Machinations @ Michael Koro Gallery

These are some images from a collection of works I have on display at Michael Koro Gallery at the moment. These works are kind of hybrids - part maquettes for larger works, part sketches, and partly works unto themselves. The title of the series is Machinations, these are the only ones completed so far. There is another work in this exhibition but it's quite difficult to document, so I have to wait until I can go in with a tripod to photograph it before it gets posted here...

The other artists in the show are: Marcin Wojcik, Ash Keating, Daniel du Bern and Brie Trennery.

The exhibition is open Thurs - Sun, 12 - 6pm, and runs until Feb 28th.

Expanding into Infinity

My tribute to Bob Smithson.

For We Don't Need Another Hero at Seventh Gallery.

Jan 13 - 30.

Smithsonising, again [DIY Smithson]

A couple of years back, I was invited to be involved in a group show which explored themes of masculinity in relation to the hardware store - the temple of modern man, right? The basic premise was that the show would involve humorous works which reflected the relationship beteween men and tools. [The title, Ultimate Tool, insinuated that they could be the same thing]
At the time [?] I was going through a bit of a fascination with Robert Smithson, among a few other tangents of exploration. For my contribution, I decided to construct a curiosity cabinet which portrayed miniature versions of famous earthworks by Smithson. In this way, I hoped my own work could function both as a parody - a literal belittling of the great land artist - and a quiet tribute to the work of an artist whom I greatly admired.

The works I chose to recreate were Asphalt Rundown, in which a truck emptied a load of liquid asphalt down a hillside,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1M3HoZpXBc

and Partially Buried Woodshed, in which a shed on the grounds of Kent University, in Ohio, was covered with earth until its central beam cracked.

http://ludb.clui.org/ex/i/OH3128/

My versions of these works were constructed with paper, soil and scoria [volcanic rock used for potting cacti]. They were presented inside a cupboard which I had found on the side of the road, and converted into a curiosity cabinet of sorts, utilising a system of pulleys and cords with which to open up the top and front.

The whole project left me feeling somehow empty, or insincere. By merely copying these projects in the miniature it seemed that I was not actually engaging with the original work, I was merely aping it. [Although they do say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery...]

The next Smithson tribute, however, will be my own.

Where it all began, really

"...when they woke up, with the sun already high in the sky, they were speechless with fascination. Before them, surrounded by ferns and palm trees, white and powdery in the silent morning light, was an enormous Spanish galleon. Tilted slightly to the starboard, it had hanging from its intact masts the dirty rags of its sails in the midst of its rigging, which was adorned with orchids. The hull, covered with an armour of petrified barnacles and soft moss, was firmly fastened into a surface of stones. The whole structure seemed to occupy its own space, one of solitude and oblivion, protected from the vices of time and the habits of birds. Inside, where the expeditionaries explored with careful intent, there was nothing but a thick forest of flowers."

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
(c) 1970, Penguin Books

Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey

My obsession continues - I bought this book online for just a few bucks, despite it's seminal role in a very specific chapter in the history of minimal art. The books is referenced in Robert Smithson's essay A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey, which discusses what Smithson refers to as 'ruins in reverse' - esentially sites of development and construction which were, according to the law of entropy, in the simultaneous states of construction and collapse...

http://www.bwk.tue.nl/stedeb/studentinformatie/offthemap/smithson.pdf

The title Earthworks was later used for an exhibition which was held at the Dwan Gallery in New York, in 1968.

http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/searchimages/images/image_9443_24541.htm

Artsists such as Michael Heizer, Claes Oldenburg, Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt and Richard Long exhibited, along with Smithson, obviously. The exhibition is cited as being the 'launch' of the Land Art movement - and the same title was again borrowed for a book which discusses the history of this movement [by Suzaan Boettger].

Having said all that - I have chosen Smithson as my 'idol' for a group show in which we've been invited to create works that are related to our personal idols. I guess I had no choice...

Either way, this book seems like a pretty good starting point.

Everything You Know is About to Change, Forever

FINALLY! Back in the studio developing some ideas to work on for this year. I have given up my second job which means I can spend more time in the studio [and be more poor]. This is a maquette for a large scale project I will be undertaking in April. The text is the title of the show - it was appropriated from a billboard promoting one of the C.S. Lewis films [maybe Prince Caspian?] and I re-punctuated it to add gravity and, with luck, some humour...

Once completed, this work will be exhibited at Linden Gallery, in St. Kilda.
http://www.lindenarts.org/

Drive-by Art

These photos were kindly - and skilfully, I might add - taken by my sister Rowena as we were driving down the Eastlink freeway on our way back from a trip to the beach. When this new freeway was constructed, several artists were comissioned to construct public artworks to appear near the road. Pictured are above, Callum Morton's Hotel and top is Simeon Nelson's Desiring Machine. Both works occupy the landscape in interesting ways; Morton's by sheer unexpectedness and contrast, whilst Nelson's sculpture appears somehow at home, even if it appears to have crash-landed there...

stack

Gym Party

I went to the Underground Cinema screening the other night - my sister is involved with the group, and she was performing there. The theme was '1980's prom night', and they had hired a large gymnasium for the event. I was on my own, so I kind of felt like the guy who turns up to the school dance without a date...

but that was OK, it permitted me useful intropsective time to soak in the rather David Lynch-esque surroundings. With all the lights, streamers and balloons, the place had a really creepy feel to it. The film they showed was Footloose, which I'd never seen before. Sinister undertones there, too [the whole 'midwest American country town brainwashed by over-zealous spiritual leader' thing...], but perhaps not as much as Blue Velvet, say.
Have a look at their website : http://www.undergroundcinema.com.au/

Royal Park Research

9th Sept. 1878

This is a pencilled date which is on my bedroom wall, just above my desk. It appears to be written straight onto the plaster. I imagine that whoever painted the house all those years ago decided to record the occasion for posterity. It has probably been obscured by a dresser or bookshelf for many years.

I suspect this means that our house is one of [if not the] oldest house in the street. It is certainly the tallest, and the architecture is quite uinque.

It is somehow comforting to feel a kind of connection with the house's occupants of some 120 years ago: I am sure that the light that comes in through the window in the morning would fall on the same points of the mantlepiece, and the same sounds would reverberate through the house as people climbed the staircase, and that the sound of birds in the back garden would subtly permeate their daily lives.

I wonder what other significance this particular date held to the person who felt the need to inscribe it upon the wall?

Aqua Lung

I just discovered these photos of a work I made in mid 2008.

This mechanical sculpture was designed to emulate the movement of a pair of human lungs. An air pump leading to a paper and plastic bag anatomical sculpture was operated by a water fountain system borrowed from traditional Japanese gardens. When the plastic bottle filled to a certain point it would briefly raise and lower the hydraulic pump, as the water cascaded back into the bucket, and the lungs would temporarily 'inhale and exhale'.

Also pictured is an install shot of the work alongside my paper model of Captain Cook's Endeavour.

Seventh Up @ FELTspace

These are some installation shots of the Seventh Up exhibition at FELTspace in Adelaide.

My work is the one in the black recycling containers, titled 'Nu-Mystic'. A very daggy title, but the work is a bit of a joke...a little dig at the emerging trend towards the esoteric, and a proliferation of shamanic or 'tribal' references in art work I've seen around the place. It seems that more often than not, these kind of references are purely fashionable gestures and not grounded in any real investigation of ancient or foreign cultures...

Also pictured are [and apologies, I've forgotten some of the titles] a miniature, portable protest by Rebecca Agnew, the video 'Everything I will Inherit' by Emma Morgan pictured with Jonas Ropponen's phallic ceramic cactus; Amy-Jo Jory's floor-projected film of an amusement park ride which morphs into a mechanised monster or blossoming flower; Peter Thomas' dramatic sculpture of a Roman-style stadium; Kim Jaeger's Jesus Rulz, which was the subject of an art-heist during the exhibition: the inscription 'Anyone who takes this ruler Dies' proved irresistable to the now doomed thief.

Thanks to FELTspace and all the wonderful artists involved for providing such an enjoyable experience of Adelaide and showing us where the good bars are.

Adelaide and back

I recently visited Adelaide for a group exhibition at FELTspace, a little ARI [Artist Run Initiative] in the centre

of the city. The premise of the show was the artists involved in Seventh, where I volunteer, and the artists from FELT would swap galleries and have exhibitions in eachother's spaces.

While I was in Adelaide, I visited a small museum located in the centre of the botanical gardens. I had read about it by complete coincidence whilst rifling through a magazine in a coffee shop. It is called The Museum of Economic Botany; it was built in 1881, and has recently been refurbished. Within the ornate display cabinets are hundreds of paper mache apples, pears and mushrooms which were commissioned from a group of German craftsmen. These fruits and mushrooms are so lifelike, it is near impossible to tell they are replicas. Even the sheen of the skins has been recreated so some look more waxy, and some of the mushrooms look quite slimy - and decidedly dangerous.

As opposed to the contemporary lust for the hyper-real - the substitution of simulation for reality - these objects emphasise a tender engagement with the original objects, and, in a way, have been crafted as a creative tribute to the diversity of species.