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L0T 19 SPRING SCULPTURE PRIZE 2017 Lot 19, Castlemaine (VIC) Until 5 November 2017 IMAGES IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE 1. (foreground) Mathew Harding, Seed, corten steel. (right) Dave Waters, Koala, bronze. (centre) Nonie Sutcliffe, Lessons for Life, collaged fabric and stich on vintage reels. (left) Katherine Wheeler, New Natives, porcelain (hand painted under glaze detail), thread, glue, paint. (background) Paula Martin, Memory Horizon, 3 rice paper, muslin, paint, pamboo. 2. Molly Rule, Quiet Radical Feminism, tetra packs. 3. Kim Simon, Inseparable, oyster shells, stainless steel, wire. 4. (left) Katie Kilgour, Thinking of You, The Disturbance & Sometimes Love, vintage kimono remnant, glass beads, silk, alpaca, a rock from the road. (right) Diane Thompson, Identity Crisis, resin, bone. 5. Jimmy Rix, Twin Towers, corten steel. 6. Kerry Cannon, Fetus, bronze. lot19art.com
CONTENTS LOT 19 SPRING SCULPTURE PRIZE
Various Artists ...........................................................................................
COMICS FACE
Ive Sorocuk ...............................................................................................
THE MADNESS OF ART: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
Jim Kempner ............................................................................................
HOUSE ON FIRE IAN STRANGE : OPEN HOME
Robert Ruckus ..........................................................................................
NOVEMBER SALON
Nothing to see here ....................................................................................
FINDING THE ART IN PHUKET – THE ART OF EATING
Anthony S. Cameron ................................................................................
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COVER: Hayley Arjona, A-Bomb Stigmata 2017, oil on canvas 165 x 235 cms. Overripe: Hayley Arjona, Trocadero Art Space, 1/119 Hopkins Street Footscray (VIC), 1 – 18 November 2017 - trocaderoartspace.com.au Issue 151 NOVEMBER 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 Ive Sorocuk, Jim Kempner, Robert Ruckus, Anthony S. Cameron, love. GET from AppStore FOLLOW on issuu, facebook & 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 August 2014
art comedy series
Close Encounters Jim falls for an early Carl Andre sculpture, which leads to a close encounter.
visit: themadnessofart.com
Robert Ruckus
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“You fucking idiot, this is just the coolest house party ever!” - Random drunk lady FLICK! The light switch turns back on revealing a ponzi looking cat attempting to find something deeper within the photo before him – 25 Clifton Street, Richmond, Victoria, lovingly spray painted with a giant target on it’s front exterior – the perfect optical illusion captured with equal skill in the image before me. FLICK! FLICK! Like a lighter it sparks once more to illuminate this very lived-in beige and brown suburban room. Ponzi slinks back over to his laughing friends, loosely trying to explain how he thought the photo might illuminate or some shit when the lights went out, perhaps tapping into those childhood memories some of us have of staring up at glow-in-the-dark stars and galaxies before drifting into dreams. Meanwhile my human audio tour codenamed S.A.M (sexy, ass, man) perks up into his detailed breakdown on how these images were planned, set-up and taken. Realising my fondness for the creative details, I decide to ask around and see what others are getting out of this house within a picture within an idea within a life within a home within an investment that is never quite within your reach. But wait, how did we get here? The home is the idealised thing we were raised in and subsequently raised to treasure. Is it now to be seen as merely an asset – a fortune to be made? “He’s taking the piss. Someone’s having a laugh I say.” This is a common statement you might feel better hearing about property developers. It’s easy to see why Ian Strange might be taken as such, particularly when he greets you with an entire home spraypainted with a target on the front, then invites you out the back for a house party. We move past the lovingly nestled auction-styled signage in the brown brick frontage, walking down the driveway and out through a side gate to emerge into the backyard exterior (complete with clothes line and outhouse). Here, the entire home is eerily sprayed in red, as if a Monopoly piece has been placed smack bang in the middle of Richmond. Brown drowns underneath a sea of red, and everyone is in it, and everyone is happy, on the outside. Good thing there is free booze. ALL IMAGES: Ian Strange, OPEN HOME project 2017, installation image. The project incorporated an intervention with red paint onto the exterior of a suburban home and it’s interior transformed into a gallery; exhibiting installation, video, photography and sound works. PREVIOUS SPREAD: Photo by Nikki Williams. RIGHT: Photo by Jedda Andrews. NEXT SPREAD: Photo by Nikki Williams.
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On the inside everything pulsates a little. The humming glow of halogen globes beaming from the ceiling onto the partygoers below, who waltz from room to room to witness these almost monolithic pictures. The frames stand out like windows on a wall, inside looking out. Usually within these frames sits a lonely suburban home, this time sprayed entirely in black, sandwiched between pale blue skies and haunting green lawnscapes, the light simultaneously sculpting and tearing at the home it tries to cover. “It almost has this 2001: A Space Odyssey vibe to it, just needs to be surrounded by fucking monkeys,” I hear someone say. I turn to catch a glimpse of myself in the wardrobe mirror reflection, the monolithic black home staring out at me from behind. The partygoers come in and out of the room surrounding me with their vocal contemplations. Still human, after all. Beyond these bedroom walls with their sagging blinds and creamy carpets, through the narrow hallway, sandwiched between bedroom A and bedroom B is a bathroom swathed in black. The windows behind are coated in red spray paint. The bathroom interior lights are out, and a mirror stares you in the face directly opposite the entrance where I stand. A small TV drones out as another shadowed home stands in a video loop, like a haunting dream, a home property video that never starts and never ends. What once was an inviting home suddenly seems like a voyeur when all the lights are turned off and you are the only intruder in sight. Usually at a house party you would find someone fucking or doing drugs or crying or stealing your laundry, but here instead we find an unwilling silence. Out in the kitchen, where things are a little more inviting, an A-frame piece of burnt pine haunts the bench, hanging over it ominously, occupying part of the main walkway. It’s a skeletal ribcage exposed, so naturally people decide to lean up against it and take selfies. Already cats are lining up on the bench top and within doorways, snapping postured pictures for private or public adoration – snippets from that one time they got to chill at Ian Strange’s pad, because it was pretty dope and I guess there was free booze too. “It’s totally antagonistic, I mean who spray paints a fucking target on the front of a house and doesn’t want to have a laugh the whole time doing it?” Meanwhile I’m looking at this big X sprayed onto an exterior wall from another house, carved out into a circle and placed lovingly on the inside wall of this very different home’s kitchen. It’s a window without a view, seen through a ribcage that doesn’t feel alive anymore, heartless in a house that is no longer a home. Growing up in the ‘burbs, this familiarity was your haven and your hell. It was home, your home. Our home. Welcome home. Fuck yeah nobody is home. When are you coming home? Sickly sweet reminders of our lives now partially forgotten in these walls, if only they could talk, would we even care to listen while we busily buy and sell House on Fire / Robert Ruckus
Photo by Mashaka Gunnulson
Photo by Jedda Andrews
ABOVE: 25 Clifton Street, Richmond, Victoria, prior to its Strange transformation © Google (street view)
for fear of alienation from the Australian dream? For so many of us now we just watch it flicker and burn, always just beyond our reach. The devil lurks in the details, Strange is seemingly able to hide his observant demons in plain sight for you to consume and dissect like rabid auctioneers, if your soul desires. Even so, one cannot deny the power of a home that overwhelmingly invites and engulfs you in unison. I slowly sip my drink as my cunning companion, the Fox, shares her thoughts and musings on Ian’s work, his origins, his sense of humour; how slowly, over time, you shift from just seeing these homes to hanging out in them (with the perks of having some cool ass house party). She even reflects on the joys of watching houses burn down. Her hair waves and curls with touches of amber, as sunshine glimmers behind her through the vivid red-sprayed kitchen windows, flickering on and off with passionately violent incantations, a ritualistic sacrifice slowly consuming its enthusiastic occupants. Everyone is in it, and everyone is happy, at least on the inside. Someone begins to laugh. Ian Strange: Island, 149 West 14th Street (between 6th & 7th Avenue), New York NY, (USA), 19 November – 16 December 2017. Artist site - ianstrangestudio.com
november salon
1. Miwa Yanagi, Gretel 2004, gelatin silver print. Collection of the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art. Courtesy of the artist and Yoshiko Isshiki Office, Tokyo. All the better to see you with: Fairy tales transformed, The Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne, Swanston Street, Parkville (VIC), 23 November 2017 — 4 March 2018 - art-museum.unimelb.edu.au 2. Nicole Breedon, Monotone Rainbow 2017, Artists impression installation, 2018. Testing Grounds, Southbank, Melbourne (VIC), 3 November – 2 December 2017 - monotonerainbow.com 3. Louiseann King, arbor temporis momentum - recedo 2017, bronze, vintage glass vessels, early Australian Colonial Kauri pine table, vintage wool crochet baby blanket, vintage glass panels. 225cm (w) x 172cm (d) x 143cm (h). Image courtesy of the artist. Photo: Danny Wootton. arbor temporis momentum, Bendigo Art Gallery, View Street Bendigo (VIC), 25 November 2017 – 18 February 2018 - bendigoartgallery.com.au 4. Paul Ryan, Cook and Boxers 2017, oil on linen, 138 x 123 cms. Paul Ryan: The Colonies, Nanda/Hobbs, 12-14 Meagher Street Chippendale (NSW), until 11 November 2017 - nandahobbs.com 5. Mitch Cairns, Agatha Gothe Snape 2017, oil on linen. Winner Archibald Prize 2017 © the artist. Photo Mim Stirling, AGNSW. 2017 Archibald Prize, Geelong Gallery, 55 Little Malop Street, Geelong (VIC), until 10 December 2017 - geelonggallery.org.au
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FINDING THE ART IN
Phuket The Art of Watching it Slip Through Your Fingers by Anthony S. Cameron
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Phuket is that itch that you just have to scratch. It is the ever present lure of pleasurable, and often debauched, indulgence that niggles away at you until you give in to its tropical charms, let the massage oil soak into your skin and laugh like you have been caught in the rain without a coat. From the moment you encounter the taxi mafia at the airport and try your hand at haggling, you know you are somewhere else, somewhere different, somewhere far away from shopping malls and multi-level car parks, far away from the mortgage payments and utility bills that seem to press down hard on the collective brow, a brow already furrowed in bewilderment by the vague insanity of it all. When you take that first whiff of diesel-laden tropical air, the ubiquitous rolling hills of suburbia become a distant memory. Phuket is one of the world’s great escapes from the drudgery of modern existence, an escape that never seems to last long enough, but simultaneously drags like a B-movie with a paper thin plot. It is this great irony that drives the high tourist numbers that never seem to dip. They just change nationalities, like sampling all the food at the all-you-can-eat buffet. For the last couple of years it has been the Chinese, before that the Russians, before that the Scandinavians, the Germans, the Australians, Americans. You name it, every first world country has been represented here at whatever economic peak their country enjoyed at that time, and made a touch of paradise a distinct possibility. For many, the closest they get to paradise is glimpsing it in the in-flight magazine as they buckle their seatbelt and listen to the roar of the jet engines outside their window. That’s the thing about paradise: it is such a slippery beast that, just when you thought you felt it brush past you and make your skin tingle, you are abruptly awoken by the realisation it was just the wayward hand of a cheeky ladyboy with nothing left to lose going through your pockets for loose change. Phuket’s version of paradise straddles a pole in tiny, tiny shorts, thrusts that tight ass out into the air whilst those dead, dark eyes stare out at nothing. The promise of a great experience is more a figment of your imagination than a concrete reality. So, down another drink, take a look at all the other people doing exactly what you are doing, take a big gulp of air and don’t forget to suspend your judgement, cause that’s just going to get in the way. A trip to Koh Phi Phi is usually on the cards. You know, that island made famous by the movie The Beach. Hundreds of speedboats are ready and waiting to take you there, and when you’re there, don’t forget to take a number and get Finding the Art in Phuket / Tony Cameron
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in line, cause the other ten thousand people jammed onto that little stretch of sand will already have their selfie sticks out, happily snapping away at the sideshow that was once a beautiful, pristine, quiet little gem. A chance to snorkel all over a dead reef is also included. Just remember to sweep that plastic rubbish out of the frame lest it ruin your instaperfect moment. Oh, and remember to wear your lifejacket on the return journey. Those speedboats have a habit of crashing into one another. To me, this place IS paradise, but I am a freak. I like the peeling paint and faded signs. I like the broken down, abandoned, half-built resorts that litter this once beautiful coastline. I like the dream on offer every day that seems always just out of reach. I like the mad scramble for the tourist dollar AND the crazy search for some of that tropical, exotic charm no matter how slim your chances are of finding it. I like the rubbish that washes up all over the beaches and the ridiculous excuses the authorities give for why it is there in the first place. My favourite so far was reading about the putrid black water that flows into Patong bay every morning being described as a ‘plankton bloom’. I like the mess tourism has made of this place. As a westerner from a first world country, I actually derive some demented joy out of having the outfall of my privileged existence on this planet shoved right back in my face. It has become a source of inspiration for me, a place from which to write, a place to create, to sculpt some sense out of the debris of life in the 21st century. Others may find it hard to see the beauty in this tropical mess I call home now, but I have no trouble. I have written a lot about this place over the years. Some of it has ended up in my novels, some has ended up here, in this great magazine that lets me say pretty much whatever I want about anything I want, whether it be the nature of the creative moment or the sometimes hilarious and nearly always fascinating search for art on this mad little island. One thing I know for sure: I may have written a lot about this place, but in some ways I think it has written me. It has given me a context that I searched for in my own country, but couldn’t find. This place breathes. It breathes the rancid and sometimes toxic air that we give it. Like any place, it sometimes reflects us in ways we may not want to see. At least not without the benefit of cheap rum and another perfect tropical sunset to couch your reflections in. Even under the unrelenting, bright light of the day, this place still sings. Sure, maybe she sounds like an old cabaret singer past her prime, but the important thing is, she is still singing. And sometimes at night, after the bargirls have gone home and the tour buses have left the streets, I am sure I can hear the old girl sigh. Photos by Roxy Cameron.
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.