Issue 108 December 2013 / January 2014

all will be revealed...

SeaSon 2014 Launching soon

FEATURES (05) COMICS FACE Ive Sorocuk (06) THE MADNESS OF ART

Jim Kempner

(08) CORANDERRK Liza Dezfouli (16) ROGER BALLEN @ MONA

Social Work

(20) A TOAST TO EXILED KINGS

Inga Walton

(30) BLOOD SPORT

WITH TARRYN GILL Naima Morelli (34) DEC/JAN SALON decidedly jenerous (44) ACTEASE Courtney Symes (50) MELBURNIN’ Inga Walton (60) 55TH VENICE BIENNALE

PART FOUR Tiziana Borghese (64) STRALIAN STORIES:

WAKE IN FRIGHT Neil Boyack (68) THE CROW Darby Hudson (69) SEX MACHINE David Thrussell (78) DEAR DREAMBOAT Dmetri Kakmi

COVER: Haeli VAN VEEN, Rites 1 (detail) 2013, digital print, 841 x 594mm. Photo: Stella Rae Zelnik. HIDE New work by Haeli Van Veen ANCA Gallery, 1 Rosevear Place Dickson (ACT), 4–15 December 2013 - www.anca.net.au Issue 108: DECEMBER 2013 / JANUARY 2014 trouble is an independent monthly mag for promotion of arts and culture Published by Trouble magazine Pty Ltd. ISSN 1449-3926 STAFF Vanessa Boyack, administration (admin@troublemag.com) Steve Proposch, editorial (art@ troublemag.com) Listings (listings@troublemag.com) CONTRIBUTORS Ive Sorocuk, Jim Kempner, Liza Dezfouli, Inga Walton, Naima Morelli, Dmetri Kakmi, Courtney Symes, Cassandra Scalzi, Tiziana Borghese, Neil Boyack, Ben Laycock, Darby Hudson & David Thrussell. Thanks to: Roger Ballen, Rebecca Fitzgibbon & Giordano Nanni.

Find us on Facebook: facebook.com/Troublemag Subscribe to our website: troublemag.com READER ADVICE: Trouble magazine contains artistic content that may include nudity, adult concepts, coarse language, and the names, images or artworks of deceased Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. Treat Trouble intelligently, as you expect to be treated by others. Collect or dispose of thoughtfully.

DIS IS DE DISCLAIMER! The views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the publisher. To the best of our knowledge all details in this magazine were correct at the time of publication.

The publisher does not accept responsibility for errors or omissions. All content in this publication is copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without prior permission of the publisher.

Trouble is distributed online from the first of every month of publication but accepts no responsibility for any inconvenience or financial loss in the event of delays. Phew!

art comedy series

season 1, episode 5: Yoko (Oh No) In Webisode five, Jim seeks out advice from nemesis Glenn Dranoff about Art Miami? “Art Miami? No one’s making any money this year in Miami!” according to Glenn, who is quietly packing his bags. Meanwhile, the gallery is abuzz with excitement in advance of famed avant-garde artist and peace activist Yoko Ono’s opening at the Jim Kempner Fine Art Gallery. Jim orders a huge sign to welcome the artist. All will be well as long as his new assistant can mind her Ps … and Qs. http://www.troublemag.com/the-madness-of-art-episode-5-yoko-oh-no/

back to back

season 1, episode 6: Post Modern The thirteen year old son of a potential client challenges Jim to explain the meaning and importance of Post-Modern art and learns a lesson about the value of art instead. http://www.troublemag.com/the-madness-of-art-season-1-post-modern/ or visit: themadnessofart.com/

CORANDERRK

We will show the country

by Liza Dezfouli

WHERE DOES A PLAY COME FROM? In the case of Coranderrk – We will show the country, a work of theatre re-enacting a hugely significant moment in Victoria’s history, its wellsprings came from research conducted by writer Giordano Nanni while working deep in the archives at Melbourne University. “My initial assumption was that everyone knew about Coranderrk,” says Nanni, who was researching his PHD thesis on the history of colonialism in Victoria when he discovered a dramatic episode of local indigenous history. “I learned about this story from studying the original documents.” Briefly, towards the end of the 1800s, vested interests were pressuring the government to dismantle a highly-functioning, thriving Aboriginal reserve near what is now Healesville. The Coranderrk community rebelled and the ensuing fight for justice, self-determination and the right to stay on their land culminated in a unique Government Enquiry into the management of the station.

“The minutes of this particular enquiry contained the voices of the indigenous inhabitants of the station,” Nanni says. “In this document they were able to express local grievances and requests for self-determination. Other enquiries didn’t collect indigenous testimonies, or if they did, it was superficial evidence.”

Nanni was struck by the individuality of the voices in the minutes and how the evidence seemed already to be drama in the making. “It seemed like a fantastic piece of theatre,” he continues. “There are some extremely moving, intimate and harrowing passages; and then there are also parts that are almost perversely funny. I was experiencing all the emotions you feel from watching a play. It is almost a script in itself.”

A few years on saw Nanni, in collaboration with Yorta Yorta playwright Andrea James, and in partnership with the Minutes of Evidence project, including La Mama and ILBIJERRI Theatre, put together ‘a condensed verbatim re-enactment of the 1881 Coranderrk enquiry.’ Coranderrk - We will show the country is a meticulously considered work balancing the truth of the testimonies with the considerations of a piece of theatre. Nanni was always sure it would work as a play but obviously a great deal of editing was required. “I had confidence it would work only with the transcript, that we shouldn’t deviate from the verbatim theatre,” Nanni explains. “But the enquiry went for over two months; so the play involved a lot of selection. I was keen not to mess it up.”

Andrea James voices the challenge of bringing the story to the stage: “I was initially concerned that, because we wanted to be absolutely true to the court transcripts and the form of the commission (question and answer), there would be a lack of drive and dramatic arc. However, the joy in watching the actors taking on the challenge to inhabit several characters is highly entertaining and as an audience member, you are never quite sure who is going to come up to the witness stand next and what he or she will say to add to the drama. It was a great revelation which makes the performances utterly compelling and deeply moving.”

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Nanni was determined the work should be impeccable academically and satisfy both historians and theatre-lovers alike. “It had to be theatrical, it had to be entertainment yet have enough historical weight so people couldn’t dismiss it as just another piece of theatre,” he notes. “We use the power of theatre to engage and open up people, but it has academic merit because this is what actually happened; it is based on the rigor of accurate research. Coranderrk tries to capture those two powerful elements together.”

Last year saw a performance presented to descendants of the key players, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal (including those of the station’s manager and community’s champion, John Green), on the land where Coranderrk station once stood. Nanni describes the performance on country as an emotional and historic event: “People were very keen. The descendants brought photos and the Koori Heritage Trust received phone calls; even people directly connected to the story hadn’t got the full picture.” Nanni notes a nice coincidence with this month’s production. “The enquiry was 130 years ago this year: September to December 1881. The play will be performed again at La Mama in November 2011, almost the same month.”

James, whose work Yanagai! Yanagai! about the 2001 Yorta Yorta land claim, notes the resonances and implications of the Coranderrk story with events of today. “The commission into Coranderrk occurred in 1881/2 and it was alarming to see that some 110 years or so down the track non-Aboriginal people were using the same tactics and opinions to disown us of our lands in the Yorta Yorta land claim.”

Nanni explains further: “Edwards Curr very strongly featured in the Coranderrk enquiry. He was a self-appointed ‘expert’ on aboriginal affairs, a member of the Board and one of the key people involved in breaking up the station. The things he said then provide the basis for the logic of the extinguishing of native title in 2001; he tries to justify moving people off the land by saying that people who lived here didn’t have ongoing attachment to the land. Justice Olney used Edward Curr’s words 100 years later – his words are quoted to extinguish the Yorta Yorta claim to native title.”

Collaboration between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginals has been essential to the development of Coranderrk Minutes of Evidence, a crucial part of an ongoing process which not only brings the story to modern day Melbourne, but also creates and maintains powerful partnerships like those of a century ago. “It was always very fulfilling to feel that, in some way, the fact I was collaborating with a non-Aboriginal researcher/writer reflected the positive relationship between the Coranderrk people and their champions Ann Bon and John Green,” James says.

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“Initially I felt it necessary to negotiate an equal status in the project so that we could collaborate on an even par and Giordano very graciously understood the need for an equal playing field, even though he initiated this project and is its driving force. What is most exciting to me is that Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal relationships continue to prosper in a creative project which helps us to understand and overcome the ravages of colonisation and its continuing effects.”

James has high praise for Nanni’s work on Coranderrk. “His instincts and drive have always been very strong and his desire for the story to be told has been admirable,” she notes. “He is a dogged advocate for this story and he has absorbed these transcripts wholly. It was so nourishing to work with someone who has researched the material so thoroughly and knew the intricacies of the characters and case so freakishly well. On a mere mention of a moment, he would recall the page and item number of any given moment in the transcripts. He was amazing. So my instinct for dramatic structure, coupled with Giordano’s thorough research and past theatre experience has made for a perfect creative relationship.”

Nanni is quick to emphasise the collaborative element intrinsic to Coranderrk.

“A lot of people have helped make this possible. There has been Aboriginal representation at every stage of the Minutes of Evidence project. It is not based on old-fashioned consultative model; it’s more of a collaborative thing. That idea is key. And hopefully it will be a model for the future.”

Nanni feels strongly that presenting this story in theatre has greater impact, over, say, telling it in a research paper or a book. “I am interested in trying to engage people outside of academia. I want to help get this story out to the public, not only to professional academics.”

“The Coranderrk people marched more than 60 miles in delegation all the way to Spring St,” Nanni continues. “It’s different from writing a letter. The one thing that makes Coranderrk story so special and so successful is that it was so unusual to have this enquiry at such an official setting. These are the actual words of indigenous people and of white people back in 1881. This is their victory, their platform to air their grievances and aspirations for self-determination. The indigenous voices are clear in their demands. They are understanding of justice and politics. It is almost as if they are speaking to us today.”

James, herself a Yorta Yorta woman who has been working on Wurundjeri history in this project, notes how there have been people of various backgrounds involved along the way. “Both the Coranderrk mob and the Yorta Yorta had nonAboriginal champions and friends who supported us in our struggle for justice. It is heartening to see how people such as Ann Bon and John Green were prepared to

Coranderrk / Liza Dezfouli

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utilise their knowledge and positions of power to give the Coranderrk residents an opportunity for self determination. Great people like William Barak and Alice Grant, Uncle Wayne Atkinson and Monica Morgan continue to inspire and lead their communities towards self determination and justice. Coranderrk had residents from all parts of Victoria and there were Yorta Yorta people on this settlement, too. It’s so great to see Uncle Jack Charles read the transcripts of his Yorta Yorta ancestors.”

James sees Coranderrk as offering inspiration to those engaged in current indigenous struggles as well as being a celebration of a shared past.“ I hope that this show will give Aboriginal audiences an opportunity to hear how our people have stood up to oppression and injustice over the years and that this will inspire us to continue to speak out when needed. While some advances and concessions have been made, there is still a lot of work to be done. The production highlights the spectrum of non-Aboriginal people’s attitudes towards Aboriginal people, informed by both racism and respect/understanding. The most exciting aspect of this project is that the characters live on through living descendants, both black and white, and in that way, there are still some opportunities for redress, justice, and healing.”

“This is such an incredibly powerful story and its strength lies in its utter truth,” James continues. “It’s such an important part of Melbourne’s history and to see these characters and their passionate words brought to life once again, brings the story once again to the fore. Everyone who resides in Melbourne should have the opportunity to learn about this story.”

Coranderrk - We will show the country was originally presented by the ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, with actors including Uncle Jack Charles and La Mama’s Liz Jones; directed by Isaac Drandic; proudly supported by the Minutes of Evidence project, an Australian research Council project which includes ILBIJERRI Theatre Company, La Mama, Vic Health, Department of Education, The University of Melbourne, Arts Victoria and the Koori Heritage Trust.

Coranderrk: We Will Show the Country has recently been published by Aboriginal Studies Press. - www.readings.com.au/products/17493859/coranderrk-we-will-show-the-country A new development of the play, CORANDERRK, will premiere at Belvoir St. Theatre in December 2013 (Upstairs Theatre: 7 December 2013 – 3 January 2014 - http://belvoir.com. au/productions/coranderrk Cast: Kate Beckett, Jack Charles, Mathew Cooper, Kelton Pell, Melodie Reynolds-Diarra, Bjorn Stewart. Team: by Andrea James & Giordano Nanni Concept Giordano Nanni Director Isaac Drandic Set & Costume Designers Ruby Langton-Batty & Ralph Myers Lighting Designer Damien Cooper Composer & Sound Designer Ben Grant Audio Visual Designer Peter Worland Stage Manager Chantelle Foster Assistant Stage Manager Grace Nye-Butler.

Coranderrk / Liza Dezfouli

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Social work: ROGER BALLEN Asylum of the Birds

WORKING WITH BLACK AND WHITE FILM, Roger Ballen is what you might call ‘a wound opener, shedding light on the darker side of the human self – a place that most of us would rather leave untouched.

Ballen was born in New York City in 1950, and has lived and worked in Johannesburg, South Africa for almost 30 years. During this period from 1982 to 2008 he produced many series of works, evolving from photo-journalism to a unique artistic vision.

In an Australian first, Roger Ballen brings his unique craft to Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art ahead of the release of his new book Asylum of the Birds, to be published in early 2014 by Thames & Hudson.

What do you hope for?

R.B. Hope is an illusion.

Do you think its ok to lie?

R.B. There are various degrees of lying. One should try to remain truthful to oneself.

What does freedom mean to you?

R.B. Being able to act according to one’s will…

Nevertheless, one is bound by the human condition and therefore we are never ultimately free.

Which member of your family influenced you the most?

R.B. My mother was very responsible for introducing me to photography as she worked in Magnum in the 1960’s.

How do you make important decisions?

R.B. Sometimes important decisions require pondering the various issues; other times I make decisions instinctively.

4 Scream 2012. Image Courtesy of the artist and MONA Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

How do you feel about someone taking their own life?

R.B. It is hard for me to comment as I would require knowing the circumstances.

Do you think things happen for a reason?

R.B. Not really.

What beliefs do you have that you think will never change?

R.B. I believe that the forces of nature on its various levels are supreme.

Do you believe in the supernatural?

R.B. Nearly everything I come across is supernatural in their own way.

Have you ever come close to dying?

R.B. One never knows how close one has come to death.

Sometimes it is a matter of a split second that determines whether you will die or live.

What do you like the best about your body?

R.B. It’s loyalty to itself.

What do you think would be the best thing about being the opposite gender?

R.B. Having long hair Who is the best teacher you have ever had?

R.B. H. Dreyfus who taught classes on existentialism at the University of California at Berkeley.

Have you ever been lost?

R.B. Many times during the time when I hitchhiked from Cairo to Cape Town in 1974.

What do you like most about where you live?

R.B. The weather.

What stays the same in your life, no matter how much other things change?

R.B. Roger Ballen What is stopping you?

R.B. The human condition pervades.

Roger Ballen / Social work

Threat 2010. Image Courtesy of the artist and MONA Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

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One of the last generation of black and white photographic artists, Ballen’s work has been shown in important institutions throughout the world and is represented in many museum collections such as Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England and Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA. More than a photographer, Ballen’s work has developed from a photo-journalistic style into a combination of photography, theatrical performance, sculpture and a photographic drawing technique developed by Ballen himself.

The Asylum series is major project evolving since 2008, inspired by a house that Ballen visited in Johannesburg; a space inhabited by not just humans, but wild birds, cats, rabbits, mice and other creatures.

This menagerie is made more surreal by the strange drawings rendered on the walls. The world ‘asylum’ bears connotations of on the one hand internment; and on the other, shelter and security.

Roger Ballen says: “It has been of my goals as an artist to show at MONA. The overall aesthetic of the Museum overlaps mine.”

Curator Olivier Varenne says: “As a geologist Roger Ballen’s fieldwork sometimes took him two kilometres under the earth’s surface, in search of diamonds, gold, and other minerals. These subterranean pursuits have deeply influenced him, supporting his artistic development, which he likens to a psychological descent into the mind.”

- www.rogerballen.com ROGER BALLEN - ASYLUM, MONA Round House & Library Gallery, Museum of Old and New Art 655 Main Rd, Berriedale, Hobart, Tasmania 7011 December 7, 2013 – April 21, 2014. Curated by Olivier Varenne and Nicole Durling - www.mona.net.au Roger Ballen / Social work

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Take off 2012. Image Courtesy of the artist and MONA Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

A Toast

to (Exiled) Kings Inga Walton

A FASCINATING AND UNUSUAL EXHIBITION at the National Gallery of Victoria (International) serves to highlight the extraordinary depth of their magnificent collection of English glass. Curated by Dr. Matthew Martin, NGV Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts, Kings Over the Water (until 5 January, 2014) focuses on over 100 vessels from the little-seen and outstanding collection of Jacobite glassware. “Many of these works have been exhibited before, but only selections from the collection have been on view since the four-year redevelopment of the building concluded in 2003. I have been cataloguing the glassware on and off for about three years, and this was the first time they have been looked at closely since the early 1980s”, he says.

With the exception of a couple of items purchased outright by the NGV or acquired through the Felton Bequest, the majority of the vessels come from the internationally renowned glass collection of G. Gordon Russell of Sydney who began acquiring works in the early 1950s with great discernment and care.

Russell’s collection numbers some 372 pieces and consists mainly of British drinking glasses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but also includes some noteworthy examples of Dutch and Venetian glass. Russell’s principal agent was Howard Phillips of London, a specialist in English glassware, who sought out items for Russell both from well-known collections and private or family holdings.

Anxious that his incomparable collection should remain in Australia and not be dispersed, Russell had offered it on most generous terms to the NGV, at that time the only public art museum in Australia which had made a serious attempt to collect examples of early glass. Upon learning that the gallery was unlikely to be able to accept Russell’s offer because of a shortage of funds, William and Margaret Morgan created an Endowment in 1968 specifically to acquire the collection in its entirety for Melbourne. The first part was received by the NGV in 1968 and the second instalment in 1973. Through their endowment, the Morgan family continues to add rare and valuable glass treasures to NGV’s holdings that serve to complement the Russell collection. Thanks to their philanthropy, NGV possesses one of the richest and most remarkable collections of early English glass in the world.

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ENGLAND, The Shelley bowl and dish c.1745, glass (wheel-engraved), 9.1 x 16.4 cm diameter (overall). National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.

William and Margaret Morgan Endowment, 1968.

A Toast to Exiled Kings / Inga Walton

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In 1688, James II (1633-1701), the last Catholic King of England, Scotland and Ireland, was deposed by parliament in the ‘Glorious Revolution’. He went into exile in France, where he was received by his cousin and ally Louis XIV (‘Le Roi Soleil’).

This was the culmination of a disastrous four-year reign which began with the Monmouth Rebellion and its unpopular aftermath, the Bloody Assizes (1685). James’ increasingly belligerent attitude to Presbyterians in Scotland, his policy of allowing Catholics to occupy the highest offices of the Kingdoms, and the Declaration of Indulgence (1687) further polarised support for the monarch. With his authoritarian style and adherence to the theory of the ‘Divine Right of Kings’, James struggled to assert his will against the Parliament. Its members were alarmed at the growth of the absolutist model of monarchy current in other European countries, and opposed to the loss of legal supremacy for the Church of England.

The birth of a long-awaited male heir, James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales (1688-1766), to James’ second wife, the devoutly Catholic Mary of Modena (16581718), provoked immediate controversy and (unfounded) rumours that the child was an imposter, or changeling, smuggled into the birthing chamber. Of James II and Mary’s seven children, only two survived childhood, James (afterwards known as ‘The Old Pretender’), and his sister Louisa Maria Teresa, styled as Princess Royal (1692-1712). Up to this point, James II’s pro-Catholic policies had caused less general disquiet since the surviving children from his first marriage, Mary II (1662-94) and Anne (1665-1714), were his legitimate successors and had been brought up Protestant. As the newborn prince supplanted them, he represented the very real prospect of a permanent Catholic dynasty in England, and spurred influential Protestant political figures into action. Via a hand-delivered letter, seven high-ranking signatories (later known as the ‘Immortal Seven’) invited William, Prince of Orange (1650-1702), James II’s nephew, and husband of his eldest daughter Mary, to ‘invade’ England with an army.

Many rallied to William’s cause when he landed 5 November, 1688 and, despite the numerical supremacy of his army and the offer of French troops, James II fled, allegedly throwing the Great Seal of the realm into the Thames. The English Parliament passed a Bill of Rights (1689) denouncing James and confirming the new terms under which William III and Mary II would jointly rule; the Scottish Parliament also declared that James had forfeited the throne. James did not accept his exile quietly and immediately began plotting his return. The historical precedent to which James and his supporters looked for his restoration was quite recent: his brother Charles II (1630-85) had been invited to return from exile to the throne of their father as recently as 1660, after the collapse of Oliver Cromwell’s Interregnum. James started his campaign in Ireland, whose parliament still considered him King, and had issued a bill of attainder against those who had rebelled. James landed there in March, 1689, but was then defeated by William at the Battle of the Boyne (1690). He deserted his loyalists and returned to France, never to return to any of his former kingdoms.

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This momentous political and military struggle continued after the death of James II with the Stuart supporters, or Jacobites (from Jacobus, the Latinised form of James), declaring James Francis Edward to be James III. To support the Stuart claim was treasonous, so popular songs and works of art bearing the likenesses, mottos and emblems of the exiled dynasty became a vital weapon in the battle to win the public over to ‘the Cause’. Jacobite material culture, including medals, portraits, ceramics, prints and this beautiful glassware used coded symbols to express loyalty and solidarity. By far the most common symbol was the six-petalled white heraldic rose, an ancient emblem of the Stuarts. The white rose also had connotations of strict legitimacy, and was adopted by James III as his personal badge to refute the rumours surrounding his birth. A bud to the right of the central rose represented the heir-apparent, Prince Charles Edward Stuart. A second rosebud to the left represented Prince Henry Benedict, later Cardinal Duke of York (1725-1807), Charles’ younger brother.

Other popular emblems employed included the thistle, representing the Stuarts’ claim to the Scottish throne; the thistle surmounted by a crown was an ancient badge of Scotland. The Prince of Wales feathers, traditionally granted to the heir to the English throne, were James III’s by right from birth and represented the Stuart heir-apparent’s claim to this title; sometimes a daffodil (the floral symbol of Wales) appears instead. The oak leaf and the acorn held great significance, since the oak was an ancient Stuart badge and an emblem of the Stuart Restoration. Charles II hid in an oak tree in the grounds of Boscobel House, Shropshire, following the Battle of Worcester (1651), the last engagement of the English Civil War. Charles wore oak leaves when he returned to England from exile in France in 1660 to assume the throne. A star, symbolising the ascendency of the Stuart cause; butterflies and moths, which may have represented the ideas of rebirth and regeneration; and occasionally Forget-me-nots were also incorporated. Stuart supporters relied on the ambiguity of these fashionable motifs and decorations to obscure their real intent and purpose.

The Jacobites instituted, amongst other things, the practice of drinking toasts to their beloved King “over the water” using glasses engraved and decorated with these pictorial references. When a toast to the health of the King was offered, a glass of wine would be held above a bowl or glass of water, thus literally toasting the King over the water. Jacobite clubs – small, private gatherings of Stuart sympathizers – were the focal points of Jacobitism in the mid-eighteenth century.

Around 120 clubs have been identified during this period, although they varied considerably in the type of membership and the extent of their political activities.

A number of Masonic lodges were known to be Jacobite, as were many hunts, particularly if they were maintained by an aristocratic patron sympathetic to ‘the Cause’. Wine glass (c. 1750) commemorates ‘The Friendly Hunt’, a Worcestershire hunting meet probably connected with a Jacobite society in Worcester known as the Friendly Association. A Cordial glass (c. 1775) is inscribed ‘Buxton Hunt’ A Toast to Exiled Kings / Inga Walton

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suggesting similar sympathies on the part of the participants. These organisations are thought to have been responsible for many of the commissions for glasses decorated with Jacobite symbols and mottos.

Earlier vessels incorporated coins associated with former reigning Stuarts in the hollow knop of the stem. Goblet (c. 1715) contains a minted sixpence (1639-41) from the reign of Charles I (1600-49). This would have held particular significance for many Jacobites given Charles’ bitter struggle with parliament led to his execution, and started the cult of the ‘Martyr King’. Since the reign of Elizabeth I, the English monarch has distributed silver coins, known as Maundy money, to the poor on Maundy Thursday. Wine glass (c.1708-15) contains a silver Maundy twopence (1686), and Goblet (c. 1725), a silver Maundy threepence piece (1687). Handled by James II, the coins would have been highly valued by Jacobite sympathisers as a symbol of the monarch’s piety and charity.

Wine glass (c.1715) has a pierced silver threepence (1683) from the reign of Charles II, suggesting that at one time it may have hung from a chain like a talisman. “It’s possible that this is a ‘touch coin’, so named as they had been touched by the monarch and so were believed to be imbued with the God-given ability to heal which was attributed to persons of royal blood”, Martin suggests.

“We see this in the long-standing tradition that the monarch could cure Scrofula (also known as the ‘King’s Evil’), by laying hands on the sufferer. The belief in the ability of monarchs to heal by touch derived from a conviction that they were God’s anointed, ruling by His will – the philosophy of absolutism to which the Stuart kings subscribed”.

Owing to the covert nature of Jacobite allegiance, it was initially assumed that these vessels were produced in secret in the provinces. However, the vast majority of authentic Jacobite glasses are wheel-engraved, which was a relatively new decorative technique in England in the 1740s, a skill confined to the major London glass workshops. It involved the use of tools consisting of small copper wheels attached to spindles to engrave the surface of the glass, with a linseed oil and fine emery powder mixture used as an abrasive.

The majority of the surviving objects appear to be the work of around only five engravers, presumably made to order by leading London firms for clients with Jacobite sympathies.

An elaborately decorated Goblet (c.1760) with its wheel-engraved, enameltwist stem bears strongly Jacobite imagery: three crowns upon a heart from which arise three roses. The heart is flanked by the initials I, F and S, for James Francis Stuart, King James III. The three crowns and three roses represent the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland to which he laid claim. “The post1745 date of the goblet suggests a nostalgic significance to this symbolism”, Martin contends. “Almost no Jacobite glasses by the five major engravers ENGLAND, Amen glass c.1745 glass (diamond-point engraved) 17.3 x 8.5 cm diameter National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne William and Margaret Morgan Endowment, 1973 A Toast to Exiled Kings / Inga Walton

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responsible for these objects are known on glasses with enamel twist stems. Such stems only appear to have been introduced in England around 1747-48. This suggests that Jacobite engraving of glass began to cease around the time that enamel twist glasses were introduced in the years immediately following 1745”.

Only five years into their joint reign, Mary II died of smallpox and thenceforth William III ruled alone. As the couple were childless, following William’s death the throne passed to his sister-in-law Anne. Her seventeen pregnancies by her husband Prince George of Denmark yielded no surviving children. Under the terms of the Act of Settlement (1701), the throne then passed to George I of Hanover (1660-1727), whose mother the Electress Sophia (1630-1714) was a Protestant granddaughter of James I. Although religion played a significant role in the propaganda surrounding the overthrow of James II, it was not necessarily an overriding factor in the Jacobite movement. A large proportion of Jacobite supporters were in fact Protestants and members of the Tory party. Others were partisans in the cause of Irish and Scottish nationalism. Both groups supported the claims of an indigenous (Stuart) dynasty over those of a ‘foreign’ (German) house, as the Hanoverians were characterised.

More importantly, they opposed what was seen as the subordination of the monarchy to the will of a small group of powerful and self-interested, English landowning aristocrats within parliament: the Whig party.

As so few members of the aristocracy or gentry would openly associate themselves with the Stuart cause, the appearance of Jacobite emblems and a family crest on the one object is rare. The NGV has several examples, including the Shelley bowl and dish (c.1745) named after the Shelley family – of whom the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was a member – part of whose property they formerly were: there are three other bowls from the set known. Wine glass (c. 1740) features an engraved heraldic lion which is probably a family crest, perhaps that of the Fairfax family. The bold inclusion of a family crest opposite the seven-petalled heraldic rose and bud leaves no doubt as to the family’s (treasonous) political loyalties.

Amongst the earliest types of Jacobite glassware are the so-called ‘Amen’ glasses, of which some thirty-seven are known; the NGV has two. The majority of ‘Amen’ glasses are engraved with at least the first two verses of the Jacobite anthem, with various other decorations including the royal crown and cypher.

Analysis of the handwriting on the extant genuine ‘Amen’ glasses suggests that they are all the work of a single hand. The artist concerned has been identified as Scottish line-engraver and ardent Jacobite Sir Robert Strange (1721-92), with all of the glasses apparently executed between 1743 and 1749. One Amen glass (c.1740-50) is named for the Morton family who once owned it, the other is known as the Risely Amen glass (c.1743–50), after Sir John Risely in whose collection the glass was in the early twentieth century.

ENGLAND, Wine glass c.1760, glass, enamel (enamel-twist stem, enamel), 14.9 x 7.6 cm diameter National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne William and Margaret Morgan Endowment, 1973 A Toast to Exiled Kings / Inga Walton

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The titular James III first tried to reclaim his birthright by landing by sea at the Firth of Forth in 1708, but was driven back. After the death of his half-sister Queen Anne in 1714, a more concerted attempt was mounted in 1715. It is referred to

by Jacobites as ‘The ‘Fifteen’ or ‘Lord Mar’s Revolt’ (after John Erskine, 23rd Earl of Mar who led the battle) staged at Sheriffmuir. It was technically a draw, but the Jacobites were hampered by Mar’s indecisiveness in the aftermath, which lead to a strategic defeat. The Jacobite struggle reached its apogee in 1745 when James II’s grandson, Charles Edward Louis (1720-88), known as ‘The Young Pretender’ or ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, led an armed invasion, the last pitched battle fought on British soil. This attempt started promisingly at the Battle of Prestonpans where the inexperienced government troops were routed; most of the British army was engaged on the continent in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48). The buoyant mood of Stuart supporters and further hopes for the restoration were soundly quashed at the bloody Battle of Culloden. This earned Charles’ opponent on the field, Prince William Augustus, the sobriquet of “Butcher Cumberland”.

Prince Charles spent the summer months of 1746 wandering in the northwest Highlands and Islands of Scotland hiding from British forces, as a bounty had been placed on his head, before finally sailing to permanent exile on the continent. In the battle’s punitive aftermath, concerted suppression of the Highland clans led to measures such as the Dress Act (1746), which banned the wearing of tartan, along with other aspects of Gaelic culture. These events continue to arouse strong feelings, and could be said to have contributed to the sentiment of later Scottish Independence and Nationalist movements. The rarest of Jacobite portrait glasses are those bearing enamel likenesses of ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ wearing tartan and the ribbon and star of an order, probably that of the Garter. All possess enamel twist stems and so all likely date from the period after the failure of the 1745 uprising. Only eight such glasses are known to exist, and may be divided into two groups: five executed in red, blue, white, green and yellow enamels, and three executed in the narrower palette of red, blue and white. The NGV is fortunate to have one of each: Wine glass (c. 1760) is one of the three rarer works, while its companion (c. 1770) is of the five in the more colourful range.

Making its NGV exhibition début is an extremely rare Punch bowl (c.1756), the most recent acquisition towards the Jacobean suite, donated by Elizabeth Morgan in 2011. “The consumption of alcoholic punch was a ubiquitous practice in eighteenth century English drinking culture, and bowls for the preparation of this beverage were a common type of household object”, Martin remarks. “This punch bowl is adorned with the Jacobite emblems of a six-petalled heraldic rose and a closed rosebud to the right. It also bears an engraved inscription, “Success to the York/Capt. Richardson”, which commemorates the launch of The York, a Jacobite privateer vessel under the command of Captain John Richardson. This is the only example of a Jacobite privateer bowl currently known to exist, and is an immensely valuable addition to the extant collection”.

A Toast to Exiled Kings / Inga Walton

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After the death of James III in Rome, Pope Clement XIII officially recognised the Hanoverian Succession in 1766, refusing to acknowledge the claims of ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, the putative James IV. Jacobitism, as a living political cause, was at an end. Nonetheless, the doomed political and military adventure that was the failed Stuart bid to recapture the English throne has assumed a potent ‘afterlife’. It has resonated through the ages and continues to cast a romantic spell, particularly in literature, and the poetry of Robert Burns (1759-96). Sir Walter Scott featured ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ and the 1745 Jacobite uprising in his hugely successful novel Waverley (1814), widely regarded as the first major historical novel of modern times.

The subsequent novels Rob Roy (1817), which takes place just before the 1715 Jacobite Rising, and Redgauntlet (1824), which traces the beginnings of a fictional third Jacobite Rebellion, used nostalgia for the cause as a means to reflect upon Scottish identity in the context of the political union with England.

Prince Albert’s purchase of Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire as a private retreat for himself and Queen Victoria in 1852, and her preference for its secluded environs after his death in 1861, only added to the ‘Highland’ mystique. A childhood fan of Scott’s novels, Robert Louis Stevenson’s coming-of-age story Kidnapped (1886) is set in 1751 and also has a prominent Jacobite character; it has been filmed six times (1938-2005). This was closely followed by George Alfred (G.A.) Henty’s Bonnie Prince Charlie: A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden (1888). More recently, Dorothy Kathleen (D.K.) Broster wrote a series of popular historical novels collectively known as The Jacobite Trilogy, beginning with The Flight of the Heron (1925) continuing with The Gleam in the North (1927) and concluding with The Dark Mile (1929). The Flight of the Heron has twice been made into a TV serial (1968 & 1976). The silent film Bonnie Prince Charlie (1923) starred Ivor Novello in the title role, and the colour re-make in 1948 proffered a similarly mis-cast David Niven.

Martin also points to the popularity of the ‘Jacobite’ theme in genre artworks, “Despised as traitors and uncivilized barbarians in the eighteenth century, the Scottish Highlander became, in the nineteenth century, a romanticised figure of tragic loyalty to ancestral traditions and a victim of English overlords”, he observes.

“Currently on display in the nineteenth century paintings gallery, After the Massacre of Glencoe (1889) by Scottish artist Peter Graham (1836-1921) reflects this noble image of the Jacobites, depicting the tragic aftermath of the brutal massacre of members of the MacDonald clan by troops loyal to King William in 1692”. The exhibition concludes with an acknowledgement of the status quo: antiJacobite glasses with emblems expressing loyalty to the Hanoverian monarchs.

Most common of these was the prancing stallion, or the white steed of Saxony, an emblem of the German House of Hanover, often accompanied by the motto ‘George and Liberty’, celebrating the new political settlement.

Kings Over the Water, Decorative Arts Passage, Second Floor, NGV (International), 180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne (VIC), until 5 January, 2014 - www.ngv.vic.gov.au A Toast to Exiled Kings / Inga Walton

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Blood Sport with Tarryn Gill

by Naima Morelli

IT IS A MATTER OF FACT THAT SPORT in Australia is something serious. It’s so serious that the Stadium of Queensland decided to screen Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont’s awarded video Gymnasium – featuring blithe athletes exhibiting in different disciplines – at the opening of a football match. “It’s quite funny, because our video is about sport, but it’s quite subversive,” says Tarryn Gill, chuckling.

“We used the fascist propaganda aesthetic to make fun of the cult of the heroic Australian athlete. We find it ironic and hilarious that they screened it at a football stadium to a normal football crowd.”

For the past twelve years Tarryn Gill has challenged the boundaries of visual art together with her partner-in-art, Pilar Mata Dupont. Their work investigates nationalism, sport, history, cultural propaganda and gender stereotypes. Their range of media spans from installation to choreography and music theatre. The aesthetic of the duo, which is immediately recognizable, is nurtured by Australian popular culture, Hollywood glamour and social realism. I met Tarryn Gill at her headquarters in Perth, WA, asking her how the collaboration with Pilar Mata Dupont started.

T.G. We started working together at Uni. Our graduation project was collaborative and after that we just started working together. In 2006 we were dedicating ourselves to art full-time.

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Photo of the artists by Kim Tran - http://www.tarrynandpilar.com/

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You have a very specific aesthetic. Did you and Pilar build it consciously together?

T.G. We built it together over the years. Pilar and I have complementary backgrounds. She is a music and theatre performer, I’m a dancer and we are both interested in theatre and music theatre. So I guess we got along at Uni because of this shared interests. We were always very excited about the same kitschy and theatrical things…

Your work is complex and includes different skills, like the creation of a concept, costume design, photography etc. How do you divide the tasks?

T.G. It depends on the project, and we decide according on how much time we individually have to give. I’m usually the one doing props and costumes because I like to do things with my hands. I’m also a dancer so I often work to choreographies. In general we take turns, there are no clear roles.

Usually what is your approach to a project? Working in two is different from working as a solo artist. You need to have a lot of communication since the beginning.

point where we were ready to show the work, and also to convince the funding body that three artists were capable to produce a music theatre show. Since then we have made visual artworks, but again all of them have involved performers. We made The Soloist video at the Freemantle Art Centre, and last year we made a photographic exhibition … All of the projects by Hold Your Horses require a great number of collaborators.

For The Soloist we worked with forty different locations, we did a lot of photographs and so we needed the support of the arts academy.

Perth is one of the most isolated cities in the world. Do you think that is difficult for an artist to live and work here?

T.G. I think it’s probably easier, because we have such a big network here. We have been doing art for so long, so in Perth we know all the dancers, designers, costume makers. The problem is if you have to do a project in a new city. The only thing with Perth is that art in general is not seen as very integrated with the society and it’s not really supported by the general public.

How has living in Perth influenced your work?

T.G. We start with a concept for a show or for a particular exhibition. And then we just debate about what medium will best convey the message that we get across. Do we want to show photographs? Do we think the concept would be best captured in film?

T.G. I don’t know if the influence is in the content of my work or the way my work is made. I feel the influence of being in Australia, certainly. I think living in Perth means having the support of the community that helps you to stay motivated. The community is quite close and everyone is very supportive.

From 2004 to 2008 you worked at Heart of Gold Projects.How was this project born?

Where abouts in the city does the community gather?

T.G. The way Heart of Gold Projects began is actually through a project called Heart of Gold, that we worked in with Thea Constantino. In 2004 we decided we wanted to produce this music theatre show and Thea began to work on the script and Pilar and I were set designers. The two of us started the project as a mean of developing visual research for the show, and then it just come to his own life. The first project was designed to be fictional propaganda for Australia. We started with photography, then performance and then we moving into video from there.

You founded Hold Your Horses together with Thea Costantino, Tarryn Gill and Pilar Mata Dupont. Your objective is to initiate new projects which contribute to the vibrancy of Australian creative culture while facilitating collaboration between artists from a range of disciplines. How is it going so far?

T.G. Initially we formed Hold Your Horses to produce Heart of Gold, the music theatre show. That was a huge undertaking for us, it’s something that none of us has ever done before. It took us a lot of time to get to the

T.G. I’d say it’s Northbridge, where PICA (The Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts) is. Also the Blue Room Theatre, the State Theatre, the small galleries and the artists run spaces are in that area. That’s the centre for me. Fremantle is another centre.

In your experience is it easy for an artist to build an international reputation starting from Perth?

T.G. Internationally I think it’s hard, no matters where you live in Australia. The hardest thing is transportation of your work, because in Perth it’s far from everywhere else, so it’s expensive. That’s a negative aspect. And also it’s a long way to fly anywhere. I did little bit of travelling in the last few years and I really feel that extra distance.

Is there something that Perth could do to improve the art environment?

T.G. There always could be more funding for the arts and it would be good if there would be more artist run spaces right in the city. I personally feel supported by the art community here, I don’t feel the need to search for more opportunities elsewhere.

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Photo of the artists by Kim Tran - http://www.tarrynandpilar.com/

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dec / jan salon

1. Ross HALFIN, JIMMY PAGE – 02 Arena, England 2007, silver gelatin enlargement, produced by hand from the original negative in strictly limited numbers. “This was taken during ‘Kashmir’, the climax of the show, Led Zeppelin’s first and only show since the death of their drummer, John Bonham, in 1980. I love this picture but hated shooting the show as it was pain in arse to shoot due to all the film crew they had shooting what would become ‘Celebration Day’, released last year”. Red Bull Curates :: Ross Halfin Grand Exhibition: Gardel’s Bar at Porteño, 358 Cleveland Street, Surry Hills (NSW), 2 – 21 December 2013 www.redbull.com.au/curates 2. UNKNOWN MAKER ‘Khud (helmet)’ 19th century, carved, embossed and pierced steel with silver inlay, copper and fabric lining, chain mail and gold decoration. Collection: Geelong Gallery. Bequest of Oswald Gibson, 1932. Oriental odyssey — decorative arts from the Far East, Geelong Art Gallery, Little Malop Street, Geelong (VIC), 14 December to 13 April - www.geelonggallery.org.au NEXT SPREAD: Patricia SOFRA, Coming Of Age: An exploration of self through symbols within fairy tales, in particular Peter Pan (2013). From a composite of six digital inkjet prints (dimensions variable). The Art Room: Highlights from Primary & Secondary Schools in the Goulburn Vallery Region, Shepparton Art Museum, 70 Welsford Street, Shepparton (VIC), 6 December, 2013 – 19 January, 2014 www.sheppartonartmuseum.com.au

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Natalie THOMAS, Puppy (2) 2013, mixed media, 33 x 38 x 18cm, Courtesy of the artist.

Part of the Darebin Art Show , Bundoora Homestead, 7-27 Snake Gully Drive, Bundoora (VIC), until 16 February, 2014 www.bundoorahomestead.com

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dec / jan salon

Richard GREEN, Gnarled skeletons (2013), photographic print. Remote and Wild - The Photography of RICHARD GREEN. Wangaratta Art Gallery, 56 Ovens Street, Wangaratta (VIC), 21 December – 26 January - www.wangaratta.vic.gov.au

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3. Tony AMENEIRO, Floral Head with Infinity Ear 2013, multi plate colour monotype, 76x56cm. Tony Ameneiro: Head to Head, The Art Vault, 43 Deakin Avenue, Mildura (VIC), until 9 December 2013 - www.theartvault.com.au 4. Jonathan JONES with Aunty Joy WANDIN MURPHY after WILLIAM BARAK, untitled (shield design) 2013, fluorescent tubes and fittings, electrical cable. Photo: Christian Capurro. Courtesy of the artists. Future Memorials, TarraWarra Museum of Art, 311 Healesville-Yarra Glen Road, Healesville (VIC), until 9 February 2014 - www.twma.com.au

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ACTease DATELINE: DECEMBER 2013 / JANUARY 2014 Courtney Symes

WHAT ARE THE BEST ART EXHIBITIONS and shows you’ve seen this year?

The last year has been a very special one for Canberra, with 2013 marking the centenary of this extraordinary city. Whilst I’ve enjoyed some of the ‘blockbuster’ exhibitions, such as NGA’s Turner from the Tate, there have been some unique experiences – who could forget Patricia Piccinini’s Skywhale hot-air balloon (June ACTease). If anything, 2013 has proven that Canberra really does know how to ‘do art’ (not that we ever really doubted that) and I’m looking forward to what’s in store next year. Until then, here’s a selection of super shows to round up a sensational Centenary year in Canberra …

It’s a busy month at Belconnen Arts Centre, with a varied program of events for everyone. One of the best things about art-making is that it’s an inclusive practice that’s relatively accessible for people of all abilities. The creation of art can be a very therapeutic process for people with a disability or mental illness, and can even assist them in exploring their identity or communicating their feelings. To raise awareness of International Day of People with Disability (I-Day) on 3 December 2013, Belconnen Arts Centre exhibition Self-Reflexion is a showcase of work facilitated by the ACT Community Cultural Inclusion Officers at Belconnen Arts Centre with the artsAbility group, Black Mountain School and independent artists. “Self-Reflexion provides viewers with the opportunity to share the unique perspectives, observations and reflections that are expressed through self-portraiture. This exhibition has been an exercise in looking and letting the artists’ eye tell their stories,” says artsAbility tutor Nicola Lambert.

Self portraits by the mixed ability art group ArtsAbiliTEA, 2013

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En Route, an exhibition of paper-based artworks will also run in conjunction with Self-Reflexion. En Route has been facilitated by Paperworks, a paper making studio run out of the M16 Artspace. Paperworks’ aim is to “engage in activities that will increase the participation of socially marginalised (due to their disability or disadvantage) people in our community”. Works featured in the exhibition are a reflection on all facets of life – the joys, the challenges, and the journey. Paperworks tutor Susanna Pieterse explains, “In a sense, even though we may tell tales of actual journeys, ‘en route’ is as much a story about our individual life long commutes, shaped by road signs and unexpected detours.

For this exhibition we figuratively board an explorer bus with art patrons and our community to sight-see our local intimate environment from within the hidden, private, dimensions of personal opinion and experience”.

Self-Reflexion and En Route both run until 8 December. Don’t miss the exhibition opening event on Sunday 1 December at 2pm – there will be short films from mixed-ability film makers, a performance from Jimmy’s Mixed Ability Choir and an Auslan interpreter will be at the event from 3-4:30pm, ensuring a welcoming and accessible environment for all.

The Ray White Belconnen Art Prize is a new award designed to recognise young talent in the ACT. In its inaugural year, the $400 first prize will be awarded to a student from Year 11 or 12. One lucky student will also be selected for the People’s Choice Award and will receive $100. Sam Faulks, Director of Ray White Belconnen explains that these prizes were created because “We love seeing the talented young people in Canberra flourish. We are really excited to present these awards and support young people in the community.” Students eligible for the prize will be selected from Belconnen Arts Centre’s College Express 5 exhibition, which will feature an array of work from students, including painting, drawing, photography, textiles, design technology and ceramics. Students participating in this exhibition hail from nine colleges and schools throughout the ACT. Last year’s exhibition included works from over 80 students. This event is an excellent showcase of young, local talent. The exhibition runs from 13 December 2013 – 26 January 2014 throughout all the exhibition spaces in the Centre and is a major highlight on the annual Belconnen Arts Centre exhibition program. The exhibition opening will take place on Friday 13 December at 5.30pm and visitors have an opportunity to meet the artists on Saturday 14 December at 2pm. www.belconnenartscentre.com.au

ACTease / Courtney Symes

For College Express, Romany FAIRALL, Portrait 2012

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The traditions and rites of Indigenous cultures, such as the Inuit and Berber are the inspiration behind Haeli Van Veen’s latest exhibition, Hide at ANCA this month. A recent graduate of the ANU School of Art and recipient of the 2012 ANCA EASS Award, Van Veen is an emerging multi-disciplinary artist who has forged a unique style through drawing, photography and mixed media sculpture. Hide also explores the importance of animals in legend, as well as their link to the ethnographic tattoo. Highlight pieces include sculptures crafted from natural materials such as fur, bone, leather, and sticks; images of a tattooed baby, as well as large-scale ink drawings of ‘totem’ animals. Van Veen encourages viewers to step out of the mindset of their culture and appreciate the differences and important customs in other cultures. “The image of a tattooed baby is shocking and it is that initial repulsion to our western sensibilities that has inspired the photographic series in this exhibition. What one may see as protective another may deem harmful, the verdict lies in the eye of the beholder,” explains Van Veen. Runs from 4 –15 December 2013. www.anca.net.au If you want to check out more emerging artists’ work, look no further than the 2013 ANU School of Art Graduating Exhibition. With works from students graduating with Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours, Bachelor of Visual Arts, Bachelor of Digital Arts and the Diploma of Art, this exhibition is a crucible of disciplines including drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, textiles, gold and silver smithing, ceramics and glass, wood, print media and media arts. Works included in the exhibition will be on display in the School of Art Gallery, Foyer Gallery, Photospace, and in Workshop spaces throughout the School. If visitors fall in love with any of the pieces they encounter, chances are they won’t have to part with them, as many of the pieces on display are for sale. Don’t miss the opportunity to snap up some rare pieces from new talent whilst supporting recent graduates. Runs until 8 December at ANU School of Art. http://soa.anu.edu.au/event/graduating-exhibition-2013 After working as a war artist with the Australia Defence Forces in Afghanistan, there were many questions that Ben Quilty needed to explore following this experience. In his latest exhibition, Ben Quilty: Trigger Happy, “Quilty conducts a raw and painful interrogation of national myths of landscape and identity in this new body of work”. Curator Michael Desmond presents a selection of Quilty’s recent paintings, in conjunction with rarely seen drawings and prints. The recent work is the result of “direct observation” and Quilty utilises “agitated paint, agile brushstrokes and an alert conscience” to reflect “the intensity of this experience”.

This is an intensely powerful, emotionally-charged exhibition that explores some fascinating experiences and concepts. Runs until 15 December at ANU’s Drill Hall Gallery. http://dhg.anu.edu.au

ACTease / Courtney Symes

Haeli VAN VEEN, Rites 7 (detail) 2013, digital print, 841 x 594mm.

Photo: Stella Rae Zelnik.

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DATELINE: DECEMBER 2013 / JANUARY 2014

Inga Walton

SINCE 2008, BENDIGO ART GALLERY HAS PRESENTED a number of impressive fashion-related touring exhibitions in conjunction with major overseas institutions. Their latest offering, Modern Love: Fashion Visionaries From the FIDM Museum, LA (until 2 February, 2014), showcases over sixty ensembles, footwear and accessories covering forty years of contemporary fashion. The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM) was founded in 1969, and now spans four campuses: Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and San Francisco. The non-profit FIDM Museum Foundation was formally established in 1978 to allow students studying clothing design a better understanding of techniques by providing them access to representative garments. In the past thirty-three years, the Museum has attracted more than 1000 donors who have contributed some 70% of the current collections, approximately 15,000 objects covering more than 200 years of history: 1800 to the present. This is the first time items from the Museum have toured overseas.

The Museum’s initial holdings were greatly enhanced by a generous gift of over 100 haute couture ensembles from founding donor Mrs. Alfred S. (Betsy) Bloomingdale, which she purchased from 1961 to 2000. Three of her dresses have travelled to Bendigo, including an Evening gown (1985) by Marc Bohan for Christian Dior, accompanied by the original hand drawn croquis (coloured sketches with attached fabric swatches). Of red silk gazar, it exemplifies the exuberant proportions of the period with its asymmetrical cut and oversized bow towards the back. Evening ensemble (2000) from Italian couturier Valentino (Garavani) of cream shantung silk with dense floral appliqué, on both the bodice and accompanying net jacket, seems to echo the lavish detailing common to earlier eras. In contrast, Evening gown (2000), in his signature ‘Valentino red’ shows the influence of late-90s minimalism and the preference for a sleeker aesthetic. The relatively unstructured silk crêpe chiffon gown with a tank-style neckline is without embellishment save for five layers of soft asymmetrical ruffles.

Gianni Versace, S.p.A, Milan (est. 1978), Giovanni Maria Versace (Gianni Versace) (1946-97), designer (1978-97), Shirt, pants & belt (c. 1994), silk twill, metal buttons, leather, metal studs, cotton and elastane. Wallet chain (Fall/ Winter) 1993-94, leather & metal. Shoes (c. 1994), leather & metal studs. Briefs (c. 1994), cotton & elastane. (Gift of Joan Worth in memory of Marvin Worth). Watch fob (Fall/Winter) 1994-95, metal & rubber, Jacket, skirt, belt, handbag & safety pins (Spring/Summer, 1994), leather & metal safety pins, (Gift of Dorothy Washington Sorensen).

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The exhibition’s earliest outfit is the unisex ‘Bondage’ ensemble (1974-80), part of the punk look pioneered by Dame Vivienne Westwood with musician and visual artist Malcolm McLaren (1946-2010). From the Seditionaries Personal Collection (1976-80) comes one of the famous ‘God Save the Queen’ Sex Pistols t-shirts. McLaren, who was managing the group at the time, had them produced to mark the band’s single released during the week of Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee. Linked to an emerging music scene, the punk movement incorporated the ‘visual violence’ of offensive and anti-establishment slogans with hard-edged fetish and bondage elements, to encapsulate a rebellious spirit and the rejection of conformity.

The aim of good tailoring is usually to conceal the means of closure within the garment, and minimise the visibility of zippers, hooks, and other ‘hardware’.

Nonetheless, in a hangover from the punk era, many designers have chosen to emphasise these aspects for added ‘street cred’. This is evident in the way a simple ‘little black’ Dress (1985) by Chanel has been hijacked by chunky gold chains criss-crossing the hips. The gilt safety pin became one of the trade marks of Gianni Versace (1946-97), as did his use of decorative metal studs, over-size buckles, and fabric pierced with multiple holes. Two in-your-face outfits from the mid-90s emphasise Versace’s penchant for searing colours, body-conscious cut, and a hedonistic Biker-chic-meets-Baroque display. His recurring motif of the classical meander (or ‘Greek key’) pattern, and the ubiquitous Medusa-head logo, are all deployed towards defining an aesthetic that is not so much ‘look at me’, as ‘scream back at me’.

Gaby Aghion is credited with being the first couturier to introduce luxury Prêt-àPorter clothing, a phrase she coined, in the 1950s with her label Chloé. Under the design directorship of Karl Lagerfeld, Evening ensemble (1983), epitomises this luxe ‘bohemian’ style of unabashedly feminine tailoring. Using cream silk crêpe and silk floss, the loosely belted three-quarter length sleeveless top is adorned with circus figures picked out in coloured glass beads like an enveloping visual narrative. Other examples from the flamboyant and statusconscious 1980s provide a big visual impact; an otherwise simple velvet Evening gown (1984) by Jacqueline, Comtesse de Ribes is accented by a billowing silk poplin collar and sleeves. Arnold Scassi’s outrageous yellow silk faille Evening gown (c.1988) resembles a deflating soufflé with an exaggerated, pillowy vertical bow delineating the bust and hips. Carolina Herrera’s short black and white Evening dress (1988) with polka-dots and sequins is tipped into Dynasty territory by the addition of a yellow silk taffeta over-skirt, draped and gathered at one side into a semi-pouf. The campy, vivid silk satin Evening dress (1992) by Franco Moschino (1950-94), adorned with multiple bows, takes this quintessential 1980s flourish to the limits of endurance.

Moschino S.p.A (est. 1983), Franco Moschino (1950-94), designer (1983-94), Evening dress (1992), silk satin, (Gift of Eden Riegel). Photographer: Brian E. Sanderson.

Melburnin / Inga Walton

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At the opposite end of the spectrum, Japanese avant-garde designers like Rei Kawakubo of Commes des Garçons, Yōji Yamamoto and Hiroaki Ohya have embraced technological innovations to push the boundaries of conceptual fashion in ways that have sometimes seemed to negate the figure altogether.

Collected and exhibited by art institutions around the world, Issey Miyake’s visionary designs have had an indelible impact on how clothing and fashion is perceived and interpreted. Miyake is best known for his heat-set pleated creations; highly sculptural and almost autonomous, these garments seem to defy gravity, and exist apart from the body which would otherwise have defined them. Miyake’s designs have a rhythm of their own: he says they are ‘visual creations’ and ‘functional accessories’. ‘Pao’ coat (1995), of heatset cellophane, radiates lively colours, and is paired with a ‘Pleats Please’ grey two-piece ensemble (c.1998) of heat-set polyester. Miyake’s clothes, “put themselves at the service of the body whilst at the same time offering us joyful visions of great luminosity and abandon ... experienced from the inside [they] also demand contemplation from the outside”.

The first Australian designer to have a piece acquired by the FIDM Museum, Toni Matičevski is represented by his ‘futuristic’ minimalist white neoprene ‘Haute Drape’ dress (2013-14) from his current collection, one of the most recent works in the exhibition. More commonly used for wetsuits and in medical applications, the sculptural and improvisatory qualities of this pliable rubber-like material are deftly harnessed by Matičevski to achieve the intriguing draped and flared proportions, which are nonetheless harmonious.

Expanding on this theme, the site-specific Triptych in White (2013), is Matičevski’s contribution to the National Gallery of Victoria’s sprawling exhibition Melbourne Now (until 23 March, 2014). Three ensembles using neoprene, silk, tissue paper dipped in resin, and beaded tulle are suspended in the stairwell across three levels of the Ian Potter Centre, Federation Square - www.ngv.vic.gov.au • Modern Love: Fashion Visionaries From the FIDM Museum, LA, Bendigo Art Gallery, 42 View Street, Bendigo (VIC), until 2 February, 2014 www.modernlovebendigo.com FIDM Museum site: www.fidmmuseum.org Russell Drysdale: Defining the Modern Australian Landscape at TarraWarra Museum of Art (until 9 February, 2014), is curated by Dr. Christopher Heathcote in conjunction with his monograph of the same name. Forty paintings and drawings, a number of which have not previously been seen or exhibited in public before, join pivotal works like The Rabbiters (1947), The Cricketers (1948), and four important paintings in the TWMA collection.

Born in England, Sir (George) Russell Drysdale, AC (1912-81) travelled to Australia twice as a child before his family emigrated permanently in 1923. His schooling was cut short when he hospitalised for a detached retina, a problem Melburnin / Inga Walton

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that would plague Drysdale throughout his life. While recuperating, he took art lessons, before working at the family’s Pioneer Sugar Mills in Queensland and learning farm management at his father’s sheep farm, Boxwood Park, near Albury, New South Wales. In 1932, Drysdale studied with painter George Bell (1878-1966) for two months before embarking on a tour of Europe, where he made a study of impressionist and modern art. His recurring eye problems rendered Drysdale unable to attend university, so with his family’s support, he enrolled at Bell’s art school in 1934. In 1938, Drysdale had his first solo exhibition in Melbourne before departing once more for Europe where he studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, and at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, London under the modernist Iain Macnab (1890-1967).

The start of World War II was a time of great consternation for Drysdale, as he was declared medically unfit for military service due to his left eye, which also excluded him from working as a war artist. The despondent Drysdale attempted to manage the family farm, and continued to exhibit. His works were increasingly dominated by the effects of the war in Australia, and fulfilled his need to be somehow involved in that effort. Drysdale was inspired by the rather bleak and sinister works he saw via illustrated magazines arriving from Britain, and in an exhibition of official British war art that toured Australia in early 1943.

The impact of the war on the civilian population was being documented the by the likes of Graham Sutherland (1903-80), Henry Moore (1898-1986) and John Piper (1903-92), all of whom were official war artists.

Towards the end of November, 1944 a commission from the Sydney Morning Herald to document the drought paralysing western New South Wales helped Drysdale find his central theme. The confronting ink drawings and watercolours that accompanied reporter Keith Newman’s frank text were a sensation, conveying a raw immediacy that brought Drysdale national acclaim.

His subsequent exhibition at Macquarie Galleries, Sydney in 1945 cemented Drysdale’s position as one of the most significant artists working in Australia. It provided a unique vision of the Australian landscape that prompted critic and fellow artist James Gleeson (1915-2008) to describe the works as, “... amongst the most terrifying images of devastation ever painted, ... their impact ... as sharp and shocking as that of [Peter] Breughel’s Triumph of Death [c.1562]”.

Nature’s destructive elements, coupled with an admiration for those on the land who grappled with such hardship and endured, were themes Drysdale would revisit throughout his career.

As newspapers focussed on combat reports from the great desert battles in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, Drysdale used the Australian desert as a metaphor for the distress of the modern world: the ‘apocalyptic’ impact, destruction and privation of war. Walls of China (named after a prehistoric dry lake bed and dunes at Lake Mungo), Tree Form and Desolation (all 1945) present a bleak, scorched, and decimated environment devoid of shelter or succour from the Melburnin / Inga Walton

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pitiless elements. Under murderous skies, surrealist gnarled tree stumps resemble misshapen charred corpses, and ominous rock formations loom over desolate ochre plains. The Scottish Captain Neil McEacharn, from a Catholic family, commissioned Crucifixion (1946), which explains its religious content, unique in Drysdale’s œuvre. It likens the carnage and despair of warfare to the darkened earth without a sun at Golgotha after the death of Christ, as related by the canonical Gospels. The three figures hanging from crosses recede into the desert, just as the horror of battle is muted by distance and sanitised to maintain morale. Head bowed and hands clasped, an anguished spectator in a robe rent with holes walks away from the scene. Gaunt and ravaged like the distorted, anthropomorphic tree trunks nearby, the solitary witness cannot long endure the parched landscape which echoes the brutality of the scene.

A visit to Cape York Peninsula in 1951 generated Drysdale’s intense interest in Aboriginal people. His evocative works in which they feature were the first of their kind in Australia: he made Indigenous groups the focus of his work without ever reducing his subjects to figures of amusement, sentiment, historical interest, or pandering to the ‘noble savage’ cliché. Sensitive to their plight, and keen that it be acknowledged and addressed, Drysdale depicts the people and their traditions as at one with the land. He observed, “... in a way these people, they not only have to me a particular dignity and grace, not the sort of dignity or grace that one thinks of in the Apollo Belvedere [c.120-40 AD], but the way in which a man comports himself in an environment which is his and has been his and his alone, he’s at ease in it ... they become part if you like, and yet they’re not part of a landscape, they do stand out”. Works like Youth With Painted Basket, Melville (c.1958), The Boresinker and his Daughter (1964), and Bob and Maudie (1972) dwell on people living in isolated communities at the margins of white society, but very much at one with their country. “Much is conveyed with palette, the artist using the same colour range to set figures and rocks, so that the Indigenous characters link with the surrounding scene”, Heathcote contends. “...People are set in perceptual rhythm with the earth. The very design connotes a sense of their belonging”.

Lady (Maisie) Drysdale, the artist’s widow, gifted hundreds of his black and white (1929-57) and colour (1955-67) photographs to the National Gallery of Victoria in November, 1982. They were the subject of the exhibition, Drysdale: Photographer (1987) curated by Jennie Boddington, who commented, “In photographs – where the process of creation must be carried out instantaneously in close contact with the subject – Drysdale has no difficulty in accepting characters as directly as they appear to accept him, and they are alive with vigour. Yet this is curiously altered when he comes to paint them. In recollection they are distanced, transmuted into a mysterious timelessness ...

The discipline and the leashed emotion which go into his painting throws some light on the richness of the fabric of his photography which glowed, as it were, in the background and informed the painting”. Since the NGV touring exhibition Russell Drysdale, 1912-81 (1997-98), which included over forty photographs, works from this archival collection have been little seen.

Melburnin / Inga Walton

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Russell DRYSDALE, TOP: Desolation (1945), oil on composition board, 76 x 101.5 cm. Castlemaine Art Gallery & Historical Museum, Victoria (Purchased 1946) © Estate of Russell Drysdale. BOTTOM: Youth with painted basket, Melville (c. 1958), oil on canvas, 90.1 x 70 cm, TarraWarra Museum of Art Collection, (Gift of Eva Besen, AO & Marc Besen, AO. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2008) © Estate of Russell Drysdale NEXT SPREAD: The cricketers (detail) 1948, oil on composition board, 76.2 x 101.5 cm. Private collection © Estate of Russell Drysdale.

Heathcote has selected 106 frames (1930’s-1958) from the wider pool; the colour images are arranged together along one wall and the two selections of black and white photos are exhibited in two vitrines nearby, grouped by subject. As Heathcote explains, “The cameras were a boon to Drysdale’s production. It allowed him to take quick snaps, recording material he could later work into canvases. At times he used his lens to compose fully resolved photographs”. As Drysdale grew increasingly accomplished in the photographic medium, these images serve to illustrate not only the coherent back-story to many of the paintings on display, but are of ethnographic and historical interest. Long forays into Northern, Central and Western Australia revealed the stark reality of the outback, “Drysdale’s colour photographs came to show human progress overwhelmed by the environment. A building is encircled by encroaching wilderness, attempts at construction fall into disrepair, a fence or road is being worn away- everywhere human effort is erased by the implacable elements”, Heathcote remarks.

Those often implacable elements have been somewhat kinder to the Museum since it opened to the public 18 December, 2003. The preeminent cultural destination of the Yarra Valley is now celebrating its 10th anniversary. The weekend of 7 – 8 December, 2013 will be free to patrons with a number of special events and public programmes.

Russell Drysdale: Defining the Modern Australian Landscape, TarraWarra Museum of Art, 311 Healesville-Yarra Glen Road, Healesville (VIC), until 9 February, 2014 - www.twma.com.au For the book - www.wakefieldpress.com.au

Melburnin / Inga Walton

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Direct from Venice: On the 24th November the two principal venues which are the heart of the Venice Biennale closed, marking the end of one of the world’s major global art events. Over 300,000 visitors came to Venice in the six months June to November, seeking out the latest in contemporary art. I was fortunate to have been in Venice to report on life and art during this amazing time.

Here are my top 10 exhibits.

The 55th Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte: La Biennale di Venezia: Il Palazzo Enciclopedico In Review: The Top 10 words & pics Tiziana Borghese

The Arsenale’s Top 5 1. Maurino Auriti’s Il Palazzo Enciclopedico At the heart of the conceptual focus of Il Palazzo Enciclopedico was Maurino Auriti’s head high model of the Encyclopaedic palace, which greeted visitors at the entrance. Auriti built it himself in 1955 out of found objects such as combs and scraps of wood. Keeping in mind that Auriti was self taught, not an architect and was relatively unknown before this Biennale, his model was remarkable in detail, passion, ingenuity and determination. Tiny banners surrounded the building with utopian slogans of peace and good will, pleas for better understanding and empathy and an end to humanity’s inhumanity. Whether it qualified as a work of art or not, it is a testament to one person’s passion and idealism and his conviction to stand by those ideals to create a better world. It stands here as a symbol of what can be achieved through self determination and faith in the face of opposition and narrow mindedness.

2. Pawel Althamer’s Venetians 2013 Althamer’s Venetians were impressive as stand alone sculptures but put together as an installation they emanated an eeriness and post-apocalyptic feel that was both engaging and aesthetic. Althamer’s body of work was also represented in a collateral retrospective of videos where the artist pushes the boundaries of his own perceptions documenting his experimentation with peyote, mescalin, marijuana, acid, hypnosis and reincarnation.

The Venice Biennale Part 2 / Tiziana Borghese

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3. Piero Golia’s Untitled (My Gold is Yours) 2013 Golia’s cement and pure gold 2.5 meter white square was of interest more as a conceptual piece than an aesthetic one. Embedded within the sculpture was a kilogram of gold, and visitors were invited to chip away at the block and take some home. Like Felix Gonzales Torres’ candy the viewer become an intricate participant in the work of art.. The work questioned ideas of art in terms of its value, permanence, and its relationship to the viewer. The number of times I visited this piece having forgotten to bring a knife etched it in my memory. From my observations not many other visitors carried knives to the Arsenale as most of the gold was still there and untouched.

4. Yuri Ancarani’s Da Vinci 2012 Ancarani’s series of three videos which showed robotic machines performing intricate operations to classical music was reminiscent of technology gone wrong with Hal in 2001: a Space Odyssey. Although these machines were still controlled by humans the Kubrick type scenario had an unsettling yet aesthetically compelling effect.

5. Ed Atkins’ The Trick Brain 2012 Atkins’ found footage of Andre Breton’s personal collection of unusual objects was fascinating from a voyeuristic point but also because Atkins’ narration referenced the body’s relationship to death and the object’s left behind, like a ghost remaining after the body is buried. The use of the novelty gun added suspense and anticipation to the work.

The Giardini’s Top 5 There were 88 counties and territories represented in this Biennale.

1. Russia: Vadim Zakharov’s installation Danea Expanding on the myth of Danea, who was imprisoned in a cave by her father and husband because they believed she would be responsible for their deaths, Zakharov has created a surreal, contemporary take on the oppression of women in a patriarchal society. The organisers only allowed women to visit the cave and take home some of the gold coins which raied from above. Men could only observe from red velvet pews reminiscent of a church from the second storey.

Visually enchanting it was art with a bite.

2. Nordic: Finn Terike Haapoja Falling Trees The human subject and its relationship to nature and technology was the focus of this installation. Haapoja converted the pavilion into a research laboratory, a space for an open dialogue between art, natural science and environmental ethics. Her technologically focused components visually displayed the cyclical nature of life on earth and the inevitability of death and recycling. Of note was the ‘talking’ tree whose sounds were magnified as human breath from spectators

The Venice Biennale Part 2 / Tiziana Borghese

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Pawel Althamer’s Venetians 2013

was blown into its leaves, and the visual display which showed the effect of heat leaving the body of a dying animal and of recycled decomposing leaves.

3. Korea: Kimsooja: Breathe Kimsooja played on visual and sensory perception by enveloping the Pavilion with a filter which produced a rainbow effect and mirrors which disoriented the viewer. In total contrast to this plethora of colour and images visitors were asked to enter a room which was totally dark and soundless. Immersion in stillness is something which is rare in our technologically driven world.

4. USA:Sarah Sze Triple Point The whole US Pavilion was filled with kinetic installations of found objects and photographs of found objects. Highlights were photographs of rocks, wrapped around plaster models of rocks, questioning the intricate relationship between image and the original and its relationship to reproduction and display.

5. Argentina: Nicola Costantino: Eva Peron The iconic 20th century Eva Peron was represented in a number of video installations as she groomed herself in front of a mirror in her bedroom. As viewers moved around this intimate space they become aware that the parallel mirrors placed on either side of the room reflected both the front and the back of Peron simultaneously. Of note was a robotic rendition of the wooden frame she wore for her back, moving without a body like a ghost inhabiting the space. The work questioned alternative realities and the contrast between private and public space.

There were so many exhibits of interest and my original list was much longer, but the exhibits above stood out from the rest.

The Venice Biennale Part 2 / Tiziana Borghese

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stralian stories with Neil Boyack

Wake in Fright

by Kenneth Cook

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eleased in 1961, Wake in Fright is short, hard and fast read. It is a powerful, modern cautionary tale that uses staples of Australian culture as its substance: booze, gambling, addiction, killing, a good-Samaritan benevolence. Set in a harsh western New South Wales bush-mining environment that hammers all inhabitants into shape, Cook’s writing is clear and reflective in style, even beautiful. His well-drawn main protagonist, John Grant, goes about winning, losing, and experiencing the ins and outs of life in the outback mining town Bundinyabba, or “the Yabba” (a town that Grant can never really escape from).

Starting out as a school teacher in a tiny town called Tiboonda, Grant detests nearly all humans and landscapes he interacts with. Kenneth Cook gives Grant an effective inner voice, through which Grant voices critical thoughts on the habits and the mannerisms of all people he comes into contact with. This gives the narrative a strong and distinctive class element which seems to distance the reader from Grant initially. As the story unfolds and his life drifts further and further away from what he wants it to be however, the reader’s empathy for Grant is engaged, although only ever at an arm’s length.

One hundred yards from the school was the hotel, and near that the railways siding called Tiboonda Station. The three buildings made up the township of Tiboonda. All were timber and iron, all built in the monotonous, low box-form that characterizes western architecture; and all were riddled with white ants and dry rot. They stood in the plain abjectly, as though they no longer made any serious claim to constitute a township.

After losing the lot Grant meets Tim Hynes at a pub. Hynes is a hard drinking, soft touch for losers, Grant included, and he invites the luckless Grant into his home for dinner and lodging (as all people in “the Yabba” would do – a constant point of soreness for Grant).

This is where Janette, Hyne’s daughter, lures Grant into the desert-mine-site-bush for a moonlight canoodle. It is surreal, and unreal, as he is drunk and by this time mentally unwell and all he can hear are the little yaps of a fox in the distant desert dark.

But even as her arms closed around his neck nausea gripped him, violently, incredibly.

He rolled off her body and knelt in the scrub and vomited and vomited, painfully and noisily in abject humiliation.

Sick and ashamed he turned again at last to Janette. She was standing outside the circle of scrub. Her dress was buttoned up.

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The gambling scenes, set in a two-up ring, in a hot, smoke filled warehouse at the end of a series of alleyways are wonderfully created, offering the reader a dangerous sense of the character’s mental destruction.

A humming numbness gripped his body and he was afraid that the other gamblers would see his deterioration. The muscles of his face were so taut he felt he must be grimacing wildly, and surely his cheeks were twitching.

His lips were working in desperation. Somewhere in his mind the irrationality of his actions was clear to him; but he was like an automaton, dominated by an idea that was almost an instruction. He was being forced forward by a decision made, it seemed, forever ago.

Grant’s self-talk (almost as a lunatic at times) throughout the book is an effective foil for the assured descriptions bringing the text to life. Particularly in the unforgettable kangaroo hunting scene; a harrowing experience for any reader.

Dick, yelling madly now, drove straight at the kangaroo pressing down the accelerator, driving as no sane man would do, crashing over stones, through low scrub, wrecking the mudguards on the remnants of trees, and still the kangaroo came on, unharmed by the fusillade of bullets which Tydon was pumping out the window.

Joe and Dick started off to look at the damage to the car, but Tydon lingered, took out his own knife and neatly castrated the carcass.

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The landmark Australian movie created from the text is just as good as the text, if not better. The film, like the tale, has had its own rollicking adventure and mystery. Directed

by Ted Kotcheff the world premiere of Wake in Fright (as Outback) occurred at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival. Kotcheff was nominated for a Golden Palm Award. (Oddly Kotcheff went on to make other films that seem a thousand miles away in Weekend at Bernie’s and First Blood). For Australian cinema history however the film is extremely significant as it was Jack Thompsons’s first feature role, and Chips Rafferty’s last.

Critics from all areas have sung the film’s praises. Nick Cave called it “The best and most terrifying film about Australia in existence.” Rotten Tomatoes describes it as “Awe-inspiring, brutal and stunning”. Following the film’s restoration, it was selected as a Cannes Classic title by the head of the department Martin Scorsese, and screened at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Scorsese said, “Wake in Fright is a deeply – and I mean deeply – unsettling and disturbing movie. I saw it when it premiered at Cannes in 1971, and it left me speechless.

Visually, dramatically, atmospherically and psychologically, it’s beautifully calibrated and it gets under your skin one encounter at a time, right along with the protagonist played by Gary Bond. I’m excited that Wake in Fright has been preserved and restored and that it is finally getting the exposure it deserves.”

At 146 pages, Wake in Fright is as finer effort as you would see anywhere in literature, and “the Yabba” whilst presented as a wasteland could quite easily be a promised land for the Australian drinking male. As one of only two films ever screened twice at Cannes, this is an Australian tale that burns just as hard, sad, and hot today as it did when it first came out. If you haven’t read this book, or seen the movie, you simply must.

Refs: Cook, K, Wake in Fright, Penguin, 1975, Ringwood. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/wake_in_fright/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_in_Fright http://www.nathanael.com/?page_id=29 http://www.frightfestoriginals.com/frightfest2013po.html

Stralian Stories / Neil Boyack

Neil Boyack is a writer, poet, welfare manager founder and director of the Newstead Short Story Tattoo (www.newsteadtattoo.org) and CLIFF (www.cliff.net.au). His poems and stories have been published widely. You can find his work at www.neilboyack.com

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by David Thrussell

THE TUBERCULAR HISS OF THE AIRCRAFT filled my ears. In every direction my gaze bounced off textured moulded plastic, aluminium and sad beige carpet.

The plane was full, its departure delayed by a handful of final, anonymous, straggling passengers. Inside the cabin I felt a peculiar lifelessness. Though apparently of the same species, we were like different organisms from different universes; a void of empathy or interest. It always felt like this.

Though touched by melancholy I was also touched by the absurdity of it. We all had lives perhaps rich with laughter or perhaps clouded by tears but the urge to confide or converse was gone. Robots from opposite ends of the galaxy trapped for a time like insects in some mischievous child’s jar. It was that exceptional ... and that ordinary. Somewhat liberated by the knowledge that no one would dare talk to me, I decided to pace the aisle, study my fellow exhibits and kill some time.

How had I missed her?

She was sitting in the row just behind me. As I rose she caught my eye and smiled. Not the sad-arsed smile one of the living dead might have attempted, but the real thing. Like a breeze from a tenderly stoked furnace it brought my skin to life. Her face playfully mimicked my blush as she broke into another wide smile and her head bobbed from shoulder to shoulder. Gripped by a momentary wave of panic I turned away to study my tight passage past the person next to me. I gathered myself and turned back to her, eyes still fixed on me. We laughed warmly at each other.

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My god. Does she have any idea how beautiful she is? Not the vapid looks of some photo model waif, nor the manicured preening of some credit-carded fashion vulture. Her beauty radiated from body and soul. Her eyes danced across the room with an intoxicating brew of joy and disdain.

She was young. Well, at least young to me – nineteen, twenty, maybe twentyone – like a rose just bloomed, succulent, confident and curious. I lost my nerve, broke my eyes from her and headed down the central passageway to the rear of the aircraft. You idiot, I scolded myself. The girl is half your age, you’ve never laid eyes on her before and you’re like putty in her hands. If she asked you to jump out of the plane right now your only question would be, “which exit would you prefer me to force open?” Fool.

I puttered about in the bathroom washing my face and filling in time enjoying the cool water against my rough skin. After some time I exited the bathroom and there she stood, defiant and cheeky.

“Hey”, came her casual greeting as she tilted her head and rocked against the wall. Her body was firm and gently exploding into womanhood like the bud of some exotic flower about to greet the sun. “What’s happening old man?”

“Oh, I left my walking frame around here somewhere but I just can’t seem to find it”.

She was glad I took her jibe well and sniffed a faint laugh.

“I’ve always thought senility could be kind of fun”, she said convincingly.

“I’ll let you know.”

“You’re alright pops. Your first time to Hobart?”

“Oh, yeah,” I arched my eyebrows exaggeratedly.

“We should hang out, you know, take in all the sights this fine city has to offer.

That is unless you’re otherwise engaged?”

I shook my head and let out a breathy chuckle.

“After a few minor business requirements I’m at the mercy of this renowned metropolis”.

“Cool.”

Sex Machine / David Thrussell

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She smiled easily and headed toward the bathroom. As she closed the door I realised my heart was pounding. She had done it. She had closed the vast void that separates strangers as carelessly as if it was never there to begin with; so different to all the people my age, with their baggage and issues and all the rest of it; confident and secure in her knowledge that the universe was essentially some kind of joke.

Life had trampled that out of me long ago, and I knew instinctively to head back to my seat before I blew it.

She returned after a while and we chatted back and forth over and around my seat. I was careful to strike that balance between warmth and distance, to show my interest, yet not reveal its full extent lest she change her mind and I mope like a wet puppy.

The plane landed, and after the usual procedures we disembarked down a long blandly carpeted corridor. I was careful not to follow her progress too closely and allowed myself just one glance in her direction as she bobbed along with a small pink backpack. God she was beautiful. Picking up on my gaze she scooted cheerfully in my direction.

“Ok pops. Should I meet you later on at your hospice?”

I blanched for a moment, but the truth was an insult from her was like a delicate tongue kiss from any other woman. I recovered as quickly as I could. “The orderlies should have me bathed and sedated by seven.”

“Cool. And if you’re thinking of lavishing some expensive dinner on me I like Thai.”

I smiled sweetly from her prickly charm, and an utter lack of meaningful words at my disposal. “Thai it is.”

Her path peeled away from mine as she prepared to head in a different direction out the automated exit gates.

“Hold on. What’s your name?”

“Rose.”

I laughed awkwardly. She tilted her head as if to say, ‘what gives, old man?’

“It can’t be,” I replied.

Sex Machine / David Thrussell

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“It is.”

“It’s so strikingly ... suitable.”

“Why? It’s just a name.”

“You’re so ... so alive.”

For the briefest moment a glimmer of embarrassment flashed across her face.

“Save it up for tonight, old man,” she laughed, but without cruelty.

I smiled back and kept smiling as she headed toward the city bus stop.

Rose presented herself at my hotel just after seven. Her incandescence lit the drab foyer and the concierge and a handful of other staff struggled not to glare as she strolled toward where I sat at the bar.

Dutifully I had arranged a table at a Thai restaurant just a few minutes away. In the hours since I had seen her she had not left my mind once. As I entertained clients and prospective clients, stroking their egos and caressing their pocketbooks, I thought of her fresh skin and taut shoulders. If anything, it made it easier. While they thought I spoke of dividends and the bottom line, in my heart I spoke to Rose.

And in my hours without Rose I thought as clearly and calmly as I could. She was everything that I was desperate for in my life ... youthful, enthusiastic and undamaged. And I was, of course, a fool for thinking that I could offer her anything in return. While she did indeed toy with a sad, older man, I was, in theory, free to say no at any stage.

So I came to be at ease with our bargain. She would while away an evening at dinner in a foreign city with some strange businessman and I would have a glimpse of her vitality. Nothing I could keep or hold, but a glimpse of beauty is better than no beauty at all. And I would be thankful for this, for it was far more than, in truth, I deserved.

We walked to the restaurant and I felt solid and strong with my resolution behind me, as her quips and cheer set the air around me alight. Rose was to spend three weeks in Hobart finishing a commission to paint a large urban mural for the city council. She regaled me with daring tales of her mostly fabricated resume to attain the job and how people in those kinds of positions will believe anything, if it is the thing they want to believe.

We ate and she told me more, and like a gentle slap on the face it dawned on me Sex Machine / David Thrussell

4 Melissa PROPOSCH, No Ground 2008, digital collage

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that I was happy. So unfamiliar was the sensation that at first I was anxious about it, but then it washed over me. Not pondering some other engagement or situation, nor rehearsing a pitch or placation; just here, now and alive.

“But what about you, old man?” she tilted her head and smiled.

“Nothing to tell. I want to be a clean slate and start again. No past, just a future.”

“Are you having a mid-life crisis?” she seemed excited by the idea.

“Probably. Probably have been for a while. Things just creep up on you. You’ll understand one day.”

She clapped her hands together and chuckled. “Cool ... I love your air of melancholy ... you carry it around with you wherever you go ... you really do think you’re just some faceless cog in some vast machine, don’t you?”

I mustered up a weak and mocking salute. “Cog 607/ b11 reporting for duty.”

“I find resignation strangely romantic.”

“Speaking from the cog’s point of view I would say that is indeed strange.”

We ordered up dessert and soon over mango and sticky rice our playful conversation continued.

“So, they’ve put me up in this warehouse place. It’s arty but kinda creepy. You should come check it out.”

Toying with me again, but I forgave her. Her kind is almost born for it.

“Sure”, I weighted the word with warmth and distance. I would have one cup of tea and a chat before leaving her in her Spartan, exposed floorboard loft. I would do nothing to betray my profound longing for her and when it came time to leave I would do so perfunctorily and with good cheer. I desired her but would never have her. The pleasure of her company was more than I could expect on a cold night in this cold town.

I paid and we took a cab to an industrial part of the outer city. I felt comfortable as Rose directed the driver through dark streets and narrow laneways behind abandoned wool stores and crumbling factory sites. There would be no rejection coming my way. Protect my fragile self and enjoy what fate throws in my direction.

Sex Machine / David Thrussell

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The driver eyed me warily as I handed over some bills. It had started to rain a short while before and Rose led me across the slippery cobbles toward a haphazard metal sheet sliding door that faced the laneway. The door rattled open and Rose stood proud of its musty and dark interior.

“Freaky hey?” she clasped my hand tightly and pulled me enthusiastically up the wide wooden stairs. “Come on old man, live a little,” she exhorted as her face disappeared in shadow. Her hand was warm, vital and bold and the air around me was dank with the aroma of old grease and labour.

We reached the top of the stairs and stood momentarily in the pitch black while she fiddled with the door. After a few moments it opened and all I could make out was a small lamp lighting a corner of what felt like a large space. Rose stood in the open doorway and curled her arm around my waist. Breathlessly she hissed, “kiss me old man,” and her moist, extraordinary lips buckled around mine, and her youthful tongue pushed it’s way excitedly into my mouth. With relief and love my body collapsed into hers. I cupped her firm breast in my hand as her tongue pushed inward, harder and harder.

She broke away and led me urgently to a makeshift bed far from the solitary lamp and barely visible.

“You ... here,” she pushed me hard on the bed and whispered, “I’m off to the bathroom ... back in a jiffy.”

I flattened myself on the bed in a daze. I longed for her so much and exhilarated I peered after her into the night. The light went out and the door opened again.

After some time in the darkness she clunked her way in my direction and I felt her sidle up beside me.

Stunned, I had so much to say to her, “Rose, I...”

“Sssh,” her voice had changed and she sounded efficient and quiet.

With surprising strength she tore some of my clothes aside and pressed herself hard against me. Again her lips joined mine but this time they were more determined and almost brutal.

Her body was hard, harder than I would have imagined and it rocked against me in a slow spasm as her tongue lashed my neck. The last of my clothes were briskly removed and within moments she had forced me inside her. I felt one hand pressed hard into my chest as she pounded me from above. I could make nothing out in the inky blackness, but her grinding against me spoke of joy and unrestrained enthusiasm. I grasped her forcefully and pushed as deep inside her as I could.

Sex Machine / David Thrussell

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‘Oh Rose, it feels so beautiful to be inside you and you are so kind to give this gift. A gift I shall never forget,’ I thought. Within minutes my passion buckled up inside me and I held her closer and closer still. My mind flashed to whether it was alright to come inside her, but as I groaned and sighed she held me with such a vice-like grip that I couldn’t remove myself, and so I pounded and pounded and filled her with my seed and howled like a wild beast.

And still she did not release her grip. Though exhausted, minutes later my semen splashed inside her again. After some time she silently coaxed me back into action and our lovemaking continued until, delirious, I fell into a happy and deep sleep.

I could not be sure of the time when I awoke, but it was morning and dust danced in the beams of sunlight that pierced the dilapidated building. I was naked and alone in the ramshackle bed, an ancient mattress and well worn bedclothes low upon the ground. There was no sign of Rose and somehow I knew that she had been absent for a while.

And then I saw it.

The thing.

The machine.

As if discarded, it lay splayed at the base of the bed.

Its shape was roughly that of a woman, yet fashioned out of black leather and moulded latex. In the harsh light of day the device was notable for its primitive construction: gears, levers and pulleys bristled under its patchwork fake skin and led to a central area at the base of the back. A small metallic hatch was open and strange controls and an unbuckled brace lay inside the tiny area; the machine was not operated by a normal human being. Not normal by any definition. The control compartment could accommodate only the smallest infant or a horribly mutated or deformed person.

And then the waves of revulsion undulated through me.

I had fucked this thing, this ugly machine, over and over again.

Violated and abused I dry retched on the dank pillow. My head swam with nausea. Whatever foul creature had operated this machine, I had communed with it and it had used me for its hideous pleasure.

Wounded beyond description, I gathered my things and hurried out of the empty building. Out again, into the cold city.

Melissa PROPOSCH, Comfortmaster 2008, digital collage Sex Machine / David Thrussell

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Sex Machine / David Thrussell

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with Dmetri Kakmi

Dear Dreamboat I was heavily pregnant in hospital. A male friend was there, wearing the green hospital clothes, like doctors wear. Though I acknowledged him as my friend, he was my doctor. It felt as if I had known him for years and I felt very safe.

I seemed to be in labour, though we were are all pretty calm about it. I was more worried about the book that I had with me (I can’t remember the title).

I was supposed to review it with my friend. But he was busy taking care of me during my labour, while I was trying to talk about the book. I was quite enthusiastic about it. The dream faded with me trying to get his attention, while at the same time my feelings towards him became intimate.

Maria Dear Maria The book at its deepest level is a symbol of the universe and is often aligned with the tree of life. The letters in a book, like the leaves on a tree, represent creation’s totality, divine secrets that can be revealed to initiates. Closed, the book is virgin matter. An open book has been fertilised. It is a revelation that can be shared.

You have read the book and want to discuss it with an individual who is, interestingly, garbed in pale green. Green is a holy colour for Muslims.

Elsewhere it is a kind of miracle colour. It spreads over a wintry landscape, bringing life to what was arid. It represents fertility, the unstoppable life force spreading wildly in all directions. But it can also swing across to the opposite pole. Green can also represent illness, slime, mould, decay, the face of monstrous threat — the face of the Wicked Witch of the West, for instance, is green.

Your wish to discuss the book, the mysteries of the universe, shows a questing, curious nature. You want to expand the limits of every day experience, but you meet resistance, obstacles. Nevertheless your being is pervaded with a desire to be on intimate terms with universal truths, and with fruitful abundance. Persevere.

i m k a K i r t e m D h ti w

Dear Dreamboat I dreamt I had inadvertently killed a baby. For some reason, I put it in a freezer thinking I could always thaw it later on. It was a big baby boy, probably a month old. I gradually realised that thawing wouldn’t bring it back to life. I was so relieved to wake up. I can still see the dead baby I was holding, as the truth dawned on me and I felt sick.

Moreno Dear Moreno Have you smothered a vital quality, an ambition, a longing? Look in yourself. Is there regret, are you pining over an unfulfilled youthful enthusiasm? Or maybe you yearn for lost innocence?

In Christian symbolism angels are represented as babies or cherubs — a reference to a paradisal state. The child is pure, innocent. It exists in the present. There is no past or future. There is only now. No judgement. Only simplicity, spontaneity, selfcontainment. As we see in Blake’s art, the baby can also represent the spark of life or inspiration. Given that you are holding a frozen newborn, I hazard to say that you hesitated to act on a scheme, a mission, a goal. There is regret and remorse, but it is never too late. As long as you are alive, there is always hope. There’s always possibility. The dream does not herald an end. It’s an exhortation to act.

This is the final Dreamboat column. Thank you to every one who entrusted me with their innermost secrets over the last months. It was a privilege and an honour. I hope I did your dreams justice.

Dmetri Kakmi learned to tell fortunes and interpret dreams by observing his grandmother when he was growing up in Turkey.

Nowadays he combines that fledgling knowledge with Jungian, ancient and traditional symbolism.