August 2017

trouble 148

David LaChapelle Ballarat International Foto Biennale (BIFB) 19 August – 17 September IMAGES IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE All images by David LaChapelle. FRONT COVER: Michael Jason in ‘American Jesus: Hold me, carry me boldly’, Hawaii, 2009. Cathedral 2007.

Gas am pm, Hawaii, 10/08/2012. Redeeming Paradise, Las Vegas, 1999.

Self-portrait as House, Los Angeles, CA, 2/16/2013. Rape of Africa, Los Angeles, 2009. Courtney Love: Pieta, Los Angeles, 2006. https://ballaratfoto.org/ http://davidlachapelle.com/

CONTENTS DAVID LACHAPELLE

Ballarat International Foto Biennale .........................................................

COMICS FACE

Ive Sorocuk ..............................................................................................

RENEWABLE ENERGY: BATTERSEA & BANKSIDE

Creative Cowboy .....................................................................................

SLEEPWALKING TOWARDS THE APOCALYPSE: RECENT PRINTS BY PETER WARD

Loris Button ...............................................................................................

NO HANDS

CreateAbility .............................................................................................

AUGUST SALON

Also Selective ...........................................................................................

FINDING THE ART IN PHUKET: ART AS IT HAPPENS - ROMADON SURIYAN

Anthony S. Cameron ................................................................................

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COVER: David LaChapelle. Michael Jason in ‘American Jesus: Hold me, carry me boldly’, Hawaii, 2009. Ballarat International Foto Biennale (BIFB), 19 August – 17 September 2017 - ballaratfoto.org/ Issue 148 AUGUST 2017 trouble is an independent monthly mag for promotion of arts and culture Published by Trouble Magazine Pty Ltd. ISSN 1449-3926 EDITOR Steve Proposch CONTRIBUTORS David LaChapelle, Ive Sorocuk, Andrea Hylands & Peter Hylands, Loris Button, Anthony S. Cameron, love.

GET from AppStore FOLLOW on issuu & twitter SUBSCRIBE at 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!

This comic first appeared in Trouble July 2010

Creative cowboy films, a global new media broadcaster in film and publishing with viewers around the globe, make documentaries and publish blogs, e-books and e-magazines about art and culture and nature. They work in some of the most remote places on earth and with some of the world’s most significant artists.

CLIMATE

Renewable Energy - Battersea & Bankside Battersea and Bankside Power Stations demonstrate how great old buildings turn into great new ones.

And how the energy world moves on. Both power stations were originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, also the original designer of our very favourite bit of streetscape industrial design, the red British telephone box. [ cont... ] visit Creative Cowboy Films

Sleepwalking Towards the Apocalypse: recent prints by Peter Ward

by Loris Button

Walk into a space filled with Peter Ward’s prints and you immediately feel uplifted. The majority are highly coloured, joyous even in their immediate impression; however look more closely and it is evident that the richly layered imagery is reflective of a deeply pessimistic view of the future for both humanity and the world we inhabit.

There is a dichotomy here in that many of the prints are the result of the pleasure involved for this artist in playing with his exuberant colour sense, with composition and with method – but far from being simply about making a pleasing picture, Ward is intent upon conveying what is frequently a seriously scary message. As Alison Alder tells us: “Ward is a thoughtful composer of ideas, illustrating his concerns regarding the state of the world [and in doing so] critiquing society’s apparent desire to cut off its own nose despite overwhelming evidence of the foolishness of such an act.”

In Lost for example, the gorgeously ornate frame surrounding the central figure of St Sebastien, is in fact made up of a cleverly repeated image of a factory chimneystack spewing smoke into the atmosphere. And this message of environmental destruction is further reinforced with drones, a sinking car, more smokestacks and a mythical sea monster occupying the surrounding sea. In the evocatively named Doing the Apocalypse Boogie, hands become smokestacks, churches morph into factories, and cars and drones threaten to overwhelm us, and in High Capex, this text based work regurgitates mining industry speak; “High capex, low margin, big volume, long term payback” lifted directly from the financial pages of a national newspaper – so after a close inspection of these very attractive prints, you do get the message!

Ward is a skilled printmaker who is constantly testing the parameters of his chosen linocut medium through an experimental approach to materials and process. In a 2015 review, Sasha Grishen drew on the artist’s own words to explain his working method and the key ideas which underpin the imagery: Process underpins all my work. I begin with collages of random images and thoughts allowing the collage, as it coalesces, to play its part in suggesting a theme.

Preoccupations with self, social insecurities and despair over the environment are ideas which constantly reoccur and are generally treated in an ironic way.

This artist is never content with a single iteration of an image, all are articulated through different colour combinations and many are now printed onto fabrics to be reconfigured into large quilts – objects that usually signify warmth and comfort, All images: Peter Ward. PREVIOUS SPREAD: Earthmother Gets Sold A Pup (detail) 2016 linocut.

RIGHT: Post Modern Serfdom 2017, linocut, 150 x 120 cm. NEXT SPREAD: Wrapping Paper #1 2016, woven linocut, 50 x 60 cm.

Sleepwalking Towards the Apocalypse: Peter Ward / Loris Button

“Preoccupations with self, social insecurities and despair over the environment are ideas which constantly reoccur and are generally treated in an ironic way.” but in this instance are the bearers of a most uncomfortable message. Single prints are assembled into related groups and large wall-sized works are created using multiple blocks for a single image, while still more prints are cut up and re-woven, resulting in imagery that positively vibrates with luscious colour and complexity. For Ward, colour is a tool that entices the viewer in, engaging attention in order to deliver some uncomfortable truths.

In the two most recent series, Post Modern Serfdom and Small Tunes, much of the imagery is more overtly grim and therefore more immediately challenging.

Colour is eschewed in favour of black and white, before those same images are again recreated with Ward’s signature use of intense colour. Especially evident in the black and white iterations of this imagery, the two series bring to mind the graphic works of German Post Expressionists such as Max Pechstein, Käthe Kollwitz and George Grosz, great artists with a serious post-war message from another time when the world seemed hell bent on self-destruction.

Titles such as Earth Mother Gets Sold a Pup, Doing the Apocalypse Boogie and The Apocalypse Tattoo Parlour Does the Christian Democrat, are not only revealing of Ward’s preoccupations, they suggest the era in which this baby boomer grew up – in a post-war world which had suddenly discovered new and ever more destructive ways to make use of the earth’s precious and finite resources – with hardly a thought to the future we will bequeath to our descendants. As Alder evocatively suggests, Ward is: “Mining for images in the suburbs of the Australian mind.” In doing so Peter Ward reminds us in no uncertain terms that the Apocalypse is heading our way and it is well past time to wake up.

Loris Button Adjunct Research Fellow, Federation University Australia > Post Modern Serfdom 2017, quilted linocuts, 160 x 130 cm.

Sleepwalking Towards the Apocalypse, Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery, Horseshoe Bend, Swan Hill (VIC), 25 August – 15 October 2017 - gallery.swanhill.vic.gov.au

4 PERFORMANCE

No Hands No Hands is a poetic re-imagining of Isak Dinesen’s The Diver. Set in an Islamic culture somewhere in the timeless past, No Hands uses physical theatre, sound and video projection in an exploration of our obsession with imagined ideals and the possibility of flying, falling and floating towards the unknown. CreateAbility, a mixed ability company based in Bendigo, presented this work at the 2017 Castlemaine State Festival, and also performed at Ulumbarra Theatre in Bendigo earlier this year. visit CreateAbility on Facebook

august salon

august salon

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PREVIOUS SPREAD: Bespoke couturier, Briana Hurley-Shaw. Perceptions, Living Arts Space at the Bendigo Visitor Centre, 51-67 Pall Mall Bendigo (VIC), 9 August – 12 November 2017 - bendigotourism.com.au 1. Irianna Kanellopoulou, Wild Things Roam 2014, ceramic and glazes, Manningham Art Collection. Photo Jeremy Dillon. Courtesy the artist.

Manningham Victorian Ceramic Art Award - Finalist’s Exhibition, Manningham City Square (MC²), 687 Doncaster Road, Doncaster (VIC), 16 August – 23 September 2017 - manningham.vic.gov.au/gallery 2. Jesper Just, Sirens of Chrome 2010, RED transferred to Blu-ray disc, duration 12:38 minutes with sound, edition 3 of 7, State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia. Purchased through the TomorrowFund, Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation, 2011. Jesper Just, Screen Space, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Cultural Centre, Perth (WA), until 10 August 2017 - artgallery.wa.gov.au 3. Wanda Gillespie, Seeker 1 (Fuyuko) 2016, woodcarving (ash), paint, fur, fabric, leather, string, 140 x 40 x 40cm. Image courtesy of the artist. I Was Here, Fremantle Arts Centre, 1 Finnerty Street, Fremantle (WA), 22 July — 16 September 2017 - fac.org.au 4. Ian Strange, SOS 2015-2017, archival digital print. Ian Strange: Island, Fremantle Arts Centre, 1 Finnerty Street, Fremantle (WA), 22 July — 16 September 2017 - fac.org.au 5. Carolyn Hawkins, Trashed 2015, etching; edition 3/8. Reproduced courtesy of the artist. 2017. Geelong acquisitive print awards, Geelong Gallery, 55 Little Malop Street, Geelong (VIC), 14 August – 8 October 2017 geelonggallery.org.au 6. Mark Dober, Fawcett’s Gully 1 (detail) 2016, watercolour and gouache on paper. Courtesy of the artist. Photographer: James McArdle and Lorena Carrington. The You Yangs — Mark Dober, Geelong Gallery, 55 Little Malop Street, Geelong (VIC), 14 August – 15 October 2017 - geelonggallery.org.au 7. Fred Williams, You Yang Pond 1963, oil on composition board. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Gift of Godfrey Phillips International Pty Ltd 1968 © Estate of Fred Williams. Fred Williams in the You Yangs, Geelong Gallery, 55 Little Malop Street, Geelong (VIC), 19 August – 5 November 2017 geelonggallery.org.au 8. Pierre Hardy, Poworama 2011. Collection of the Bata Shoe Museum, gift of Pierre Hardy. Photo: Ron Wood. Courtesy American Federation of Arts/Bata Shoe Museum. The Rise of Sneaker Culture, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Cultural Centre, Perth (WA), until 4 September - artgallery.wa.gov.au

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FINDING THE ART IN

Phuket Art as it happens: Romadon Suriyan

by Anthony S. Cameron

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Romadon Suriyan is not your run-of-the-mill, garden variety artist.

He is an artist who can tear the throat out of traditional art practices and still attract a huge and appreciative audience. He is one of a handful of performance artists who are truly original. His art is often political in a country ruled by a military dictatorship. A large part of his art happens in the moments when it is created and witnessed. The fact that, for years, they called Romadon crazy just egged him on and, ironically, helped him forge a distinctive place in contemporary Thai Art Culture.

Romadon’s art points to the humanity lurking behind us all, giving it power, substance and poignancy in a time characterised by one dimensional ‘likes’ and ‘shares’. It is work that screams wildly in a heavily filtered, Instagrammed world. I met Romadon many years ago on one of my first forays into the madness of Phuket in 2008, during a two month holiday that I hoped would never end. It was then I met the many talented local artists that were beginning to swarm around the Western money flooding into this little, mad island.

But this guy stood out. Not only was he a good head taller than most, he had charisma, integrity, presence, and a way of immersing you in his art (literally, as it turns out) that made him stand out from the crowd.

The traditional clichéd image of the artist staring pensively at a blank canvas with a brush in his hand doesn’t really fit Romadon. He is a particularly gifted painter and quite prolific, but he really comes alive when he is literally throwing himself at his work, covered in buckets of paint, launching himself at the canvas screaming like a man suddenly freed from the chains that bind.

When Romadon turns up to an exhibition opening or a party, you know you are in for an interesting and challenging night. There is also a high chance you will be spattered with paint, or worse, be asked to join in the performance.

This is art that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and ever so politely asks you to dispel your pre-conceived notions, break through your wall of passive observation and join in the fun. You will be seductively bombarded with rousing music that points to a wider significance as you duck and weave around the flying lumps of paint and glimpse a layer of poignancy most artists can only dream of.

PREVIOUS SPREAD: Still from Mom Tri’s VR Gallery Romadon Suriya, Youtube > Photo: Romadon Suriya, with kind permission of the Phuket Bulletin Finding the Art in Phuket / Tony Cameron

All this and more has seen Romadon achieve a very rare thing for an artist: Celebrity. First, he became famous for what he does best – performance art – and then, in 2012, he ended up on TV for a few months with a number of appearances on Thailand’s Got Talent, of all things. I had only recently moved to Phuket, and the guy I had met four years earlier was now a household name, or about to become one. He called me and asked if I would film one of his performances, which was also being filmed by the producers of Thailand’s got Talent. The show had catapulted him to instant, disposable fame a month earlier, and he wanted a back-up recording. I was happy to oblige.

He walked into the middle of his performance area, which consisted of a heavily papered stage in front of the outside wall of an art gallery. He stood completely still, his face as blank as the canvas all around him. There were cans of paint suspended above the area on pulleys and ropes, as well as some buckets of paint laying around on the stage floor. The wall had some hastily hung paper stretched across it as a temporary canvas. He was wearing an old, white suit, with a waistcoat and matching white hat. There was a slight breeze blowing the stage paper around, adding an even more temporary air to an already momentary art form. I hit record on the various cameras I had set up, sat back and watched the show.

First he picked up one of the buckets and threw the contents at the wall, leaving an orange blur across it and the stage floor. He slipped over a few times as he went back for more buckets, covering himself in the orange paint, letting out a whimper of distress as he did. He tripped and stumbled over to another bucket and attempted to throw its contents onto the wall too, succeeding in covering himself and the floor with more paint. He lay there on the stage for a moment or two, as if trying to fathom how he had ended up there, before standing up slowly and shaking the globs of paint from his hair and face. He then walked over to the centre of the stage and promptly emptied the contents of one of the buckets on the pulleys above his head all over himself, and this time it was black paint. He stood, almost passively, staring at the wall for a moment before hurling himself at it whilst screaming wildly. He hit the wall hard, leaving a solid black smudge on the orange, then slid limply to the ground, a crumpled heap of painted human. He groaned quietly, almost apologetically as he lay there.

He turned his head towards the wall, and sprung up quickly, as if captured by a moment of inspiration. He threw himself at the wall over and over, arms and

Finding the Art in Phuket / Tony Cameron

legs flailing whilst screaming desperately, like a man possessed. He slipped and slid backwards away from the wall and revealed a picture of three figures holding their arms up in defiance, all holding a flag of some sort. It was then he pulled something out of his coat pocket. It was a Thai flag. He walked over to one side of the painting he had just created, held his flag up like the others had, and slowly slid towards them, leaving a multi-coloured swirl of defiance in his wake, until he finally slid to the ground, slumped and spent, the flag catching the last of the breeze and fluttering before succumbing to the weight of the paint it was now covered in.

He lay there for a few more moments before the TV crew yelled ‘cut’.

Romadon came third in the 2012 Thailand’s Got Talent series, winning a car and the love and respect of 68 million Thais, most of whom had never even heard of performance art before, let alone be captivated by it on television, in between versions of Adele songs and badly conceived dance routines.

Romadon had done what no other artist had done in his country before: brought art to the people.

See Romadon perform on Thailand’s Got Talent

ANTHONY S. CAMERON is an Australian ex-pat living in Phuket, Thailand, and the author of two novels, Driftwood (2014) and Butterfly on Bangla (2015).

His books are available on Amazon here. You can find his sculptural furniture on Facebook here.