bLOGOS/HA HA: MELBOURNE⪥BRISBANE: punk, art and after (until 16 May)

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.

11 March 2010

MELBOURNE⪥BRISBANE: punk, art and after (until 16 May)

MELBOURNE⪥BRISBANE: punk, art and after was officially opened at the Ian Potter Museum of Art last night.

Special guest Robert Forster sang about the time, in the early 1980s, when the Go-Betweens relocated from Brisbane to Melbourne. How they slowly realised, among their circle, there were two Melbourne music scenes: the unreconstructed Rock wannabes of St Kilda and the cold anaemic theorists of Fitzroy-Northcote, as each group characterised the other. The Go-Betweens had friends in both camps, north and south of the Yarra: "We weren't called the Go-Betweens for nothing".