Archive for the ‘Artwrite 43 Features’ Category

Can We Send the 80s Back?

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Yasmin Haas

Wait around long enough and fashions tend to come full circle.  Every decade seems to have its retro twin. The pattern started in the 1970s with the 1950s rock’n'roll revival and it continued through the 1980s which was obsessed with the 1960s and the 1990s obsessed with the 1970s. True to form and right on cue, the noughties kicked off with a 1980s renaissance. For the people who lived through the 1980s, it’s enjoyably but at times disconcerting to watch the distortions and style mangling of the attempted 80s revival.

Since the 80s has had such a huge come back, it was worth celebrating in the eyes of the Powerhouse Museum.  An observation that is most interesting from the exhibition is how much of the era has yet to be rediscovered or recycled. The show is perfect timing considering it’s soon to be 2011 and according to the 20-year rule of revivals, fashion and trends are about to revisit the 1990s. So the Powerhouse Museum is jumping on the 80s popularity bandwagon by bringing back the 80s to Sydney with an exhibition displaying the good and the bad of the decade vividly remembered for it’s over the top excess.

The 80s Are Back presents how Australia spent its leisure time; the music listened to, the clothes worn and the politics of the 1980s. It attempts to explore Australian life and popular culture in the 80s, remembering the styles, trends and subcultures and how they found expression in fashion, design, music, film and television. Scattered with familiar personalities and nostalgia, The 80s Are Back endeavours to examine why the 80s was a decade not easily forgotten and hence the recent revival of 80s style. Considering a new generation are looking to the decade for inspiration in fashion and music and hold the era as something to be revered, the exhibition didn’t hold many surprises nor capture a nostalgic or déjà vu feeling. It was dull and unimaginative.

Drawing on the Powerhouse Museum’s extensive collection and complemented by signature items borrowed from collectors and entertainers, the exhibition tries to revisit the era’s fashion, toys and fads, video games and technology, architecture and design trends, parties, live music and memorable events. The 80s Are Back features more than 800 objects including images, artefacts, outfits and audio-visuals. Its 30 years since the beginning of the 80s and it’s pretty clear that there’s a new generation looking to that decade for inspiration. With all this in mind, it would be easily assumed that the show is spectacular with an insight that is very rarely seen of the 80s, after all only a snippet of pop culture is generally worn or played to death at present.

In the 80s, Australia was prosperous and expressing its emerging identity with confidence through a variety of flourishing cultural forms. It was a fertile time for new ideas and a period of creative ferment. In current popular imagination, the 80s are defined by one notion above all: excess. It was a period of economic boom sandwiched between two recessions. This was the era of deregulation, Reagan and Thatcher and Keating and Hawke were deregulating the Australian economy. It was a period of prosperity and consumption and flourishing culture. Baby boomers raised on hippie values ceased to have exclusive control over youth culture in the 80s, and the next generation defined themselves in opposition to them, embracing style and affluence. These themes, and the magnitude of the 80s influence on how we developed as a nation, is lacking in the exhibition. This is an exhibition for Generation X and their youth, acknowledging their favourite shows, movies, music, video games and fads and also to remind them of what was going on in the world at the time. Unfortunately, the exhibition is a little lean on the artefacts and a little cliché when it comes to the choice of displays. The space is underutilized and predominantly catering to the post Generation Y kids.

The exhibition features products and trends now regarded as quintessentially 80s, from the Rubik’s Cube and Sony Walkman, big hair and power dressing, to pub rock, electronic music and dance parties.  I overheard a conversation between mother and daughter of how a cassette player works…the child was perplexed to say the least. See costumes worn by Boy George, Kylie Minogue, Chrissy Amphlett, Michael Hutchence and Split Enz, as well as memorabilia including instruments from bands such as INXS, Pseudo Echo, Icehouse, Men at Work and Midnight Oil. Classic clips from film, television and music video are screened revealing the familiar sights and sounds that dominated the era, from Dogs in Space to Puberty Blues, Adam and the Ants to The Go-Betweens. This was the best part. The music and its volume were great, the clips were wonderful and it took you back to where you were when you first heard that song. Memories were flowing at this point. Visitors can step into a music cube and relive popular 80s entertainment, including a set by renowned DJ Stephen Ferris or a scene from one of the infamous RAT dance parties that regularly took over venues like Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion. This great beginning promises good things to come.

A catwalk showcases the essential 80s looks, revealing a decade of varying and extreme styles from padded shouldered power suits and glittering gold lamé evening wear to high waisted acid wash jeans, fluoro-coloured aerobics gear and ruffled rah-rah skirts. Through personal stories on mini TV screens and hand held earphones, The 80s Are Back delves into the youth subcultures that were setting themselves apart throughout the decade, from Goth, Punk and Mod to the Hip Hop phenomenon which blossomed in the western suburbs of Sydney. The locals who are interviewed are entertaining and attention holding and the clips are each only about 10 minutes long so as not to bore the visitor. It’s a great personal touch to each subculture, and a nice piece of oral history to engage the younger visitor.

There’s one object which speaks volumes about the 80s which is the AIDS memorial quilt. AIDS was a huge disaster in the 80s and later in the decade the response of the health authorities and the response of the gay community, really made Australia a leader in AIDS prevention, it brought those gay issues out into the open. There are nearly 100 quilts. Each is three metres square in size and has nine panels on it, which display names or words related to those who have died of AIDS.

The ‘must have’ merchandise and toys that swept through the decade are on display. The evolution of gaming and technology through the 80s is present, from Pac-Man and Space Invaders to Atari and the Nintendo ‘Game & Watch’. The Unique interactive displays enable visitors to re-play their favourite retro video games including Galaga, Donkey Kong and Frogger. Then toys like Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony; My Child and Rainbow Brite. This was the boring and disappointing part. There was so much underutilised space both in cabinets and on the walls. There is potential to have a lot more of this type of memorabilia on display but it was instead sparse, dark and annoying. Since it is at the end of the exhibition, visitor’s attention is already waning so to have such a lack lustre ending is disappointing and ruins the good parts of The 80s Are Back.

Some of the era’s most defining moments also are remembered, with a year by year timeline highlighting Australian and international politics, news and current affairs, sport and events, including the America’s Cup, anti-nuclear war movement, Franklin Dam, Live Aid, Azaria Chamberlain case, fall of the Berlin Wall, AIDS crisis and the Bicentennial celebrations. This was ok put a little bland, and one thing that can be said about the 80s is that it wasn’t bland. It was way to dark and way too tedious. There were so many world changing events in the 80s, this should have been highlighted. The average teen would have completely scanned over this part, in fact they were.

The final section of the exhibition explores the Neo-80s. The styles and sounds of the 80s have made a dramatic return to the mainstream of fashion and pop in the past twelve months, from the pages of Vogue to the music and video of artists such as Empire of the Sun and Lady Gaga.  The influence of 80s music and style has been growing for almost a decade, fuelled by the warm nostalgic feelings of those who grew up in the 80s Generation X, but also by the curiosity of a much younger generation.

Peter Cox is the curator of Australian History at the Powerhouse and the main driver behind the content and ideas of The 80s Are Back.  Mr Cox describes these years as the ‘golden years’ of one’s life. They’re the years that you go back to. You’re forming your identity, and that’s built around the music you listen to, the clothes you wear, the TV shows you watch; the movies you go to, the computers you use, then events that happen in the world. Cox says:

The collection we have is just phenomenal; it’s huge, but particularly strong with the 80s because the Powerhouse kind of opened in the 80s. While the Museum had originally focused on science and design, when they moved into the Powerhouse in the eighties, they extended this focus to Australian social history. While people of all ages should engage with the show, the main target audience are people who had their formative years in the eighties. They were possibly in their teens or twenties. (Cox: 2010 http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/)

There you have it. The 80s Are Back is really for Generation X visitors. It has outstanding visual and audio appeal with fantastic music and great outfits. It includes most of the 80s subcultures including Mod, Skinhead and Goth which can be forgotten as being a large part of the 1980s. In each section, the visitor will gaze upon and interact with objects and ephemera that represent the culture and events of the decade. While these predominately reflect the Australian experience of the 80s, it incorporates well the international influences. Overall the exhibition was disappointing. The sections were disconnected from each other, interactive exhibits were lacking in numbers surprisingly since this is one of the things the Powerhouse is renowned for having. It was lacking in information panels on some artefacts but then excessive in others. Considering the amount of advertising the exhibition as done, there was an expectation that the show would be just as spectacular. Unfortunately this one was lacking in bravado and although exciting at the beginning, second-rate at the end.

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Review of the A.R.P. at Cockatoo Island Opening and Selected Artworks

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Elinor King

Between Friday the 10th of September and Monday the 4th of October, Cockatoo Island was the stage for the Artists in Residency Program, or ‘A.R.P.’, the Harbour Trust’s new initiative, set up as a trial to help local emerging and established artists with studio space. The Artists in Residency Program brings eight established and emerging modern artists to Cockatoo Island to create an ongoing spring exhibition. The artists were Sydney-based installation artists Mikala Dwyer and Justene Williams, architect Richard Goodwin, visual artist Keg de Souza, painter Daniel Boyd, installation and video artist Margaret Roberts, interactive media artist Mari Velonaki and Australian activist art collective boat-people.org. All participated in an Artists Residency Program on the island during the last twelve months.  Annie Laerkesen is organiser and curator of the exhibition, which is the first of what is hoped to become an annual event.

As I am a volunteer, I was invited to help at the opening. I did not know what to expect, as I had not  heard much about the exhibition, but made an assumption from the little that I knew that the crowd that it would ‘draw’ would be the typical Sydney art scene. Indeed, the ferry was almost packed to the brim with ‘artsy’ types, which was unsurprising as it was an opening to a semi-obscure event, on a cold, wintery spring evening. However when I got to the island I was pleased to see a range of people from all walks of life and from all parts of Sydney – small children to elderly grandparents – actively enjoying each one of the artworks. Of course, the highlight of the evening was the band which played at the end, but people braved the rain and the cold to walk to many of the outer buildings in order to experience the video installations and artwork. Indeed, when it came to the end of the evening, it was hard to pull some viewers away from said works as we tried to shut them down.  This is a positive start for something that is a trial!

The exhibition had a wide range of paintings, photographs and installations regarding various topics, however the following artworks, installations and opening presentations give a broad overview of what the A.R.P. is about, and what can be expected of a visit to Cockatoo Island to see the exhibition.

Mikala Dwyer and Justene Williams

Mikala Dwyer and Justene Williams joined forces to create a video installation inspired by the story of Captain Thunderbolt, the Australian bushranger who was held on the island and aided in escape by his wife, Mary Anne Bugg. The installation depicts figures in striped outfits reminiscent of prison clothes drilling and building within the 1940s bomb shelter where this installation is housed. After watching for a few minutes, it is revealed via a stilettoed heel that these faceless figures are in fact women, adding an element of sexiness and intrigue to the situation. Both artists were intrigued by the story of Thunderbolt’s escape and the love of his wife, and have symbolised the plight of bushrangers such as himself that were held on the island through the costuming.

This is a bi-polar piece, set on two screens. Although the images are generally similar, their editing and overall presentation are quite different. One section has been overly digitally enhanced, with red and green printings coming on and off screen for no apparent reason whilst the female goes about her business of sawing the ground. The other is sleeker, focusing in muted tones on the ‘prisoner’ and their work before showing the reveal of the stilettoed foot. I am unsure which artist created which video, but the differences in style are very striking. This in turn has two effects – it can cater to a wider audience through the differences in style or polarise them as there is not enough unity through the works. One looks messy and like something a first year time-based art student would create, whilst the other is a sleek, sexy production that you would almost expect in an arthouse film. Indeed, throughout the evening it was interesting to notice which video the audience was drawn to – many would watch the sleeker video for a few minutes, quickly glance at the second video, and walk out again. The location of the installation was also problematic – set away from the rest of the exhibition in an outhouse, and as one patron observed, not indicated well enough so that people could easily find it – many audience members accidentally stumbled upon it when trying to find the toilets. The concept behind the installation is quite interesting, however, and it was perhaps one of the better video installations presented at the exhibition.

Boat-people.org

Boat-people.org created a video installation and series of lit photos from their Muted Sydney show. This collective focuses on the issue of boat people and came into being in 2001 as a reaction to John  Howard and the Coalition’s policy regarding illegal immigration. According to their website:

…The government of that time, led by Prime Minister John Howard, exploited the deep vein of xenophobia in this profoundly colonised nation. Their rhetoric of ‘illegal migrants’, and ‘boat people’ took hold of the national imagination, so that the majority of Australians supported the incarceration of refugees and their children in detention camps… Boat-people.org was formed in response to such policies, which over the past 12 years profoundly harmed the emergence of a multicultural and tolerant society. (boat-people.org, 2010)

It is interesting that this is part of the exhibition, as once again boat people are topical within Australian politics and this is one of the few works that addressed a topical issue. The photographs are sharp, well focused, almost reminiscent of something you would see on the front of Australian Government brochures promoting ‘Young Australia’ (sans the flags wrapped around the head). The flags symbolise the ‘national blindness’ of the Australian people as according to the collective’s website.  Mounted and backlit, the images looked almost like stills from a film, and in fact some viewers asked that exact question – were they watching a paused movie or were these deliberate photographs? By themselves the images are striking, and with the added context even more so. These were some of the more effective photographs of the exhibition.

The Choir

As an added extra for the opening, a choir consisting of a guitarist, pianist, singer and approximately twenty computerised heads mounted on a Medusa-esque statue performed a series of three songs for the crowd. Their songs combined a mixture of humour and pathos, although their point often seemed to be lost as the words were drowned out by extremely loud drums, bass and digital faces. It also didn’t help that the band was situated in a giant shed, thus making everything echo. The choir is quite new and has great potential. This was particularly apparent at the beginning of the performance, which consisted of a ‘sing-off’ between the digital faces and the singer, mimicking the digitalisation. It was not apparent whether this was intentional or not, but it certainly could be interpreted as a commentary on the autotuning of human voices – not only can digital voices mimic and recreate human voices, but it can also work vice versa, and perhaps even sound better coming from a natural voice. Was this the choir’s way of pointing out that nothing can replace the natural beauty of a human voice, or were they just trying to be clever?

The second song, combining different sound effects, snippets from films such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and different faces, was too long and convoluted. Many in the audience were left shaking their heads as to what it was all about, once again partially because the lyrics kept getting drowned out. Overall, although the concept of a semi-digital choir is a clever one, the novelty of the faces wears thin when the songs become too long. The band needs more opportunity to experiment and see what they can do. Things that worked well and therefore need to be focused on more include the concentration on facial expressions that occurred, mainly at the beginning of the performance. It made each digital face appear more real and gave each a personality. Using snippets from old films also worked well as it added some humour to the songs, however the choir must be careful not to overload on loud noises at the expense of good song writing, and the human female singer must be given more to do in order for her role not to become superfluous.

In summary

These very different artworks are quite interesting but do not show anything particularly original or daring – it’s all been done before. Perhaps with the exception of boat-people.org, most of the artworks err on the side of caution, easily palatable and not necessarily there to make the viewer  think. Even boat-people.org’s photographs, although topical in nature, are sleek enough to not be completely confronting. However this is not necessarily a bad thing. If the Harbour Trust are running this residency as a trial, the works needed for the exhibition to be a success (if success is counted as visitor numbers as well as benefiting artists) must be readily accessible to a wide audience. It is hoped, however, that in future years the works would present more of a challenge to the viewer whilst still being able to maintain an interest for the general public.

Overall, there are some concerns regarding the exhibition that should be remedied in future years. One concern is that in order to find out more about each artwork, viewers must do their own research after the event– the caption is generally insufficient for many of the works. This is particularly true of the boat-people.org captions, although in this case, that is perhaps a good thing as generating interest in their website and therefore their cause is part of the collective’s aim. It is concerning for the other works, however, as many have interesting stories and hidden meanings that cannot be interpreted from a caption yet would help give a broad audience a wider understanding of each piece.

Another concern is the venue itself. Cockatoo Island is a difficult space to run an exhibition at the best of time, and this is no exception. Although most of the works were placed in a large shed, some were in a smaller building and the Dwyer-Williams installation was in an outhouse 500m away from everything else.  There were no maps or signs to show people the location of different works, and this led to some confusion as to  both the location of the toilets and the art. This led to some works being missed altogether, which is concerning as this is an exhibition whose partial intent is to expose works to a wide audience. The echoing chamber in the shed did not provide appropriate acoustics for the choir. However in other ways Cockatoo Island has aided the artists and the works. Once again, the installation by Dwyer and Williams is an example of this, as the island directly inspired their artwork.

Overall, the Artists in Residency program on Cockatoo Island is a positive experience although in some ways it seems to have been under planned. Although the works are not necessarily challenging, they are interesting and it is great to see that they are reaching a wide audience. By focusing on organising the layout of the exhibition better and perhaps with some better promotion, the A.R.P. has the potential to become a highlight of the annual Sydney cultural calendar.

Bibliography

boat-people.org. (2010, August 31). Cockatoo Island Exhibition. Retrieved September 9, 2010, from boat-people.org: http://www.boat-people.org/

COFA online. (2010, May 28). Mikala Dwyer: Seance for an Island. Retrieved September 10, 2010, from COFA online: http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au/cofa-talks-online/cofa-talks-online?view=video&video=89

Connellan, B. (2010, September 10). Unknown Territories: Between a Rock and a Hard Place. Retrieved September 10, 2010, from Concrete Playground: http://concreteplayground.com.au/event/6641/unknown-territories-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-plac.htm

De Souza, K. (2010, February 11). Cockatoo Island Residency. Retrieved September 10, 2010, from Keg de Souza (blog): http://kegdesouza.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html

Sydney Harbour Federation Trust. (2010, September). Events Calendar. Retrieved September 24, 2010, from Cockatoo Island: http://www.cockatooisland.gov.au/events/calendar.html

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Lupin the Phantom Thief in the Arts: Banksy

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Young-Gu Kim

Banksy

Transforming Mona Lisa into a new shape

Date unknown

Spray paint stencil

Dimensions unknown

More of Banksy’s work can be found at http://www.banksy.co.uk

In last August 2009, Bristol, the most populous city in South West England, was packed with a huge crowd. In front of Bristol’s City Museum & Art Gallery, people had to stand in line for up to six hours to see an exhibition of their own world-famous artist, Banksy. Bristol is his hometown and he is an artist who tends to hold a narrative structure and investigate public aspects of the visual art by various methods. He raises diverse contemporary issues through his famous street art, and questions what is the essence of the art, the role of artists and the nature of appreciation behind his insistence. Banksy has concealed himself thoroughly behind a veil of anonymity. He makes his art under an assumed name. People call him a ‘guerrilla artist’ or an ‘art terrorist.’

One of his famous quality vandal performances was to stealthily hang his own work, ‘Early Man Goes to Market’, in the British Museum. It even had a caption that the work was an example of primitive art, which was, of course, a hoax. Besides the British Museum, he secretly exhibited his novel artworks in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum. Museum managers never realised that these works were hung inside until the artist revealed their presence. Surprisingly, the British Museum made the decision to add the work to a list of permanent collections. Banksy’s intention to perform these events was that he had a strong desire to ridicule art gallery managers who were not able to draw a line between masterpieces and counterfeit works, and suggest sarcastically what criteria made a great piece at the same time.

Banksy is a public artist and the form his public art takes is what is often described as graffiti art. His subjects are mainly issues such as politics, society, environment, capitalism, anti-war movement and peace. However, his motivation is based on the idea that he would like to change the world to be better and brighter by reporting the irrationalities of society to the public and satirizing absurd stereotypes. He once said ‘Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place’ (2005). The reason why he has managed to maintain complete anonymity and even entrusts an interview to his representative is because under British law, graffiti is considered an act of vandalism. In order to avoid any illegal excuse he remains anonymous which means he enjoys the freedom of outspoken creation.

Parody is one of mechanisms that have had more than enough usage in contemporary art. An issue is that parody in a work can be defined differently amongst other mechanisms such as plagiarism, theft, citation, borrowing and pastiche owing to the direction of intention. Banksy’s strategy is to borrow old master paintings everyone knows and indicate the source clearly so that he cannot be accused of plagiarism or theft. Therefore, no one has objections to the rationality and legitimacy of his works by disclosing the source. Instead his parody seems to be utilized as a tool to bring up universal issues such as environment, religion, war, race and recovering traditional values against authorities. As a parodist, Banksy’s work contains his strong insistence on returning to tradition in the true sense of the term by obviously showing pre-existing issues of our society, and he demonstrates his interest and consideration of historicity and sociality.

One of his outstanding parodied works is based on Edward Hopper and Jack Vettriano. Hopper’s Nighthawks is parodied to criticize British chauvinism in dispatching troops to Iraq for the Iraq War, and he parodied Vettriano’s The Singing Butler to demonstrate opposition to the war. In particular he transformed Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece Mona Lisa into a combatant with a rocket launcher. Also, naughty Mona Lisa lifting her hips is a kind of gesture to take off the masterpiece’s mask of authorities symbolizing the highest masterpiece in history.

Rats and children are his most frequently used images. They are often used as a tool of personification and their roles vary. A rat holds a placard while wearing a ‘peace sign’ around its neck, sometimes they carry a marker or a spray can for graffiti. The implication of using rats seems to be a desire of the artist himself. As rats rummaging through a ditch ask for peace and freedom, they play a role to speak for the minorities who were castrated by the authority.

Children are also one of his favourite subject matters. They are often used in scenes in which they are sacrificed to violence and unfairness. The famous Vietnam Napalm Girl who ran through flames during the Vietnam War now comes out along with Ronald McDonald and Mickey Mouse, which makes for a bittersweet comment on today’s consumerist society based on money and greed. Apart from these kinds of works, which criticise capitalism dominating the mind indirectly, innocent children in Banksy’s works are constantly suffering from an unjust society. Even though his works make people laugh because of a keen satire on society, they also encourage people to think and question the world around them.

Most of his works comment on the Government and/or authority, which are always depicted in a negative view. He calls himself an anarchist. Uniformed police officers in his works uncover their personal desires. When they get undressed out of their uniforms, they are no longer police officers and reveal insidiousness of authority and power behind uniforms.

His main canvas is the wall itself. Like more established artists such as Barbara Kruger and New York’s Guerrilla Girls he also uses the wall. As well as painting directly on the wall, he sometimes uses more traditional mediums such as paper and canvases. In particular, he loves to use the stencil technique, which allows a graffiti artist a neater and more desired effect. It is a popular technique for many street artists as is allows for a quick departure. Banksy is not tied down by a need for specialised spaces for exhibition such as more typical art gallery and museum settings. Moreover, he attempts to communicate with the public transcending both legality and illegality, which is why his paintings should be included in the realm of public art.

While stenciling on walls around the city, Banksy shows his artistic attitude, which is generally based on urbanism. His main stage is, as everyone knows, the city and his works are quite provocative towards oppression, coercion, hypocrisy and authority for indiscriminate development by people living in the city. In instances where Banksy has hung fake pieces of ‘art’ in world-famous galleries including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Louvre Museum and the Brooklyn Museum, the purpose has always embodied a message of resistance. His principle aim is for an open society escaping an inflexible thinking posture and liberating people’s pressure from uniformed governance in terms of showing interest in minorities and the Third World countries. At this point, Banksy seeks to revive a neglected class of people who do not fit in to the typical high-art scene largely due to elitist nature of the arts.

Banksy says, ‘As far as I can tell the only thing worth looking at in most museums of art is all the schoolgirls on daytrips with the art departments.’ He casts blame with the modern art galleries who choose to display artworks in the middle of white-painted spaces and announce that it is art just because it is in the art gallery. In one of his particularly famous displays of revolt he sprayed ‘Mind the crap’ on the steps of the Tate Britain before the Turner Prize ceremony, unlike other artists, his works do not need the white wall of art gallery to make a statement. Strong images involving social issues attract people’s attention and can have a lot of influence over their values and opinions. His underlying attitude denies the commercialisation of the art. In the mean time, Banksy paradoxically has become commercialized, as a result of his notoriety, and the fact that his works have now been hung on the white walls of art galleries, he has forever resisted. It could be seen that what people want to get from Banksy’s works is not an earnest discussion over a true value of the art or discussion on social issues which Banksy likes to evoke, but instead a hot issue or easily accessible topic in order to satisfy their curiosity.

It is noteworthy that Banksy has now become a figure of the artistic establishment, despite his best efforts. It will be interesting to keep an eye on his position in the art realm, to see whether he will be remembered just as the Lupin, the phantom thief in the arts, or rather will be seen as a creative pioneer in the evolution of making and displaying public street art.

Bibliography

Banksy, Banksy; Wall and Piece, London, The Random House UK, 2005

Brassett, James, British irony, global justice: a pragmatic reading of Chris Brown, Banksy and Ricky Gervais, Review of International Studies, 35, 219–245, Cambridge University Press, 2009

Weaver, Helen, Banksy Bristo city museum and art gallery, Art in America, Vol. 97 Issue 8, p.157, 2009

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The New Exhibition Age of China

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Jia Guo

Chinese translation here

Initiated by three independent curators and avant-garde thinkers – Jiang Jian, Ji Ji, Qian Qian, and Ou Ning – in 2005, Get It Louder (GIL) is the first and biggest contemporary design touring biennale of its own kind in Mainland China.  Organised by Modern Media Group, GIL welcomes its third edition this year in October.

By focusing on the young Chinese artists and designers who work in different locations around the world with an average age of 25, the biennale redefines the concept of exhibition and gives the new generation of designers and artists a strong voice.  As one of the newest and the most significant art events in China, GIL is considered as a revolution in both the media and design industries of China.

In China, design used to serve politics.  Thanks to the economic reform and the open policy, Chinese independent designers started to emerge.  Since then, Chinese designers have been through three generations of evolution.  The first generation of designers, who grew up in the ‘80s, received their traditional training from conventional art schools.  They made their works by hand because computers were not so available at that time.  The second generation was raised up in the 90s, the age of computer-aided design programs.  As a result of being influenced by the trend of international digital design, they began to know how to use computers and to speak English.  The third generation is the designer of today.  They have grown up in the age of globalisation and the Internet and many of them have studied and worked overseas.  They are proficient in the latest techniques and have a diversely broad vision of art.  This is the generation that GIL focuses on.  The Chief Curator, Ou Ning, has heard the voice within the passion of these youths, and he wants to “get it louder”.  He called them the “New New Designer”, and he said in an interview conducted by Modern Weekly (29 April 2005): ‘The exhibition attempts to put them (the new generation of designer) into China’s 100 year design history, and then evaluates their status and influence in such a context.’ Since 2005, every edition has a fantastic collection of cross-media creations in a diverse range of creative fields, from poster design, illustration, photography, publication, toy design, t-shirt design, fashion, and product design; to animation, moving image, short film, interactive installation, digital media installation, architecture design, urban design, sound art, sound installation, and music performance.

Besides the spotlight on the young artists and designers, the curatorial team of GIL has also redefined the concept of exhibition.  ‘Art exhibitions aren’t supposed to be like this’, reported China Daily (24 August 2007) in its review of GIL’s 2007 edition.  This is however not a criticism but a compliment.  From participants to venues, from exhibition forms to project operation, GIL is nothing like a traditional art exhibition, but is a visual noise from the emerging artists and designers, a passionate carnival for the newest China design industry, an art party for the new generation.

Before GIL, young independent artists, designers, and creative people could barely find a place to show or exchange their ideas, and their self-initiated, original creations were often unnoticed under the surface.  ‘I think it’s a kind of accumulation of energy, after reaching certain level, then it is beginning to explode’, Ou said (Modern Weekly, 29 April 2005), ‘there was some kind of sub-culture is shaping up.’  Ou planned to release the energy of every participant: ‘Everyone coming out from the crowd could be a hero.  Everyone could be a designer. Let the so-called Masters love themselves alone’ (Modern Weekly, 29 April 2005).  Moreover, to give the exhibition an international scope, GIL also invited talented artists and designers from Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Germany, Sweden and the US to give a series of talks and other communications.  This year GIL will keep this practice by creating its own convention.

As a touring group exhibition, GIL chooses three to four big cities in China for each edition, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, in order to ‘broadcast’ the voice of art.  The exhibition venues and exhibition models are unprecedented and unexpected.  Instead of holding the exhibition at formal art museums or galleries, the curatorial team chooses fresh public spaces to exhibit artworks. Among them, shopping malls might be the most interesting choice. The main aims of GIL are to explore what inspires people’s daily lives, to attract more public attention, and to examine designs and artworks as lifestyles, living attitudes, and as an integral parts of urban culture. Thus shopping malls as a large-scale consumerist space that can embrace thousands of people to interact with art seemed to suit GIL very well.  Another reason that the curatorial team chose shopping centres rather than museums is that they are attempting to break away from the conventional exhibition model of biennials.  Ou said in the exhibition catalogue of 2007 that they hoped they could get rid of the idea that the exhibition room needs to be a sanctuary, because he believes that the traditional exhibition model failed to let art enter people’s lives and to bring art closer to the public. Moreover, shopping malls have the advantage to allow people to have encounters with art unexpectedly, and to discover artworks while enjoying their leisure time and consumer activities.  This is a more effective and efficient way to encourage art into people’s life rather than through rigid education or invariable ways of exhibiting.  ‘It’s the first time we’ve put an exhibition in a shopping mall.  We need to make sure that whatever we do doesn’t disturb the commercial activities there,’ said Liang Jingyu (Beijing Today, 12 May 2007) who is a principal architect of Approach Architecture Studio.  He was in charge of the architecture element of the exhibition in 2005.  Like a treasure hunt, ‘a guidebook will be available for audiences to help them track down all the works’, he added.  The curatorial team continued this exhibition model in the edition of 2007, and they will also develop this model into a new level in the following edition of 2010.

Moreover, GIL developed a unique marketing method: instead of making money through selling artworks, GIL seeks to sell its advertisement spaces through exhibitions and create opportunities for artists and designers to cooperate with worldwide brands.  For example, two main sponsors of 2005 Chivas and Grohe transformed exhibiting artists’ creative ideas and designs into products (Modern Weekly, 29 April 2005).

As part of the whole new concept of exhibiting, GIL has used the idea that ‘Everyone could be a curator’ to encourage participants to be their own exhibition’s curators.  Instead of being overruled by one curatorial team, the exhibition and its satellites are selected by several curators including pioneer curators from China, International professionals and even independent participants.  In GIL’s 2007 edition, nine curators including four Chinese curators and another five from United Kingdom and Japan formed the main curatorial team. Curators were responsible for their own part of the exhibition.  As a whole package, it brought a great mixture of diverse and creative innovation.

At the end of China’s 20th-century, several sound art pioneers Li Jianhong, Jimu and their friends had trouble finding an appropriate place to perform in Hangzhou.  To solve this problem, they began to perform at their own home or their friends’.  GIL 2007 adored this idea and got it ‘louder’.  They applied it to a larger scale and called it Homeshow. Homeshow is the collective phrase for utilizing private spaces to hold small exhibitions, performances, talks, symposiums, and film activities.  Traditional performances or shows insist on bringing audiences together to a particular place within a particular period.  By contrast, as a natural result of a lack of public spaces for performances in China, the flexible Homeshow blurs the concept of public and private, and develops a new urban interpersonal culture. To borrow Ou’s, concept ‘an exhibition should be part of daily life, which can be easily found everywhere’ (Ou, 2007). More creative ideas can be found as a result of the Homeshows, and the idea that everyone can be a curator is no longer ‘just a dream’.

GIL has become the most successful series of contemporary design exhibitions in China and has attracted over 120,000 visitors in the first edition alone.  As China is going through a transitional period from the conservative to the innovative, GIL seems to be a consequence of this current situation, which explains the success of GIL. From a human perspective, GIL plans to let the public put more attention on the social value of creative arts and design, which could assist young Chinese artists so they can focus on the quality of their works more effectively, hence to promote the position of the design industry in China and gain International notoriety. From a sociological point of view, GIL helps to meet the psychological needs of young people as an underprivileged social group, and alleviate latent generational conflicts. Additionally, interactions between the public and art will help the society to form a new lifestyle with art playing a more substantial role, which will eventually be a benefit to the next generation and will help alleviate educational issues in China.  Ou believes that in the future, ‘people will no longer do good deeds because of mobilization by the State, but of their own free will.  This is remarkable progress for present-day Chinese society, and allows people to perceive the hope of a more civilised society.’(Ou, 2007)

To China, GIL is more than just an unconventional touring biennial.  It encourages the younger generation to explore their creative selves; it promotes the design industry of China; it creates a new national and International identity of contemporary China; it gives a voice to emerging artists and designers and it starts the new exhibition age of China.  After the success of previous GIL editions it will be interesting to see both public and critical reactions in response to GIL 2010.

Bibliography

‘Get It Louder: Voice of China’s New Design’, Modern Weekly, Alternative Issue 32, 29 April 2005.

Ou, Ning, ‘Everyone is a Curator – Introduction of Get It Louder 2007’, Get It Louder 2007, Exhibition Catalogue, Modern Media, 2007.

He, Jianwei, ‘Artist Getting It Louder’, Beijing Today, Issue 12 May 2007, accessed 8 Sep 2010, <http://www.getitlouder.com/2007/detail.asp?articleid=160>.

Artists, Get It Louder, accessed 7 Sep 2010,

<http://www.getitlouder.com/2007/artist_en.htm>.

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A Coming Together of Disparate Forces: Career Lessons from Dr Gene Sherman

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Kim Goodwin

The career journey of Dr Gene Sherman is now familiar to those with even a passing interest in the Australian Arts Landscape. First migrating to Australia at age 18 from South Africa, she and her family returned to South Africa after only nine months in Melbourne. The Sherman family then travelled to England before returning to Australia to establish a home in Sydney. This migration, plus extensive travel, has engendered a truly global mindset within Dr Sherman and her whole family.

Professionally, Dr Sherman spent 17 years in academia, firstly completing a masters by thesis and then a doctorate in French literature at the University of Sydney, before commencing teaching there. Following this she joined Sydney’s prestigious Ascham Girl’s School in the role of head of languages.

Sherman Galleries, originally run by Celia Winter-Irving and named the Irving Sculpture Gallery, opened in 1981.  In the mid-1980s, as Australia’s attention started to drift towards Asia, Dr Sherman joined the gallery and began shifting the focus from contemporary Australian and International sculpture, to that of art from the Australian-Pacific region. In 1989 the gallery moved from its original location near the University of Sydney to Paddington, and thirteen years later it consolidated two Paddington premises into one enhanced exhibiting space in Goodhope Street. In 2007 the Sherman Galleries closed and was reborn as the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF), a Sherman family philanthropic enterprise dedicated to the public exhibition of significant contemporary art from Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. SCAF has four key aims as illustrated in the mission statement:

1. To exhibit significant works by innovative and influential artists from Asia, the Pacific and Australia, providing a space that can house works not always suited to private galleries,

2. To publish texts communicating to broad audiences including both the art industry and educational sectors,

3. To develop educational programs in association with the projects, illustrated by the launch Contemporary Art for Contemporary Kids, a partnership with Queensland Art Gallery’s Children’s Art Centre, commencing October 6th,

4. To continue to develop SVAR (Sherman Visual Arts Residency) a program for international artists considering short, medium and longer term exploratory trips to Australia, particularly to Sydney.

On Friday 24th September COFA announced that Dr Sherman and her husband Brian will gift $2 million towards the new COFA Gallery.  This generous donation will contribute to the construction of two new purpose built galleries, the first to be known as the Sherman Gallery and the second named in memory of Nick Waterlow, former curator of COFA’s Ivan Dougherty Gallery, who died last year.

This brief summary of Dr Sherman’s experience and the progression to the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation does not begin to touch on the leadership and educational role she has had within the Australian arts and academic community, from the sponsorship of scholarships, to contribution to publications such as the recently published The Modern Woman’s Anthology (2010), to guest lecturer and philanthropist. Not to mention her donation of contemporary Japanese fashion to the Powerhouse Museum.

Given her incredible life experience, Dr Sherman can provide remarkable guidance to those interested in a career in the creative industries. What follows are some of the key themes and life lessons she has learnt to date.

Plan, prepare and be organised

‘If you don’t plan ahead, create templates and stick to the templates, then things go awry.  Life being what it is sometimes, this is what they do.’

A constant in Dr Sherman’s life is her focus on planning and preparation, often over considerable periods of time. She commenced the planning process, with the support of her husband Brian, nine years prior to the launch of the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation.

As a mother with two young children and undertaking a doctorate, organisation and planning was paramount. Dr Sherman dedicated eight years to her masters and PHD, and at every stage she had a five-year plan, one year, six-month, monthly, weekly and daily plan.

But what happened if circumstances interrupted her ability to complete her daily plan? She would set her alarm for the middle of the night, get up and completed her allocated tasks.

It was a combination of strict adherence to her templates, accompanied by a regular review process that saw her consistently achieve long-term goals that would leave many of us struggling.

Capitalise on your strengths and the strengths of those around you

‘I’m both an educationalist and an on going learner.  Every day I learn things consciously and subconsciously, and when somebody tells me something I find interesting, I try to learn something from it.’

Throughout her career Dr Sherman has built on her learning progressively, ensuring that she takes every new experience and consolidates it with existing knowledge. Her career at Sydney University gave her the teaching skills to take to Ascham.  Her leadership experience at Ascham was then drawn upon as she made the move into gallery management.

Dr Sherman speaks openly about her passion for learning every day, and it is this, along with her ability to communicate and build relationships that form the foundation of her success.

We are never alone in developing our skills and achieving our goals. Dr Sherman describes her mother-in-law as her ‘secret weapon’ in her ability to achieve such a mammoth task as simultaneously raising a young family, working and completing a doctorate. She never hesitates in recognising the support she has received from her family, both her mother in law who lived with the family for 10 years, but also her husband Brian who played a crucial business-mentoring role throughout her career. Her achievements are their achievements.

Like many successful people, she has cultivated guides and mentors along the way. While her husband coached her in the financial and business side of running a gallery, it was William Wright AM who joined the already established Sherman Galleries in 1992 as curatorial director, who Dr Sherman cites as being a key mentor and guide in the art world. Over time their role as mentors may diminish, but Dr Sherman always maintains and values these relationships.

Mix the creative, the educational and the business

‘Cross pollination is so important.  I was a university academic for many years, for 11 years I taught in a University. So of course when I came into the gallery world, I was an example of the cross pollination and in a way it was very natural to me.’

We often surround ourselves by like-minded people, and despite the increased flexibility in the modern employment market, most do tend to have linear career paths within the same, or similar industry. There are significant advantages, however, by building bridges between industries and this is something Dr Sherman has succeeded in doing on many occasions.

She has made a conscious effort throughout her career to bring the arts industry and educational institutions closer together.  She speaks of her surprise when organizing a crate exhibition in the mid 1990s where she found many of the academics that attended had never seen a crate in which art is transported. It was then she realized those on the academic side of industry had very little practical experience. Over the past 20 years Dr Sherman has sought to bridge the gap between the practical and the academic elements of the arts industry to enable maximum opportunity for all.  Clearly the Sherman’s most recent contribution to COFA demonstrates the value with which they hold relationships with the arts education sector.

Dr Sherman has also demonstrated the considerable benefits of mixing business expertise with artistic knowledge. Creative people who can ground themselves with the fundamentals of business theory will be at a distinct advantage. While this does not necessitate the completion of a Masters of Business Administration, of forming long lasting relationship with individuals in the business world who can share knowledge and provide support when called upon.

Read the external environment

‘I never saw the world as confined to one set of ideas, or one set of practices.  You couldn’t if you had my background.’

The ability to understand and benefit from global trends has been a factor in the success of Sherman Galleries. Dr Sherman’s skill in identifying Australia’s shift toward Asia in the cultural, political, economic and artistic arena led the Sherman Galleries to be one of the first to specialise in Asian art. This then paved the way for art spaces such as 4A and White Rabbit.

Dr Sherman provides three lessons to determine success in this area.  Firstly developing and listening to intuition, and in her case it was her father who played the role of visionary. At age six her father told her two pearls of wisdom, to be recalled 57 years later, that women could do anything and that the next century would be the Asian century. As Australia has recently transitioned from our first Mandarin speaking Prime Minister to our first female Prime Minister, clearly Dr Sherman’s father was correct on both counts.

The second lesson is to be a global citizen. Dr Sherman grew up in a family that spoke five languages collectively, and her passion for travel and study of European and Asian cultures is well documented. While many families are global in nature today, this was a more unusual circumstance in the mid-1950s. Dr Sherman has always understood this knowledge of other cultures as a strength to be nurtured and built upon.

Finally, to understand your environment you must foster intellectual curiosity. There is not a day that goes by where Dr Sherman doesn’t extend her knowledge through reading. Not just reading for professional development, but reading widely and broadly across any subject that catches her interest. Prior to beginning her extensive travel to Japan, Dr Sherman chose to read Japanese literature translated into English for two years.

Dedication

‘It comes naturally to me, I have to work at doing it, but I don’t have to work at thinking I’m going to do it, it’s my nature plus my training.’

The last lesson we can gain from Dr Sherman’s experience is probably the one of most importance; that of applying dedication to everything you do.

It is clear from every anecdote Dr Sherman shares, she has never waivered in her dedication to achieve whatever goals she has set herself, whether that be six years completing a doctorate or nine years in transitioning the commercial gallery into the contemporary art foundation. She applies that dedication even to her fashion choices, for 25 years she wore only three Japanese fashion designers.  Not a single other thing.

The underlying theme from listening to Dr Sherman is passion. Dr Sherman describes herself as a coming together of passion and pleasure, a combination of disparate forces, the artistic, the academic, the business, the cultural, some would say it’s a perfect storm. Whatever endeavor she has directed herself toward, she has done so with passion. This is the lesson we can all learn from.

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Global Warming CAN Be Over: The Art of Ken Yonetani.

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Vi Girgis

Julia Yonetani

Photograph of Ken Yonetani and daughter taken at Bottle Bend, Mildura

2010

Courtesy and copyright of the artist

http://yonetani2010.anat.org.au

As much of the art industry thrives on the neo-liberalist spirit of consumerism, making luxury goods of art, many artists also crusade for social, political or environmental causes. Ken Yonetani is one of the latter. While many of his ephemeral works escape the commercial quality of being sold, they are poignant and powerful vehicles for raising awareness of some of the ecological – and hence social – problems which plague our modern world. Yonetani is part of a growing breed of artists who are ‘getting to grips with the idea of ecological systems as art…as the substance of art practice itself’ (Editorial, 2005, p.14). However the tireless efforts of artists like Yonetani, who so passionately create works in the hope of informing and educating audiences, beg a very important question: can art really affect change?

An increasingly unnatural world.

In a disturbingly prophetic essay titled ‘Art and Ecological Consciousness’, first published in 1970, Gyorgy Kepes warned that:

Disregard for nature’s richness leads to the destruction of living forms and eventually to the degradation and destruction of man himself…we are all carried along by the uncontrolled dynamics of our situation and continue to develop ever more powerful tools without a code of values to guide us in their use. (Kepes, 1972, p.2)

Indeed, since the dawn of industrialisation, the natural environment has always been a faint afterthought in the pursuit of technological greatness that boosts both profits and mankind’s insatiable need to tame and control nature. And while Kepes recounts fleeting moments of poetic caution over the centuries – more than a hundred years ago, John Ruskin proclaimed, ‘Ah, masters of modern science…you have divided the elements, and united them; enslaved them upon the earth and discerned them in the stars.’ (Kepes, 1972, p.1) – the narrowly-focused task of advancement at any cost has proceeded relatively unobstructed. It is only in the final decades of the twentieth century that the environmental consequences of a hitherto uncapped project of technological progression were acknowledged by citizens that formed the privileged minority. We came to realise, as Kepes so eloquently reflected, that ‘shaped with the blighted spirit of cornered man, our cities are our collective self-portraits, images of our own hollowness and chaos’ (Kepes, 1972, pp.3-4). Although it may not be too late, much of the damage is certainly irrevocable, causing great anxiety and uncertainty for the future.

At the same time, art’s relationship with nature became precarious as industrialisation gained more steam, and ecological apathy became the norm. Both, as Felicity Fenner writes, drifted apart and ‘each suffered at the hands of social and political indifference’ (Fenner, 2007, p.422). While artistic expressions of nature and the natural order still existed, such forays were intermittent and became more sporadic as humanity and nature became more disparate. ‘While oblique reference to the natural world is found in geometric abstraction of the modernist era,’ Fenner  claims, ‘it wasn’t until the 1960s, when a renewed socio-political interest in the environment inspired a young generation of revolutionary artists, that nature again became valid subject matter in contemporary art’ (Fenner, 2007, p.422). Land art and works addressing ecological issues came to the fore as artists began to register society’s discomfort with their increasingly concrete and artificial surroundings. Pioneering artists such as Richard Long, Dennis Oppenheim, and iconic, ground-breaking – sometimes literally – works such as Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty brought art and artists back to nature, albeit a permanently altered nature. Now at the dawn of the 21st century, the need to preserve the natural world has become an imperative, and artists are at the forefront of a movement that seeks more accountability from humans for their ecological footprint.

While they were once polarities art and science are now, more than ever, joining forces for a greater cause. Given the increasingly destabilized state of today’s natural environment, artists and scientists are collaborating to raise awareness of the issues and to offer solutions. In the last decade, international art collectives such as Ecoarttech, super/collider and Cape Farewell have emerged to fuse the pragmatism of science with the creative processes of art to, as Cape Farewell’s mission states, ‘stimulate the production of art founded in scientific research’ (Cape Farewell, n.d.). Such developments highlight the recognition of the universal need to make concerted efforts towards ecological revival and sustainability. The partnership between art and science therefore represents the holistic actions that need to be taken: art to present the environmental damage caused by human activity and to further re-imagine a better, more ecologically-viable world, and science to impress upon us the disastrous consequences of not striving to attain this world. Simon Torok, CSIRO scientist and Artlink contributor, offers an uplifting and hopeful illustration of how collaboration can affect change: ‘together, art and science can inspire an emotional response, inspiring changes in our attitudes and behaviour that ensure our landscapes survive in more than photographs, paintings and memories’ (Torok, 2005, p.17).

An artist on a quiet mission.

Ken Yonetani started his working life in one career and has ended up at the other end of the spectrum. Originally a finance broker in Tokyo, he was immersed in the narrow, pragmatic, ecologically disinterested world of profit and economics. After three years Yonetani quit his job and spent several more years searching for his calling, which he found in art, as an apprentice to the master potter Kinjo Toshio in Okinawa. From there, a natural progression to conceptual and environmentally-focused art occurred, as the artist recounts:

I am from the concrete jungle of Tokyo. I felt an urge to draw on my own experiences, and from this moved into the realm of conceptual art. For me environmental loss caused a sense of anxiety: working with my hands, I was able to regain a sense of calm. It was only natural to link the calming action of art-making back to something with an environmental message. (Yonetani, 2005, p.33)

A large part of his environmental message is to bring to light the destructive desire of humanity. Yonetani believes it is important for people to ‘see and feel actual works rather than virtual things.’ Many of his artworks, especially the earlier ones such as the fumie tiles, physically recreate this propensity for destruction. These tiles were destroyed shortly after their unveiling on both occasions of their showing at the CSIRO’s Discovery Centre in 2003 and the Asian Traffic project at Gallery 4A in 2004. In both instances, the tiles, which contained models of endangered Australian butterflies that Yonetani himself had individually handcrafted, were placed at the entrance of the exhibition and crushed under the feet of opening night guests, effectively destroying months’ of work with disturbing voracity. Julia Humphrey offers a detailed recollection of how the installation unfolded at the CSIRO exhibition, drawing parallels between the human condition and the act of destroying another person’s work:

Some people…stepped across the tiles below with a sense of dread. Others stomped across the breaking floor with a kind of pained glee…titillating and yet excruciating… desperately trying to save some of the tiles…Several children also picked up some unbroken tiles, only to place them down once again and smash them with a loud and forceful stomp. After they had been smashed, the children then carefully began trying to place the pieces back together again…Several people began putting tiles into their handbag or under their arms, laying claim to them with a sense of triumphant defiance. Yonetani smiled. This too was another display of human desire – the desire to possess and stake a claim of one’s own. (Humphrey, 2004, p.23)

The reactions and emotions by visitors are a telling portrayal of the human desire to both inflict wanton destruction on their surroundings, and then realise the futility of trying to recreate such a fragile environment. ‘I cried a lot with those ephemeral works,’ Yonetani recalls, perhaps lamenting not only the destruction of his hard work, but what such destruction reflects about the human condition. Many of these broken fumie tiles were subsequently put together to create a new installation of a butterfly mandala. The butterfly pictures of this new work, Yonetani explains, ‘form the ghosts of the destroyed tiles, sacrificed by human’s impact on nature, and a gateway to the spiritual world’ (Yonetani, Westspace, 2005).

Sweet barrier reef, Yonetani’s most celebrated work, is a quiet, subtle comment on the state of ocean floor habitats. In its monumental scarcity, the large sculptural installation, modelled after a Zen garden form and made entirely of sugar, represents the coral wastelands that much of our oceans’ underwater ecosystems have become. The sugar is at once metaphorical and literal; it directly points to the sugar industry’s chemical run-offs as the primary cause for the bleached coral, and also stands as a metaphor for the Western world’s increasing gastric gluttony and desire, manifested through excessive consumption, at any (environmental) cost. At the opening night of Once Removed, the group exhibition in which this work represented Australia at the 2009 Venice Biennale, models in coral-inspired bridal dresses meandered through the throngs of guests, holding delectable, intricately designed wedding cakes, sculpted by the artist. The bright colours of these dessert sculptures were a stark contrast to the deathly white of the installation they accompanied. The performance, entitled Sweet barrier reef for the 21st century – play Strauss’s waltz grandly, included a choreographed dance followed by the models serving up the cakes to guests, creating a relational space which facilitated an interaction and dialogue between artwork and audience. In this case, as well as indulging in one of life’s great culinary pleasures – a wedding cake! – the audience became complicit in the physical destruction of Yonetani’s exquisite sugary sculptures, but metaphorically too in the destruction of the ecosystem that these sculptures represented.

Yonetani’s most vocal, assertive and political attempt to create environmental awareness in the general population is a performance piece he delivered in collaboration with his wife, Julia Yonetani. Global Warming is Over! (if you want it) was a bed-in staged in the middle of Melbourne’s Federation Square on a hot, 35ish°, February weekend in 2010. Emulating John and Yoko’s famous 1969 Amsterdam ‘War is Over!’ bed-in, the performance, which received Yoko Ono’s blessing, was staged to draw attention to climate change and the need for action. ‘The message is the same as the message that John and Yoko had’, Julia explains, ‘if you want something you can actually make it happen…Both of them (war and global warming) we should be able to stop by human action, because they’re caused by human action.’ (J. Yonetani quoted in Pardi, 2010, pp.31-32) The public element of their performance, in which the couple stayed in their Fed Square bed all weekend in John and Yoko wigs, also helped the Yonetanis to take their work and message to a wider audience. ‘People we had chats with in our performance are quite ordinary and do not go to gallery openings often’, Yonetani explains. ‘We discussed about global warming with various opinions. It was very interesting to talk with different people.’ Furthermore, the performance can be considered a direct call to action, informing the public that global warming can be over, if they want it, if they are willing to work for it. The sweltering heat only served to re-enforce the urgency of the message.

Given the conceptual strength of Yonetani’s artistic practice, and the social importance of its message, the artist does not fall into the trappings of ‘crusader’. Rather, his works act as quiet, reflective protests; they impress upon the audience the necessity for change, yet leave the onus for action on the individual. In fact, the only violence in Yonetani’s practice is that which is inflicted on his intensely-laboured creations.

The artist’s next step will be an intense foray into interdisciplinary practices, as the Yonetanis begin their three-month artist residency in Mildura, on the border of the Murray River in Victoria. Long established as a hub for experimental projects where art and science join forces in the quest for ecological revival, Mildura seems the perfect place for Yonetani to begin his next artistic journey. Here, the couple will be collaborating with local scientists to explore the nature of salt, water and salinity as such issues are pertinent to this dry continent, and important to the artist. No doubt what the Yonetanis create will be a telling reflection on humanity’s (mis)use of that most precious of resources – water.

Is art enough…?

In 1972 Kepes introduced the notion of consigning the artist to the task of creating an ecological consciousness. Kepes expounds on ‘the role of the artist in educating the public to understand our ecological situation, and how he can serve to renew the sense of happy equilibrium between man and his environment.’ (Kepes, 1972, p.170) While many artists like Yonetani have enthusiastically stepped into this role, one wonders if art really is enough to change the world. What is the real, practical reach that artists can have on a largely uninterested first world which continues to burn through natural resources faster than they can be replenished? What’s more, should it be the social expectation, or burden even, of artists to take on such a monumental task as changing the mindset and careless living patterns of a population based on rampant consumerism and immediate self-gratification? In other words, is it really the responsibility of artists to change the world? While one’s immediate response would be a resounding ‘No!’ when asked this very question, Yonetani humbly, yet resolutely, replies, ‘I think it is not only given to the artists. All the people have a responsibility to try to change the world.’ From here, it appears that there’s nothing left to say, only do.

Bibliography

Fenner, F., ‘The nature of art’ in Art and Australia, v. 44, no. 3, Autumn 2007, pp.420-27

Humphrey, J., ‘Ken Yonetani’s Fumie tiles – the art of destruction’ in Ceramics: Art and Perception, no.57, 2004, pp.21-23

Kepes, G., ‘The artist’s role in environmental self-regulation’ in Arts of the Environment, G. Kepes [ed.], New York: George Braziller, 1972, pp.1-12

Kepes, G., ‘Art and ecological consciousness’ in Arts of the Environment, G. Kepes [ed.], New York: George Braziller, 1972, pp.167-197

Pardi, L., ‘GLOBAL WARMING IS OVER! (If you want it)’ in Beat Magazine, Wed 17 Feb 2010, pp.31-32

Torok, S., ‘Picturing climate change’ in Artlink, v.25, no.4, 2005, pp.16-17

Yonetani, J., ‘Sweet revenge: interview with Ken Yonetani’ in Artlink, v.25, no.4, 2005, pp.32-35

Yonetani, K., ‘Exhibition invite text’ at Westspace Gallery, 27 May – 11 June 2005, [Accessed 1 Sept. 2010] http://www.westspace.org.au/program/ken-yonetani.html

Yonetani, K., 2010, email 10 Sept., < ken@kenyonetani.com>

‘Editorial’ in Artlink, v.25, no.4, 2005, p.14

‘About Cape Farewell’ n.d. in Cape Farewell, [Accessed 3 Sept. 2010] www.capefarewell.com/about.html

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Would You Call This “Social Sculpture?”-Fairytale Art Event Documenta 2007

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Xi Fu

Ai Weiwei

TEMPLATE-1, 001 Ming and Qing dynasty wooden window frames and doors

Dimensions unknown

2007

Installation view, Documenta 12

Courtesy and copyright of the artist

http://www.aiweiwei.com

‘Ai Weiwei’s artistic output, based on the formulation of ideas, is interwoven with his political thinking and illuminates for the audience the internal struggles China currently faces, as well as deep human concerns.’- Gene Sherman, Chairman, Executive Director of the SCAF

Ai Weiwei is one of the most innovative artists of the contemporary art scene. Widely regarded as an agent provocateur, Ai chooses art as a means through which to express his disdain for the political pressures of a system condemning society to cultural improvement in China. His work outrages conservative traditionalists as he questions the role of culture and its historical and ideological nature (Alnertini, 2008). Until he discovered the works of Marcel Duchamp, he had no idea that art could be a lifestyle, which brought an instant end to the struggle with the form of painting. Ai decided that painting was “a dead-end form of expression” and devoted his energies to create sculptural assemblage, which he constructed using objects appropriated from daily life (Smith, 2007). In recent years much has been made of the apparent tendency towards the neo-Dadaist gesture in Ai’s approach.

Fairytale

In thinking through the conceptual potentiality of the ‘Readymade,’ underpinned by the nation that art practice is but the administration of things, Ai Weiwei expands the concept to such a degree that he reinvents it. Fairytale, specifically made for the art event Documenta 12 2007, could best be explained as a type of performance or happening. It was conceived as three interlocking projects that extend the critical engagement with concept of China not only in its conception of China as a physical construct but as a constructed identity, in which reply to the three leitmotifs of the exhibition, ‘Is modernity our antiquity’, ‘What is bare life?’ and ‘What is to be done?’ he displayed a characteristic desire to work outside conventional art forms and create a work with ordinary people at its heart (Close, 2008).

Ai cheerfully showed his guests a quotation by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the pioneering Russian space theorist, printed on one of the first pages of the introduction for the project:

First inevitably comes the idea, the fantasy, the fairy tale. Then scientific calculation. Ultimately, fulfillment crowns the dream (Ammer, 2007).

These words condensed the whole process, conceived as an artwork itself, of the large- scale, multi-faceted project about ‘possibility and imagination.’

Project 1-1,001 Chinese visitors

The first project was the invitation of 1,001 Chinese travelling to Kassel free of any costs (Appendix 1). It involved exploring what it means to be Chinese beyond the physical limits of place. Most of these participants were selected because they would never have otherwise had the opportunity to travel overseas and were chosen in a relatively random manner as an open invitation published on Ai’s blog.

In terms of size and concept, Fairytale is the biggest and the most multilayered work ever developed by Ai, and one of the most ambitious projects ever presented in the history of Documenta (Smith, 2009). A part of the project included living individuals visiting the small town of Kassel. The travelers, whose ages range from 2 to 70, come from dissimilar social classes and have dissimilar occupations and life styles. Because of the support the sponsors allowed a 3.1 million Euro budget, Ai was able to initiate an enormous process with several different aspects such as the planning of the tourist and educational activities, the location of suitable infrastructures, the creation of proper living and sanitary conditions, the design of utensils and furniture, the recruiting of personnel (cooks, video makers etc.), the processing of visa applications and travel insurance, in which every stage of the processes required overseeing by Ai and his FAKE team.

Ai states, ‘I see the whole process as the work itself. I see what kind of hopes, what kind of worries, what kind of frustrations… and waiting and anticipating. Many people said that it is already a miracle for them, it is already a fairytale’ (Colonnello, 2007).

The 1,001 Chinese travelers were in Documenta as tourists, viewers and as part of the artworks. One of the topics stressed in Fairytale is the person as a single individual and their individual experience within the context of their lives as citizens of a Communist country where the importance of the individual is lost to the dominance of the State. The choice of 1,001 participants was significant, not simply because of the logistical involving that number of people. Ai discussed the decision to invite 1,001 people to take part in the work:

The choice is due to the fact that what we really want to emphasize is “1” not “1,001”. Each participant is a single person, and that’s why our logo is “1=1000” that means that in the project 1,001 is not represented by one project, but by 1,001 projects, as each individual will have his or her independent experience (Colonnello, 2007).

That is, the person sees him or herself as an individual rather than as a collective or undifferentiated part of a mass, a not insignificant concept given the recent past of China. Each participant was asked to fill out 99 questions and was filmed on occasion from the preparatory stage through to their returns to China. This becomes a very foreign experience in anyone’s personal life, which will help each participant to think differently:

Against the backdrop of a totalitarian past and massive social changes, China is particularly in need of an exchange not based on institutions but rather on the individual (Ammer, 2007).

Project 2-1,001 Ming and Qing dynasty chairs

The second project was the installation of 1,001 late Ming and Qing dynasty chairs in clusters across the different exhibition venues (Appendix 2). The chairs echoed Ai’s past use of ‘Readymade,’ but their connection with the 1,001 Chinese participants added a more personal resonance to the way in which the objects were received. Able to be moved around and used by the public, the chairs provided an individual and collective place for people who came from all over the world for dialogue and exchange. Ai Weiwei’s Fairytale had staged a massive encounter between totally different cultures, each confronting the other and the unknown, in a context that was both familiar and strange.

Ai states, ‘I think that past and future, these two realities which are both internal and external to each person, are all integrated in very different forms and possibilities that make each individual unique. (Colonnello, 2007)’

Project 3-TEMPLATE-1, 001 Ming and Qing dynasty wooden window frames and doors

The third project, TEMPLATE, was composed of 1,001 late Ming and Qing dynasty wooden window frames and doors, which formerly belonged to destroyed houses from areas all over China, where entire ancient townships and villages had been destroyed (Appendix 3).

In many of the works discussed so far, the materials used in their construction have been identified as recycled elements of the past. Things that are no longer of use themselves, and that would otherwise be cast aside or thrown away.

Ai explains, ‘the materials I use comes from objects destroyed in the name of development, or would be used by antique dealers to make copies of antique future. (Colonnello, 2007)’

The artists recovered these pieces and, joining together five layers per side, formed an open vertical structure with an eight-pointed base, creating in its centre the volume of a traditional Chinese temple. The work had been exhibited in the courtyard of the greenhouse designed by Lacaton and Vassel also known as the ‘Crystal Palace,’ a temporary building erected ad hoc for Documenta 12. Ai bought the last fragments of that civilization and relocated them in a completely contemporary setting. Ai (2007) explains, ‘It really is a mixed, troubled, questioning context that protest for its own identity.’ Once counted, the pieces of which the Template is made up of surprisingly turned out to be exactly tantamount to 1001, a coincidence that Ai Weiwei finds significant (Smith, 2009). While standing in the middle of Template, the viewer is surrounded by a space that is fictional, abstract and ethereal.

Ai states, ‘I’m not religious, to me the temple itself means a station where you can think about the past and future, it’s a void space. The selected area, not the material temple itself, tells you that the real physical temple is not there, but constructed through the leftovers of the past (Colonnello, 2007).’

Constructed around a void, the structure becomes an empty shell, a void as in the spaces of ‘provisional landscapes’. The void is the disappearance of the civilizations from which the fragments were taken in the process of China redefining itself. Salvaging the leftovers of the past is not about the preservation of relics, or sufficient to construct something self-sustaining. Whatever meaning they had no longer exists.

Ironically, TEMPLATE as a structure collapsed under heavy weather conditions some days after its inauguration (Smith, 2009). This is the condition of time, a condition of temporality that governs everything and therefore offers no guarantee as to what will come after. One can only create the conditions of possibility through the actualisations that reveal the material force of its being. These actualisations are what is given at the time but they contain, nonetheless, a potentiality or virtuality which is yet to be determined. This then is the freedom of the work itself, and in turn the freedom of its audience.

Post-project

The significant impact Fairytale made on the lives of the participants was the outstanding success of the work for Ai. By providing the 1,001 participants with the opportunity to travel overseas, Ai enabled them to be exposed to foreign culture and ideas, many for the first time. They were also able to experience a new world of ideas and possibilities that they would take with them on their return to China. In this way the impact of project continues to resonate for participants long after the event itself is over.

Ai explains, ‘It’s like a dream; they said it’s affected their lives and the way they look at the world…I really think a new awareness has been added to their lives (Colonnello, 2007).’

While Fairytale has been discussed as a modern mobilizing of the masses, directly reflecting the socio-cultural climate in China, the mass unity associated with socialism and its lingering impact on China’s social structure and strata, the communists’ emphasis on the group above the individual, restrictions of personal freedoms as well as the ‘reconnecting’ of China with the international community. For Ai, the intervention was emphatically aimed at the 1,001 individuals. Kassel is the home of the Brothers Grimm, hence Ai’s choice of title, which alludes to the unleashing of the imagination that makes fairytales so beloved by children (Merewether, C, 2008). 1,001 people sounds like a big group, but the impact of even visiting Kassel could only be understood at an individual level. Only of its results in a force for change, personal experience is the foundation for social change. Ai explains:

‘Everyone responds differently. I wanted to give the participants an opportunity to be conscious of that, to learn something about their imaginations and differentiations (Colonnello, 2007).’

Taking a cue from Warhol’s charge that ‘actually you have to change (things) yourself,’ this notion of art as a ‘force for change’ is the meridian running through Ai’s practice, uniting the form it takes, the materials it deploys and the diversity of activities it embraces (Smith, 2007). As a body of work, his art is emblematic changes, which again manifests in the diverse range of his practice as well as in the ambitions that drive the work and the scale of individual projects. All such opportunities are potential means of furthering the process of change.

Bibliography

Alnertini, C., Avaters and Antiheroes-A guide to Contemporary Chinese artists, Kodansha International, 2008.

Ammer, M., ‘Ai Weiwei: Fairytale performance,’ in Roder M Buergel (ed), Documenta Kassell, Taschen, Cologne, 16/06-23/09, 2007, p. 208.

Colonnello, N.’An interview with Ai Weiwei,’ Artzine, accessed 21 November 2007, <http://new.artzinechina.com>.

Colonnello, N., 1=1000, 2007, <“http://www.artnet.de/magazine/isa/features/colonnello08-10-07.asp”>.

Close, G., Ai Weiwei:Under Construction-Education Resource Kit, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney, 2008.

Exhibition catalogue, Documenta Kassel, Taschen, Cologne, 16/06-12/09/2007, p. 356.

Merewether, C., Ai Weiwei:Under Construction, Univeristy of New South Wales in association with Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation and Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney, 2008.

Smith, K., AI WEIWEI. In: the real thing. Contemporary art in China, Abrame, New York, 2007, p. 39.

Smith, K. et al, AI WEIWEI, PHAIDON, 2009.

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China and Revolution

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Jun-Woo Do

Shen Jiawei

Standing guard for Our Great Motherland

1975

Poster

53 x 77cm

Courtesy and copyright of the artist

http://sydney.edu.au/museums/

The exhibition ‘China and Revolution: History, Parody and Memory in Contemporary Art’ examines the relationship between poster art made during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) from 1966 to 1976 and the work of contemporary artists who respond to the events of that period. It is based on the research project, ‘Posters of the Cultural Revolution,’ funded by the Australian Research Council. This project re-evaluates the Cultural Revolution by analysing the propaganda in China during the period, focusing on political posters. Since the exhibition is based on the research project, there is a close relationship between the artworks displayed. As the title suggests, we can also read the position of the exhibition on the Cultural Revolution and communism in China. Furthermore, it has several upsides and downsides from a curatorial point of view.

The exhibition can be divided into four sections: the revolutionary Chinese posters, the portraits of Xu Weixin, the new Propaganda Posters of Liu Dahong and the parodistic paintings of Li Gongming. Each artist talks about the Cultural Revolution through their recent works. Thus the original revolutionary posters from the time of the Cultural Revolution allow us to compare and contrast the different responses to them in contemporary art in China.

Revolutionary Chinese Posters

The GPCR was an incredibly tumultuous period when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) reinforced its plan to modernise China, boosted its gross national product, and increased the pace of Chinese socialist transformation (Esmein, 1973). The creation of art was strongly regulated by the CCP during the GPCR. It was forbidden to use Western or classical Chinese styles because the GPCR aimed to build a new socialist nation without reliance on the corrupt Chinese values or the values of other countries. In addition, the CCP supported art by people who were workers, peasants, and soldiers and the art style it promoted was narrowed to Socialist Realism, with no abstraction or reference to modernism (Galikowski, 1998). The revolutionary Chinese posters are good examples of the art of this period as they were ‘part of a comprehensive and highly controlled media apparatus whose objectives were the consolidation of authority and the transformation of society’ under the communist government (Crushing & Tompkins, 2007, p. 9).

Standing guard for Our Great Motherland (Shen Jiawei, 2007) depicts the soldiers guarding the border of China. Their exaggerated and powerful figures, painted much bigger than nature, represent the power of the CCP. Not only that, they encourage people to believe in the utopian communism society by showing the strength and optimistic vision of the government through the soldier’s eyes looking far beyond. Aerial drawing of Dazhai & surroundings, another pictures in the exhibition, shows the features of human development, such as power lines, bridges, and irrigation. These modern transformations of the landscape present the greatness of the CCP and its policies aiming to protect people from repeated natural calamities such as floods, earthquakes, and droughts (Crushing & Tompkins 2007).

Xu Weixin

Weixin draws portraits of figures represented in the book Chinese Historical Figures 1966-1976. In 1966, shortly after the GPCR, he was a class representative for the second grade. Most of the students were brainwashed by the ideal of classless society and denounced landlords because those who had private property were seen as the enemy of the communist ideal. At that time, there was a rumor that his homeroom teacher was the daughter of a landlord. Weixin ‘heroically’ painted the portrait of his teacher on the blackboard to mock her, in the current fashion of caricaturing people in authority. When the homeroom teacher found the portrait Weixin was very proud of himself and felt that the enemy was punished as deserved. When he grew up, he realised his wrong behaviour and we can see feelings of guilt and reconciliation in his recent portrait works. This childhood experience led him to portray the historical figures who engaged with the Cultural Revolution. Besides questioning his behaviour, he also refers more generally to Chinese people’s behaviour during the Cultural Revolution: ‘Should not we resolve to repent and examine ourselves and our actions?’(Donald & Evans, 2010, p. 25).

Liu Dahong

Dahong’s works are parodies of paintings created during the Cultural Revolution that deified Mao. Dahong’s Red Calendar in four seasons and Fairytales of the Twelfth Month are examples of the parodies. It is a common strategy in communist countries to make leaders look like gods. Stalin and Lenin were depicted as huge figures in many Socialist Realist Posters in the Soviet Union, and the leaders of North Korea were also shown as gods in political posters. Dahong critiques this strategy and produces parodistic version of the posters. In Four Seasons – Summer, Mao is shown as a hero with a sword on his back. However, figures assuming funny poses, that look comic book characters, ridicule the process of deifying Mao. Through these parodies, Dahong reports the dark side of the history filled with the tears and the blood of the republic, when people could survive by unconditionally believing in Mao. (Donald & Evans, 2010)

Li Gongming

As a member of the New Propaganda Work Group, Li Gongming, creates New Propaganda Posters, a modified version of the revolutionary posters made during the Cultural Revolution, where he adds critical thinking and new technologies. Through these posters, the Group members criticise the widespread repression and inequality of contemporary Chinese society, calling for social justice and equity. The work of Xiaoyan, another member of the Group, looks identical to the original revolutionary posters, they do however, have different purposes. The text in Gongming’s poster means ‘call for a harmonious countryside and a prosperous life for farmers’ and in Xiaoyan’s work it means ‘call for social justice.’ Both works use the style of revolutionary posters but they point out the promises that the CCP has not kept yet. (Donald & Evans, 2010)

Revolutionary posters VS New forms

The key to the exhibition is a comparison between the revolutionary posters and the new works responding to them. The original posters were produced as propaganda to reinforce the communist ideal during the Cultural Revolution. Conversely, the new works are mocking of and complaining about the communist ideal, as well as creating personal reconsiderations about the artist’s own behavior during the Cultural Revolution. Liu Dahong directly mocks the ideals of the Cultural Revolution, by ridiculing Mao, the symbolic and physical power of Chinese communism, he responds to the Cultural Revolution critically. Li Gongming and New Propaganda Work Group respond to the Cultural Revolution requesting actions from the government in order to solve social problems of contemporary China. This activism differs from Dahong’s lyrical attitude. Xu Weixin responds to the Cultural Revolution very personally. He finds the Cultural Revolution in his memories and reconsiders the past from the present point of view, trying to reconcile with his guilty memories.

The Display of the original revolutionary Chinese posters opposite to Liu Dahong’s works and new propaganda postcards is very effective. In spite of the small size of the gallery, the space is used very pragmatically. The New Propaganda posters are hung from the ceiling and Dahong’s video is projected onto a small fireplace on the wall. Despite the clever use of the space, some aspects are disappointing. Not every exhibition needs to be contextualised, but China and Revolution should provide more information to visitors to help them understand it, because it is difficult to fully appreciate it without the background of the Cultural Revolution and the recent history of China. For example, there is a documentary video, which is integral to understanding of the whole exhibition. There is no explanation as to why Weixin draws portraits and what Dahong tries to show unless visitors watch the documentary video. But this is located in a corner of the gallery, which is difficult to access. Furthermore, there is no guide to distinguish the revolutionary Chinese posters from new propaganda posters except the catalogue on sale. Since both posters have the same style, visitors cannot easily tell the difference unless they can read Chinese.

History, Parody and Memory

As the title of exhibition suggests, some would expect to find the political position that the three artists and the exhibition have in relation to the Cultural Revolution and communism. On the contrary, the works shown are neutral, so the position of the exhibition on communism is unclear. This might be the attitude that most artists and people have towards communism and the Cultural Revolution in China, since they cannot freely express their opinion on political issues. The artists are not necessarily neutral, but they are politically ambiguous because they try not to show that they are against communism. Dahong could depict Mao more aggressively and Gongming could criticise the government more critically. Weixin through his work could question why the CCP brainwashed innocent people to take control over them rather than just portraying historical figures. Instead, Dahong and Gongming simply parody the styles of the Cultural Revolution and Weixin just talks about his memories. Nevertheless, all of them respond to history actively. That may be the reason why the exhibition is titled not ‘against communism or anti-communism’ but just ‘History, Parody and Memory’

Bibliography

Cushing, L. & Tompkins, A. Chinese Posters: Art from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. 2007

Esmein, J. The Chinese Cultural Revolution. London: Andre Deutsch. 1973.

Donald, S. H. & Evans, H. China and Revolution: History, Parody and Memory in Contemporary Art Sydney: University Publishing Service, University of Sydney. 2010

Galikowski, M. Art and Politics in China 1949-1984. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press. 1998

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Sonic Youth: When Music and Art Meet

Monday, October 18th, 2010

Martina Baroncelli

‘Music is the creation of meaning out of the noise of the world’ – Kaizen, 2001

What does Sonic Youth mean in the 20th Century art and culture? More than just a band, Sonic Youth is an art collective that pays close attention to its artistic, musical and cultural context.  It has been the pioneer in combining music with other artistic forms. Members of the band constantly reflect their musical creations to other forms of artistic innovation.

Before Sonic Youth, there were other bands that are closely involved with the art world. For instance, Velvet Underground’s manager was Andy Warhol: ‘Since I don’t believe in painting anymore I thought it would be a nice way of combining music and art and films all together’. The pop artist had the idea of projecting images on stage when the band was playing. Velvet’s performance is an elaborate multimedia show, where music, art and film are combined to create a total environment. Another example is UK band Pink Floyd. All members of the band attended the Cambridge Art School before founding the band. In 1967, they created Interstellar Overdrive: a psychedelic musical piece. The music was fully improvised and the piece could last between 10 to 25 minutes. These characteristics make it very similar to Hallan Kaprow’s Happenings, improvised performances that are not rehearsed.

Artists and musicians used to meet and exhibit or perform in the so-called art-lofts of that time. The art and music scenes were the same. ‘There was this whole crowd of people that moved to New York in the late 70s and formed bands,’ says Lee Renaldo, voice and guitar in Sonic Youth. ‘People came as visual artists and gradually everybody gravitated back to music with a more conceptual aesthetic, with the idea that you could take the elements of this art form that you loved growing up – rock music – and use that medium to make art’ (Kaizen, p. 24).

Sonic Youth goes a step further. Members of the band not only take reference from visual art, they also produce, collect and later exhibit artworks. They started to work together in New York in 1981. Tod Jorgensen and Arleen Schloss were young artists who moved to New York in the late 70s. They turned a Soho loft into a club, named A’s – ‘A’ stated for both Atleen and Anarchy. They hosted performances by artists and bands (Basquiat’s band SAMO also played there). Jorgensen’s favourite band was a group named The Coachmen, whose guitarist was Thurston Moore. Moore later became the guitarist of Sonic Youth.

After the Coachman split up, Moore started to play with other musicians, including Kim Gordon. When she finished art school in California at the end of the 1980s, Gordon moved to New York and worked at a gallery. She settled in an apartment downstairs of Dan Graham, a conceptual artist who remained friends with Gordon. Before becoming the voice and guitar of Sonic Youth, Gordon started writing for magazines, including Artforum. She also made her own art under the label Design Office. Under this name, she created installations in various spaces, including the White Column Gallery. Around the same time, Moore organised the Noise Fest in 1981 at White Column Gallery, a polemic action against people who thought all music was just noise and nothing more. For the occasion, Moore and Gordon created the band Sonic Youth, and included Lee Ranaldo.

At the beginning of their musical career, as Kaizen observes, Sonic Youth investigated unexplored territories, using tools as screwdrivers and drumsticks combined with radical guitar tunings and configurations (Kaizen, p. 24). For their visual materials, the band worked with appropriation of mass culture symbols, and used the Xeroxing technique  (original name for photocopying) to represent the noise of the rebellious young generation. Photocopying is the artistic production that represents the essence of Sonic Youth: quick, cheap, not refined, condensed with images, catchy, capable of grasping an idea and transpose it to paper with low expenses in a short period of time. They used this printing technique for album covers and gig flyers. The flyers created for their gigs were made to look rough, produced by repeated Xeroxing that caused the image to look undefined and degraded, illustrated by Kaizen. (Kaizen, p.  23).

For the cover of the album Confusion is Sex (1983), the band used a drawing of Gordon on the front, and a collage of Ranaldo on the back. The design was repeatedly Xeroxed until the images deteriorated. After this album, they started to collaborate with influential artists for the design of the covers. The album EVOL, was named after a video of Tony Oursler, a friend of Kim Gordon from her California art school days. A photographer and filmmaker, Richard Kern designed the cover. Kern took pictures of the band members as if they were victims of the serial killer Charles Manson, then used these for the video Death Valley ’69 (1985). Gerhard Richter, famous German painter, designed the cover for the single Death Valley ’69 (1984), and also for the album Daydream Nation (1988). Other famous artists involved in designing album covers for Sonic Youth included Raymond Pettibon (Goo, 1990), Mike Kelley (Dirty, 1992), Richard Prince (Sonic Nurse, 2004) and John Fahey (The Eternal, 2009). Many of these artists were friends, or friends of friends of the Sonic Youth members. They all shared the same kind of culture, or refusal to adhere to a certain culture.

In 1992, Mike Kelley was asked to design the album cover for Dirty: pictures showing stuffed puppets representing Sonic Youth’s audience. In a special edition of the album, Kelley put another image hiding behind the CD, showing performance artists Sherri Rose and Bob Flanagan performing obscene acts with stuffed toys. This was Sonic Youth’s reply to Nirvana’s grunge revolution. The collaboration with artists is often perceived as a way for artists to earn some money. But, this can also be perceived as artistic participation in the creative process.

Mike Kelley

Dirty

1992

Sonic Youth album cover and insert panel, print on paper

12 x 12cm

Courtesy and copyright Sonic Youth

http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/lp/lp9.html

Through the years, the band continued to operate across different creative disciplines, pursuing a blending of experimental music and art. Its members, not only produced artworks, projects and collected art, they also established collateral networks within the art and the music world. In 2008, they collaborated with independent curator Roland Groenenboom for the exhibition Sonic Youth etc.: Sensational Fix. It was not a retrospective but rather a survey of collaborations between the band and artists, filmmakers and designers (Shwarzbart, 2009). At the beginning of the expositive space, works by John Cage and Maciunas were exhibited. These artworks showcased Sonic Youth’s music in its improvise and experimental sense. Dan Graham is one of the artists that believed the most in this cross-disciplinary nature of creativity. He sets up a separated section within the exhibition where he presented video and recordings of gigs, from his archive and the archive of the band. The arrangement and selection of the works aims to set the band in dialogue, enable us to hunt for fresh meanings in a cultural universe anew. The result of this relationship is found in disc covers, posters, films and artworks all exhibited in the show.

Sonic Youth were pioneers in combining music and art whole-heartedly. During the 1990s, more and more bands and DJs started work across music and art. The Mint Chicks is a band from New Zealand (now living and working in Portland in the US) that uses art in their musical projects. They label their music as ‘troublegum,’ a neologism that define unconventional sound between punk and rock. This also applies to the design they created for album covers and their video-clips.

While Sonic Youth is very engaged in the theoretical side of art, the Mint Chicks refuse to work with art in this context. ‘I feel like the (art) work seems more relevant when it’s used for something,’ says Ruban Nielson, guitarist and composer of the band. Their creativity is also expressed in the way they release their new album Bad Buzz, 2010. The album is released digitally as mp3s and in a USB stick designed by Nielson. He studied fine art at the Elam School in Auckland. He then worked as assistant for the painter Stephen Bambury. When he started to make enough money with the Mint Chicks, art became a way for him to escape from the collaborative nature of music to something more solitary (Nielson, R., pers. comm. 23rd Sept 2010).

His art is visible in album covers and video-clips on the blog of the band. With the album, Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No! (2006), Nielson won the award for best album cover in New Zealand in 2007. The style of his images is linear and graphic. It resembles magazines design. He creates sick and hallucinated environments that well suits the music of The Chicks. The video-clips have the same sort of aesthetic. In the clip Don’t Sell Out your Brain (censored version, 2009), he created animation using the same style of the covers. He does step further, resume aspects of the grunge culture that also informed the early works of the Sonic Youth. Nevertheless, Nielson’s works belongs to another generation. While creating disturbing images, his style is polished and refined. This may be influenced by diffusion of magazine and the proliferation of the Internet. The Mint Chicks is not interested in being fashionable. Rather, they use visual images that reflect their own generation.

As artists often do, Nielson also collects art. He said: ‘I like going to shows when I can and if I see something cool I’ll buy it if I can afford it’. He is not very interested in the theoretical aspect of art. ‘I just don’t think associate art with critical theory anymore’, Nielson further stated; ‘I think you can learn and think a lot more about art if I keep my mouth shut. I don’t think there’s any way of connecting one object to an interesting idea any more than another object, and I do think of art in terms of objects and perceptions, but that perception of objects doesn’t end when I leave a gallery.’ He is interested in illustration artists, the ones that he can see at exhibition he goes to. ‘I buy art like some people buy clothes. Just as an impulse, I buy because I just feel like I want to take something home and see if I like it over a period of time’ (Nielson, R., pers. comm. 23rd Sept 2010). He buys art based on what he likes at the moment, without any sort of theoretical influences. Lately he has been interested in the art of Theo Ellsworth and Skinner, whose art resemble Nielson’s art. Apart from the Mint Chick, he is working independently on some images that take inspiration from street-art, mass culture and graphic design.

Ruban Nielson

Karman Ghia

2010

Digital image

18 x 18 cm

Courtesy and copyright of the artist

http://themintchicks.com

Karmann Ghia is one of the last works of Ruben. In this image, he incorporates an urban environment with Sci-fi and comic style. At first glance, the background seams like a photo, but instead Ruban makes graphic interventions that converge to create an unreal atmosphere. In The Short Bus, the landscape is openly unreal: mountains and river (a reference to his homeland New Zealand) are defined by sharp lines and painted with shiny and unnatural colours that created a flattened image. He then placed the school bus with monstrous creatures. Nielson’s opinion is that ‘you can learn and think a lot more about art if I keep my mouth shut’ (Nielson, per comm. 2010). The Mint Chicks seek Sonic Youth as inspiration, expressing the will of their generation to take distance from the over-theorisation characterising part of the art world.

Bibliography

Kaizen, W.N., ‘Noise, Control, Noise. Sonic Youth’s Audio Visual’, in Art Papers Magazine, March-April 2001.

Browne, D., Goodbye 20th Century: Sonic Youth and the Rise of the Alternative Nation, Piatkus Books, London, 2008.

The Mint Chicks (website): <http://www.themintchicks.com/>

Wahrol, A., interview in video, Seven Ages of Rock: White light, White Heat. Art Rock: the Velvet Underground, BBC, on VH1 Classic (website), retrieved on 15th September, 2010, From: <http://www.vh1classic.com/>

Official Website of Sonic Youth (website): <http://www.sonicyouth.com/>

Shwarzbart, J., ‘Sonic Youth etc. : Sensational Fix’, in Art Review, No. 34, (September 2009), p. 136.

Rees, S., ‘Art > Music: Rock, Pop, Techno. An exhibition with narrow bandwidth’, in Art & Australia,

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