Jill Greenberg – “The Female Body”

There is much I can say about Jill Greenberg and the love I have for her style, subject matter and technique, but i will leave this post purely to discuss Greenberg’s piece, “The Female Object (1989)”. The piece consists of a multi-track recording and a multiple projector slide shows as well as an installation of mural C-prints.

Jill Greenberg “The Female Object, ” 1989, Still from Multimedia Slideshow

Her work expresses the control women have over their body and how we no longer believe we can control this on our own and instead have allowed society to determine this for us. This inspiration came to Greenberg when, and just like all women, the urge to “fix” her body would consistently help her grasp control over her life. That she “wanted to devote [myself] to controlling [my] appetite and shrinking my body” to develop this power of control. The piece involved staged photographs of her art school friends in various states of anguish about their bodies. To enhance the concept behind the work, Greenberg projected images onto the bodies, these images were of women posing and showcasing their body, which society had labelled “perfect” at that time (1989). Her father was an eye doctor so she had raided his file of diseased eye slides and projected them onto the women, lining them up with the areola’s on the model’s breasts. Wanting to make this appear that the male gaze was toxic and, thus, eating away at the female flesh.

The music played was a very eerie pounding sound, she had mixed into the soundtrack a mid 80s art-electronica, formerly of Throbbing Gristle, which added to the surreal and horrific relentlessness of the work. And then provided the voice of a fictitious female narrator over the top and adjusted the pitch so that it would sound like Melanie Griffiths in Working Girl.

Cherry Hood – Portraits of the Adolescent

Cherry Hood’s artistic career predominantly centers around the portraits of young males,  she has dabbled in to female studies and animals, however Hood finds that she can draw more depth when it comes to males. The adolescent faces share with her viewers important questions by ‘gently reversing and ironically commenting on issues of gender and identity’. Hoods works allows her viewers to see the importance of the portrait which lies behind the gender neutral face it its exists on.

“Clemantine”, Cherry Hood, 1993.

Hood’s technique in creating the portraits is extremely fascinating on its own, this is because she begins with a heavy weighted paper and applies liquid, this is mostly watercolour, over the canvas allowing it to spread, pool, drip and settle  at its own pace. Her interesting and rather unique technique also comments on her subject matter, the idea of creating a safe place to fester and form into what the ink wants to become and where it wants to go, closely ties to the gender neutral stature of her portraits. This thought that if we allow something to form in its own time and way, without the influences of a third party and from a young pure state, will transition into something more mesmerizing  than if we had of tampered with it from the beginning.

Hood invites her viewers face to face with images that compel interaction and silent communication. The subjects, although illustrated as 2D, appear to leave their canvas though their soulful and monitoring like gazes that is formed from within. It is the intensity of their emotions and Hood’s own twist on the rendering of the adolescents that sets her work apart form other portrait artists.

Works in progress…

In an isolated surreal corner of Australian homestead, a middle-aged Aboriginal woman cares for an elderly White woman on the point of dying. The two do not speak and the gestures of the younger woman directed toward the older woman betray a mixture of rejection and concern. Although, the younger female is tired and annoyed, she tends to the elderly woman’s every needs. She accompanies her in her thankless daily tasks, feeds her, pushes her wheelchair, washes and dresses her as if she were laying out a corpse. She carries out these duties with slow, simple gestures that take on a ritual aspect. Their story alludes to the assimilation policy that forced Aboriginal children to be raised in white families. The stark, sensual drama unfolds without dialogue against vivid painted sets as the smooth crooning of an Aboriginal Christian singer provides ironic counterpoint.  The film brings to light a relationship made up of hate and dependence, but also of mute tenderness and affection. We come to believe that the two women are in fact a mother and her adopted daughter.

Those Asian ‘Knock-off’ Stores Just Got Kloser!

Anastasia Klose uses her artworks to describe the many interesting ways to explore and express the experiences of her everyday life.

One Stop Knock-Off Shop

Klose believes ‘in using herself as a human specimen,’ and constantly searches for her own ways to translate her personal experiences through art. Klose’s most recent extravaganza was set up in the National Gallery of Victoria’s Melbourne Now exhibition, Klose presents ‘One Stop Knock-Off Shop (2013)’ a work which combines performance and installation as a way of critiquing the commercialization of contemporary culture, highlighting not only the rise of the art market but also the idea of an artist celebrity. For this work Klose adapted the entrepreneurial approach of Hong Kong’s knock-off shops, where they sell fake designer items for a margin of the retail price. The artwork ‘One Stop Knock-Off Shop’ is set up as a fully functioning merchandise shop within the NGV, were Klose worked in the shop as her artwork for the entire duration of the works life. Klose’s piece consisted of t-shirts emblazoned with art world mega brands, where she would take artists names, such as; Monet, Warhol and Duchamp, and ‘misspelt’ their names as Monéy, Warshole and Dachump. Klose’s comments on the constant existence humans have with thriving to succeed over someone else’s idea. However, Klose’s reprise over the Asian ‘Knock-off’ market identifies more with what humans are leaving behind whilst the world travels forth. Her work links to her understanding of the way humans no longer cherish art like they used to, but now, observe this to be an unstable means of income when being an artist. This is what Klose tries to portray within her installation when she compares it to the unstable and unreliable life of a ‘Knock-off’ store owner in Asia.

The Merchandise

Klose’s work was displayed in a small three walled pink room, on the back wall was the title of the piece along with its caption, ‘Make it to fake it’, and a photo of Klose with the two mugs she was selling. In the middle of the room stood the desk, revealing how much both the t-shirts and mugs sold for. On one of the side walls Klose displayed her collection of t-shirts, showing one off each on separate hangers spread out along the wall. On the opposite wall stands a display cabinet or the ‘stock room’ that holds the folded t-shirts in their various sizes and the mugs. On the other side of the room Klose has created a place where her audience can sit on Mies Van Der Road chairs and observe the posters plastered against the pink wall which present models wearing the t-shirts in everyday activities. Klose uses her work to surround and consume her audience, by making her viewers become one of her installation pieces she is involving them in her own mind and the way she portrays her life within her artwork.

Klose uses her artwork as a way of reacting to artwork already created by rearranging the existing work and altering it to fit her own interpretation. Klose states that she likes ‘the idea of buying into a pre-existing brand and becoming a parasite or leach upon that brand.’ Klose believes that ‘when you look at things a certain way, you might say that all the ideas and all the images are already out there, and it is just a matter of rearranging them.’ I believe that Klose’s work is a great example of our fast passed moving economy, her work although extremely original and effective is still somewhat of an alteration on someone else’s piece, however, her flare and character that is continually poured into her pieces makes us as viewers believe that we are looking at something completely new for the first time. I believe this is because Klose identifies her work on what is happening within the world and portrays how we are constantly stepping upon someone else’s work to create our own and instead of avoiding this fact Klose faces this head on and therefore is able to change other artwork to fit her own creative mind and once again make it original within her viewers eyes.

The Piccinini Effect

Australian artist Patricia Piccinini deals with artificial intelligence and the idea of artificial emotion with her genetic engine sculptures on a daily basis’.

The Stags, 2008 Fibreglass, auto paint, leather, steel, plastic, tyres 224cm x 167cm x 196c

The visual artist has created three different sculptures – ‘The Stags’, ‘Nest’ and ‘Thicker than Water’(2008), each work attempting to bring technology into new light and raise the question: ‘what will become of our technological creations?’ Through the sculpture ‘The stags’ (2008) Piccinini has been able to imagine these machines as if they haven’t been domesticated by humans. Stating that “all [her] work is concerned with the definition of how what we consider artificial and natural is changing”, along with the prodigious role that technology plays in our contemporary imagination.

The sculpture is off two motor scooters which have been transformed by Piccinini into two different objects. Piccinini has used the once stylish transport automobiles and has distorted them into resembling two friendly stags using fibreglass, automotive paint, leather, steel, plastic and tyres. These creates are the complete opposite of the beginning objects that they once where but still resemble much of the same characteristics. Piccinini has used the automobiles speed reader and manipulated to look like a face and therefore create the warm emotions that radiate of the friendly stags. Piccinini comments on their stance explaining, ‘the grown up Vespa’s are duelling; there is a hierarchy in this relationship. The surface of this work is hard and shiny, however, the nature of these creatures is sweet, they have neither fear nor are frightening, they draw you in, they are enduring and sweet’. Piccinini alerts us to the fact that the Vespa’s are mechanical, and yet they grow. Allowing us to question what is natural and what is mechanical.

The Stags is a clear representation of how two transformed motor scooters can be refined to represent living animal as a complete synthesis of nature and technology. The sculpture refers specifically to the customised Vespa’s ridden mainly through the 1960s and occasionally now in the modern day as well.  Like customised vehicles, these scooters have taken on individual identities and are no longer factory-made ‘clones’. They are apparently alive and possibly even genetically unique. As Piccinini has said, ‘the point of crafting another life is so that you can talk about this one…’ and her creations question what the outcome might be as humanity and technology become ever more entwined.

I think that as a species we are on the brink of bringing forth new life-forms through genetic manipulation and even through melding biology and computers. Already we alter organisms to make them more useful to us, we change genetic features in order to create perfection and we are on the verge of unravelling our genetic code therefore giving us access to the source code of our being. Piccinini’s work questions where the boundaries lie between what is natural and what is made. Using the Vespa’s or “stags” as a way of expressing what could happen if we let Mother Nature take its own course, or even further what could happen in the advances of the rapidly expanding technological development.

Patricia Piccinini advances the science a few decades to conjure beings not yet extant, this is defiantly shown through sculpture ‘The Stags’, as Piccinini tackles the ethical issues of synthetic life, adjusting evolution, the footprint humans leave behind and the future of our survival. “My work is about the definition of what we consider natural and what we consider artificial” and her sculpture ‘The Stags’ clearly questions the way these two are entwined within each other.

The History of Creativity

“Art and politics have always been closely tied together in Italy. Therefore, almost all roads of art history lead to Rome as well. After the Etruscans, the Roman Empire dominated Europe for centuries becoming a center of art and culture in Italy and beyond. Even after the collapse of the Roman Empire, Rome and the Vatican remained the focus of the European art scene and established new standards with the Italian Renaissance. But in the meantime, the many Italian city states developed independently and established their own cultural and political centers. Subsequently, it would probably be hard to imagine today’s Rome without the baroque works by Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini. They significantly determined the look of the Italian capital and their magnificent works are still admired by many travelers to Italy.”

– Zainoo and the Journey Begins, http://www.zainoo.com/en/italy/culture 

Tricky Tuesday Gallery Outings – The Turn of Colour

The Kaleidoscopic Turn exhibition shown at the NGV

Anne-Marie MAY, Untitled (Construction of coloured rays) 1993
coloured felt, 122.4 x 122.4 cm

The newest exhibition at the Ian Potter Centre focus’ on tracing connections between a range of artists whom have been experimenting with pattern, repetition, light, colour, movement, space and various optical and kinetic effects from the 1960s to now. The Kaleidoscopic Turn aims to provoke active engagement with its audience in an intense and dramatic way. Which is highly shown through the brilliance of the exhibition lively presentation. Whilst focusing largely on contemporary Australian art, The Kaleidoscopic Turn includes a selection of works by international figures, such as Martha Boto’s kinetic sculptures and Zilvinas Kempinas’s dazzling air and video tape installation. In doing so, The Kaleidoscopic Turn will explore the nature of perception from diverse artistic positions.

Sandra SELIG, heart of the air you can hear (2011), polyester thread, nails, synthetic polymer paint, TBC x 565.5 x 285.0 cm

Tricky Tuesday Gallery Outings – Dr. Seuss

This weeks Tricky Tuesday Gallery conquest was the Trevor Victor Harvey Gallery which holds the beloved childhood author and illustrator, Dr. Seuss. The gallery located within Melbourne’s own Block Arcade is the Southern Hemisphere’s agent for the ‘Art of Dr. Seuss’. The current stock presents ‘The Secret Art Collection’, ‘The Unorthodox Taxidermy Sculpture’ and the ‘Illustration Art’.

“If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn’t show up.” stated Dr Seuss. Although tragic but probably for the best, Dr Suess has gone to his library in the sky, as I doubt he would enjoy the vast display of his own works gathered in one place. However I know that I did! And I do encourage you as well to go visit the gallery: “If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good!” – Dr. Seuss.

Dr.Seuss, size: 74 x 81 cm, Medium: Serigraph on Paper

Tricky Tuesday Gallery Outings – Brown’s Collection

The Joseph Brown Collection shown at the NGV  In May 2004 Dr Joseph Brown AO OBE donated the major part of his incomparable collection of Australian art to the National Gallery of Victoria. The Joseph Brown Collection at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia will forever tell the story of the immigrant who became an artist and soldier, a scholar and connoisseur, a successful businessman and an art dealer, a mentor to artists and an art patron; a man who made a huge and enduring difference to the culture of this country. Currently, at my uni I am focusing on producing a body of work of floral aspects, and therefore, below is an image of the works of floral nature that I found intriguing within The Joseph Brown Collection. However, this is not the only works that I found amazing at that exhibition, only the ones I chose to showcase for this blog post.

Almond tree in blossom, 1887. Longpre-les-Corps-Saints, France oil and powdered bronze on canvas on plywood.

This lovely artwork belongs to a group of studies of blossom and open flowers, all painted around 1887. The close-up composition and the suppression of pictorial space is radical, with the artist using flat metallic ground. In this sense the picture belongs firmly to the Parisian avant-garde. The influence of Japanese prints is critical to understanding the sources of the drawing in this work the strong and continuing influence of Vincent van Gogh, whose enthusiasm for the art of Japan was then at its strongest.

Tricky Tuesday Gallery Outings – The Wolseley effect

John Wolseley, The Heartlands and Headwaters exhibition shown at the NGV. Over the past four years, John Wolseley has traveled and painted throughout the Australian continent. He has journeyed from the swamps of the Tasmanian high country to the coastal flood plains of the tropical north, exploring the nature and action of water and how it has shaped the land.

John Wolseley Daly River Creek, 2012-13, watercolour, pencil, linocut, woodcut on paper, 150 x 600cms

From Siberia to Roebuck Bay – the godwits reach the mangrove swamps, WA. 2012. Watercolour over pencil, coloured chalk and masking out.

Wolseley’s layered and collaged papers have been assembled as an installation in the shape of a giant branching tree, surrounded by large-scale works which enclose the viewer in an immersive environment.  Wolseley has taken the wetlands, swamps and rivers of this continent as a starting point for what has become an extended meditation on how water shapes and defines our land. All of these watery elements have formed themselves naturally into an installation that has something of the shape of a great tree, river or human body. This giant originary tree shape laid out in the gallery has as its trunk The great tree of drawings, which surges through the space. The viewer enters through the Huon pine gateway rubbing, flanked by the southern wetland paintings in the first gallery, and then follows the trunk as it branches out and reaches the northern oceans.