David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


31 May 2013

Same as it ever was...


Collingwood Football Club president Eddie McGuire, who a few days ago was generally praised for his response to the racial abuse of Adam Goodes by a young Collinwood supporter, has now had his own brain fade, joking on radio that Adam Goodes could be used to advertise the forthcoming theatre production of King Kong. Go figure?!

articles at :
Eddie McGuire, Adam Goodes and ‘apes’: a landmark moment in Australian race relations
The Conversation : Tom Heenan & David Dunstan

31 May 2013
The ape insult: a short history of a racist idea
The Conversation : James Bradley
31 May 2013

Looking through a 1990s footy file, article after article is about Collingwood & Co being taken to task for racial vilification.

At the 1995 Anzac Day drawn match between Essendon and Collingwood, in front of 95,000, Damian Monkhorst racially abused Michael Long. Much media, obligatory mediation and an official handshake between the players but Long not happy with the outcome.

The following weekend the Collingwood cheer squad hit back with their banner of STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES BUT NAMES WILL NEVER HURT ME beside an image of a red and black Essendon dummy (spit).

More articles of condemnation...
click image to enlarge  

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Same as it ever was...
       

Saburo Murakami, Passing Through (21 panels of 42 papers)
at the second Gutai exhibitions. Tokyo, 1956

2012 cover of : Explosion! Painting as Action

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LOGOS/HA HA
     
       
        

27 May 2013

Practice single-pointed concentration.

       
Stare at a bLOG detail for an hour.

               

 - mid 1980s -                          collection : Ian Potter Museum of Art                   
 detail
 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
 someone looks at something ...
 
 LOGOS/HA HA


      

26 May 2013

Th|ink again

   
Two acts of pointing, twenty years apart.

In 1993, AFL St.Kilda star footballer Nicky Winmar was racially abused by Collingwood fans. 

Winmar's now famous response was to raise his jumper and point with pride to his Aboriginal skin.
      


This week, twenty years later, Winmar returned to Melbourne from Perth for the AFL's Indigenous Round and to share with many the ongoing significance of this defiant action. 
 
Indeed, the AFL had been promoting this week's round with images of Sydney Swans double Brownlow medalist Adam Goodes renewing the Winmar gesture.
     

     
Toward the end of Friday night's Collingwood vs Sydney Swans game at the MCG  - shown live on free-to-air television - a Collingwood spectator shouted at Adam Goodes and called him an "ape". 

Goodes stopped, turned back and, to a security official, pointed to the person who had racially abused him.
          


It was a 13 year old girl. She was expelled from the ground.
Victoria Police said on Saturday morning that a 13-year-old girl was interviewed over the incident and released last night pending further inquiries.
But Goodes said he is not blaming the girl, saying she deserved to be supported and educated about why the racist comment was unacceptable.
"I'm pretty gutted to be honest," he told reporters in Melbourne on Saturday morning.
- ABC. NEWS
Since then, much discussion. 

Today is National Sorry Day.

.  .  .  .

Why NOT footballers-for-Social Reform?

In 2013 this doesn't seem such an unreasonable question, or proposition even - the AFL has been very reformist in recent decades - but in 1976 this poster sketch appeared a thing of fanciful idealism.


 collection : Ian Potter Museum of Art    
    detail
  A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
  someone looks at something ...
  
  LOGOS/HA HA


     

23 May 2013

Th|ink

       
To coincide with ...
    
The Beginnings and Beyond

Christie's   Hong Kong   23-27 May 2013 


     
... a few early blottings of

Australian Contemporary Th|ink
     
     

 -1973- 
detail
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LOGOS/HA HA
(Untitled Document)
       
      

 -1973- 
detail
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someone looks at something ...
 
LOGOS/HA HA
(Untitled Document)
         
     

 -1975- 
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someone looks at something ...
 
LOGOS/HA HA
[WALL CHART FOR A CHINESE OR INDIAN POST ABSTRACT-EXPRESSIONIST AESTHETIC SAVANT)
       
... and a few more recent
        
      

 -2007- 
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LOGOS/HA HA
[The Two Truths)
         
      

 -2012- 
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LOGOS/HA HA
(                   )

          
 -2012- 
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A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something ...
 
LOGOS/HA HA
- after John Olsen(
      
       

 -2013- 
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something ...
 
LOGOS/HA HA

          
            

22 May 2013

White Art Cult (1939)

      
La Vache Qui Rit regards the woman in the white coat who paints La Vache Qui Rit white.
   



detail
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LOGOS/HA HA


      

20 May 2013

Self Raising Flour


light                                     light
other                                     other
self                                      self

] self - light - other (
       

FIAPCE     -1979-     
 detail
 A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/  
 someone looks at something ...
 
 LOGOS/HA HA


      

19 May 2013

Incidently, here comes the Golden Guillotine

      
Yesterday's post started with this image of someone looking at Barnett Newman's Onement VI, 1953, prior to it's New York auction last week.
               

    
Two details that we immediately noticed were the lighting+photography, which here affects our perception of/ the appearance of/the colour of the stripe; and the absence of the object's means of support.

Lighting as a crucial variable is currently foregrounded by David Homewood in the catalog of label/descriptions for his exhibition (here)  
Group Exhibition: Artwork Documentation

As for the absence of any visible means of support for Onement VI, that is not something neutral or accidental. Rather, it is the well established High Modernist code for         disconnectedness.        The Thing at a remove.        Art for art's sake/L'art pour l'art/Ars gratia artis          Isolationism.           The Thing In Itself/Ding an sich.

"The high end of the market is quite deep," said Tobias Meyer, head of Sotheby’s contemporary art department worldwide and the event auctioneer, speaking of the number of bidders. "People are very educated; they know what is what."

We note this because we know of the 1961 Alexander Liberman Archive photo of Barnett Newman in his studio, standing with Onement VI suspended by heavy chains.
       

        
For the Sotherby's online catalog image (below) this messy world of grime and chains and uneven light has been banished for bland. Now, The Thing self-elevates. Truly Abstract. Free at last, free at last. Even the slim framing surround of wall and floor appears as if a natural extension generated out of the painthing.
     


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someone looks at something ...
 
LOGOS/HA HA

     
     

18 May 2013

Education and its values : regarding what is what ] and what is not (

         
At Sotheby's New York more record prices for something to look at...

"The high end of the market is quite deep," said Tobias Meyer, head of Sotheby’s contemporary art department worldwide and the event auctioneer, speaking of the number of bidders. "People are very educated; they know what is what."
               

BARNETT NEWMAN
Onement VI, 1953
$43,845,000


detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/  
someone looks at something ...
 
LOGOS/HA HA
      

GERHARD RICHTER
Domplatz, Mailand, 1968
$37,125,000

       
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something ...
 
LOGOS/HA HA
 

At Christie's New York more record prices for something to look at...

"It was the biggest art auction in history", said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s Americas.  
             
 
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
Dustheads, 1982
$48,843,750


Pre-Lot Text
Property of a Distinguished Collector
       
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something ...
 
LOGOS/HA HA
      

JACKSON POLLOCK
Number 19, 1948
$58,363,750
            
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something ...
 
LOGOS/HA HA


At Theatre of the Actors of Regard free entry for something to look at...
           

] The PainTer (
pre-auction performance by White Art Cult 
FREE ENTRY
    
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something ...
 
LOGOS/HA HA


     

16 May 2013

Federal Budget 2013 : The Arts [ continued...

         
'Big plans for arts but little extra money to realise them'

Jacqueline Maley, 15 May 2013 : Sydney Morning Herald
         
'Culture, arts squeezed from budget with no spare change'
        
Jacqueline Maley, 3 May 2012 : Sydney Morning Herald 
                
  
detail
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someone looks at something ...
 
LOGOS/HA HA


       

15 May 2013

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13 May 2013

Today another exhibition that opened last night, then back to the bush.

       
As part of her residency at Gertrude Contemporary, Ash Kilmartin has been inviting others to also make an exhibition in STUDIO 6. 

This time it's David Homewood. He, in turn, has organised (his term) a "Group Exhibition" of a further 50 invitees. One of these, Charles Green, includes via a 1969 artist book a further group of earlier artists, including Ian Burn - significantly linked here to his Xerox Piece - Mel Ramsden, Roger Cutforth...

40. Charles Green: with apologies to Art Press, July 1969 (1969), artist book / laminate table / natural and fluorescent, 10:45am, 8 May 2013, Parkville
 
The title and description of this exhibition is :

Group Exhibition: Artwork Documentation

The gallery-sheet catalog is of interest to this attendee for what it includes and for what it does not. We blogged recently about the oddness of museoLOGOS/HA HA orthodoxy regarding Medium description. In that regard, this list refreshes. Especially so for the inclusion of a new sub-category : light source description at the time and place (both also given) that each photograph was made (or rather, when the camera was clicked). For instance :
                
8. Simon Zoric: postcard / bubblewrap / Planet lamp, 11:50am, 3 May 2013, East Melbourne

28. Luke Sands: stick / ground / natural, 10:25am, 7 May 2013, Kensington
 
46. Nick Selenitsch: circle / desk / fluorescent, 5:35pm, 8 May 2013, Northcote
    
The catalog does not provide information about the author(s) of these same size, same surface photographs. Nor does it offer an origin story for this organisation of figure-on-field documentations. No problem, why should it?

Lots of knowing complexity and simplicity 
hereabouts, methinks

meta-Artwork Documentation : FIAPCE  
23. Ash Kilmartin: rubber heels / studio floor / natural directed with mirror, 1:00pm, 6 May 2013, Fitzroy


meta-Artwork Documentation : David Homewood & Lydia Wegner  
            
meta-Artwork Documentation : David Homewood & Lydia Wegner  
         
detail
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LOGOS/HA HA


      

12 May 2013

An overnight flit to Marvellous Melbourne

      
Primarily for the Friday night footy (unbeaten Cats vs unbeaten BOMBERS) as art appears to appear at every turn...
     

 COLOURS ON!   

We are walking up Franklin Street on the way to the game and... there's an exhibition opening. It's by HA HA (Regan Tamanui), one of Melbourne's best known street artists, recently returned from New Zealand.  'METAMORPHOSIS' at Dark Horse Experiment. Really enjoyed it. 

Below, some snaps of Metamorphosis, the mural. More such at The Unreal Adventures of HA HA where he describes this work as the seed of life, which he links to the wikipedia site Flower of Life.
        

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LOGOS/HA HA

As one who appreciates the theatre of supporting evidence - something because... and ...to be seen to be done - there was much here to enjoy. The open room of work strewn stencils. Masks as masks, indeed!
                
     
Tape remains and first squirts...
         


  THE CATS WON !  

Walking back from the game we take a path through a new Docklands arcade. In front of us there's a young (10-12)  BOMBERS  supporter. On his red-on-black jumper stripe an impressive collection of Essendon team signatures. 

Now, on our right, there's a smart new artwork by Melbourne artist Emily Floyd. We the football homeward push quickly past, too fast to read the text. The young  BOMBER  gently pads, taps and raps his hand on each next coloured metal thing. Each drum|ming produces a different sound. We note the composition and the performance with amused delight. Incidental Art Music_Melbourne.

Emily Floyd
New Ways of Thinking, 2012

We note also in that passing place the suspended projection-space ideograms of dependent-arising.
         
                                            click image to enlarge
Each awaits its signage overlay and passage of eye drum|mers.

All as ever.
            

detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/  
someone looks at something ...
 
LOGOS/HA HA