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LOGOS/HA HA
14 January 2015
13 January 2015
CLOSE
Today, online, we received this image and text
from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney :
Chuck Close: Prints, Process and Collaboration
‘It may seem at first that you are looking at a face, but it soon becomes clear that each work is a document of a mind-boggling process’ – Sydney Morning Herald.
MCA Members receive unlimited FREE entry to the Chuck Close exhibition.
Daily until 15 Mar
The SMH quote set us thinking again about the latin dictum Nomen est omen. Meaning, in relation to people and their occupations or significant activities, the name forebodes the act. Sometimes referred to as nominative determinism.
It occurred to us that the Mr CLOSE might well be regarded as a fine example of such a view.
We appreciated the simple meta-complexity of the image the MCA provided :
someone(s) looking at something :
we (you, me) and the father look at an image/
a child and the image of a child look at us...
A CLOSE look at the detail of the 'actual' child in the overall image - simply by clicking ENLARGE - and it now appears more like the image made by Mr CLOSE :
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12 January 2015
TIME TO ACT
Situation Vacant : Stop Looking! And Start Acting
Employment File : Theatre of the Actors of Regard
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10 January 2015
How hierarchies happen in contemporary Australian art
We mentioned several of our local artists in the January 5 post : One for all the posties
Two more, both residents of Hepburn Springs, were singled out for comment by Sasha Grishin in his December 9 article at The Conversation : How hierarchies happen in contemporary Australian art.
"... the guidance by the artists’ voice was a crucial ingredient in my methodology. This exercise brought in sharp focus the whole question of how artists are constructed as successful or major artists in Australian art.
Also questions of what Bourdieu termed “cultural capital” and “economic capital” arose – in other words, artists who may attain great success in the market place, for example David Bromley, but who attract relatively little respect from the art establishment, or others, like Peter Tyndall, who have a high profile in major curated exhibitions, public collections and publications, but who are a long way from becoming an “art market darling”."
above : Bromley & Co, Daylesford shopfront
below : Art Market Darling t-shirt (Sold Out)
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08 January 2015
bLOGOS/HA HA : fpm : JE SUIS CHARLIE
In Reims, a massive Police force is hunting the French Islamic terrorists who, 12 hours ago in Paris, assassinated ten cartoonists and journalists of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo and the two police (one of whom was Muslim) assigned to protect them.
Je suis Charlie has quickly become the unifying expression as protests begin in major European cities.
Many hold up a pen or pencil.
In Melbourne, fpm (free pencil movement) stickers are appearing again on the streets.
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05 January 2015
One for all the posties
Monday. For many it's the first day back at work after Christmas and New Year.
We check the mail box : fourteen envelopes, happily none are bills.
It's a pleasing sight and prospect. A good number, for sure, but far from the one-day record. That goes to QLD artist friend Bob, a regular correspondent for around 35 years. 49 on one day is his record. There's no photo of that, but here's one of 33 on another day.
Back to today's 14 envelopes. One large one has a hand drawn Official Stamp and no sender's name.
What a ripper! It's from Nick the Postie : a self portrait with his Australia Post motorbike helmet, leaving behind a dog and diving Spring magpie.
click image to enlarge
We do appreciate our posties, their pre-dawn starts, their trials by weather, their responsibility and good care. (Some months ago, Jeff told me that Nick had told him that for two consecutive days he had no mail to deliver here. Jeff said, they had even considered sending some themselves. Fortunately, on the third day the drought brought and the mail came through again. Top spirit, that!)Since we've mentioned Jeff, here's his 2014 Christmas stencil card. Another beaut.
The card that Nick refers to on his portrait was this one, below, showing a French country-postie on his saddle-packed velo approaching the challenge of a farmhouse dog.
click image to enlarge
Nick the Postie and Greg the Postie, who also dropped-in a drawing just before Christmas...
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In tribute to all posties post-Hermes and Mercury, who have stamped sorted and delivered the extra-ordinary volume and variety of correspondence between peoples, we have strung this year's cards across a made-in-China oil-on-canvas re-imaging (it too, sent and received through the mail) of an 1888 Vincent van Gogh portrait of his friend and final postman, Joseph Roulin.
Van Gogh and Joseph Roulin met and became good friends and drinking companions. Van Gogh compared Roulin to Socrates on many occasions; while Roulin was not the most attractive man, van Gogh found him to be "such a good soul and so wise and so full of feeling and so trustful." Strictly by appearance, Roulin reminded van Gogh of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky - the same broad forehead, broad nose, and shape of the beard. Roulin saw van Gogh through the good and the most difficult times, corresponding with his brother, Theo following his rift with Gauguin and being at his side during and following the hospital stay in Arles.
Van Gogh and Joseph Roulin met and became good friends and drinking companions. Van Gogh compared Roulin to Socrates on many occasions; while Roulin was not the most attractive man, van Gogh found him to be "such a good soul and so wise and so full of feeling and so trustful." Strictly by appearance, Roulin reminded van Gogh of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky - the same broad forehead, broad nose, and shape of the beard. Roulin saw van Gogh through the good and the most difficult times, corresponding with his brother, Theo following his rift with Gauguin and being at his side during and following the hospital stay in Arles.
01 January 2015
The Era In Review
antique |anˈtiːk|
noun
a collectable object such as a piece of furniture or work of art that has a high value because of its age and quality. Pauline loves collecting antiques. [ as modifier ] : an antique dealer.
Not so long ago, the appreciation of antiques was relatively common in Australia. Cities, suburbs and country towns all had their prominent main street Antiques businesses.
But, who collects antiques now? Or even aspires to? Scarcity, price and the spirit of the times have mostly cleared that field of activity.
Until recently, as the categories of the collectible changed, the collectors still continued to collect. The model seemed solid : plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
In the collection and appreciation of Australian Painting, for example, the spotlight moved from Colonial art to the Heidelberg School and then to The Antipodeans. Minimalism, too, was embraced; not so much in painting as in domestic architecture : but where do we put things...?
Just as the art of the present (so-called Contemporary Art) was claiming its turn in the light, deconstructive interrogation and postmodern theory were making plausible sense to the Gen Next of would-be collectors : they paused...
Then came the digital net, hauling in and offering everything (sic) at little cost. So what if it wasn't real or original? The simulacra was well rehearsed and already quite sufficient for most.
. . . .
Wemmick's advice to Pip
At Mr Jagger's office, Wemmick shows to Pip a plaster cast death mask of one of their clients,
a murderer.
“O yes,” he returned, “these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that’s the way of it. I always take ’em. They’re curiosities. And they’re property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they’re property and portable. It don’t signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, “Get hold of portable property”.”
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
. . . .
As these observations continue to mount, the Melbourne art critic Robert Nelson's Year In Review in yesterday's print edition of The Age was summarised as Galleries at crossroads. He begins :
For me, 2014 has been a year of reckoning. The art scene has had to reckon with the collapse of substantial parts of the commercial gallery system, which used to be a mainstay. Every year, the scene appears more fragile, reflected in galleries closing or merging.
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Just as the art of the present (so-called Contemporary Art) was claiming its turn in the light, deconstructive interrogation and postmodern theory were making plausible sense to the Gen Next of would-be collectors : they paused...
Then came the digital net, hauling in and offering everything (sic) at little cost. So what if it wasn't real or original? The simulacra was well rehearsed and already quite sufficient for most.
. . . .
Wemmick's advice to Pip
At Mr Jagger's office, Wemmick shows to Pip a plaster cast death mask of one of their clients,
a murderer.
Illustration by John McLenan - courtesy TAR
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While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before me, dusting his hands.“O yes,” he returned, “these are all gifts of that kind. One brings another, you see; that’s the way of it. I always take ’em. They’re curiosities. And they’re property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they’re property and portable. It don’t signify to you with your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, “Get hold of portable property”.”
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
. . . .
The Depression generation of hunters and gatherers, hoarders and collectors, is no more.
Now, faced instead with an embarrassment of excess, the ethically chic are transforming their previous collecting zeal into aspirational down-sizing and displays of decluttered-ness. At the de-centre of this, the ubiquitous digital genei.
In May last year, we wondered here about the future of going to art galleries and collecting art as part of a cultured way of life? Might that be a way of the past?
A few years ago, your correspondent was astonished to hear a young art museum senior curator say she could not understand why people collect things. Huh?! Surely, a contrary canary-in-the-mine sign.
In October, David Byrne blogged about his changing perceptions and personal disenchant-ment around Contemporary Art. click to read :
I Don't Care About Contemporary Art Anymore?
Now, faced instead with an embarrassment of excess, the ethically chic are transforming their previous collecting zeal into aspirational down-sizing and displays of decluttered-ness. At the de-centre of this, the ubiquitous digital genei.
In May last year, we wondered here about the future of going to art galleries and collecting art as part of a cultured way of life? Might that be a way of the past?
A few years ago, your correspondent was astonished to hear a young art museum senior curator say she could not understand why people collect things. Huh?! Surely, a contrary canary-in-the-mine sign.
In October, David Byrne blogged about his changing perceptions and personal disenchant-ment around Contemporary Art. click to read :
I Don't Care About Contemporary Art Anymore?
As these observations continue to mount, the Melbourne art critic Robert Nelson's Year In Review in yesterday's print edition of The Age was summarised as Galleries at crossroads. He begins :
For me, 2014 has been a year of reckoning. The art scene has had to reckon with the collapse of substantial parts of the commercial gallery system, which used to be a mainstay. Every year, the scene appears more fragile, reflected in galleries closing or merging.
detail
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someone looks at something...
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31 December 2014
Season's Regards from Chi-tien & TAR
Currently at TarraWarra Museum of Art is
IAN FAIRWEATHER: THE DRUNKEN BUDDHA. The printed invite for the exhibition features his Chi-tien stands on head from 1964.
click image to enlarge
Fifty years later, this seasonal re-enactment ...
... comes to you with all best wishes for 2015
from the Antipodean staff of bLOGOS/HA HA
2014 Christmas Party with staff of FOX and bLOGOS/HA HA
click to enlarge
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28 December 2014
How It Happened
Label-Form Lightning strikes Projection-Space Ideogram Tower sited near Crossroads outside Ville-de-Regard Office of bLOGOS/HA HA.
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24 December 2014
"Strike me lucky!"
Where have we been this last month?
Just back from an unsuccessful stent stint in hospital and hours before taking our canine mascot to the vet for cruciate surgery, a massive Monday morning lightning and thunder strike slew the bLOGOS/HA HA logic board. It knocked out other computers around here, too, including in cars.
Now, a month later, with a new computer and still migrating back-ups and sorting softwares et al, we return in time to wish you Season's Regards.
More soon.
click image to enlarge
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A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
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