OPEN SPATIAL WORKSHOP (OSW) : CONVERGING IN TIME

   
Opening celebrations, Saturday 11 February
Open Spatial Workshop in conversation with Matt Poll, 2-3pm
Official opening, 3-5pm
With opening remarks by Professor Lynette Russell, Director, Faculty of Arts Monash Indigenous Studies Centre.

MUMA | Monash University Museum of Art presents Open Spatial Workshop: Converging in time. This will be the first major museum exhibition by Open Spatial Workshop (comprising artists Terri Bird, Bianca Hester and Scott Mitchell). The exhibition is part of MUMA's much anticipated annual survey exhibition series that presents the practices of Australia's most exciting and innovative mid-career artists.

Converging in time continues OSW's sculptural investigation into the forces of material formation. Drawing on earth sciences research and studies of the Anthropocene, this new exhibition explores the relationship between the mineral make-up of a site and the societies they produce and sustain.

Open Spatial Workshop (OSW) 

in conversation with Matt Poll, 2-3pm

Preceding the opening event, join us for an in conversation between Terri Bird, Bianca Hester, Scott Mitchell (OSW) and Matt Poll (curator, Indigenous Heritage and Repatriation Project, Macleay Museum, University of Sydney), who will discuss different ways of relating to earth: as material, as form, as geology, as territory, as history, as Country. Together they will explore the various ways that knowledge systems shape an engagement with localities, acknowledging the complexity of an ethical engagement with material histories.

  

Image : Research image of a Sigillaria fossil,  

Museums Victoria Collection, #375, 2013.  

 photo: Open Spatial Workshop   

  

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MoMA Installs Works by Artists from Countries Targeted by Trump’s Travel Ban

headline and article (3 Feb 2017) from HYPERALLERGIC :

In an unprecedented gesture, the museum has replaced works in its permanent collection galleries with eight by artists from Muslim-majority nations named in Trump’s executive order.


Theatre of the Actors of Regard :
Installation view of the collection galleries at Museum of Modern
Art, New York, after this week’s rehang (photo Robert Gerhardt)
 
In response to President Trump’s executive order temporarily banning immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has replaced works in its permanent collection galleries with eight by artists from the targeted nations. Though it might sound small, the rehang is an unprecedented gesture in the museum’s history, instigated and executed by staff who wanted to react to unsettling political circumstances.

Organized by a group of curators across a number of departments, the reinstallation occurred last night on the fifth floor, following an initial discussion two days after Trump issued the order on January 27.

read full article HERE


 Theatre of the Actors of Regard :
 Parviz Tanavoli, “The Prophet” (1964) photo Robert Gerhardt

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Leader of the Opposition (continued)

click image to enlarge   

 Pavel Pepperstein, Untitled 
 (Oh, here is this fucking yellow triangle again!) 

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 Theatre of the Actors of Regard [Yellow) 

   

   

   

Wisdom in the Age of Rage

  

At the centre of Tibetan Buddhism's Wheel of Life diagram, a snake a pig and a rooster hold to each other. They represent ignorance, anger and desire attachment as the causes at the core of our unsettled suffering.

    

click image to see full Wheel of Life diagram    

1. Anger is of most concern among the afflictive emotions. In all the writing and discussion read and heard by this correspondent, in the analysis the diagnosis and the seeking for a way beyond these Trump-focussed troubles, there has been no questioning of the appropriateness of anger in the mix. We regard this as blinkered and unwise.

Righteous anger is typically a reactive emotion of anger over mistreatment, insult, or malice. It is akin to what is called the sense of injustice. 

Righteous indignation - Wikipedia

book by Panjak Mishra, first published 25 January 2017  

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump  Jan 15
For many years our country has been divided, angry and untrusting. Many say it will never change, the hatred is too deep. IT WILL CHANGE!!!!

It /we will not change if not attended to at the root.

2. Ignorance in this schema is further described as ignorance of the true nature of reality. Without here going into a presentation of that view, how is the present climate of our knowledge of the true nature of reality? ...in this so-called "post-truth" (Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year) age? 

Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge (γνῶσις, gnôsis, f.). It is often used for personal knowledge compared with intellectual knowledge (εἶδειν eídein), as with the French connaitre compared with savoir, or the German kennen rather than wissen.    Latin dropped the initial g (which was preserved in Greek) so gno- becomes no- as in noscō meaning "I know", noscentia meaning "knowledge" and notus meaning "known". The g remains in the Latin co-gni-tio meaning "knowledge" and i-gno-tus and i-gna-rus meaning "unknown" and from which comes the word i-gno-rant, and a-gno-stic which means "not knowing" and once again this reflects the Sanskrit jna which means "to know", "to perceive" or "to understand". 

Gnosis - Wikipedia

Post-truth politics (also called post-factual politics) is a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored. 

Post-truth politics - Wikipedia

Agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data.
       The neologism was coined by Robert N. Proctor and Linguist Iain Boal, a Stanford University professor specializing in the history of science and technology. Its name derives from the Neoclassical Greek word ἄγνωσις, agnōsis, "not knowing" (cf. Attic Greek ἄγνωτος "unknown"), and -λογία, -logia. 

More generally, the term also highlights the increasingly common condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before. David Dunning is another academic who studies the spread of ignorance. "Dunning warns that the internet is helping propagate ignorance – it is a place where everyone has a chance to be their own expert, he says, which makes them prey for powerful interests wishing to deliberately spread ignorance". 

Agnotology - Wikipedia

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump  Jan 13

Totally made up facts by sleazebag political operatives, both Democrats and Republicans - FAKE NEWS! Russia says nothing exists. Probably..
released by "Intelligence" even knowing there is no proof, and never will be. My people will have a full report on hacking within 90 days!

Jesus : "The truth shall set you free" 

Pilate : "What is truth?"

Trump : "I am your voice"

3. Desire attachment fuels the American Dream and all such dream machines. Every generation of snake oil salesmen sells anew Fear of Loss and the Prospect of Redemption : Paradise Lost and Make America Great Again. We the people : angry, ignorant and would-be/dispossessed project to reflect to elect to follow to reject again the next available suitably framed mirror...



 from 2014 exhibition 'Debris of the Future' by Pavel Pepperstein

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Postscript : 9 February 2017, in today's New York Review of Books, The Age of Total Lies by Vesna Pešić and Charles Simic. And, via that, the March 2012 article Age of Ignorance by Charles Simic.


     

Art Criticism in the Age of Xtreme Vetting : JUST SAY NO!

 Theatre of the Actors of Regard   

 AAA_Art Archive Australia (1977)    

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Pozible | Audience Book

    

Ross Coulter introduces the project 
The “Audience” book is derived from a series of photographs documenting an audience standing around an empty gallery, in which there is no art, watching a performance that doesn't exist.

By drawing on the visual language of 1970s performance art documentation images, I have constructed a photographic archive of an audience witnessing a number of performance events in art galleries around Melbourne. The series is a portrait of the audience and gallery spaces in and around Melbourne. And in 20 years time it will be important. Really important.



The series of photographs will be shown in March 2017 at the NGV as a part of the Photography Festival, (along side Brook Andrew, Zoe Croggon, Patrick Pound and other notable artists).

To coincide with the exhibition I have produced a much anticipated (ahem) book.

There have been over 850 people who have participated as audience members and the photographs have taken place in 95 gallery spaces.



How The Funds Will Be Used
The funds raised from this campaign will go towards the printing, binding and transportation of the "Audience" books.
   


The Challenges
Some initial funding was provided by the City of Melbourne, however the scope of the project has grown considerably since 2013. The more spaces I shot, the more galleries became involved in the project. It turns out that there are over 90 gallery spaces in and around Melbourne. As a result I have photographed over 850 people and made 446 analogue prints (please don't tell me there is another gallery opening up).

The project has subsequently grown and the publication now has extended to two volumes. Of course this blows out the initial budget; hence this Pozible campaign.

In Return
Project supporters can receive, in return for pledges from $10 to $1500, a variety of returns : from a set of postcards to the Audience Book to a day's fly fishing for two.

For the Pozible site and further pledge info click below 

AAA_Art Archive Australia   

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Leonard French (1928-2017)

 
The temperatures of TAR 
When you're hot, you're hot!
When you're not, you're not!
Vale Leonard French 

In her obituary tribute in yesterday's THE AGE (here),
Leonard French's daughter Lisa sums up :

"He was the luckiest of men. He had achieved everything he ever wanted. His cultural legacy is enormous; he leaves behind a large body of work of international standing. Art inspired him all of his life.

His achievements were greater than he could have imagined and he died happy, satisfied, and much loved – none of us could want more."

TAR and the temperatures of others : 

if there's a lesson t|here, it was not for him, it's for us.

Your correspondent had some early brief contact with him and his work and has remained aware of him, continued to think about him and his work, and about the fickleness of the Theatre of the Actors of Regard. 

In this, we note also the online comments by the artist Gareth Sansom, added to the obituary by Ashleigh Wilson in The Australian :

His Legend coffee shop mural based on Sinbad the Sailor had an enormous influence on me - after  seeing it in 1958, and the Melbourne University swimming pool mural, I raced home and started using my father's Dulux house paint on Masonite..... and my first exhibition featured some of those early experiments with paint....he was gruff and confrontational and talked like a Harold Pinter script - but always exciting, and an art star before Whiteley....

Lisa French again :

According to Grishin in his book on the artist, in 1968 the newspapers were running headlines such as "The year of Leonard French" and by 1970 he "was at the peak of his popular acclaim and possibly the most public of any Australian artist of his day".

In the latter part of the 1970s he moved to rural Heathcote, withdrawing from the art scene, until a few years ago when he moved back to Brunswick where he was born. While his place in the limelight faded and many assumed him to be dead, he continued his prolific output for another 40 years. He was a much better painter than he has been given credit for (something I have no doubt history will eventually rectify).

The zeitgeist rolls on...

Melbourne Cool : the Legend Café, 1956, with painted panels by Leonard French and interior design by Clement Meadmore.

Leonard French, Iconoclast, 1957 :

His best known work, the stained glass ceiling of the Great Hall 
at the National Gallery of Victoria :

He continued to paint. Hannah Francis in today's AGE :

On Tuesday the family displayed a photograph of his last "epic" work, Chaos: a three-panel painting completed in 2004 that features a skeleton walking on a tightrope above a chaotic scene. It has never been exhibited.

"It captures this idea of the cyclical nature of time," says daughter Sarah French. "I have always interpreted the skeleton as a symbolic substitute for dad as the artist, who mocks the darkness below. However his own position is highly precarious – he must carefully maintain his balance lest he should fall and become swept up in the destruction."

Major galleries from Bendigo to Queensland have reportedly resurrected French's works from their store rooms and put them proudly on display after news of his death.

A spokesperson for the National Gallery of Victoria says the gallery has no current plans for a Leonard French retrospective.

Below, Leonard French, Journey of the Sun, 1980
collection Bendigo Art Gallery

AAA_Art Archive Australia  

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Let there be sound, and there was sound. AC/DC

 
from the Om 

Phallus  

Space Serpent Däniken
  

Omphalos at the Temple of Apollo, of the Delphi Oracle
   

appears and

and gives to Adam  

this navel sphere   

  

BOYDCO Sound Chart 

Kangaroo Flat, early 1950s 

The man accepts the golden round 

and puts it to his ear 

Theatre of Acoustic Research 

] ] ] ] sound ( ( ( ( 

m m m m m m m O m m m m m m m
    

Theatre of the Actors of Regard  

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         Big Bang etymoLOGOS/HA HA 

Drawing People :-) The Human Figure in :-[ Contemporary Art :-| by Roger Malbert } {

Drawing People: The Human Figure in Contemporary Art

Published by D.A.P. / Distributed Art Publishers
Edited and with text by Roger Malbert
Flexibound, 9.5 x 13.5 inches
256 pages, 275 color images
ISBN 9781938922688, 45 USD / 23 GBP / 33 EUR (appx.)
Distributed by ARTBOOK | D.A.P.

Drawing is now back in the spotlight … this book is asserting the importance of drawing in its own right, as an autonomous artform and not a means to an endThe Independent

Invasion Day Melbourne rally draws tens of thousands of protesters :
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Melbourne's CBD for an 'Invasion Day' rally on Thursday. The crowd at Federation Square - estimated by some to be up to 50,000 people - is believed to have eclipsed the number of people who attended the earlier Australia Day march along Swanston Street.
The Age (today)

'Whatever happens on the other side of the draw, I think is great for tennis."  Rafael Nadal
extract writ large in The Age print version (today)
   
Postscript : after midnight at the Australian Open, at four-all in the hard fought fifth set, the Channel 7 commentator exclaims "Nadal draws level.". Nadal then goes on to win, and will play Federer tomorrow in the final.

		R. Nadal	6	5	77	64	6
		G. Dimitrov	3	7	65	77	4

 cover image by Mircea Sucia                                                      TAR

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Waddya reckon? Dunno, wadda you reckon?

 
Australia Day | Invasion Day  

water cooler  

conversation  

   
view from the bLOGOS/HA HA office : we asked these locals...

Theatre of Avian Rectitude  

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