February 2016

trouble 131

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摄影师 (photographer) Scarlett Casciello 美发师 (stylist) Sabina Vitter 发型和化妆 (hair & makeup) 王红 Wang Hong 时装模特 (fashion model) Juan Zhao @ Longteng Beijing

CONTENTS 市场 TO MARKET

Scarlett Casciello .......................................................................................

COMICS FACE

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

THE MADNESS OF ART: R’ART

Jim Kempner ...........................................................................................

JOB INTERVIEW

Darby Hudson .........................................................................................

BEN QUILTY: SPOILS OF WAR Steve Proposch .......................................................................................

THE FOREVER PRINCESS Inga Walton .............................................................................................

FEBRUARY SALON

Freakin’ A ................................................................................................

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COVER: Ben QUILTY, Troy Park, after Afghanistan (detail) 2012, painted in Robertson, New South Wales, oil on linen, 190 x 140 cm, collection of the artist. Ben Quilty: After Afghanistan, Castlemaine Art Gallery, 14 Lyttleton Street, Castlemaine (VIC), 15 January – 15 April 2016 - castlemainegallery.com Issue 131 FEBRUARY 2016 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, Darby Hudson, Inga Walton, love.

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This comic first appeared in Trouble May 2011

art comedy series

R’ART Never look a gift horse in the eye.

visit: themadnessofart.com/

COVER STORY

BEN QUILTY

Spoils of War

by Steve Proposch

It is tempting to label Ben Quilty’s latest works in After Afghanistan, at Castlemaine Art Gallery until 15 April 2016, ‘super’ expressionist. The subjects of these portraits are vulnerable, yet powerful. They leave you with no doubt that Quilty has fulfilled his role as Official War Artist admirably.

This exhibition is the result of the artist’s three-week tour across Afghanistan in October 2011. While Quilty’s purpose was to record and interpret the experiences of Australians deployed as part of Operation Slipper in Kabul, Kandahar, and Tarin Kot in Afghanistan and at Al Minhad Airbase in the United Arab Emirates, the artist soon discovered that his conversations and experiences with many Australian servicemen and women left him with an overwhelming desire to tell their stories.

Quilty’s tribute on ANZAC Day 2015 is an indicator of how personally this experience has affected the artist. He spoke not only to those who did not return from Afghanistan and their grieving families, but also to “the young men and women who live amongst us who have paid so dearly and will quietly wear the thick cloak of trauma for many years to come ...”.

In Afghanistan Quilty took photographs and made sketches of his subjects, many of which posed them squinting into the sun in an effort to suggest that some of the hardships of war were close at hand. These were the works he brought home to his studio, located in the town of Robertson in the NSW Southern Highlands, at the end of the tour, where he struggled with how to do justice to the intense emotional material he had garnered.

Over the following months and years Quilty’s military subjects visited his studio during periods of leave to pose for the paintings now showing in After Afghanistan. The gift of this method is in the full, unrestrained expression of the paint. With slabs and daubs and drags and scrapes of very thick paint, Quilty forms an expert likeness of the subject while leaving the emotion and impact of war – the human price tag – visceral and exposed. >>

The emotional impact of war is palpable in the faces and bodies of these returned soldiers, all painted with subjects in the nude.

By choosing her own pose, Captain Kate Porter has added to the strength and depth of her character, which bounces off the canvas. What Quilty has captured is the intensity of her experience. While there is little expository narrative in the exhibition, the pain is most definitely in the paint; every line and smear. The vast dark void that partially obscures the face of Trooper Luke Korman, for example, suggests a deep and dark experience hiding just beneath the surface of this otherwise young-looking man with sad eyes.

Quilty’s work here is so interesting because it reflects one of the common journeys of the artist: revelation. Through the alchemy of art, Quilty has gifted his subjects with a safe, reflective place in which they may look at all of this stuff; this emotional turmoil they are experiencing. He has given their pain a language.

In terms of these soldiers’ own healing, this is a pretty extraordinary thing to be offered. Commander Oddie, for example, shows an increasing consciousness of himself in his progressive comments on the paintings. The impact of war on Oddie clearly became more obvious to the subject as he watched the painting progress. And it is easy to see why. Each painting in this exhibition captures the sense of the individual. Each one is a personal story of war. Even the couple of large canvases depicting messed-up armoured vehicles that are metaphors for sudden violence and loss of function, also tell a story of lost lives, waste, bravery, and helplessness.

As an artist employed on such a deep project, Quilty needed to go into this thing with a plan; an idea. Armed with this idea, you get there, and you execute your idea as best as you can in the field, taking many photographs, making many sketches, and talking to many people, hearing and recording their stories. You then return to the studio where you create that idea, and most likely you will find it falling short of your expectations, because all of the other things that you saw and felt when you were there that couldn’t be sketched or recorded are missing. The minutiae of that experience is where the work comes from. It requires the revelation of being in that place, not in your comfortable, safe studio in Robertson. >>

Fortunately for Quilty, the soldiers he painted shared their stories of both before and after the war with him. He knows them both as soldiers, and as more than soldiers. Appropriately, Quilty feels a strong need to honour those stories through both his process and the work itself. He has no doubt succeeded on both counts.

The Castlemaine Art Gallery has employed a bold presentation for this show. The central Higgins Gallery has been painted black, with glossy black sideboards. This is where the tonally darker paintings hang. It allows the darkness of the emotional space to move beyond the frame of the work.

The Stoneman Gallery at the end is pearly white, and displays the lighter works such as Tarin Cox, Hilux to great effect. Curated by Laura Webster of the Australian War Memorial, this is the first ‘rock n’ roll’ exhibition the Castlemaine Art Gallery has hosted since the transition of Jennifer Kalionis to Director, and equates to a bold expression of her style also.

Ben Quilty: After Afghanistan, Castlemaine Art Gallery, 15 January – 15 April 2016. An Australian War Memorial Touring Exhibition, proudly sponsored by Thales. See castlemainegallery.com or awm.gov.au IMAGE CREDITS in order of appearance: Captain S, after Afghanistan (detail) 2012, painted in Robertson, New South Wales, oil on linen, 140 x 190 cm, acquired under the official art scheme in 2012. Captain Kate Porter, after Afghanistan 2012, painted in Robertson, New South Wales, oil on linen, 180 x 170 cm, collection of the artist. Trooper Luke Korman 2012, painted in Robertson, New South Wales, aerosol and oil on linen, 190 x 140 cm, acquired under the official art scheme in 2012. Tarin Kot, Hilux 2012, painted in Robertson, New South Wales, oil on linen, 140 x 190 cm, collection of the artist. SOTG, after Afghanistan (detail) 2011, painted in Robertson, New South Wales, oil on linen (diptych), overall 300 x 140 cm, top panel 190 x 140 cm, bottom panel 110 x 140 cm, acquired under the official art scheme in 2012.

the FOREVER princess

by Inga Walton

TM & © 1977 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

(re-edited article originally published in Trouble October 2009)

A long time ago, in a film franchise not too far away, the Museum of Science in Boston and Lucasfilm conjured up an exhibition ...

It is fair to say that George Lucas’ Star Wars films revolutionised modern cinema. This despite a virtually unparalleled merchandising juggernaut, with endless spin-offs and tacky tie-ins; the interminable re-packaging and re-issuing of all the films; the widely held view that the prequel Episodes I-III of the saga were too long in coming and ultimately disappointing; the risible, clunky dialogue; and one of the most loathed characters ever to besmirch the screen (wesa hates Jar Jar Binks). The original trilogy received seven Academy Awards, and a further three for Special Achievement. The technological advances developed in order to realise Episodes IV-VI indelibly changed audience expectations, and spawned Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Skywalker Sound, and the high-fidelity sound reproduction standard, THX. The touring show, Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination, was presumably aimed at today’s tech hardened children and teenagers for whom it probably lacked the wonder felt by previous generations who grew up with the original Star Wars films. The exhibition was staged in Melbourne at Scienceworks (2009), and ran for nine years, visiting twenty international venues and receiving over three million visitors before concluding in October, 2014.The painstaking and meticulous work of model-making, animation, creature design and puppetry, the intricacies of sound effects editing, motion control photography, and blue-screen compositing might conceivably be rather a yawn if all you’re interested in is playing computer games (though Disney soooo has that covered too) and watching YouTube.

Amidst the interactive exhibits, audio-visual components, props and costumes in the show was the unassuming white hooded dress, boots, and pewter-finish belt

by John Mollo (who won the Oscar for Best Costume Design for the first film).

In retrospect, it really looks quite dowdy, but just the sight of it shifted me back to the stance of my eight year-old self, riveted to the tv. Sandwiched between Grace Kelly and Lady Diana Spencer, there was another iconic Princess who was (thankfully) not blonde, and who had her own distinct impact on the cultural zeitgeist. The Princess-Senator Leia Organa’s status did not rest on having snagged a suitable husband, and she had far more at stake than being on the cover of Vogue (even if she did have the most important hair in the history of cinema).

John Mollo (b.1931), designer: Academy Award winner, Best Costume Design for Star Wars (1977).

Installation image at Scienceworks, Melbourne: David Collopy.

Lucas ordered his ‘space opera’ to quite accurately reflect events from our own world history – freedom from tyranny and oppression rested on the bravery, persistence, and moxie of one woman who would accept no glass ceiling. Leia’s determination never wavers, no sulking, weeping, or self-pity.

The “Help me Obi-wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!” message is testament to her resourcefulness and networking skills, not her dependence. In a genre not renowned for its emancipated or forceful women, Lucas gave us a sciencefantasy, action-adventure anomaly; a woman with courage. He seemed to realise the importance and value of including a strong female role in his saga if it was to appeal to a contemporary audience. Leia was certainly distressed, but no mute decorative damsel, and this was evidently not a ‘Boys Own’ universe.

When her ship is captured, and her mission to deliver the stolen plans for the ‘Death Star’ battle station are foiled, Leia is confronted by the steep cheekbones of Grand Moff Tarkin. From the outset we are left in no doubt that civility and manners are of paramount importance to this royal personage, “Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash, I recognised your foul stench when I was brought on board”, she sneers pleasantly.

Ah, Darth Vader. Leia’s dastardly Dad, the former Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker now turned Sith Lord 2IC, wheezing throughout the galaxy like a damaged compressor. Not only does he fail to perceive his progeny (the Force was presumably on snooze that day), but gets no satisfaction from our still perfectly coiffed girl. Not content with showing her withering disdain for him, Leia resists torture and emotional blackmail to remain considerably composed as her kingdom of Alderaan is obliterated. Bossy, peevish, sarcastic, more vexed than any Jane Austen heroine, and definitely no shrinking space flower, Leia has not had a good day at the office. With the weight of several worlds on her fragile shoulders, she doesn’t have time for conceited space pirate Han Solo, or to humour wide-eyed farm boy Luke Skywalker. She is neither grateful, nor flattered when they show up, and puts both firmly in their place, “Listen, I don’t know who you are, or where you came from, but from now on you do as I tell you, OK?” Considering Lucas’ strained relationship with filmic dialogue, it was often Leia’s irony-laden fits of pique which made us laugh. Whether she was evacuating the Hoth rebel base, taking decisive action at Cloud City, blowing up the bunker on Endor, or extricating herself from some other peril, there was always a pithy one-liner. Who could forget, “Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?”; “Somebody get this big, walking carpet out of my way”;

Image credit: Marvel Entertainment

Leia watches the “execution� waiting for the signal to make her escape.

Source: Wookieepedia - Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi.

“This is some rescue – you came in here, didn’t you have a plan for getting out?”; “Into the garbage chute Fly-boy”; “I don’t know where you get your delusions, Laser Brain”; “I’d rather kiss a Wookie”; “I am not a committee”.

Her exasperated reaction to yet another mechanical malfunction aboard the Millennium Falcon is a personal favourite, the ultimate put-down of boys and their toys, “Would it help if I got out and pushed?”

Then there was the Leia look. No crisis was too overwhelming, or occasion too grand for Leia not to be perfectly clad, with not a hair of those torturous twists and braids out of place (how they were achieved without a staff of hardened professionals is never specified). Aspects of Leia’s wardrobe have been parodied in TV shows such as Blackadder and Friends, most notably by the character of ‘Princess Vespa’ in Mel Brooks’ film Space Balls (1987), and also in Fanboys (2009). Her formal clothes were invariably white and virtually interchangeable, presumably to emphasise her status and position; this was somewhat undermined by the distracting spectacle of Leia being marched around the Death Star having apparently burnt her bra. The rest tended to be of a more utilitarian vein, a largely practical wardrobe for a forceful woman with more important things to worry about. The seismic exception was of course the unforgiving ‘metal bikini’, or ‘gold sci-fi swimsuit’, for which Return of the Jedi costume designer Aggie Guerard Rodgers will be perennially remembered.

After liberating Solo from his carbonite casing, Leia is kept prisoner by Jabba the Hutt, and forced to recline against his repulsive bulk. The skimpy dancing/slave girl outfit is meant to convey the humiliation and submission of a captive, but by now Leia is such a forceful personality to the audience that she transcends it. Despite the huge cult following for the flimsy diaphanous get-up, actress Carrie Fisher was more ambivalent about such an obvious concession to the male gaze, “When they took my clothes off, put me in a bikini and shut me up, I thought it was a strong indication of what the third film was”. She later reflected, “I remember that iron bikini I wore ... what supermodels will eventually wear in the seventh ring of hell”. That considered, nothing fell out, and nothing rode up. Leia strangles Jabba with the very chain tethering her to him, blows up the sail barge, and gives women ‘New Hope’ of finding a dignified solution to life’s unexpected fashion obligations. And the boys? Well, they just stared in gobsmacked gratitude, but (importantly) did so from their seats. Princesses have standards.

Leia was fully fierce. She had sass, she had grace and purpose, she was great with a blaster. I was nine when Jedi came out, and the strength of Leia’s persona even

filtered down to my petty interactions. All the boys at school were obsessed with the film, and most collected the picture stickers from bubble-gum packets to fill the accompanying theme-book. I soon got the reputation in their clique for being the only person who could get the stickers placed correctly within the borders without mucking it up. That, coupled with my passing resemblance to Fisher (though I was already much taller), and some serious Leia-inspired attitude, garnered me huge kudos. I was the only girl who was ‘cool’, and welcomed to discuss all things Star Wars at the lunch table.

Many years after my first exposure to that winsome white-clad figure, she remains one of the great filmic exemplars of female determination and wilfulness; one who is never subordinate to the male protagonists. After all this time, I finally have enough hair of my own for those authentic intergalactic coils. Bugger the Force, may the Princess be with you.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: In The Force Awakens, Rey (Daisy Ridley) displays similar qualities to Leia’s original character, while Leia (Carrie Fisher) herself is reduced to a motherly background role. Fisher’s performance is paralysed by a botox-induced lack of expression that fits with the disappointingly lame scripting of her part. As a replacement, Rey shows some promise, but is not Leia’s equal yet.]

Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination, was a traveling exhibition created by the Museum of Science, Boston, developed in collaboration with Lucasfilm Ltd., with the support of the National Science Foundation. It featured props and costumes used in the Star Wars films, but focussed primarily on the science behind George Lucas’ science fiction epic. The exhibition premièred in Boston in 2005, and made its final appearance in San Jose, California in 2014.

Image title spread: Princess Leia in the rebel command centre on Yavin IV, still from Star Wars: Episode IV, A New Hope. TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Supplied as original promotional image for Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination.

Image previous spread: Leia watches the “execution” waiting for the signal to make her escape.

Source: Wookieepedia - Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. This is a screenshot of a copyrighted movie that may be exhibited in the fair use provision of United States copyright law.

INGA WALTON is a writer and arts consultant based in Melbourne who contributes to numerous Australian and international publications. She has submitted copy, of an increasingly verbose nature, to Trouble since 2008. She is under the impression that readers are not morons with a short attention span, and would like to know lots of things. She still has very long hair.

february salon

1 PREVIOUS SPREAD: Matthew HARRIS, Things 2015, digitally printed nylon lycra, edition of 5 + 1AP, 144cm x 83cm. Image courtesy of the artist. Matthew Harris: Things, part of the Midsumma Festival, Blindside, Level 7, Room 14, Nicholas Building, 37 Swanston St, Melbourne (VIC), 27 January – 13 February 2016 - blindside.org.au 1. Kevin CONNOR, Winter sunset park 2013, oil on canvas, 122 x 102 cm. Kevin Connor & Ian Grant, Liverpool Street Gallery, 243a Liverpool Street East Sydney (NSW), 27 January – 11 February 2016 - liverpoolstgallery.com.au 2. Jennifer KINGWELL & Plum GREEN, The Night Terrors Tour, New Globe, 220 Brunswick St, Brisbane (QLD), 4 February | Smith’s Alternative Bookstore, with special guests Alice Cottee, 76 Alinga St Canberra (ACT), 7 February | The Toff In Town, 2/252 Swanston St, Melbourne (VIC), 28 February. All ticket details via nightterrorstour.com

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3. Jud WIMHURST, WARFAREWEAR (Gunmask I) 2011, polyurethane resin, polyester resin, fiberglass, wood, acrylic sheet, enamel paint, acrylic laquers. Jud Wimhurst: PROTECTION, La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre, 121 View Street Bendigo (VIC), until 21 February 2016 - latrobe.edu.au/vac 4. Andrew SOUTHALL, Self Portrait No. 158 2015, pencil on paper. Photograph by Elise Dutra. Andrew Southall: Will these do, Mr Hockney?, La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre, 121 View Street Bendigo (VIC), until 21 February 2016 - latrobe.edu.au/vac NEXT SPREAD: SUPERFLEX, Flooded McDonalds (still) 2009, RED video installation: colour, sound, 20 minutes, 16:9, 400 x 700cm (variable). Purchased 2010 with funds from Tim Fairfax, AM, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Collection: Queensland Art Gallery. Cornucopia, Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) 70 Welsford St Shepparton (VIC), 27 February – 23 March 2016 - sheppartonartmuseum.com.au

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5. Julia DEVILLE, Sentience 2012, stillborn deer, glass, rubies 18.45ct, pear cut garnet 0.76ct, 18ct white gold chain and wire, sterling silver, bronze, black rhodium on antique Wallace platter.

49 x 49 x 51cm. Collection Bendigo Art Gallery. The Gift of Grace and Alec Craig Bendigo Victoria, 2014. Image courtesy the artist and Sophie Gannon Gallery. Photo: Terence Bogue.

Cornucopia, Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) 70 Welsford St Shepparton (VIC), 27 February – 23 March 2016 - sheppartonartmuseum.com.au 6. Sophia EGARCHOS. Point of No Return 2015. Image credit: Silversalt. Patternation, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, 782 Kingsway Gymea (NSW), until 7 February 2016 - sutherlandshire.nsw.gov.au/ NEXT SPREAD: Jill ORR, The Promised Land: Venice 1 2012, 4 x Edition of 5 A/Ps, performance stills, 650 x 860mm.

Photographer: Monica Sobczak. Courtesy the artist and Fehily Contemporary, Melbourne.

SCOPE 16, Post Office Gallery, Arts Academy, Federation University Australia cnr Sturt & Lydiard St Ballarat (VIC), 3 February – 5 March 2016 - federation.edu.au/pogallery

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