoi KUSAMA (Japan b.1929), Soul under the moon 2002, mirrors, ultra violet lights, water, plastic, nylon thread, timber, synthetic polymer paint The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased 2002 with funds from Michael Sidney Myer and The Myer Foundation, a project of the Sidney Myer Centenary Celebration 1899-1999, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation and The Yayoi Kusama Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Appeal. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. THIS SPREAD: Takashi MURAKAMI (Japan b.1962), And then, and then and then and then and then 1994, synthetic polymer paint on canvas. Purchased 1996. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. NEXT SPREAD: Yayoi KUSAMA (Japan b.1929), The obliteration room 2002 to present, furniture, white paint, dot stickers Collaboration between Yayoi Kusama and Queensland Art Gallery. Commissioned Queensland Art Gallery, Australia. Gift of the artist through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2012. Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. We can make another future: Japanese art after 1989, surveys the art of Heisei, the current era in the Japanese imperial calendar, through the presentation of around 100 works by over 40 contemporary Japanese artists, drawn from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection. Increasingly cosmopolitan in character and operating with an unprecedented level of international mobility, the art of this period offers a sophisticated reflection on the social conditions behind artâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s production in Japan and the anxieties that accompany them. Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Brisbane (QLD), until 20 September 2015 - qagoma.qld.gov.au/
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1. Rob McHAFFIE, Preserve this fruit 2013, oil on linen. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney. Winner 2014 Geelong contemporary art prize. & 2. Harley C GRIFFITHS, The studio, 1946, oil on plywood. Collection: Geelong Gallery. JH McPhillimy prize, 1947. Winning ways 1938–68—the first three decades of Gallery art prizes, Geelong Art Gallery, Little Malop Street Geelong (VIC) until 30 November - geelonggallery.org.au
october salon
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PREVIOUS SPREAD: 3. Judy HAINSWORTH, #FirstWorldWhiteGirls. Dir. Cienda McNamara. Thursday 9 October 6.30pm & Friday 10 October 8pm, The Bluestone Cellar, Craig’s Royal Hotel, Ballarat. & 4. The 3rd Ballarat Cabaret Festival, various venues around Ballarat (VIC), 5 – 12 October - ballaratcabaret.com THIS SPREAD: 5. & 6. Nicolas MOULIN, Vider Paris (1998-2001), software-based installation. This exhibition is presented as part of the continuing Topographic Landscapes series at Screen Space, 30 Guildford Lane, Melbourne (VIC), until 25 October - screenspace.com
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october salon
NEXT SPREAD: (L) Mojo JUJU, The Bridge Hotel Castlemaine (VIC), Saturday 4 October bridgehotelcastlemaine.com & (R) Chuck CLOSE, Self-Portrait Screenprint 2012, silkscreen in 246 colours, edition of 80, 59 1/2 x 50 inches. Image courtesy of Utopia Art Sydney. Chuck Close: HEADS, Utopia Art Sydney, 2 Danks Street, Waterloo (NSW), 25 October – 29 November utopiaartsydney.com.au FOLLOWING SPREAD: DEWEY DELL, Marzo. Presented by Arts House. in association with Melbourne Festival. Australian Premiere, Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall (VIC), 10 – 14 October - artshouse.com.au
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october salon
CATHERINE PILGRIM THE ESSENCE OF WHAT YOU SEE
Klare Lanson
Photo by Julie Millowick
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The physical act of holding a pencil highlights the multi-layered relationship we have with knowledge. We use it to connect, to understand ourselves, to play with shading and lines. Do the crossword. Chew the end. Tick the box. The choices made whilst wielding this communication device can be fleeting bursts of intuition or sometimes they will grow slowly in the uptake, a strange balance between our forward trajectory and the times we actually manage to stop. We gather our resources, look both ways and then walk in a new direction, or perhaps the same direction with an entirely new way of seeing.
IMAGE: Catherine Pilgrim, Untitled 2011, lithograph on Arches Satine. Photo by Catherine Pilgrim
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“The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.” Lucian Freud
Catherine Pilgrim is an artist who’s not as interested in diverse meanings as she is in using the pencil as a tool for being fully present, to literally just see. She’s made definitive choices through her travels and has landed in a place that celebrates the line, in how the light and shadows fall, what they develop into and what this means for us subjectively. Drawing is central to her core, and as her outrageously good Ginger cake takes us straight to the heart of things, I discover this wasn’t always the case. “I didn’t draw as a kid”, she states ironically. It was a jumble of frustration and no confidence, yet the intense desire to draw was a means to an end, the more she trained the more exciting and frustrating it became. Her life in school was split between Australia and Malaysia, and then she worked four jobs to get to London at age 17, seeing loads of art along the way. The almost protestant work ethic (her father was a Presbyterian Minister) and a strong resilience that grew from these experiences set the stage for art school. Yet a combination of the impatience of youth and not enough training in technique at a school embedded with post modernist teachings was the challenge; this was a time when it wasn’t popular to learn technical proficiency, the interest was in more concept based art. It was just at the time when Victoria College of the Arts offered Catherine Pilgrim an undergraduate place in the print making department that an exchange opportunity to go to Washington showed its face. Here she was able to work without the distraction of part time work and lived on saved funds and a small scholarship. Amongst the over packaged supermarkets, swipe card food and extended visits to the gluttony of New York’s 1994 mass culture, she did 5 times the amount of drawing, worked alongside the masters students and was fully engaged in an extremely hands on printmaking department that came complete with a lithography guru. Her Australian studies gave her a good grounding in etching, but the timing of being exposed to lithography at the same time as skilling up her drawing gave Catherine Pilgrim the departure point she needed. A few years after her US stint and, with a New York based John Cage exhibition securely fixed in her memory, the grief linked to the death of her father started the gradual process of detaching from the intellectual associations within her art practice. Lithography is the great grandparent of offset printing. Bavarian limestone is the foundation, it’s based on the repulsion of water and oil, and the guts of how ink lands on the paper is all about the mechanics. Surfaces are worked laboriously, the chemical reaction happens on the stone. Then it’s ground off and the whole process starts again, a cycle of surface and reaction.
Catherine Pilgrim / Klare Lanson
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Catherine pointed me towards a representation of this process, cleverly documented in a short film called Idem Paris (2013) by surrealist filmmaker David Lynch, who fell in love with this way of working; the distinctive sounds of rock hitting machine, the mechanics and hiss of the cogs and drums turning. There’s a stunning tactility in the stone preparation that lends itself extremely well to drawing. Lithography is one of the most technically driven processes in art making and makes for a healthy juxtaposition with the drawings made by Catherine Pilgrim. It gives added depth to her work that strengthens the poetic quality of the intricate drawing of subject and the contemplative space surrounding it. The detail is hard to get in this type of print; there is joy in the replication of what she puts on the stone. Pilgrim’s objects are often enveloped in whiteness, there’s space around her work, restful places for the burden of our technological eyes. “To feel that sense of empowerment with my drawing is wonderful, the drawing has always been so central to my work and it still is”, she says, “When I talk to my students, I ask how is the light falling on the object and what’s going in that tiny little bit in there and how can I capture that to eventually see what it is?” Her passion and enjoyment when working with people shows that her treatment of still life is not just about perspective and temporality. There is a personification of fruit, capsicums are embodied, essential raw ingredients are celebrated and yet there is a stillness that makes you feel like you are trapped in the very same space as the spider you see before you. She pushes the simple straightforward nature of the object to its limit. This year has been spent in an informal residency with Castlemaine’s Buda Historic Home & Garden, where Catherine has been investigating the family histrionics and their mutual relationship with the garden. She’s obsessed with the fabrics and folds that represent the dichotomy of what is both hidden and visible (“A little bit of obsession is a good thing!”) – a theme that’s intrigued her for years. The exhibition will zone in on the metaphors of the women who lived there and the stories around them, culminating in a solo show curated by Beverly Knight, at the Castlemaine Art Galley in March 2015. “I’m feeling that having the support of Beverly and the Alcaston Gallery in Melbourne is incredible and has freed up time for me to focus on my practice and teaching”, says Catherine. Inspired by art teachers of the past who remove all preconceptions and as much cognitive thinking as possible, her popular drawing groups and retreats started early 2014 as a result of the Buda Project. Sharing skills with intimate groups works best for this artist, who believes in a nurturing environment where space is created for meditative response to the detailed and abstract reality of things.
Catherine Pilgrim / Klare Lanson
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The conscious decisions made as we move forward and the stones underneath form the lines that we draw. The work of Catherine Pilgrim shows us that it is what it is, a meticulous take on reality, where taking away any loaded meaning and focusing on the abstract essence of what we see will enable a voice we may not find otherwise. And of course there is always cake. Catherine Pilgrim has exhibited widely since 1994 and has an upcoming Drawing Retreat at Newnorthern Hotel in Castlemaine, 13 – 17 October. Her work is included in public, corporate and private collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Geelong Regional Gallery, Castlemaine Art Gallery, Perri Cutten, and National Australia Bank. In 2011 Catherine completed a Master of Fine Art (Research) at Monash University. Her research was based on the subjective process of ‘capture’ that occurs in making a representational image. Catherine lives and works in Central Victoria, Australia. Artist site - catherinepilgrim.com/
PREVIOUS SPREAD: Catherine Pilgrim, Untitled 1999, lithograph on Arches Satine. Photo by Julie Millowick THIS PAGE: Catherine Pilgrim, Untitled 2001, lithograph on Arches Satine. Photo by Catherine Pilgrim
Klare Lanson is a writer, poet, performance maker, and sound artist, and currently presents Turn Left at the Baco every Saturday night on Castlemaine’s community radio MAINfm. Her current project is called #wanderingcloud.
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Ben Laycock
GREETINGS FROM BEYOND THE PALE PART 2 – ALICE SPRINGS, WHERE YOUR INTREPID WAYFARER MEETS A REAL, LIVE BLACKFELLA
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After bidding a fond farewell to the Big Red Rock I head up the Stuart Highway to Alice Springs, in the centre of Australia. Arriving as the sun sets over the McDonald ranges I seek a place to lay my weary head. I find myself trudging up the dry sandy bed of the Todd River, that most erratic of intermittent watercourses. Being so far from the sea, the red centre is not blessed by any particular coastal weather pattern, thus missing out on most of the action, like rain. Instead, from time to time, The Alice might catch the tail end of a tropical downpour from the north, or a cyclone from the east, or a winter storm from the south, unleashing a deluge that rushes headlong down the dry sandy bed of The Todd, sweeping away all in its path, the detritus and belongings of the perennially homeless, the beer cans and the wine casks and the occasional sleepy drunk if they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have their wits about them. Being a cleanskin from the big smoke, I lay my swag in the dry sandy bed of The Todd, blissfully unaware of the imminent danger of flash flood that would undoubtedly bring my journey of self-discovery, and my life, to a swift and watery end. Relying on my intuitive understanding that the desert is by nature a hot place, I have judiciously left all my warm clothing at home, filling my pack instead with a vast supply of dried food, just in case I get lost. As I lie in my swag staring up at the immense universe above, a bitter cold begins to creep into my very bones. Calling on the wisdom of the ancients, I light a big fire and spread the glowing coals in the shape of my body, cover them with sand and settle in for a cozy nightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sleep. Alas, my primitive electric blanket lacks a thermostat so I am compelled to roll over every twenty minutes to avoid being toasted. When I am woken from my slumber by the chortling of strange birds in the early morning light, I am shocked to find a thick layer of ice in the billy can, but I am also puffed with self-congratulation for surviving unscathed, my first night in the wild. I have learnt one of the most important lessons of the outback: It can get fucking cold at night!
< BoreTrack by Kdliss - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons Greetings From / Ben Laycock
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IMAGE: Todd River, Alice Springs, 6 March 2009, 08:34, Uploaded by russavia. Author Andy Mitchell from Glasgow, UK - http://commons.wikimedia.org/
> Ben Laycock, Hunting & Gathering 1998, gouache on paper 30 x 30 cm.
Now I am off to town, keen to meet the natives. I did not encounter any in the bush; apparently they do their hunting and gathering in the supermarket these days. Eventually I come across a gaggle of our dark-skinned brethren in the local pub. After downing a few ales to help me bridge the gulf between our cultures, I pluck up the courage to approach an approachable looking fellow who is also downing a few ales, no doubt with the same intent. After much banter and small talk I innocently inquire what tribe he is from. “St. Kilda mate. I’m from St. Kilda.” Hiding my disappointment I make an excuse to slink away, nursing my disappointment. I certainly didn’t come all this way, risking psycho killers and flash floods, to meet city slickers. Then and there I vow to leave the trappings of civilisation far behind and venture out into the great unknown. IN THE NEXT EXCITING EPISODE, your intrepid wayfarer finds himself in Nyiripi: a tiny outstation in the middle of The Western Desert, on the very edges of the known world.
Ben Laycock grew up in the country on the outskirts of Melbourne, surrounded by bush. He began drawing the natural world around him from a very early age. He has travelled extensively throughout Australia, seeking to capture the essence of this vast empty land. In between journeys he lives in a handmade house in the bush at Barkers Creek in central Victoria - benlaycock.com.au
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