Trouble November 2013

MONASH UNIVERSITY MUSEUM OF ART pRESENTS

REINVENTING THE WHEEL THE READYMADE CENTuRY

3 october – 14 December 2013 Ground Floor, Building F Monash University, Caulfield Campus www.monash.edu.au/muma Tues – Fri 10am – 5pm; Sat 12 – 5pm

Julian Dashper Untitled (The Warriors) 1998 courtesy of the Julian Dashper Estate. Photo: Kallan MacLeod

all will be revealed...

SeaSon 2014 Launching soon

DMROS 2013

DAYLESFORD MACEDON RANGES OPEN STUDIOS

Discuss and discover the creative practices of 35 artists across the region

MEET THE ARTISTS IN THEIR STUDIOS Preview their work at the DMROS Group Exhibition St Paul’s Church Hall, 26 Yaldwyn St, Kyneton

2,3,4,5 & 9,10 NOVEMBER 2013 10 AM TO 5 PM

info@dmropenstudios.com.au 0418 389189 www.dmropenstudios.com.au

FEATURES (11) COMICS FACE Ive Sorocuk (12) THE MADNESS OF ART

Jim Kempner

(14) MELBOURNE NOW speaks for itself (20) RICHARD BELL @ CLIFF

Uz vs Them

(22) VICTORIAN INDIGENOUS

ART AWARDS tools of trade (38) NOVEMBER SALON naturally (52) ACTEASE Courtney Symes (58) ADELOUD Cassandra Scalzi (60) MELBURNIN’ Inga Walton (70) 55TH VENICE BIENNALE

PART THREE Tiziana Borghese (76) STRALIAN STORIES:

BILLY MARSHALL-STONEKING

Neil Boyack

(81) ANGEL Darby Hudson (82) GREETINGS FROM HIROSHIMA

Ben Laycock

(84) DEAR DREAMBOAT Dmetri Kakmi (86) ARTISTS IN THE WILDERNESS:

JULIE PATEY Terry Chapman COVER: Sharmane Maddigan (Wamba Wamba/Werigia/Nari Nari/Dhudhuroa), Silenced Words 2013, photograph, 80 x 68 cm. Victorian Indigenous Art Awards Shortlist exhibition, Art Gallery of Ballarat, 40 Lydiard Street North, Ballarat (VIC), 2 November – 8 December 2013 - http://indigenousartawards.com.au/ Issue 107: NOVEMBER 2013 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, Richard Bell, Inga Walton, Dmetri Kakmi, Courtney Symes, Cassandra Scalzi, Tiziana Borghese, Neil Boyack, Ben Laycock, Darby Hudson, Terry Chapman.

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!

new comedy series

season 1, episode 3: LOVE? Chelsea art dealer Jim Kempner interacts with New York’s eccentric art world in The Madness of Art. In this webisode, one of the most important Pop Art artists of all time pays Jim a surprise visit. http://www.troublemag.com/the-madness-of-art-episode-3/ 4

back to back

season 1, episode 4: Interviews In webisode four, Jim’s looking for a replacement for “Miss Oops”, the gallery’s exassistant. Jim prepares for a barrage of young, savvy downtown art students, armed with insightful questions to winnow down the competition. Maybe not ... Who painted the Campbell’s soup cans? Free sex night on Wednesdays? You’re hired! http://www.troublemag.com/the-madness-of-art-episode-4/

visit: themadnessofart.com/

MELBOURNE NOW speaks for itself ...

THIS SPREAD: Lauren BERKOWITZ, Various medicinal and edible food plants COMMISSION. Photo: Kalli Karvelas, La Trobe University. NEXT SPREAD: Kristin MCIVER (born Australia 1974), Sitting piece 2012, Neon, chair, viewer, 10.0 x 400.0 cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2013. Photo: Tim Gresham

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1. Patricia PICCININI, (born Sierra Leone 1965, lived in Italy 1968–72, arrived Australia 1972), The carrier 2012, silicone, fibreglass, human and animal hair, clothing, 170.0 x 115.0 x 75.0 cm. Collection of the artist © Patricia Piccinini and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne. Photo: Peter Hennessey 2. Kinoak, Melbourne (est 2011), Amie Kohane (designer) (born Auckland, New Zealand 1976, arrived in Australia in 2002, lives and works in Melbourne, Australia), Kiwaa dress 2013, from the Free-Time Collection Spring-Summer 2013-14 Collection of the artist.

3. Julia DEVILLE (born New Zealand 1982, arrived Australia 2001), Mishicanca 2013. Collection of the artist © Julia deVille Photo: Terence Bogue.

Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria (VIC), 22 November 2013 – 23 March 2014 www.ngv.vic.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/exhibitions/melbourne-now

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Uzvs m e h T

by Richard Bell

The Castlemaine Local and International Film Festival (CLIFF) (21–24 Nov) is off to a strong start, playing host to three of artist Richard Bell’s recent works for it’s inaugural run at Theatre Royal. CLIFF is showing Bell’s highly acclaimed and challenging trilogy of works Scratch an Aussie (2008), Broken English (2009), and The Dinner Party (2013). To warm you up we present the combative Uz vs Them, in which Bell raises important and revealing questions of Aboriginal politics through a stylised physical and verbal sparring match. Go Richie go!

CLIFF, Theatre Royal 28 Hargraves Street, Castlemaine (VIC) - www.theatreroyal.info/ For the full programme : www.cliff.net.au

IMAGE: Scratch an Aussie 2008 (production still, detail). Courtesy of the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane. Photo: Mick Richards

RICHARD BELL uz vs them 2006, DVD 2:47 min WATCH IT: http://www.troublemag.com/uz-vs-them/

VICTORIAN INDIGENOUS ART AWARDS

tools of trade

John DUGGAN (Kamilaroi), Tools of the trade “Hunter” 2013 stone, wood, grass tree resin, kangaroo sinew, paper bark, kangaroo fur and steel, 235 x 715 x 463 cm.

CAL Victorian Indigenous Art Award for Three Dimensional Works – Highly Commended.

Hunting was a trade skill employed by our people requiring patience, technique, skill, and an intimate knowledge of the environment. This toolbox contains the tools and parts necessary to successfully spear, skin, and butcher animals, and materials for repairing spears when needed. Learning how to produce them requires years of practice—much like an apprenticeship. Hunters were much respected throughout our land, many of them are celebrated in our stories, and have become immortalised over time.

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CREDITS & INFO 1. Brian MCKINNON (Yamatji/Wongai) Abbonition 2013, acrylic on canvas, 50.5 x 40.5 cm. The piece is meant to convey a reaction to the brutality of past policies and legislation that permitted the shooting of Aboriginals, also the one pair of black hands counting bullets and the personal loss and the cost and grieving brought upon community, by these unprovoked deaths in most instances. The lace, which I have used in my last series of works, conveys the fragility of life and cultural connections when faced with the diversity of policies and laws that seem to apply to Aboriginals in Australia.

knowledge, viewers of this works are required to embark on a pilgrimage, allowing themselves the opportunity to engage and absorb the uniqueness of the world’s oldest surviving culture.

8. Georgia MACGUIRE, Illfitted Young 2013, paperbark and plaster bandage, 1100 x 600 x 250 cm. CAL Victorian Indigenous Art Award for Three Dimensional Works – Winner. This sculptural portrait is the second work in a series exploring the identity of Aboriginal women in their experience of assimilation and genocide. I have taken the natural fibre of paperbark, which parallels an Aboriginal woman’s spiritual connection to country, and forced it into a Western female construct — the dress. The work is personalised through its internal structure: a plaster cast of a young Aboriginal woman’s body that carries the dress. To rip, cut, stitch and bend a fibre traditionally used by Indigenous women to feed, house, and heal, is to repeat the trauma inflicted. What is left is something that is indicative of a sublime experience. When I witnessed the completed work, I experienced something beautiful, yet almost sickeningly painful and truly sad.

2. Deanne GILSON, (Wadawurrung / Wathaurung) Waa 2013, ink on archival paper, 90 x 60 cm. I have depicted my totem Waa the Crow, the bird that carried my ancestors. Waa is contained within the shape of a greenstone axe head, implying the icon or spiritual nature within the form. The black feathers are pushed into the background as a single red feather breaks away and floats to the ground. The red feather is a symbol of peace and the letting go of the suffering endured by my ancestors since colonisation. It is also a symbol of the heart and although the heart has broken away from the body, Waa still stands tall, strong, and complete, telling us that Aboriginal culture is still alive today, fluid and changing, like the wind that captured Waa’s heart.

9. Ray THOMAS (Brabrawooloong Gunnai, Kirrae-wuurung, Djadjawali), A Gunnai Elder - Mum Alice 2013, oils on canvas, 149cm x 99 cm. Deadly 3. Marlene GILSON (Wadawurrung / Wathaurung), Bunjil and Corroboree Art Award – Winner. I have always had it in mind to paint Mum’s portrait 2013, acrylic on canvas, 91 x 91 cm. My painting is of a Bunjil and Waa but was hampered by time constraints and distractions. Living with her as corroboree. Bunjil the eagle, the great ancestor creator spirit, asked Waa her full-time carer has given me the opportunity to finally paint her portrait. the crow to make an ingarguill or corroboree for him and many crows came. I feel the work has integrity and reflects her as the person she is today. The They made a great light in the sky and sang, while Bunjil danced. This is part different elements in the work tell some of her story and different aspects of of an old story from the Wathaurung tribe which an old man gave me in 1983. her life. This work has allowed me to acknowledge my old people and to give recognition to them for their contribution to the Melbourne community in the 4. Reko RENNIE (Kamilaroi), Regalia (Pink) 2013, acrylic and ink on linen, early days in Fitzroy.

102 x 102 cm. Three hand-drawn symbols — the crown, the diamond and the Aboriginal flag — are presented as an emblematic statement about 10. Peter WAPLES-CROWE (Ngarigo/Wiradjuri), Just Sayin’ 2013, Mixed the original royalty of Australia. The crown symbol is both in homage to media on paper, 1500 x 1000 cm. CAL Victorian Indigenous Art Award for my graffiti roots and also pays due respect to Jean-Michel Basquiat, but Works on Paper – Winner. This is a series of critical reflections of my cultural, most importantly symbolises sovereign status, reminding us that Aboriginal sexual and social identities. They are based on the lived experience and people are the original sovereigns of this country. The diamond symbol use irony to raise questions about personal life situations and events. This is emblematic of my connection to the Kamilaroi/Gamilaroi people — it is work intersects my Aboriginality and my homosexuality and more — it is similar to a family crest; it is a part of me. The hand-drawn Aboriginal flag in full of contradictions, of truth and observations. This is an ongoing series the form of a graffiti tag pays respect to all Aboriginal people. of works that strips back my usual practice and re-presents the view of a contemporary Australian. It uses images of Aboriginal people drawn from the 5. Ben MCKEOWN (Wirangu), Techno Black 2 2013, C-type digital print, coloniser’s perspective and revisions them to raise questions about cultural edition 2 of 10, 50 x 40 cm. One common narrative that is a constant in my stereotypes and the depiction of Aboriginal Australians in history and now. practice is the exploration of identity. Techno Black is a series of images that ushers in the new medium — digital portraits reminiscent of Warhol’s mass- 11. Yhonnie SCARCE (Kokatha/Kukunu), Not Willing to Suffocate produced silkscreen prints. They have reference to pop culture and while 2012, glass, painted metal, 65 x 15 x 20 cm. This work metaphorically the central portrait remains the same, each work is its own individuality. The looks at situations where scientific interventions have been used upon markings are abstract but mirror the practice of body art associated with Aboriginal people and poses questions of what might have gone on in ritual. Techno references also pop culture — Techno dance, Techno pop, such laboratories. It consists of glass-blown bush bananas suspended Techno culture. from three laboratory stands. Squeezed and strangled, tagged, numbered, and classified by size and colour, Aboriginal people were not thought of 6. Bindi COLE (Wathaurung), A Time Like This 2013, C-type digital as human; the affected bush bananas are disfigured, broken, and bruised, photograph. Edition 1 of 8, 900 x 600 cm. CAL Victorian Indigenous Art representing the colonist effect on Indigenous people, culture, and traditions.

Award for Works on Paper – Highly Commended. Contemporary Victorian Aboriginal people experience culture and community in a place that no NEXT SPREAD: Nathalie (Lucy) WILLIAMS-CONNELLY, My Family longer looks like home. The decimation of culture and language in Victoria is life 2013, Burning on wood, 1525 x 765 cm. Australian Catholic University strongly felt, yet the community is thriving. If you were to ask any Melbourne Acquisitive Award. I have been wood burning since fifteen years of age when suburbanite, you might think there is no Aboriginal community here—there is, my father taught me how to do burnings using wire on wood which had to it just doesn’t look the way the media presents nor does it experience life in be heated in a tin of coal. My artwork shows the way we lived and we had to the way it used to. As colonisation continues to have a major impact on this make things for ourselves. We lived on the river bank in tents and my parents community, every facet of life must change and become contemporary. would make tents out of sticks and beds were out of hessian bags. I saw my father and his old friends make and use the spears, boomerangs and 7. Wayne QUILLIAM (Palawa), Strength of Knowledge 2013, C-type nulla nullas. In the morning we would go to the swamp to get ducks, birds, digital photograph on paper edition 1 of 5, 180 x 80 cm. The visual nature goannas and turtles. It was when mothers looked after the kids and cooked of storytelling and continuity of culture require a landscape in touch with and the fathers would help mothers at all times. tradition. When this landscape is interrupted, the integral passing of knowledge is polluted. A waterhole where birthing ceremonies have been Victorian Indigenous Art Awards Shortlist exhibition, Art Gallery conducted since time immemorial can be thrown into temporal flux if a of Ballarat, 40 Lydiard Street North, Ballarat (VIC), 2 November – 8 man, white or black, drinks or views this site. To understand the strength of December 2013 - http://indigenousartawards.com.au/

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1. Michael PECK, Belief (detail) 2013, 152cmx152cm, oil on linen. Love & Fear, Metro Gallery, 1214 High Street, Armadale (VIC), 18 November – 14 December - metrogallery.com.au 2. Amy MCGREGOR, Cut#3, from Cut-In Series, 2013, inkjet print. ’Ellipsis’, ANCA Gallery, 1 Rosevear Place Dickson (ACT), 30 October - 10 November - www.anca.net.au

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3. Rose WILSON (Trentham), Proud Mary 2013. Part of Daylesford Macedon Ranges Open Studios 2013. Thirty-five central Victorian artists open their studios for DMROS, 2 – 5 November and 9 – 10 November - www.dmropenstudios.com.au 4. Stephen BOWERS, The complete angler 2011, wheel thrown earthenware, underglaze, clear. Reproduced courtesy of the artist. Photography: Grant Hancock. & NEXT SPREAD: Stephen BOWERS, William Morris camouflage vases 2012, wheelthrown earthenware, underglaze, on-glaze gold luster, enamel. Reproduced courtesy of the artist.

Photography: Grant Hancock. STEPHEN BOWERS: Beyond Bravura — JamFactory Icon 2013, A JamFactory touring exhibition, Geelong Gallery, Little Malop Street, Geelong (VIC), 30 November to 16 February - www.geelonggallery.org.au

november salon

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october salon

Richard AVEDON, Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, poets, New York, December 30, 1963 Š The Richard Avedon Foundation, New York. Richard Avedon People runs at the National Portrait Gallery until 24 November - www.portrait.gov.au

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PREVIOUS TWO SPREADS: 5. Alia GRINVALDS,(13 yrs, Australia), Dance Class, & 6. Erin SMITH (16 yrs, Australia), Falling But Dreaming of Flying from SNAPSHOT: Teenagers International Photographic Prize, Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest, 86 River Road Emu Plains (NSW), until 10 November - www.penrithregionalgallery.org 7. Leela SCHAUBER, Float (beige) 2013, photograph on gloss paper, ed.5., 100 x 100cm. Curtain Call, BLINDSIDE, Nicholas Building, Level 7, Room 14, 37 Swanston Street Melbourne (VIC), 27 November – 14 December - www.BLINDSIDE.org.au

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ACTease DATELINE: NOVEMBER 2013

Courtney Symes

ONE OF MY FAVOURITE EXCURSIONS on a sunny weekend in Canberra is a stroll around Lake Burley Griffin, followed by a wander through the NGA and National Portrait Gallery (and a sneaky coffee stop at one of the gallery cafes).

The best thing about November in Canberra is that there are usually more sunny weekends to choose from, as the warmer weather finally arrives. Checking out a couple of exhibitions can easily turn into a fun day out when you throw in a bit of walking between galleries and a couple of coffee stops for good measure…

What do the seven Canberra artists featured in Canberra Contemporary Art Space’s (CCAS) latest exhibition, Backburning have in common? Whilst each of these artists featured in CCAS’ Blaze ACT Emerging Artist Showcase exhibition over the last seven years, they also work in a similar way. Curator Annika Harding was drawn to this group of artists because they all creatively transform everyday materials into captivating pieces. “Backburning provides an opportunity to slow down and explore how we perceive the world around us, and reflect on the wonder that can be found in the seemingly mundane.” The seven artists include: Julia Boyd, Jacqueline Bradley, Chris Carmody, Karena Keys, Trish Roan, Adam Veikkanen and Fiona Veikkanen. Keep an eye out for Trish Roan’s Even the Most Solid of Things (Constellation 3), Fiona Veikkanen’s ski jacket sculptures, and Karena Keys’ large hanging works made entirely out of paint.

Runs until 9 November - www.ccas.com.au I’m looking forward to the diverse line-up of exhibitions at Beaver Galleries this month. Catch Wendy Teakel’s Mungo Traces and Chris Denton’s the Dahlia Suite before they finish up on 5 November. As the name Mungo Traces hints, Teakel’s latest exhibition focuses on her recent visit to the Lake Mungo World Heritage Site.

Wendy TEAKEL, Mungo Track I, acrylic, charcoal, pastel, collage and scorch marks on rag paper, 75 x 55cm.

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well as revealing the traces of human and animal passing”. Teakel explains that she aims to “acknowledge this landscape as a significant Australian place and to record my own experience and wonder of it through spending time there.”

Teakel is a painter and sculptor, whose work can be found in collections such as the National Gallery of Australia, Artbank and Chiang Mai University in Thailand.

Teakel is also Head of Sculpture Workshop at the Australian National University Institute of the Arts.

Chris Denton’s the Dahlia Suite is an intimate study of this beautiful flower, executed as an intricate series of drypoint prints. Denton’s “works combine a love of intellectual enquiry with objects of great beauty - an aesthetic fusing of science, nature, spirituality and philosophy.” Denton’s work is currently represented in collections such as The National Gallery of Australia, Parliament House, Association Musee d’Art Contemporain (Chamalieres, France), Hawaii State Foundation for Culture and the Arts and Tama Art University (Tokyo).

These two exhibitions are followed by Barbie Kjar’s Setting the compass and a studio glass exhibition, Held within, from Annette Blair & Jeremy Lepisto.

Barbie Kjar is a Tasmanian artist renowned for her striking prints, paintings and drawings “with a powerful narrative at their core”. The selection of Kjar’s work featured in this exhibition dates from 2008 to 2013 and includes a diverse range of pieces inspired by sources such as Kyudo (a Japanese form of archery), or the travels of Ulysses outlined in The Odyssey. This is an excellent opportunity for visitors to appreciate the rich, extensive collection of Kjar’s best work over the last few years. As well as exhibiting extensively throughout Australian and internationally, Kjar’s work can also be found in collections such as the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, and in numerous regional Australian galleries.

Two Canberra artists, Annette Blair and Jeremy Lepisto have teamed up for this joint studio glass exhibition, Held within. Blair’s work consists of enamel portraits on handblown glass forms and “examines the relationship between form and imagery”. Blair’s work also aims to demonstrate the link between people and everyday domestic objects and the nostalgia this evokes. Lepisto’s painted, coldworked and fused glass sculptures explore “everyday landscapes and the condition of spaces we all share”. Urban architecture, in particular the silhouettes and lines of these structures is the main source of inspiration for Lepisto’s work, as he encourages viewers to take a second look at their surroundings. Setting the compass and Held within both run from 7 – 26 November.

- www.beavergalleries.com.au

Annette BLAIR, As you left it (in the shed), blown and hot sculpted glass, glass enamel, 36x36x35cm.

ACTease / Courtney Symes

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4 The ellipsis (three dots strategically used to replace words:

“…”) is a versatile piece of punctuation that can be used in several different ways: to indicate the omission of a word or phrase; an unfinished thought; or a slight pause in speech or text. Ellipsis is the title of ANCA Gallery’s latest photographic exhibition, which features work from four Canberra artists (Natalie Azzopardi, Holly Granville-Edge, Katherine Griffiths and Amy McGregor) who further explore how these ‘pauses’ and ‘unfinished sentences’ translate in photography. “Drawing inspiration from what is not written, but remains suggestive, Ellipsis features incomplete, cinematic, fabricated and dreamlike narratives with focus on rethinking the visual story.” Runs until 10 November.

Later in the month at ANCA, Vox Nautica – a light and sound installation by Denise Higgins and Gary Smith will run from 14 November to 1 December. This work features “the stripped carcass of a boat, and the remains of an organ, girded in iceberg”.

This exhibition promises a complete journey for the senses.

- www.anca.net.au Richard Avedon (1923-2004) is probably most well-known for his portraits of famous people throughout the 20th century. It is evident in Avedon’s portraits that he has established a level of trust and rapport with his subjects, as they appear relaxed and natural in these shots. Most people would be familiar with many of his subjects, such as: Andy, Marilyn, Twiggy; John, Paul, George and Ringo. In 1970, Avedon revealed part of the secret behind his mastery: “My photographs don’t go below the surface.

They don’t go below anything. They’re readings of what’s on the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues.” Avedon’s other significant body of work is his series, In the American West, featuring 124 portraits of “decidedly un-famous and earthy people”, says Stephen Zagala. Avedon’s talent has even been extended to fashion magazines, demonstrated through his iconic Harper’s Bazaar work, Dovima with elephants. Dovima with elephants depicts American fashion model Dovima with a troupe of circus elephants; their rough, wrinkled skins contrasting with her elegant black and white gown. This is the first Australian exhibition of Avedon’s work, which has been curated by National Portrait Gallery’s Senior Curator, Dr Christopher Chapman, in conjunction with The Richard Avedon Foundation, New York.

Richard Avedon People runs at the National Portrait Gallery until 24 November - www.portrait.gov.au

ACTease / Courtney Symes

Richard AVEDON, Elizabeth Taylor, cock feathers by Anello of Emme, New York studio, July 1964. © The Richard Avedon Foundation, New York

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DATELINE: OCTOBER 2013

Cassandra Scalzi

ADELAIDE IS ALWAYS ABOUT FEASTING … especially in November with our home grown Feast Festival which kicks off on the 9th of November. Feast is a community arts and cultural festival, completely grassroots in fact, with a plethora of parties and a wild picnic in the park to rave about! Since its inception in 1997 by a small group of arts and community cultural workers, the Feast Festival has quickly grown to be a major event in Australia’s gay and lesbian calendar. But let’s get something straight – this is a feast for all, including the faint hearted! Within its mass of activities there is really something for everyone. It may not be as big as Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, or Melbourne’s Midsumma, but since when does size matter?

Good things do come in small packages and things just seem to flourish here … queer isn’t it? But that’s Adelaide for you! We are a proud little state, full of kooks, queers, unique creatives, and generally a good percentage of very artistically inclined people! Believe it or not, this big, little town is actually one of the most inclusive and creative cities in the world.

It is said that Adelaide used to come alive during the Grand Prix (that’s before some other state stole it from us) but it appears that gay pride has a similar effect. For 16 days and nights from the 9th to the 24th of November, Adelaide gets all wonderfully mixed up as we celebrate with the talented and diverse artists of the Queer community. Odd, really, this self-imposed adjective … ’’strange, odd, curious, eccentric …’’. Sounds like my good self and I’m not even gay! Whatever it means, it all makes for wonderful and amazing art and entertainment, which anyone who claims to be a true art lover, straight or gay or perhaps in between, can be sure to enjoy. It’s all about the arts bringing people together in a spirit of inclusion. It’s just a shame that some of our pollies who happily jump on the social inclusion bandwagon don’t bother to come out of the closet themselves and prefer to mix it up behind closed doors … But that’s politics for you!

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Famous for its parties, the Feast programme is richly diverse, including cabaret, comedy, theatre, music, film, literature, visual arts as well as community and sporting events. It is an exciting international event, which brings together talented performers and audiences from all of Australia and the globe. A celebration of talent, diversity and passion in the City of Churches. Who, for Christ’s sake, said we are a conservative state?

Feast organisers have assembled their most dynamic festival yet, with an impressive line-up of events, acts and shows to suit every taste and persuasion. This year, a huge proportion of the program has been curated so that productions and events are interwoven with the theme of the festival, ‘’Gender – mix it up!’’ offering style, humour, pathos and important discourse about gender and sexuality through art. Feast promises its usual cross fertilization of art forms to encourage intelligent, challenging debates and discussions, whilst retaining the playfulness, entertainment and plain ol’ fun for which it has become known for.

/ Cassandra Scalzi North Terrace will also host the home base for this year’s Fest Festival,Adeloud at the Lion Arts Centre, our artistic hub, which is just across the road from our new state of the art hospital that is being built. It’s original, modern architecture,

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Australian country music singer and songwriter, Beccy Cole is the proud and passionate Inaugural Feast Ambassador, who will star in three very different shows this year, including Barnyard Cabaret, which is not to be mistaken for some acoustic tomfoolery or just rolling around in the hay in the name of music. Well actually, come to think of it … This is a serious festival of the arts! A touch of class and elegance is added to the mix with new partners, The Art Gallery of South Australia and even the State Library (libraries can be so sexy can’t they?) which is hosting a fascinating exhibition, Gay Times Are Here Again to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Adelaide’s first Gay Pride march, back in in 1973, which you can imagine caused quite a stir here! Photos, TV footage and newspaper accounts of the orginal march will be on display, as will original art work at the Art Gallery of South Australia and many other art spaces across the state, where you can enjoy a visual feast. I am going to have to put my money on, Buck to Bombay for the best art show in town. Art Gallery director Nick Mitzevich and Curators James Bennet and Robert Reason, promise to provide an evening of ‘’gender bending cultural engagement’’. I am assuming, no previous yoga experience is required. Meet Marc Quinn’s cigar smoking Buck Angel and come and explore the beauty, colour and homo-eroticism in Realms of Wonder This special guided tour will introduce you to the queer and quirky side of the Art Gallery of South Australia. $25 entrance fee. You could also walk down to the other side of North Terrace and get a free guided tour of Parliament House, which has some amazing artwork on its walls. I will also be heading down to the foyer of Queer Nexus Gallery to see Entwined presented by Chock Chai Watapukana, a work that is said by the artist to have evolved through the cross generational connection with his adoptive Great, Great Aunt from Australia and himself as a little boy from Thailand. The bonding power of craft is reflected through this unique crochet work, entwined with vintage pieces from long ago.

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DATELINE: NOVEMBER 2013 Inga Walton

FOLLOWING ITS PREMIÈRE AT THE Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) in May, a survey of one of Australia’s foremost photomedia artists is at Jubilee Hall, Horsham Regional Art Gallery’s temporary space, while they await the redevelopment of the Town Hall complex. Curated by Professor Anne Marsh of Monash University, Polixeni Papapetrou: A Performative Paradox (until 15 December, 2013), traces the concept of performance as represented in Papapetrou’s works: from her early experiments in the mid-1980s with black and white photography in the more documentary tradition, to her better known staged and theatrical works from 2000 onwards featuring her children and other characters engaging with real or imagined landscapes. “This comes from my love of nineteenth-century photography full of narrative and inspired by theatre. The Victorians were avid theatre goers and brought the language of theatre and performance into photography ... this photography in the tableaux vivant tradition has inspired me”, says Papapetrou.

The Elvis Presley Memorial at Melbourne General Cemetery, the only one to receive official approval from the Presley Estate other than Graceland in Memphis, became the subject of one of Papapetrou’s early series, Elvis Immortal (1987-2002). The artist returned on a regular basis from 1986 to 1993 to photograph the fans paying their annual homage to ‘the King’.

Often they are in costume, or sporting 1950s-style rockabilly clothing; Papapetrou photographed other fans in their homes with Elvis memorabilia, and impersonators of both sexes striking a pose. “At the Elvis memorial there were up to one hundred devotees, but it feels as if there’s only one person with me. From the outset, I want to make pictures about people and the roles that they take on in their lives. Existence is the biggest mystery of our lives, grappling with what it means to be human ... To sum up that mystery is beyond science and it can only be alluded to through metaphors and images, which is ultimately what the work aspires to be”, she explains.

Polixeni PAPAPETROU, Three young men paying homage to Elvis on the 13th anniversary of Elvis’ death Elvis Memorial Melbourne (detail) 1990, selenium toned silver gelatin print, 100 x 100 cm (ed. of 6).

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Melburnin / Inga Walton

Polixeni PAPAPETROU, Muse 2002, light jet print, 80 x 240 cm (ed. of 6)

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Papapetrou was also drawn to the Miss Alternative World Ball at the San Remo Ballroom in Carlton from 1988 to 1995 to photograph the transsexual and transgender drag queens in their finery. The series Searching For Marilyn (2002) continues her exploration of gender identity by contrasting the imagery associated with the ‘real’ woman, Marilyn Monroe, with the ‘fake’ performer, Ben Jacobsen, who aspires to recreate the glamour and luminescence of what was, in reality, a contrived studio confection. In Vale (2002) Papapetrou places two shots of Marilyn/Jacobsen wearing a red sequinned dress (itself an approximation of one Monroe wore in the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) book-ending a reproduction of The Death of Cleopatra (c.1635) by Guido Reni.

Muse (2002) positions the impersonator, this time in a gold dress (referencing Monroe’s famous plunging lamé halter column worn in a 1953 studio portrait

by Gene Kornman), either side of Jean-Marc Nattier’s Thalia, Muse of Comedy (1739). The models for the original works were role-playing for the painter, just as Jacobsen revels in his interpretation of Monroe for Papapetrou’s lens, which both colludes with and amplifies these narrative layers of self-representation.

Another series, Ashton’s Circus, Silver’s Circus (1989-90), makes the connection between performance and identity more explicit, as clowns, illusionists, the lion tamer, and the fortune teller pose before the show. “I’m interested in the history of theatrical types from Renaissance times in Italy and in Shakespeare’s writings.

I want to portray the clown both as an historical figure and an element of the unconscious, rather than a more frenzied figure who disorients the audience ...

The clown’s mask is meant to camouflage the real person and create an identity as the outsider, the fool, the comedic, the figure of fun, but I am more interested in uncovering the intelligent sadness in the fool”, Papapetrou remarks. Her use of props, vintage costumes, wigs and masks within her later work show a shift towards creating an archetype, and using anonymity to express aspects of the universal human condition. Papapetrou is unequivocal about the motivation behind her entire body of work, “Even when I was photographing drag queens and body builders, I made each photograph with love. For me, photography has never been an exploitative act ... when I look into the camera I feel a deep connection with the person whose image I’m taking. Making pictures is the second biggest love affair of my life after my family”. Several of Papapetrou’s works from her series The Ghillies (2013) will be in the National Gallery of Victoria’s sprawling Melbourne Now, 22 November 2013 – 23 March, 2014 www.ngv.vic.gov.au Jubilee Hall, 21 Roberts Avenue, Horsham (VIC) - www.horshamartgallery.com.au Artist site: www.polixenipapapetrou.net

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Albury Regional Art Gallery’s touring exhibition Francisco Goya’s ‘Los Caprichos’ features a complete set of the eighty etching with aquatint prints from the Fifth Edition (1881-86) of this masterpiece, currently at Ararat Regional Art Gallery (until 23 November, 2013). The volume was included in the collection of Howard and Judith Daniel, gifted to the Gallery between 1989 and 1997, comprised of over 250 prints and objects, and a library of some 160 books. The advocacy of their friend Justice John Flood Nagle, who had a long association with Albury Gallery, convinced the couple that their gift would provide an invaluable addition to a regional institution, and would be more likely to remain intact. In 2010, the Gallery decided to undertake conservation work on the prints, removing them from their bindings, thus making the plates more accessible.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), is widely considered the last of the ‘Old Master’ painters, and the first of the ‘Modern Age’. Court painter to Charles III (1716-88), Charles IV (1748-1819), and (nominally) Ferdinand VII (1784-1833). Goya chronicled the turbulence of the Peninsular War (180814), when the “Intruder King”, Joseph-Napoleon Bonaparte (José I), was installed by his brother Napoleon I from 1808 to 1813. The unflinching and propagandist works The Second of May 1808 (The Charge of the Mamelukes), which depicted the Dos de Mayo Uprising, and The Third of May, 1808 (both 1814), showing the aftermath of French reprisals, were followed by the series of prints The Disasters of War (Los desastres de la guerra) (1810-20). While maintaining his establishment career, painting royalty, the highest Grandees, and prominent figures within Spanish society, it was Goya’s acute and unforgiving satires of social conditions and prevailing attitudes, the effects of ignorance, hypocrisy, governmental corruption, and institutional abuses that would inform ‘Los Caprichos’.

Goya worked on the controversial images from 1796 with the first edition printed in 1799 for public sale as a single set, and withdrawn very shortly thereafter with only twenty-seven copies sold. The works were advertised as depicting what he described as, “the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilized society, and from the common prejudices and deceitful practices which custom, ignorance, or self-interest have hallowed ... painting (like poetry) chooses from universals what is most apposite”. Several plates carry the inscription sueño (‘dream’), providing a convenient alibi for the artist: visions come to him as he sleeps, so that he cannot be held responsible for their content. Plate No. 43 The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razón produce monstruos) has become iconic in its own right. Here Goya envisages himself asleep amidst his drawing tools, his slumber tormented by owls (in Goya’s day associated with ignorance), bats, and a watchful lynx Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razon produce monstruos), Los Caprichos, No. 43 (1796-97), etching and aquatint, Fifth Edition (1881-86), plate dimensions 21.3 x 15 cm.

Daniel Gift, 1991 (Albury City Collection) Melburnin / Inga Walton

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(which embodies the power of sight); this nightmarish scenario reflected his perception of the state of Spanish society, and the collapse of boundaries between the supernatural and the everyday.

A debauched cast of prelates, prostitutes, hobgoblins, witches and ghouls mock social customs and vanity, offering cynical commentary on matters of expedience, particularly in marriage and interpersonal relationships. Even Goya’s own profession is not spared, as seen in Plate No. 41, Neither more nor less (Ni más ni menos), where a monkey clutching a palette paints a seated donkey; the successful portraitist faithfully captures the patron’s self-delusion.

In 1803, Goya relinquished the copper plates and the 240 unsold sets to Charles IV in return for an annual pension for his only surviving child, Xavier.

Goya’s motivations were ostensibly patriotic; to avoid the means of reproducing the plates falling into the hands of ‘foreigners’ after his death. However, Goya also feared attracting the attention of the Inquisition for whom his anti-clerical stance and lampooning of the Church and its superstitions was an obvious provocation. Although there are no records that he ever appeared before the Inquisition, following the restoration of Ferdinand VII in December, 1813, Goya was required to account for his past works and movements; his name was finally cleared in April, 1815.

The plates for ‘Los Caprichos’ remain with the Calcografía Nacional de España in Madrid, and between 1799 and 1937 twelve editions were struck with minor alterations and changes to the plates and the printing process. Local artist Geoff Todd was invited to respond to the exhibition and has produced a major new work, The Goya Painting (2013), which shows a deft reading of Goya’s oeuvre, and which hangs with Todd’s charcoal on paper work Mule Strung (2008). Goya placed a profile self-portrait as Plate No. 1 of ‘Los Caprichos’, which forms the basis of Todd’s rendition of the artist. The foreground figure impaled on the bull’s horns references Goya’s Tauromaquia (1815-16) etchings of bullfight subjects, and the winged men are reminiscent of Way of Flying (Modo de Volar) (c.1816). In the background, where the river turns red with blood, Todd has inserted a variation on Fight with Cudgels (Riña a garrotazos) (c.1820-23) from Goya’s Black Paintings (Pinturas negras), which he painted directly onto the walls of his house Quinta del Sordo (‘Villa of the Deaf Man’).

Todd is adamant that Goya’s themes and influence are just as relevant today and, more importantly, the manner in which he conducted his artistic life.

“What I like most about Goya is that he was true to his art and himself, while still catering to the tastemakers who think they decide what ‘art’ is. They really don’t, as Goya’s more radical work demonstrates. Works like ‘Los Caprichos’ speak to us of many of the same contemporary issues we grapple with today, but maybe not so elegantly, or so skillfully as Goya”, Todd contends.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Francisco Goya y Lucientes, painter (Francisco Goya y Lucientes, pintor), Los Caprichos, No. 1 (1796-97), etching and aquatint, Fifth Edition (1881-86), plate dimensions 21.3 x 15 cm.

Daniel Gift, 1991 (Albury City Collection) Melburnin / Inga Walton

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“We don’t seem to be as sophisticated at social commentary as he was. The ‘blunt instrument’ approach rather robs things of their pertinence, and the work suffers. Sure, Goya pleased his patrons, but he also left for us a searing record of one artist’s railing against all the problems and inadequacies of the society in which he operated.

He didn’t consider himself above responsibility for that, and that is incredibly important”.

Merging Goya’s motifs and stylistic concerns within such a large work allowed Todd to dwell on the aspects of Goya’s practice which most resonate with him. “No doubt Goya as the Court Painter was working within boundaries set by other people, but he used his profits to fund his personal output, not at all fashionable at the time, but this is the legacy the world now treasures.

That took courage, and we remain indebted to that”, Todd reflects. “Goya had two artistic lives running in parallel which he had to manage with great discretion. This allowed the survival of what is most important in his work, both to him as an artist, and to the testament of the culture and the period he leaves us. His work is replete with profundity that resonates to this day, and will continue to do so until we are more enlightened”.

Francisco Goya’s ‘Los Caprichos’, Ararat Regional Art Gallery, Ararat (VIC), until 23 November 2013 - www.araratregionalartgallery.blogspot.com.au The exhibition (excluding Todd’s works) continues on to Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, Windsor (NSW), 6 December, 2013 – 9 February, 2014 - www.hawkesbury.nsw.gov.au/gallery Geoff TODD, The Goya Painting (2013), acrylic & charcoal on canvas, 168 x 214 cm

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 will close, marking the end of one of the world’s major global art events.

Some of the collaterals have already gone home, but that does not seem to deter the thousands of art lovers who continue to come to Venice every day seeking out the latest in contemporary art.

The 55th Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte: La Biennale di Venezia: Il Palazzo Enciclopedico Australians in Venice words & pics Tiziana Borghese

Readers have just over three weeks to experience first hand the anticipation and ultimate elation of physically and psychically connecting with all that art has to offer; aesthetics, conceptualism, social and political commentary and exploration of ideas concerned with existentialism and philosophies of the mind and heart.

Being part of a global community of art pilgrims who come to Venice every two years to question, explore and admire the latest in art is a unique experience.

Photographs and text are a poor second cousin to being there “in the moment”.

I have been in Venice for more than a month and every day is an art adventure, but if I had to choose my favourites they would be as follows ...

At the Giardini For many Australians visiting the Australian Pavilion in the Giardini, it is a bitter-sweet experience. Bitter because the pavilion, designed by Philip Cox and opened in 1988, is due to be pulled down at the end of this Biennale.

The building itself, always meant as a temporary solution, has the feel of an Australian beach house, and this is part of its charm. I have seen many transfigurations of the space over the years, with Daniel von Sturmer’s being one of my favourites (2007). Sweet because conceptually the 2013 exhibition reflects successfully, but in an understated way, on the temporality and ultimate demise not only of this particular space and structure, but generally in terms of environmental consciousness and responsibility.

The Venice Biennale Part 2 / Tiziana Borghese

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4 This year Simryn Gill’s Here Art Grows on Trees is curated by Catherine de

Zegher and commissioned by Simon Mordant AM. De Zegher suggests that Gill’s work is “the tidal zone, the insecure in-between zone, its significance lying between absence and presence, spiritual and corporeal”.

The building itself has been turned into a free standing sculpture, with its roof opened to the elements inviting nature to take its toll on the contents, which in many regards is minimalist. There are seven collaged wallpaper panels (Let Go, Lets Go) and a few books and chairs on the upper level, a series of mine photographs (Eyes and Storms) a big bowl made of metal which deteriorates rapidly (Half moon shine) and necklaces made of organic and synthetic materials (Naught) on the lower level.

The concept is exciting and clever, but I visited the space a number of times from June to August and nature was too subtle or too slow for me to discern any dramatic changes other than a single sheet of collaged paper peeling off the wall, and dust and leaves.

Gill’s media release states that her “work is about entropy, the passage through time, the paper’s passage, the work’s passage, the pavilion’s passage, and the artist’s passage”, but with the exception of the vernissage, where for the first time in the history of this event the heavens opened up on cue as if to illustrate Gill’s ephemeral concept, the idea was not fully realised in the six months it was exhibited.

I noted a weather-beaten suitcase near the exit which was the only other item on the floor other than the big bowl. The attendant told me that Gill had found it in the Giardini ‘as is’ and included it in her show at the last minute. That suitcase was a serendipitous find, and the decision to include it fortuitous, as it was the one item that totally synced with the concept. With three weeks to go until the end, perhaps interested stakeholders might want to consider relocating the whole pavilion with Gill’s work to another site and let the years, not months, do their work.

At the Collaterals Although there were no Australians included in Gioni’s selection for his Encyclopaedic collections (a puzzling omission), Australians are represented in two collateral events. The Holy See’s first participation in the Biennale features expatriate artist, Lawrence Carroll’s Re-Creation installation, comprising of a large panel with electrical wires and light bulb sockets, and a painting that has a freezing element that causes it to melt and refreeze cyclically.

At the Palazzo Bembo, near the Rialto bridge, there are paintings by Sally Gabori and Dale Frank, and sculptures by Sam Jinks, Yhonnie Scarce and Selby Ginn in an exhibition called Personal Structures. Many are familiar with the works of established artists Gabori, Frank and Jinks, but Scarce and Ginn may not be so familiar. The former is represented by Dianne Tanzer and the latter is not represented.

The Venice Biennale Part 2 / Tiziana Borghese

Simryn GILL, Half moon shine

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Sam JINKS in the Palazzo Bembo

Yhonnie SCRASE in the Palazzo Bembo

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4 I interviewed Rene Rietmeyer, Sarah Gold and Karlyn De Jongh, who are

the organisers, and asked them how they selected their artists whose ages and experience are so diverse. Gold and De Jongh, the curators and essayists, responded that they just liked the work. It stood out as original in a sea of art, but the idea for the exhibition is the brainchild of Dutch artist Rietmeyer, who in 2002 conceived of a series of forums, symposia, exhibitions and publications bringing together artists from all over the world under the theme of PERSONAL STRUCTURES: TIME SPACE EXISTENCE. This is the second Venice Biennale that they have put together.

The three source artists and investors from all over the world. In fact, Rietmeyer had just returned from a recognisance trip to Australia the day before I interviewed him. Showing no sign of jet-lag or fatigue he spoke passionately about the artists in his show and the many other exhibitions he was involved in around Venice, including a number of collaterals from China spread throughout the Palazzi and warehouses of Venice.

He remembered personally picking Yhonnie Scarce. Scarce’s work also stood out for me. Her glass coffin full of glass yams was poignant and at the same time aesthetic. A member of the Kokatha and Nukunu peoples, her art focuses on personal and political issues of identity and oppression. She uses blownglass Indigenous fruits such as bush bananas and long yams as metaphors. In this exhibition she created a site specific installation of glass yams in a glass coffin. Solid yet fragile, the glass acts as a lens and a mirror, which reflects and exposes Australia’s colonization.

Selby Ginn’s over-life-size male figure composed of tiny leather offcuts was also impressive.

Art should not be about national boundaries or geographical myopics. The artists above are all successful artists in their own right in a global arena. Their work is conceptually challenging and aesthetically exciting. As an Australian artist I am drawn to their work because it resonates within me a sense of belonging, aesthetics and cultural identity. In previous articles I have written about the instant bonding effect of a familiar accent amongst strangers overseas. This also applies to works which inspire challenges or touch a familiar chord.

NEXT MONTH My Top 10 exhibits (other than the Australians) in retrospect and why.

1. Maurino Auriti’s Il Palazzo Enciclopedico 2. Pawel Althamer’s Venetians 2013 3. Piero Golia’s Untitled (My Gold is Yours) 2013 4. Yuri Ancarani’s Da Vinci 2012 5. Ed Atkins’ The Trick Brain 2012 6. Russia: Vadim Zakharov’s installation Danea 7. Nordic: Finn Terike Haapoja’s Falling Trees 8. Korea: Kimsooja: Breathe 9 USA: Sarah Sze’s Triple Point 10. Argentina: Nicola Costantino’s Eva Peron The Venice Biennale Part 2 / Tiziana Borghese

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stralian stories with Neil Boyack

Billy Marshall-Stoneking Singing the Snake & cultural competence

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arely is a collection of poems and vignettes so complete in its form with regards to cultural breadth, style, content, political shade and vigour.

When I first read Singing the Snake, I read it again. It was hard to believe it was considered an Australian work. Sharp, tough, loving, amusing, spiritually revealing and offering an intriguing, domestic side of life within a remote community, it’s release gave Australian poetry resonance, encouragement and badly needed positive press. It also raised age-old questions around paternalism and white people “living” in Aboriginal communities, for research, artistic, or other purposes. Whilst I love this work, and believe that Billy Marshall-Stoneking had good and positive intentions, Australian history, alongside a multitude of contemporary career paths, is riddled with the motivation of whites to be “placed” in remote communities, to experience community living for their own journey, to take pictures, no matter how supportive and benevolent the plan.

The Seasons of Fire (From Singing the Snake)

There is Law for Fire,

singing for Fire,

dancing for Fire Fire dreaming.

You have been there, you have seen it.

You know all the names of Fire:

Signal fires, hunting fires,

sleeping fires, fires for light,

fires for cooking, for ceremonies,

healing fires of eucalyptus leaves –

Fire is medicine, magic.

Fire gave Crow a voice,

flying away in pain.

An American national, Marshall-Stoneking has lived, taught and written in Australia for many years. His writing extends from poetry to film, and he is an active social media blogger and writer. Billy Marshall-Stoneking was born in Orlando, Florida, and he is the second child of Charles and Florence Marshall. Born William Randolph Marshall on 31 August 1947 (his sister, Barbara, named him ‘Randolph’ after her favorite movie actor, Randolph Scott. The name “Stoneking” derives from his paternal great-grandfather, Reuben Stoneking. Stoneking’s early years were spent growing up on military bases around the United States, including Randolph Field in Texas, Fort Slocum, New York. MarshallStoneking’s time at the remote community of Pupunya (1978-1983) creates the beautiful subject matter produced in Singing the Snake. His son, the guitarist and entertainer CW Stoneking, was born in Katherine, NT, in 1974. 4

A poem of Ayers Rock (From Singing the Snake)

And when the snake stirred (“if the singing was strong and true”) It would push the water out From its rockhole on topFrom that danger place, the place where Every river in the world begins And ends

Singing the Snake is important for a number a reasons. It offers a basic and clear cultural bridge. It also offers a dynamic connection and cultural filter facilitating numerous perspectives and realities: black/white, spiritual/physical, traditional/contemporary, artistic/ relational, tangible/aspirational. These are all concepts a poet of worth and substance should be looking to stretch and flex and mash and disprove. This work also sits easily in the traditional Australian narrative occupying the “romance of the bush”. I would argue that most Australian readers would resonate with this work, even if unaware of the deeper layers contained within the subtext and myth. Whilst in Papunya, the author was an anthropologist of sorts (no offence intended), collecting and recording cultural information, experiences and stories. Luckily for us and Australian literature he had the artistic sensibility and acumen to shape this work in a way that was respectful to the people from which it was derived, enlightening the Australian readership. Singing the Snake breaks down cultural barriers through Marshall-Stoneking’s simplicity of language. Assisted by Tutama Tjapangarti, Nosepeg Tjupurulla, and many others from Papunya and Kintore communities, the writer has moulded his wonderful experiences, into attractive and engaging poems that delight, haunt and fire the imagination.

Matches (From Singing the Snake)

Tutama asks for a cigarette & Takes two – He bites them off just below The filters And chews And chews…

“Kala anyway,” he says Waving my offer of a match away “can’t drink smoke!”

As for cultural competence and the sometimes strong white desire to live, temporarily, in remote communities to attain same, this concept is a corporate invention found in the genealogy of political correctness and government compliance, applicable to the corporate, pen-pushing world. Australia and the Torres Strait contain at least 250 different Aboriginal language groups, and dialects within these.

Stralian Stories / Neil Boyack

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Here we find different mythologies, stories for pivotal landmarks, animals, trees, creek beds, rivers, mountain ranges; different stories for the creation of the elements and life forces. To even think that a finite outcome is possible with relation to “cultural competence” is a mistake. Thus we need to acknowledge cultural competency as an ongoing, ever-changing beast that needs regular updates, a mandatory political and artistic black-white interface, and Aboriginal control over an Aboriginal narrative (history/the Intervention/modern life/economic independence/poverty eradication).

Aboriginal colleagues have often stated that “some organisations” feel they are culturally competent after walking through a “co-op” for twenty minutes, and “ticking a box” for corporate compliance sake. Other Aboriginal thinkers have stated that they would not wish for the mainstream to be “too culturally competent” as this may undermine Aboriginal efforts in supporting Aboriginal communities, and may threaten the notion of self-determination. In any case Marshall-Stoneking’s work is a great example of Australian work occupying a very sweet spot within the black-white interface, and it raises delicious questions around cultural competence for me: the motivation, the process, the means, the future.

Instructions for Honey Ants (from Singing the Snake)

Work with the end of your dress tucked up between your legs.

Speak in whispers; laugh silently; do not whistle. Whistling especially, brings bad luck. Do not be afraid to feel where you cannot see Disappear into earth With crowbar and billy can; Go down, maybe ten feet.

If you find them, it is better When children are waiting.

This is marangkatja: a gift.

Love what you are after.

A background to the landscape in which MarshallStoneking took his notes and created his work is as follows. Papunya is in the land of the Pintubi people, 240 kilometres north west of Alice Springs.

It is now home to a number of displaced Aboriginal people mainly from the Pintupi and Luritja tribal groups. Pintupi and Luritja people were forced off their traditional country in the 1930s and moved into Hermannsburg and Haasts Bluff where there were government ration depots. The Australian government built a water bore and some basic

Stralian Stories / Neil Boyack

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Bill Marshall-Stoneking, Connally High School, Waco Texas, 7th/8th grade.

housing at Papunya in the 1950s to provide room for the increasing populations of people in the already-established Aboriginal communities and reserves. The community grew to over a thousand people in the early 1970s and was plagued by poor living conditions, health problems, and tensions between various tribal and linguistic groups. These festering problems led many people, especially the Pintupi, to move further west, closer to their traditional country. After settling in a series of outstations, with little or no support from the government, the new community of Kintore was established about 250 km west of Papunya in the early 1980s. During the 1970s a striking new art style emerged in Papunya, which by the 1980s began to attract national and then international attention as a significant art movement. Leading exponents of the style included Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Billy Stockman Tjapaltjarri, Pansy Napangardi and many more. In 2008, Marshall-Stoneking’s poem The Seasons of Fire (from Singing the Snake) was chosen by Australian poet, Les Murray, as “one of the 10 best Australian poems ever written.

Refs: Marshall-Stoneking, B. Singing the Snake, 1990, Angus and Robertson, Melbourne. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papunya | http://stonekingbio.webs.com/exile.htm Neil Boyack is a writer, poet, welfare manager and founder and director of the Newstead Short Story Tattoo (www.newsteadtattoo.org). His poems and stories have been published widely. You can find his work at www.neilboyack.com

Stralian Stories / Neil Boyack

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GREETINGS FROM ...

Hiroshima PART FOUR: Your intrepid wayfarer almost has an epiphany

words & pics by Ben Laycock

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4 After bidding a fond farewell to the Hairy Ainu and their grumpy

dancing bears, I leave The Frozen North and wend my weary way south once more. Alas, the money has all but run out, mainly due to the refusal by the DSS to redirect my dole check. (They even had the audacity to question the purpose of my trip.)

Due to their parsimonious attitude I am forced to lead a hand-to-mouth existence, relying on the largesse of the locals: bathing at the Onsen with the Yakuza and their exotic tattoos, sleeping under bridges and giant lotus leaves, eating shrine offerings.

The locals have a quaint habit of leaving their favourite fruits for their favourite gods.

Showing scant regard for any creed whatsoever, I feel no compunction in utilizing these delicious fruits for my own personal sustenance, and soon come to believe that I am in fact one of those very gods for whom the fruits are intended.

After a particularly sumptuous meal of guava, persimmon and suchlike, I come to realize these shrines are also meant to provide shelter for the weary sojourner on his quest. I lay my swag in a quiet corner and am asleep before my head hits the floor. But unbeknownst to me, some nosy neighbor has alerted the Authorities to my presence.

As luck would have it, the Constabulary arrive at the very moment I have popped out for a slash. Due to the fact that I am stark naked I decide it is prudent to avoid an embarrassing encounter that would do little to improve the Japanese attitude to foreigners, and recede further into the shadows. It is at this point the episode begins to take a strange twist. It is a moonlit night; a warm zephyr is blowing from the south.

Drawn by some unseen force, I find myself following a distinct but ill-used path deeper into the forest. The pines are dense but the moon is bright, the breeze a soft caress.

The path wends its way up to the top of a small hill, upon which is perched a little shrine, no larger than a Suzuki Hatchback. Opening the doors wide I am just able to squeeze inside, where I find to my surprise, an exact replica of the original shrine, no larger than a Sony Television set. Upon opening the doors of this little shrinelet I find yet another, yet smaller shrinelet, no larger than a Toshiba Radio. Upon opening the doors of this tiny shrinelet I find yet another, yet smaller shrinelet, no larger than a Noodle Box. Upon opening the wee little doors of this tiny shrinelet I am amazed to find the tiniest, weeniest little shrinelet, no larger than a Tamagochi. With my stubby fingers I can barely grasp the little knobs of the little doors of this smallest of shrines. By this stage, as you can well imagine, my curiosity is at fever pitch. I can feel an epiphany coming on. The hairs are standing up on the back my neck as I open the tiny-weenyitsy-bitsy little doors to reveal ‌ a mirror! benlaycock.com.au

Greetings From Hiroshima / Ben Laycock

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with Dmetri Kakmi

Dear Dreamboat This is a recurring dream. It’s to do with losing my teeth. I’ve had variations of this dream over the years: knocking my front teeth out and viewing my toothless face in the mirror, in horror — lots of goo coming out. Sometimes the teeth fall out. The other night I lost my complete lower jaw and was trying to get it fixed. There’s no comic element to it when I dream about it. Most times I am in anguish, mostly because it feels like my face is ruined or there is blood or pus coming out of where the teeth were knocked out. Weirdly, there was no blood when my lower jaw was missing ... unfortunately, I can’t remember much else.

Maria Dear Maria Losing teeth is a common dream. Teeth are battlements, the fortified walls, to the inner being. To lose ones teeth is to lose ones defenses, to be vulnerable and open to attack.

While reading your dream, I thought of Jeff Goldblum’s horrific/comic disintegration in The Fly. He too watches himself fall apart in the mirror.

Fingernails, teeth, ears etc. When there is nothing left of his old self, he is transformed into a monstrous other. In his case, the transformation brings forth a latent malevolence that lurks beneath the genial surface. And this is where the other symbolic nature of teeth comes in. Not surprisingly, teeth are also primordial weapons of ferocity and attack. Think of animals that bare their teeth to ward off a threat or to seize prey. Thus teeth in the human can signify latent aggression or withheld, often frustrated, assertiveness.

The turning point in the dream comes when you lose your jaw. The first thing that popped into mind on reading this is: ‘I can’t hold it together anymore’. The familiar face falling apart in the mirror could be you fearing the loss of control in your life and therefore losing public face. The mask you present to the world is wobbly and you are afraid of the consequences, the implications.

Are you in conflict with an aspect of your life? Do you need to integrate or reclaim something into a new way of being? 4

Dear Dreamboat A young blonde girl in a transparent rain poncho runs across a rail crossing.

The train narrowly misses her. She tells me she couldn’t believe the close call she had. Then she realises that it is pouring rain and she is bone-dry. Then her body is wheeled past, clear poncho covered in blood. Part of her, she remembers, hoped that the same thing hadn’t happened to Josie, the friend she came across the crossing with. But already she’s thinking it’s okay if it did. And already she’s forgetting who Josie is. The scene cuts to a view out the back of the ambulance as it rounds a corner, leaving a cobbled four-way intersection behind. The dead girl in the bloodied rain slicker, white-eyed, steps out of a mum-and-dad corner store and waves as I leave her behind.

Cam Dear Cam Is this a dream about missed opportunity? Or is it a dream about successfully grabbing an opportunity? I’m not sure. There’s a wistful feeling about the images you describe, as though time, life, has passed and it’s too late for anything. There is sadness here. The golden-haired girl-child, waving from the porch of plenty, is your anima as you are carried away in a life-preserving conveyance. Is it too late to be saved? Or have you been saved in time? Again I’m not sure.

Notice the detachment the ghostly girl displays towards her possibly dead friend, Josie? Does her sense of disconnection from earthly concerns reflect your senses of disconnection? Do you feel that things have slipped through your fingers and it’s too late to do anything about it?

What makes me hesitate from being definitive in my interpretation is that events take place at an intersection. Symbolically speaking you stand at a crossroads. You are at a juncture in your life. You can go four different directions. The choice is yours.

The railroad and the imminent train represent a journey to be fulfilled.

Despite the melancholy and the sense of loss in this dream, I cling to hope because the child is a symbol of the future. ¢

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.

If you have a dream you would like interpreted email dreamboat@troublemag.com

IN THE WILDERNESS

julie patey

by Terry Chapman

AS A YOUNG MELBOURNE ARTIST, Julie Patey would wander down to Williamstown Beach simply to drink in the space. For hours she’d absorb the breadth of the bay and the depth of its often dramatic sky, and from the relative emptiness out there would draw quiet inspiration to fuel her prodigious creation of abstract scapes. 4

Photography by John Kitching

4 Those peaceful “horizon” moments were the recesses in her busy, inner urban

arty existence filled with easel-time, exhibitions, a day job (teaching art/design at VUT) and a couple of sons not long out of kinder. Duncan, her man, built houses but loved furniture. It was his idea one weekend to take a family drive up around Lake Cairn Curran near Maldon, to see if they couldn’t find a hobby block upon which he could grow some timber, Julie could build a shed, and the kids could roar and rumble. They weren’t looking for a tree-change, just a bit of time out.

Sixteen years out, thus far! An agent showed them a lakeside property, 300 acres of denuded slopes baring ancient rocks, and they could not say no. On its highest point, she and Duncan built a new life, and since then Julie has been staring at forty kilometre horizons (sea-level offered about twelve) and seemingly endless skies, not to mention an awful lot of dirt road. Hers is a view to die for (not just real estate spin), and it is no surprise to note how much of it has been infused into the soft-pastel-on-paper creations, her predominant mode of expression.

The outlook and the connection, she says, become subliminal. She will sit for long, quiet periods and absorb the layers of land laid out before her (“So many focal options”), take in the lake and play with the clouds that shape up from the south-west. Almost meditatively, she lets it seep into her psychological space and has no need later to look out her studio window when time comes to put some form to it. Her abstracts are “an attempt to commune”. What she wants is to throw up nature’s “grandeur and ambiguity ... to create unusual language with a particularly Australian sense of place.” Her paintings are vast, and range in size from cigarette pack to cinema screen, many of them finding their way to a public airing, and many not.

While exhibitions are a lot of work, says Julie with a weary smile, “It is too selfindulgent to leave your stuff in the studio ... public engagement gives it currency.”

And selling, she adds, is “... fantastic. Not just as a reflection of somebody valuing your work, but by putting actual dollars in the bank.” Exhibiting tests her in other ways too. “It terrifies me,” she laughs. “But I want to be challenged. I want not the reviews necessarily, but the feedback that I know will inform my development. I get to see my work through others’ eyes.”

While she still has a couple of early pieces hanging in the State Gallery, Julie’s most recent effort to get out there was a petite showing on the walls of Dig Cafe in Newstead, central Victoria. Reflecting her recent dabble with mixed media, her monoprint-collages are still strong with land and sky, but are now layered with the roadways that are her rural life. “Maps represent journeys,” she says, not to mention the hours upon hours of driving she has done, bussing the boys and commuting to work. Indeed, every time she leaves the house, it’s a journey, both literal and conceptual. That is something she once had to seek when living in urban spaces. These days it is gifted on a platter.

Artist site : http://juliepatey.com.au/recent-artworks/ Artists in the Wilderness / Terry Chapman

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by Mandy Ord