issue 86 DEC11/JAN12

BIG DECEMBER 2011 / JANUARY 2012

FREE

5434 6100 www.thecapital.com.au 50 VIEW STREET BENDIGO

LAUNCH PARTY Saturday 18 February 2012 • Free arts activities, live music & tours of SAM: 10.00am to 5.00pm • Sir John Longstaff: Portrait of a Lady Exhibition • 2011 Indigenous Ceramic Art Award Exhibition • 6 New Permanent Collection Galleries For more information visit sheppartonartmuseum.com.au 70 Welsford St, Shepparton, 3630 VIC p 03 5832 9861 f 03 58318480 e art.museum@shepparton.vic.gov.au

McClelland Gallery+Sculpture Park 390 McClelland Drive Langwarrin Victoria 3910 Open Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm Tel: +61 3 9789 1671 www.mcclellandgallery.com

Jan NELSON Walking in tall grass series, Lucy 2010 oil on linen 77.0 x 66.0 cm McClelland Gallery+Sculpture Park Purchased 2011, The Fornari Bequest © The artist. Courtesy of the artist & Anna Schwartz Gallery

Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane 3 December 2011 — 4 March 2012 PRINCIPAL BENEFACTOR

PRESENTED BY

EXHIBITION ORGANISED BY

PRINCIPAL DONOR

TICKETS

Exhibition organised by the Queensland Art Gallery and Art Exhibitions Australia with the exceptional participation of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Funding for insurance has been provided through the Queensland Government Exhibition Indemnification Scheme, administered by Arts Queensland.

TICKETS

Henri Matisse / Figure drapée dans un peignoir, main droite soutenant le visage (Figure in a peignoir, head supported by her right hand) 1929 / Collection: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris / © Succession H Matisse. Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney, 2011

TICKETS

Image: Mariko Mori Miko No Inori 1996 (detail) video still

2112 IMAGINING

THE FUTURE

EXHIBITION DATES: 2 DECEMBER 2011 – 28 JANUARY 2012

RMIT GALLERY 344 Swanston Street Melbourne 3000 Telephone 03 9925 1717 Email rmit.gallery@rmit.edu.au Web www.rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery Monday – Friday 11 – 5 Saturday 12 – 5 Free admission Closed Sunday and Public Holidays Become a fan of RMIT Gallery on Facebook Follow RMIT Gallery on Twitter

art graduate exhibition

cAl l i n g f o R e n T R i e s - d e A d l i n e e x T e n d e d

$10,000 40x40 ART PRize All Themes, All mediums fRAmed oR unfRAmed musT be less ThAn 40x40x40cm enTRy deAdline exTended To 15 dec 2011 show Runs 21 dec 2011 To 16 JAn 2012 enTeR online AT www.bsgart.com.au All woRKs exhibiTed

bsg brunswick street gallery 322 brunswick st, fitzroy 10am-10pm Tue-sun P: 0419 390 478 mark@bsgart.com.au www.bsgart.com.au

LA TROBE UNIVERSITY VISUAL ARTS & DESIGN Honours Exhibition 2011 To 21 December

TAMARA MARWOOD & VERITY LOUGOON Dirty Denim To 21 December

SOOZIE COUMBE, JANE FARRAH, STEPHEN GARETT, NIOMI SANDS AND GILLEAN SHAW Intersection 6 January - 12 February

NOLA STRATFORD Contemplating the Sound

La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre 121 View Street Bendigo, VIC, 3550 +61 3 5441 8724 latrobe.edu.au/vacentre

6 January – 29 January

La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre 121 View Street, Bendigo, VIC, 3550 T: 03 5441 8724 121 View Street E: vac@latrobe.edu.au Bendigo, VIC, 3550 W: latrobe.edu.au/vac +61 3 5441 8724 Gallery hours: Tue - Fri 10am-5pm, Sat - Sun 12pm-5pm latrobe.edu.au/vacentre La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre

Image: Jane Farrah, Wardrobe, 2011, Felt, timber, tree root, Dimensions variable.

POLITICS, POP AND PORN

Available through selected news agencies, book shops, retailers and online www.large.ac

Summer in the Parks

“

“

Photo by Katherine Davis

Footscray Community Arts Centre & Maribyrnong City Council present

A CelebrAtion oF Koorie Culture FeAturing

the black Arm band

21 January 6pm–10pm Footscray Community Arts Centre 45 Moreland St Footscray A free event for the whole family!

Featuring Archie Roach, Lou Bennett, Stephen Pigram, Bart Willoughby, Emma Donovan and more.

Information & Access Requests: (03) 9362 8888 footscrayarts.com blackarmband.com.au maribyrnong.vic.gov.au

Arrive at twilight.

Settle in with a picnic rug and enjoy a line-up of great entertainment from 6pm.

Photography Sarah Caulfield – Emma Donovan – murundak.

DECEMBER2011 / JANUARY 2012

FEATURES (16)

MADE IN HOLLYWOOD

[20]

GREENWISH #2

(26)

DECEMBER 2011 / JANUARY 2012 SALON

inga Walton

Danilo paglialonga

merry

(33)

MELBURNIN’

(46)

STRALIAN BOOKS

(48)

1% FOR THE 99%

(50)

GREETINGS FROM NATIMUK

courtney symes

Jean-François vernay Mark s. Holsworth Ben laycock

LISTINGS (30) [31] (32) (37] (38) (42) (42) (44) (44)

NSW / ACT TASMANIA MELBOURNE BAY & PENINSULA CENTRAL VICTORIA MURRAY RIVER EASTERN VICTORIA NORTHERN VICTORIA WESTERN VICTORIA

WARNING: 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.

You Ought to be in Pictures ...

“The most complete embodiment of glamour that there has ever been is the Hollywood film star.”

Stephen Gundle, Glamour: A History (2008).

Their names are known primarily to film devotees and photography snobs, but collectively their output defined Hollywood’s ‘Golden Age’ and bequeathed a legacy of brilliantly composed aesthetic allure. Among these ‘masters of light’ were the great George Hurrell, Snr. (1904-92) who arrived at MGM at the insistence of Norma Shearer, and went on to work for Warner Brothers and Columbia Pictures.

Greta Garbo’s favourite lens-man, Clarence Sinclair Bull (1896-1979), was head of the MGM stills department for nearly forty years, overseeing a staff of at least a dozen photographers. The first female photographer active in Hollywood, Ruth Harriet Louise (1903-40), was retained as MGM’s chief portraitist for five years.

Eugene Robert Richee (1896-1972) headed Paramount’s portrait studio from its inception, and produced stunningly inventive images of stars such as Mae West, Gary Cooper, and ‘It’ girl Clara Bow. Ernest Bachrach (1899-1973) was at RKO for almost thirty years during the ascendancy of Gloria Swanson, Katherine Hepburn, and Carole Lombard. Laszlo Willinger (1909-89) took some of the earlier photos of a young model called Norma Jeane Dougherty, who would later become the ultimate blonde bombshell as Marilyn Monroe. >

by Inga Walton

continued next page

continued from previous page

> At the beginning of their careers many of the great stars in the film pantheon were regarded as pliable material possessed of a certain appeal and presence, or exuding a particular magnetism or charisma.Talent managers at a studio would critically assess and burnish that potential, moulding and enhancing it (sometimes surgically) as they ‘created’ a star.

Once under contract, candidates were funnelled through screen tests and innumerable classes from acting and singing, to diction, deportment and grooming.They submitted to the dedicated ministrations of the studio’s experts – lighting technicians, costumers, dieticians, voice coaches, cosmetic dentists, make-up artists, and hairdressers – all of whom deployed their practiced magic. In the assembly line of the ‘dream factory’, each performer was a corporate product coached to project the ‘star quality’ which would enthral an audience.

Intrinsic to this pupae-to-butterfly process of ‘adroit veneering’ were the photographers who produced the indelible, improbably perfect images by which we still know these figures today. Through the brilliance of these artists, an otherwise attractive actress became a screen goddess, and a quite handsome chap was transformed into an irresistible symbol of swoon-inducing masculinity. Even the most naturally beautiful stars trusted their ‘public face’ to the skills of their favourite photographer.

Recalling his sessions with the exotic Merle Oberon, Columbia’s Robert W. Coburn (1900-90) said, “She’d sit there with very little make-up on, and I’d start painting her face with light”. With the still camera’s intercession, a star’s highly retouched and enhanced image could sometimes be better known and more widely seen than their actual filmic output. This was fortunate, given the sometimes mediocre productions and poorly scripted roles they were obliged to fulfil. Thus, the rigid strictures and controlling ethos that defined how established stars, featured, and contract players alike were treated under the ‘studio system’ also produced one of its most enduring legacies.

The work of studio photographers and a handful of freelance professionals like Adolph de Meyer (1868-1949), James Abbe Snr. (18831973), Baron George Hoyningen-Huene (1900-68), and Sir Cecil Beaton (1904-80), expressed an inherent understanding of the wish-fulfilment and escapist role these fantasy figures occupied in the lives of the wider audience. Those who toiled in the portrait department, many of them uncredited, created a star’s ‘timeless visage’, the aureole of perfectly gauged light which routinely suffused the most valuable box-office names. These carefully contrived images reflect “a moment in American cultural life when glamour dominated the movies”. Stars became ciphers for viewer’s aspirations, looked to as arbiters of taste and sophistication, templates of fashion, figures through whom the public could vicariously day-dream. Widely disseminated by a studio’s publicity department, posed portraits and production stills in their thousands went to cinemas as lobby cards and posters, were sent directly to fans in response to innumerable requests, and supplied to newspapers, film, and lifestyle magazines in order to generate positive coverage.

You Ought to be in Pictures / Inga Walton

> These images, both magical and expedient, served to drip-feed public fascination with a star’s persona and maintained interest in them between film roles. Rather unexpected was the durability of these shots, the reproduction and circulation of which has created an afterlife for many of the sitters, and a loyal fan following long after their careers have faded and their films become rarely shown.

The touring exhibition Made In Hollywood: Photographs From the John Kobal Foundation originated at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California, and is curated by its own Karen Sinsheimer and film historian Robert Dance. It features over ninety photographs covering a period from 1925 to the early 1960s, drawn from the collection of writer, archivist, and unabashed film fanatic John Kobal (1940-91).

Kobal was born in Austria and was first exposed to the wonder of Hollywood film when he glimpsed scenes from a Rita Hayworth movie screened for American Occupation troops in the cinema next door to his grandmother’s house. The rest of the family followed his father in emigrating to Canada in 1950, by which time Kobal’s devotion to movies and their stars was entrenched. As he was to comment in the interview collection People Will Talk (1986), “[Hollywood] exerted a powerful charm on the imagination of a young man used to living in emotional isolation”.

Kobal had a short-lived career as a jobbing actor in early 1960s London, which he parleyed into a freelance job for BBC Radio’s ‘Movie Go Round’ broadcast, and later became their US film correspondent.

With a combination of sheer luck, persistence and chutzpah, Kobal the inveterate networker became a true industry ‘insider’. In 1963 he recognised actress Nancy Carroll in New York from her publicity photographs; despite her fame in the 1930s and an Academy Award nomination, Kobal had never seen any of her films. Through her, he gained an introduction to the formidable Tallulah Bankhead, upon whom Kobal made such a good impression that she mentioned him to her Tarnished Lady (1931) director George Cukor. Largely through Cukor, Kobal met an amazing array of some of the most famous stars of classic Hollywood such as Loretta Young, Irene Dunne, Joan Crawford, and ‘Oomph girl’ Ann Sheridan, whom he would interview and socialise with. Kobal would go on to author, co-author or edit thirty-three books about Hollywood portraiture and its subjects including Garbo (1965), Marlene Dietrich (1968), Monroe (1974), and the authoritative The Art of the Great Hollywood Portrait Photographers (1980). His first serious biography, Rita Hayworth: The Time, the Place and the Woman (1977), revisited the object of his boyhood enchantment.

Kobal had accumulated film memorabilia since childhood, but began to do so in a concerted way during a period in the 1960s when five of Hollywood’s eight major studios – MGM, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Universal and United Artists were sold off to conglomerates. On his regular visits to Los Angeles Kobal shrewdly scooped up troves of the publicity material thoughtlessly shed by the studio’s new owners, > (continued page 51)

24

< Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires, 2009 Photo by Sabine Paglialonga.

A profound revolution – a democratic awakening – has been taking place in many parts of the world. A global movement that has mobilized and gathered peoples in peaceful dissent to voice their frustrations with established political status quos around the world. From the Reykjavik protests, the Spanish Indignants, to the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement, these actions have heralded a new era of possibilities in the struggle against political repression and disempowerment. The most striking aspect of these current events is the way such organized movements have used social multi-media as a catalyst for mass action. Social media and the virtual spaces they occupy have made it easier for activists to communicate globally, to meet in solidarity, to express, voice, listen and be listened to in ways that have not before been possible. This has opened new paradigms of thinking and creativity whose overall effects we are only becoming aware of. Facebook, Twitter and similar social networks have nurtured a growing enthusiasm for action, change and empowerment.

At the same time it is interesting to note that the ultimate manifestation of such actions has been a physical occupation of spaces. Is this because the occupation of virtual space is insufficient, or rather, only a part of what is essential to nurture true human and humane dialogue? We may well be becoming comfortable dwelling in the ethereal realm, but ultimately we are ‘place-lings’. We have an innate need to physically place ourselves in the world in order to give meaning and direction to our existence. We are beings with bodies that move, and have volume, and it is our proximity to, or distance from, others, and from physical places, that reminds us of our humane-ity. Perhaps these mass movements, or rather the people involved in them, have innately responded to this need to engage in physical space. To have meaning, a more archetypal form of dissent and political action has been necessary – that of physical movement and occupation.

Starting with the ancient Greeks and their conception of politics, the bios politikos as Aristotle called it. He deemed that out of >

Get Back to Where You Once Belonged > all the activities necessary and present in human communities, only two were seen to be political – action (praxis) and speech (lexis). Once these two qualities of humanity were used together they formed a political event. This needed to occur in the public realm. Without the spatial aspect of action and speech politics remained mute and ceased to eventuate. The public realm required spectators to see and act and hear speech in order for it to be public. Indeed, in order for the politics of true democracy to exist the ancient Greek needed others. They needed a shared time and space for action to be seen, for speech and communication to be heard. They needed listeners and responders: that is, other people present and interacting with the speaker, in the same place.

By medieval times the concept of politics shifted from the necessity of action and speech occurring in space to simply being a fundamentally accepted condition as a result of living in society. People lived among people and therefore by default they existed in the realm of politics and partook in it without direct action. As Thomas Aquinas said ‘man is by nature political, that is social’. Politics shifted from the action-speech-space assemblage of the ancient Greeks to a condition of simply being with and amongst others. Being social was seen as enough to be part of the political realm, as opposed to the ancient Greek concept, which necessitated action and speech.

DANILO PAGLIALONGA

greenwish

and expectations #2 of the people, and individualistic as it serves the few that control and govern politics.

It serves the 1% and marginalizes the remaining 99%.

Present communities have been slowly and meticulously disempowered and lulled into in-action and speech-less-ness through a political system that requires people only to have a substantial say every few years at election time. We have been dis-placed and distanced from social action through our fragmented city and home-scapes, our modes of individualistic transportation, and most importantly propagandized by the media. We are kept informed of the politics practiced by the powerful but have little recourse for reply. We have been lulled by relative financial security, and a surplus of food and consumer products to keep us speech-less and action-less, without need for community support, nor any desire to engage socially in public spaces. As a result public spaces have increasingly disappeared from our neighbourhoods and cities to be replaced by privatized spaces and shopping centres.

As social media tools like Facebook and Twitter have become an increasing means of communication, we have been able to once again connect, and be listened to. Globalized Internet access has allowed our voice to be heard in the virtual realm, empowering us to once again, like the ancient During the Renaissance and the emergence Greeks, meet in speech and action to politicize. of science and technology politics became Initially developed in virtual space, the natural conceptualized as the ‘Art of Man’. Politics was progression of this has been to manifest our political seen as something mechanistic, and which began intent in physical space and place. Through people’s to perform and live autonomously. This produced a enthusiasm to take back our right to public spaces government that stood outside of the people that we have turned full circle and are demanding the worked for the common ‘good’, much like a machine. right to true political action by occupying spaces Politics becomes an art-ifice: a machine outside of in order to once again use action and speech to the direct engagement of the people. Not much has voice our right to be heard, and to reverse the long changed to this day, except that we have refined this standing disempowerment of place and identity in concept. Politics has become even more disengaged social life. To give back to the 99% of us what has and individualistic – disengaged from the real needs been denied by the privileged 1%.

Danilo Paglialonga is a Steiner teacher and architect. He is currently a partner in Lifehouse Design, award-winning sustainable building designers in Castlemaine, Central Victoria. Lifehouse Design is currently developing a unique flexible module-based house, called the LiFEHOUSE. See www.lifehousedesign.com.au and facebook.

Patrick Jones is taking a break to complete his PHD. visit http://permapoesis.blogspot.com/

Studies in Rising and Falling John Howland and Anna-Maria O’Keeffe

As joint recipients of the 2009 Commonwealth Connections International arts residency, Brisbane artists John Howland and Anna-Maria O’Keeffe travelled to the Pacific nation of Kirbati for 4 months to develop artworks in response to sea level rise and climate change.

This video work features footage from the interiors of fresh water wells (Te Maneba) and the setting and retrieval of Eel traps (Te Uu) in the ocean. The work was produced with the assistance of local eel fishermen and with permission of owners of the wells.

To capture the well imagery a system of fishing line and scaffold made from local materials was assembled to allow the lowering of a waterproof camera slowly into the wells.

The observational footage shows two aspects of daily life in Kiribati which is largely unchanged in the long history of subsistence living and continues in accordance with natural rhythms. Yet in light of dire forecasts about climate change and some sensationalist reportage on a catastrophic future for Kiribati there is a poignancy to the themes of water and terrain traversal which features in this film, and how water is encountered in every direction in Kiribati even just metres below the surface of the narrow atoll landforms.

Of particular poignancy are the underwater scenes of the traditional eel traps rising and falling in the blue depths, making an uncanny reference to an I-Kiribati family dwelling.

This work seeks to bring the relationship of people, land, home, sustenance, fresh and salt water, into consideration through a poetic observational approach.

CCP Melbourne, night projection window, 404 George Street Fitzroy (VIC). Screening after dark: 12 December 2011– 8 Feb 2012.

DECEMBER / JANUARY SALON THIS SPREAD: 1. Michael SHANNON, Cairns, 1965, oil on canvas. Private collection. Michael Shannon: Australian Romantic Realist, Art Gallery of Ballarat, 40 Lydiard Street North, Ballarat (VIC), 10 December 2011 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 12 February 2012 www.artgalleryofballarat.com.au 2. Craig MACDONALD, Witness 2011, bronze, 175 x 54 x 24cm (edition of 4). First Prize 2011 Montalto Sculpture Prize. Image courtesy of Will Slater. Craig MacDonald - Memento, Kick Gallery, 4 Peel Street, Collingwood (VIC), until 10 December.

NEXT SPREAD: 3. Fiona WONG, Green Baby, 2010, porcelain, 5 x 5 x 15cm (2 pieces), collection of the artist. Tooth and Nail: Cross-Cultural Influences in Contemporary Ceramics, Chinese Museum, 22 Cohen Place Melbourne (VIC), 24 November to 15 January, 2012. 4. Hannah RAISIN, Tadpole Swamp 2011, archival pigment print , 60 x 40cm. Photograph: Anna Leaton. Separation Anxiety , Blindside, 7th floor, Nicholas Building Melbourne (VIC), until 10 December. 5. Ron MCBURNIE, A lady of elephants 1988, from the Suburban series, hard ground etching and aquatint, 20 x 31cm, edition of 20. Photo: Michael Marzik. Ron McBurnie: Metal as Anything, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, Margaret Carnegie Gallery, 243 Baylis Street Wagga Wagga (NSW), until 29 January, 2012.

1

2

DECember / JANUARY salon

3

4

5

6. Nicholas LEE (James Ruse Agricultural High School), Twin. Screen It 2011, Winner Best Secondary School Computer Game and Best Overall Entry from a Secondary School. The 2011 national Screen It awards will be held on Friday 2 December at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

More information on Screen It can be found at: www.acmi.net.au/screenit

30

NSW / ACT

canberra

Katherine Griffiths

Naturally Beautiful

• National Gallery of Australia Now showing: Renaissance – 15th & 16th Century paintings from the Accademia Carrara, Bergamo. This unique exhibition offers audiences an unparalleled chance to see Early and High Renaissance paintings by some of the greatest European artists. RapHaEl, BoTTicElli, BElliNi and TiTiaN are represented among an amazing gamut of talent and creative splendour. More than 70 works on canvas and panel will be on display, made between 1400 and 1600 by painters in northern and central italy. Now showing: out of the West - art of Western australia from the national collections. Out of the West is the first survey exhibition outside Western australia to present a large sample of Western australian art from pre-settlement until today. Works by established early artists, RoBERT DalE, THoMas TuRNER, and KaTHlEEN o’coNNoR, as well as those by more recent artists such as HERBERT MccliNTocK, ElisE BluMaNN and RoDNEy GlicK, will be shown, alongside significant works by many less familiar names. open daily 10am - 5pm. parkes place, parkes, canberra 2600. T: (02) 6240 6411, www.nga.gov.au.

cowra

• Cowra Regional Art Gallery 77 Darling street cowra NsW 2794. Tues to sat 10am - 4pm, sun 2 - 4pm. Free admission. www.cowraartgallery.com.au

griffith

Natalie Azzopardi

Beyond the laughing sky 8 Dec 2011 to 29 Jan 2012 PhotoAccess Huw Davies Gallery Manuka Arts Centre Griffith ACT photoaccess.org.au | 02-6295 7810 Tues to Fri 10-4 | weekends 12-4

Supported by the ACT & Commonwealth Governments

• PhotoAccess Huw Davies Gallery 8 December 2011 to 29 January 2012 KaTHERiNE GRiFFiTHs: Naturally Beautiful; NaTaliE azzopaRDi: Beyond the laughing sky. photoaccess Huw Davies Gallery, Manuka arts centre, Manuka circle Griffith acT. Tuesday to Friday 10am to 4pm, weekends 12 noon to 4pm.

T: (03) 6295 7810; www.photoaccess.org.au

sydney

• Art Gallery of New South Wales until 25 March 2012 Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris. 2 December 2011 – 5 February 2012 Dobell Prize for Drawing 2011. until 2 January 2012 One Hundred Flowers. until 5 February 2012 What’s in a face? Aspects of portrait photography. until 2 May New contemporary galleries. art Gallery Road, The Domain, sydney NsW 2000. T: (02) 9225 1744, www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

TASMANIA 31

devonport

• Devonport Regional Gallery 3 December – 15 January, opening Friday 2 December, 6pm, MaiN GallERy Missing, Presumed Dead. curator: paul snell. In Conversation with Paul Snell and participating artists: saturday 3 December, 11am. THE liTTlE GallERy, Emerging Artist Program; JuliaN THoMpsoN: Mersey. 21 January – 4 March, opening Friday 20 January, 6pm, MaiN GallERy, oWEN laDE retrospective; THE liTTlE GallERy, Museum of contemporary art Touring Exhibition, Video in a Box. open Mon - sat 10am - 5pm, sun and pub hols 12 - 5pm.

45 stewart street, Devonport, Tasmania 7310.

E: artgallery@devonport.tas.gov.au T: (03) 6424 8296, www.devonportgallery.com

hobart

• Inflight ARI Ashes to Ashes JoEl cRossWEll opens Friday 2 December 6pm. Exhibition runs 3 – 24 Dec. please see website for January events.

Gallery Hours: Wed-sat 1-5pm. 100 Goulburn street, Hobart. www.inflightart.com.au • Inka Gallery Inc. Not-for-profit, artists’ run, original contemporary art. Exhibitions three-weekly. salamanca place, Hobart. Hours 10am-5pm,T: (03) 6223 3663 www.inkagallery.org.au; www.inkagalleryhobart. blogspot.com

• MONA, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart ancient, modern and contemporary art.

Monanism becomes the permanent collection evolving over time. some pieces are moving or going, others are staying. Forever. like siDNEy NolaN’s Snake (1970 – 1972). WiM DElvoyE exhibition starts 10 December thru 2 april, 2012. Expect more cloacae, Tattoo Tim, carved tyres, Delft-blue shovels. Fees: $20 adult for non-residents of Tasmania. open 10am to 6pm, closed Tuesdays. Food, bars, winery, microbrewery, accommodation, bookshop and library. 655 Main Road Berriedale, Tasmania, 7011. T: (03) 6277 9900, www.mona.net.au • Salamanca Arts Centre 77 salamanca place, Hobart. T: (03) 6234 8414; E: info@salarts.org.au; www.salarts.org.au • Print Council of Australia Inc. printmakers and print collectors stay in touch with print exhibitions, events and technical issues through iMpRiNT magazine. Members receive frequent email updates and information about opportunities (courses, forums, group exhibitions and competitions). subscriptions $65/year or $45 concessions see website: www.printcouncil.org.au or phone T: (03) 9328 8991 for membership details.

32

MELBOURNE

box hill

• Alcove Art Shop unique hand crafted gifts. proudly sponsored

by Box Hill community arts centre and city of Whitehorse. www.alcoveartshop.org.au • Box Hill Community Arts Centre 5 – 10 December Box Hill aRT GRoup, 13 – 22 December International Day of People with a Disability exhibition, 17 – 29 January Art Without Borders. Now accepting applications for 2012 artist in residence program. 470 station street, Box Hill. T: (03) 9895 8888 www.bhcac.com.au • Whitehorse Art Space 11 November – 21 December Forest Threads by australian Quilts in public places (aQipp). celebrating the international year of the Forest, quilters from around australia demonstrate their talent, skills and originality in interpreting the theme “Forest Threads”. Join the quilters for free demonstrations every saturday at 2pm. Reopening 24 January – 29 February 2012 Summer Salon. Tues and Fri 10am - 3pm, Wed and Thurs 9am - 5pm, saturday noon - 4pm. T: (03) 9262 6250, 1022 Whitehorse Road, Box Hill vic 3128, www.boxhilltownhall.com.au

brunswick

• Brunswick Arts Space opening 16th December, 6 to 10pm, Less Arty more Party, xmas party. We are accepting submissions for our open entry prize, Entry, see our website for more details. 2a little Breese street, Brunswick. Thu-Fri 2-6pm, sat-sun 125pm. Brunswickarts is accepting applications for 2012, check out www.brunswickarts.com.au • Counihan Gallery in Brunswick until 17 December: Women’s Salon 2011: an annual themed contemporary art exhibition showcasing the creative practice of female artists, craftworkers and designers who live and/or work in Moreland. 20 January — 19 February: Brunswick Revisited: Drawn from the council’s glass slide collection (1839—1939), the exhibition considers Brunswick’s early history through architecture, industry and infrastructure. (Map ref 1-D) 233 sydney Road, Brunswick 3056 (next to Brunswick Town Hall). T: (03) 9389 8622, F: (03) 9387 4048, E: counihangallery@moreland. vic.gov.au Gallery open Wed-sat 11am to 5pm, sun 1pm to 5pm. closed public holidays.

burwood

• Deakin University Art Gallery closed public Holidays, Free Entry. 221 Burwood Hwy, Burwood 3125. T: (03) 9244 5344; F: (03) 9244 5254, E: artgallery@deakin.edu.au; www.deakin.edu.au/art-collection

carlton

• La Mama at la Mama Theatre, 205 Faraday street: 1-18 Dec, Strands by pETa BRaDy; from 17 Jan, The Pineapple Sorrows by JaKE pREval. at la Mama courthouse, 349 Drummond street: til 18 Dec, Flight by MicHaEl HEaly; from 18 Jan, Landscape Dreaming by cHaRlEs MERcovicH. Bookings T: (03) 9347 6142 or www.lamama.com.au

dandenong

• Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre 9 by 5 Exhibition Walker street has invited selected artists to complete a new work on a 9 x 5 inch board sent to them. The result; exciting and fascinating works created on a small scale, each a gem in its own right. artist’s Reception saturday 3 December, 3pm. Walker st Gallery, cnr Walker and Robinson streets Dandenong 3175. Hours: Mon - Fri 11am to 5pm, sat 11am to 3pm, closed sunday and public holidays. T: (03) 9706 8441; F: (03) 9706 7651; E: walkerstreetgallery@cgd.vic.gov.au; www.greaterdandenong.com

deer park

• Hunt Club Community Arts Centre Galleries centre open Mon-Thurs 9am-7.30pm, Fri 9am-4.30pm, sat 9am-12.30pm. closed public Holidays. 775 Ballarat Road, Deer park (Melway 25, F8) T: (03) 9249 4600 E: huntclub@brimbank. vic.gov.au; www.brimbank.vic.gov.au/arts

doncaster

• Manningham Gallery 699 Doncaster Road, Doncaster 3108. open Tuesday to Friday 11am to 5pm, saturday 2 to 5pm. E: gallery@manningham.vic.gov.au; www.manningham.vic.gov.au/gallery

DATELINE: DECEMBER / JANUARY 2011

by Courtney Symes

December is a tricky month. In addition to work and everyday life, we find ourselves squeezing in frantic Christmas shopping, trying to meet unrealistic work deadlines to ‘get it done before Christmas’, packing in the Christmas parties (and discretely nursing hangovers at work the next day). To top this off, artists and galleries seem to be on a mission to showcase their finest exhibitions to woo us through their doors at this busy time of year. This month NGV have pulled out the big guns with highly anticipated exhibitions such as The Mad Square and British Watercolours 1760-1900, and we are spoilt for choice with a plethora of exciting exhibitions from ACCA, [MARS] and more. We hope you can survive the silly season, cause we don’t know where to start!

“Following the catastrophe of World War I and during a period of revolution and chaos, German artists entered an exhilarating phase of creative and artistic fervour, when radically modern art movements were born and flourished,” explains NGV Director, Dr Gerard Vaughan. Vaughan is setting the scene for NGV’s impressive summer exhibition, The Mad Square: Modernity in German Art 1910–37. It was throughout this period that new art movements such as Dada, Expressionism, Bauhaus, Constructivism and New Objectivity appeared throughout Germany as artists began to experiment and push the boundaries of their practice. Over 200 works from artists including Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Hannah Höch, El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, August Sander and Christian Schad have been sourced from Australian and international collections. The exhibition prides itself on being >> continued on page 52 IMAGE: Amy-Jo JORY, Down by the river (detail) 2011.

Digital video, 16:9, colour, stereo, 3.00 minutes, ed. of 10. Image courtesy the artist and Counihan Gallery.

34

eltham

• Eltham Library Community Gallery 1 – 19 December: a year in the studio artworks by tutors and participants in the living and learning Nillumbik programHours: Mon-Thurs 10am-8.30pm, Fri-sat 10am-5pm, sun 1-5pm. panther pl, Eltham, Melway 21 J5.

• Eltham South Fine Art Studios & Gallery @ Six Mount Pleasant Road Eltham JENNi MiTcHEll, GRacE MiTcHEll and MERvyN HaNNaN. open by appointment. paiNTiNG classEs. T: 9439 3458; M: 0417 585 102; ; E: jenni@jennimitchell.com.au; www.jennimitchell.com.au

fairfield

• NMIT – Bachelor of Illustration a degree for those wishing to be a specialist in the creative industries. For information visit www.nmit.edu.au/illustration or call T: (03) 9269 8888

fitzroy

• Brooklyn Arts Hotel Brooklyn is beautiful, friendly, quiet, interesting, quirky and personal, within walking distance of central Melbourne. 48-50 George street Fitzroy.

T: (03) 9419 9328 www.brooklynartshotel.com.au • Colour Factory Gallery Unearthly Garden curated by caRolyN DEW. artists included are aNGEla BailEy, MaGDalENa BoRs, caRolyN DEW, MaRiaN DREW, lEE GRaNT and pETER laMBRopoulos. Exhibition dates: 2 December – 28 January. opening night: 1 December, 6-8pm. 409 - 429 Gore street, Fitzroy 3065. T: (03) 9419 8756, F: (03) 9417 5637.

Gallery hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 6pm, sat 1 4pm. E: Gallery@colourfactory.com.au, http:// www.colourfactory.com.au/gallery/ • Studies in Rising and Falling Kiribati film work by JoHN HoWlaND & aNNa MaRia o’KEEFFE, ccp Melbourne, night projection window. screening after dark: 12 Dec 2011 – 8 Feb 2012. 404 George street Fitzroy vic 3065.

footscray

• The Dog Theatre stay tuned - www.thedogtheatre.com • Magnani Papers Australia Beautiful fine art papers for printmaking, painting and drawing. Mention this Trouble ad and get 10% off! 40 Buckley street Footscray 3011. T: (03) 9689 5660, www.magnani.com.au E: james@magnani.com.au

ivanhoe

• Banyule Arts Space Duality – The 2011 Banyule Award for Works on Paper, until 14 Dec; Banyule arts space: 14 ivanhoe pde, ivanhoe. Hours: Wed to sat: 11am–5pm. T: (03) 9457 9851

langwarrin

• McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park australia’s leading sculpture park and Gallery.

13 November 2011 to 5 February 2012: Double Vision. 13 November 2011 to 15 January 2012: The Mary and lou senini art award 2011 for ceramics. 390 Mcclelland Drive, langwarrin (Mel. Ref. 103 E3 only 45 min from st Kilda!) T: (03) 9789 1671. Gallery Hours: Tues - sun 10am - 5pm (Entry by donation). Mcclelland Gallery café, Tues - sun 10am - 4.30pm. Guided Tours: Wed and Thurs 11am and 2pm, and sat and sun sculpture park at 2pm. prior bookings highly recommended. E: info@mcclellandgallery.com, www.mcclellandgallery.com

melbourne

• Blindside Artist Run Space 23 Nov to 10 Dec (opening 24 Nov 6-8pm, artist Talk 3 Dec 2.30pm): Separation Anxiety – HaNNaH RaisiN, curated by claiRE aNNa WaTsoN. 11 – 14 Jan (opening 12 Jan 6-8pm, artist Talk TBc): Summer Studio Open Studios – aGNEs so & JasoN cHau and BEN JoHNsoN & NicK HERzoG. 18 Jan to 4 Feb (opening 19 Jan, 6-8pm): If mother killed her wife will she hang? – DoMiNiQuE HiNDMaRsH and susaN THoRNE; Tension 17 – TiMoTHy EDsER. 8 – 25 Feb (opening 9 Feb, 6-8pm, Floor Talk TBc): Debut VIII - curated by aDElE MacER and sHaE NaGoRcKa. Nicholas Building, 714/37 swanston st (enter via cathedral arcade lifts, cnr Flinders ln), Melbourne.

Hours: Tue to sat 12-6pm. T: (03) 9650 0093; www.blindside.org.au • fortyfivedownstairs Under Standing Loss by MiKE HEWsoN, 29 November – 10 December, painting and mixed media; Slow Decline by DayNE TRoWER, 29 November – 10 December, sculpture; True Love Travels on a Gravel Road by JaNE MillER and BENG oH, 30 November, play reading; Pompeii, LA by DEclEN GREENE, 1 December, play reading; Collider by KyNaN RoBiNsoN and aDaM siMMoNs, 12 December, music

MELBOURNE 35

recital; Images of Home, multi-channel sound installation, students from officer primary school, cardinia with artist, aNGEla GRaNT, supported by vic Health Technology, arts and social connections scheme and cardinia shire council, 13 – 18 December, sound installation; Dream City by saMuEl coNDoN, 13 – 18 December, painting. White Wash by paMEla sEE, 16 January – 4 February, paper cutting; In Vogue: Songs by Madonna, BRyaNT & FRaNK, 18 - 29 January, Musical theatre; Que Sera Sharah, ToM sHaRaH, 25 – 28 January, cabaret; THE WoMENs ciRcus, 31 Jan – 5 Feb, theatre and circus. A Dingo Fence and Mallee Roots: Victorian Farming on the Fringe by KRisTiN DiEMER, photography, 17 January – 4 February. 45 Flinders lane, Melbourne, 3000. T: (03) 9662 9966; www.fortyfivedownstairs.com • Matt Irwin Photographic Gallery urban street photography of Melbourne canvas sale. open 7 days a week. Matt irwin Gallery, shop 4, 239 Flinders lane (enter via scott alley) T: 9663 2858 www.mattirwin.com.au • RMIT Gallery 2112 Imagining the Future, exhibition dates: 2 December 2011 – 28 January 2012 Tapping into general anxieties about an uncertain future and public concern about the consequences of climate change, 2112 Imagining the Future presents a range of images revealing how contemporary artists imagine the world might look in one hundred years time. Hence the exhibition responds to recent artworks that gravitate towards the realm of science fiction, a genre that explores

ideas about the future and is highly developed in literature and film, but has hitherto been regarded as fairly marginal in the visual arts. artists: pHilip BRopHy, JusTiNE coopER, KEiTH coTTiNGHaM, THoMas DoylE, lEslEy DuxBuRy, KEllyaNN GEuRTs, sTEpHEN HalEy, KiRsTEN JoHaNNsEN, saM lEacH, ToNy lloyD, yvEs MaRcHaND & RoMaiN MEFFRE, MaRiKo MoRi, HisaHaRu MoToDa, lyNDal osBoRNE, paTRicia picciNiNi, pHilip saMaRTzis, RoMaN siGNER, supERFlEx, DEBBiE syMoNs, sTEpHaNiE valENTiN, DaRREN WaRDlE, KENJi yaNoBE, aND KEN + Julia yoNETaNi. public program events bookings for all events essential. T: (03) 9925 1717. Thursday 30 November 5.45-8.30pm Kaleide Theatre, RMiT. Future Horror? screening of the cult 1979 Russian science fiction film Stalker, directed by aNDREi TaRKovsKy. includes refreshments and panel discussion with philip Brophy, linda Williams, and Kenji yanobe. Friday 2 December 12-1pm: From Organic to Atomic: curator linda Williams in conversation with lyndal osborne (canada), Kenji yanobe (Japan). Tuesday 6 December 12-1pm Painting the Future: Tony lloyd and sam leach.

RMiT Gallery344 swanston street, Melbourne 3000. T: (03) 9925 1717 Hours Mon to Fri 11am-5pm, sat 12 noon-5pm. closed sun and public holidays. closed 24 Dec 2011 to 3 January 2012. E: rmit.gallery@rmit.edu.au; www.rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery. Become a fan of RMiT Gallery of Facebook Follow RMiT Gallery on Twitter@RMiTGallery Director: suzanne Davies.

36

MELBOURNE

moonee ponds

• Incinerator Gallery Picture This City: History and photography in Moonee valley by ElizaBETH GERTsaKis. 9 Dec to 26 Feb. call for entries Artecycle sculpture awards and Exhibition with $14,000 non-acquisitive prize pool. Entry forms on website. opening hours: Wednesday to sunday, 11am-4pm. incinerator Gallery, 180 Holmes Road, Moonee ponds vic 3039. T: (03) 8325 1750, E: incinerator@mvcc.vic.gov.au, www.incineratorgallery.com.au

northcote

• Arts Project Australia Annual Gala Exhibition, opening Wed 30 Nov 6-8pm. Thu 1 Dec – Mon 19 Dec 2011 arts project australia’s annual Gala Exhibition will feature a broad survey of artwork produced in 2011 by more than 120 artists that are currently participating in the studio program. (arts project australia Gallery will be closed from Tues Dec 20 2011 reopening on Mon 30 Jan 2012 ). Gallery Hours: Mon to Fri 9am-5pm, sat 10am-5pm. location and contact details: arts project australia, 24 High street Northcote victoria 3070. T: (03) 9482 4484 F: (03) 9482 1852 E: info@artsproject.org.au; www.artsproject.org.au For artwork enquiries and appointments please contact arts project australia gallery.

prahran

• one hundredth gallery For everyone new to art. Dedicated to aspiring and emerging artists. Now taking applications. www.100thgallery.com

southbank

• ACCA - Australian Centre for Contemporary Art Pipilotti Rist, I Packed the Postcard in my Suitcase, 21 December 21 2011 to 4 March 2012. leading swiss artist pipiloTTi RisT floods acca’s walls and ceilings with her trippy, psychedelic video projections in the first major presentation of her work in australia.

Named a ‘guilty pleasure’ by British critic adrian searle, pipilotti’s works are epic, lush and often deal with issues related to gender, sexuality and the human body in a way that evokes a sense of joy and innocence. Featured are several key works from Rist’s recent exhibiting history and two new commissions. australian centre for contemporary art, 111 sturt street,

southbank. Gallery hours: Tuesday-Friday 10am–5pm. Weekends 11am-6pm. Mondays by appointment. T: (03) 9697 9999. admission: free. www.accaonline.org.au

st andrews

• The Baldessin Press and Studio artists / writers retreats, workshops, studio access etc in tranquil bushland 50 kms from Melbourne.

T (03) 97101350, www.baldessinpress.com

upway

• Burrinja Gallery MaRy ToNKiN: Home 2000-2010. Exhibition spans ten years of plein-air painting in the forest at Kalorama, until 26 Feb. In the Wild: vcE Winners 2010 ElisE BRaND and HayDEN DaNiEl exhibit new works, until 22 Dec. Burrinja collection works, until 11 Feb. cnr Glenfern Rd and Matson Dr. Tue to sun 10.30am - 4pm. T: (03) 9754 8723. www.burrinja.org.au

wheelers hill

• Monash Gallery of Art (MGA) 860 Ferntree Gully Road, Wheelers Hill 3150.

Tues - Fri 10am to 5pm, sat - sun 12 to 5pm, closed Mon. T: (03) 8544 0500, E:mga@ monash.vic.gov.au, www.mga.org.au

geelong

BAY & PENINSULA

• Geelong Gallery Pioneers of studio pottery in Victoria until 29 January. Australian landscapes in watercolour until 5 February. NicHolas cHEvaliER Australian odyssey until 12 February. Shell arts – Geelong region artists program; Retrospective - DaviD TuRNER, until 4 December. little Malop street, Geelong. T: (03) 5229 3645, www.geelonggallery.org.au, Free entry. open daily 10am to 5pm. closed christmas Day, Boxing Day and New year’s Day. • Metropolis Gallery 64 Ryrie street Geelong 3220. (03) 5221 6505. Director: Robert avitabile. www. metropolisgallery.com.au

ENTRIES NOW OPEN download from artgalleryofballarat.com.au

Art Gallery of Ballarat 40 Lydiard Street North Ballarat VIC 3350 Telephone: 03 5320 5858

The Vintage Element .com.au

1st Floor 142-144 Weston St Brunswick East 3057 Thursday 12-5 and Saturday 10-4

$10,000 acquisitive award

38

ballarat

• Art Gallery of Ballarat 3 December to 15 January, Ballarat National photographic competition, presented by the Ballarat camera club. 10 December to 12 February, MicHaEl sHaNNoN: Australian Romantic Realist, a retrospective of this major artist of the 1950s and 60s whose work has slipped from critical and public view. 10 December to 21 January, pETER alDRicH: Dog. 28 January to 18 March, NExTGen: vcE art and Design. project video window to 1 January Jill oRR: The sleep of reason produces monsters – Goya, 5 January to 22 January, GoRDoN MoNRo: Dissonant Particles. art Gallery of Ballarat, 40 lydiard st Nth, Ballarat 3350. E: artgal@ballarat.vic.gov.au T: (03) 5320 5858. W: www.artgalleryofballarat. com.au Free entry unless specified. open daily.

• Ballarat Arts Foundation Grants Rounds for emerging artists: 1 – 31 March and 1 – 30 september. visit Downloads on www.ballaratartsfoundation.org.au or T: (03) 5332 4824 or M: 0409 352 268 • Gallery on Sturt pRo HaRT 12 Dec – 31 Jan. also exhibiting works by pETER RussEll-claRKE, KENNETH JacK, NoRMaN liNDsay and RoBERT iNGpEN. 421 sturt st, Ballarat 3350; T: (03) 5331 7011; www.galleryonsturt.com.au Free entry.

• Her Majesty’s Her Majesty’s Theatre, 17 lydiard street south, Ballarat. Box office/Ticket sales: MajesTix T: (03) 5333 5888 Box office hours - Monday to Friday, 9.15am - 5pm and one hour prior to performance starting times.

• Kirrit Barreet - Aboriginal Art and Cultural Centre Now exhibiting community works. 403-407 Main Road. www.aboriginalballarat.com.au • The Known World Bookshop & Apartment Great s/h books, coffee bar and a boutique city apartment. 14 sturt street, Ballarat.

T: (03) 5332 8114 • Post Office Gallery Wed 14 Dec 2011 – sat 21 Jan 2012 TRuDi HaRlEy – Time Passing: The In-Between: Wed 25 Jan – sat 4 Feb Art Unlimited: coRpus; Wed 8 – sat 18 Feb Gallery closed; Wed 21 Feb – sat 24 Mar uB staff

and postgrad. students: SCOPE 012. post office Gallery, arts academy, university of Ballarat. cnr sturt and lydiard st Ballarat. vic.

3350. Mon/Tue by appt. Wed-sat 1-4pm. T: (03) 5327 8615, E: s.hinton@ballarat.edu.au www.ballarat.edu.au.

• Radmac Now showing at the Radmac Gallery through December and January, Mccallum community connections art studio, celebrate the international Day of people With Disability, their exhibition titled Mosaics in the Garden along with BolToN, BasiRi & sTacpoolE an artist co-operative, their exhibition titled 3View, a combination of photography acrylic painting, illustration and multimedia; and JaNE McDouGall’s exhibition titled East and Beyond, prints, gouache and collage works, inspired by her journeys in asia and the pacific.

Radmac Gallery, 104 armstrong st (Nth) Ballarat 3350. T: (03) 5333 4617, Gallery Hours: 8.30am to 5.30pm Mon - Fri, 9am to 12pm sat. Entry Free. Enrol now for art classes. Gallery and studio space available.

bendigo

• Artsonview Framing and Gallery Expert custom framing by GEoFF sayER. conservation and exhibition framing also available. plus a small but interesting range of original artwork and photography. New ceramics

by Ray pEaRcE now in stock. 75 view street.

T: (03) 5443 0624, E: sayer@iinet.net.au • Bendigo Art Gallery The Lost Modernist: MICHAEL O’CONNELL, 26 November 2011 – 19 February 2012. a Bendigo art Gallery exhibition. Made in Hollywood: Photographs from the John Kobal Foundation.

3 December 2011 – 12 February 2012. 42 view street, Bendigo. T: (03) 5434 6088. www.bendigoartgallery.com.au • Bendigo Art Society BENDiGo aRT sociETy is having an exhibition over the xmas and holiday period at the Bendigo pottery paynter Gallery, Midland Highway, Epsom from 6 December 2011 until 15 February 2012.This is a wonderful opportunity to buy that special xmas present, and to see the range of paintings produced by its experienced and gifted artists. For information please phone The pottery (03) 5448 4404 or secretary 5470 5570

CENTRAL VICTORIA

• Bob Boutique original artworks, amazing prints, blythe dolls and handmade bits and bobs. 17 Williamson street, Bendigo. open sat and sun 11am-3pm, Mon and Tues 11am-3pm, Wed-Fri 11am-5pm. www.bob.net.au • Book Now secondhand bookseller. proprietor Garry Murray. 1 Farmers lane Bendigo. open 7 days 10am - 5pm. T: (03) 5443 8587 • Community & Cultural Development (CCD) www.bendigo.vic.gov.au - for arts, festivals and events info at your fingertips. select council services, then arts Festivals and Events for Events calendar and arts Register. The ccD unit is an initiative of the city of Greater Bendigo. E: eventscalendar@bendigo.vic.gov.au T: (03) 5434 6464 • El Gordo Café & Art Space Alice in Monsterland paper crafts by KaRa RicE and We Only Come Out At Night, photographs by sEaN TayloR until 9 Dec. ceramic homewares and jewellery ElM DEsiGN, and resin works and jewellery MElissa uRQuHaRT, 10 – 23 Dec. open: Mon-Fri, 8am-4.30pm and sat Dec 10, 9am-2pm. chancery lane, Bendigo. M: 0413 447 518; www.elgordo.net.au • La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre vac Gallery: To 21 December la TRoBE uNivERsiTy visual aRT aND DEsiGN pRoGRaM Honours Exhibition 2011. 6 January – 12 February sooziE couMBE, JaNE FaRRaH, sTEpHEN GaRETT, NioMi saNDs and GillEaN sHaW Intersection. access Gallery: 30 November – 21 December TaMaRa MaRWooD and vERiTy louGooN Dirty Denim. 6 January – 29 January Nola sTRaTFoRD Contemplating the Sound. Gallery hours: Tue - Fri 10am-5pm, sat - sun 12pm5pm. 121 view st, Bendigo. T: (03) 5441 8724; W: www.latrobe.edu.au/vac • The Capital info and tickets online at www.thecapital.com.au.

T: (03) 5441 6100 or visit 50 view street, Bendigo. Full list of shows at website.

castlemaine

• Art Supplies Castlemaine Extensive range, art gift ideas, kids art materials, 10% art student discount, special orders welcome.

Tues - Thur 9am-5pm, Fri 9am - 5.30pm, sat 9am-1pm. 25 Hargraves street. T: (03) 5470 5291, E: artsuppliescastlemaine@gmail.com • Arts Officer - Jon Harris Community Activity and Culture Unit Mount Alexander Shire Council Jon Harris (Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri) po Box 185 castlemaine 3450. T: (03) 5471 1793, M: 0428 394 577, E: arts@mountalexander.vic.gov.au • Bent Ironwork artist’s sculptural work, architectural and wrought iron work by sTEvE RoWE. 54 Bagshaw street Harcourt. M: 0400 538 344 • Brian Nunan Studio & Gallery visit the gallery of BRiaN NuNaN. Retrospective and new controversial artworks. open saturday and sunday or by appointment. 40 campbell street castlemaine. T: (03) 5470 6724. E: brian@briannunan.com • Buda Historic Home and Garden a property of national significance. Home of the creative leviny family from 1863 to 1981, featuring authentic furnishings and arts and crafts collection. Wander around the heritage garden, enjoy the picture-perfect spring, and then buy your own Buda plants in the Nursery.

42 Hunter street, castlemaine 3450. T/F: (03) 5472 1032, E: admin@budacastlemaine.org. open Wed - sat 12 - 5, sun 10 – 5. Groups by appointment.

BENDIGO RICHMOND

ESSENDON SUNBURY

FIND ALL YOUR ARTISTIC NEEDS AT ARTHOUSE www.arthousedirect.com.au

40

• CASPA Caspa Nativity Diorama group show. caspa artists provide a 2D character they think should be at the caspa Nativity! Works are then hung from the ceiling to create a caspasized Nativity Diorama. opening and caspa christmas party Friday 2 Dec 6pm – show runs until 20 Jan, 10am – 5pm daily. above stoneman’s Bookroom, Hargraves street. www.castlemainefringe.org.au/caspa • Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum Len Fox Painting Award, 5 November – 11 December. 14 lyttleton street castlemaine, vic. For full list of events and exhibitions log onto: www.castlemainegallery.com • Castlemaine Artists’ Market central vic artists, designers and makers, sunday 4 December, 10am to 3pm, and christmas Night Market Friday 18 Dec, 5-9pm. located at Theatre Royal Brickyard Garden, Hargraves street, castlemaine. www.castlemaineartistsmarket.com.au • Castlemaine Continuing Education certificate ii in visual arts and contemporary craft cuv20103 arts pathways course 2012 entry. a hands on course exploring a range of art techniques and methods. study drawing, printmaking, sculpture, painting and contemporary art practice. information session: 6pm 7 December. Enquiries: (03) 5472 3299; E: info@con-ed.com.au

• Cherry Tennant’s Studio Gallery at any time view cherry’s paintings, drawings, photographs, greetings cards and poetry books. 160 Hargraves street (cnr Hall st), castlemaine. To ensure she’s there phone first.

T: (03) 5470 6642. you may also contact her for tuition details.

• Falkner Gallery until 19 February: iaN claRK Paintings & Works on Paper; aNiTa lauRENcE Paintings & Linocuts. 23 February – 15 april: DEBRa JoHNsToN Paintings; RoByN RaiNER Etchings. 35 Templeton street, castlemaine Hours: 11am - 5pm Thurs - sun T: (03) 5470 5858; E: falknergallery@tpg.com.au • greenGraphics: web and print Design, domain registration and web hosting. T: (03) 5472 5300, E: info@greengraphics.com.au www.greengraphics.com.au • Lot19 artspace and studios Summer Salon opening February. accepting proposals from artists for 2012 program. see website for details. www.lot19art.com • Phil Elson Pottery Fine hand thrown porcelain tableware and large porcelain bowls. 89 Templeton street. T: (03) 5472 2814 www.philelsonpottery.com

hepburn springs

• 3rd Annual Hepburn Springs Folk Festival sat, 28 January 2012, 12pm-12am, behind The old Hepburn Hotel, 236 Main Road Hepburn springs. local maker’s art market, Gypsy chai Tea lounge, and Melbourne’s nationally acclaimed country Blues band THE DEaTH RaTTlEs headlining. Tix: $20/$17/$10 (full/con/ u18) - u12 are free. M: 0435 013 037 for info.

kyneton

RADMAC

art * graphic * office and school supplies

*we supply service* 104 Armstrong St North, Ballarat 3350 Phone (03) 5333 4617 Fax (03) 5333 4673 Email radmac@ncable.net.au

• Gallery 40 New exhibition: The Indian Wedding, MaRGaRET cHaNDRa’s photos of various weddings showing the range of ceremonies – and the colour! open 11am-4pm, sat-Mon 28 Jan until Easter Monday, 9 april 2012. 40 Mollison street, Kyneton. contact Margaret chandra: M: 0438 356 025; www.gallery40.com.au; E: mchandra@gallery40.com.au

newstead

CENTRAL VICTORIA

• Dig Café closed Monday and Tuesday. open Wednesday and Thursday 9am-4pm, Friday and saturday 9am - late, sunday 9am-4pm. cnr lyons and panmure sts Newstead. T: (03) 5476 2744

• Stockroom 10 Dec – 8 Jan stockroom presents You are here, a group show of over 120 artworks exploring location, mapping and the artists place in the world. opening sat 10th at 4:30pm. 98 piper street, Kyneton 3444. Thurs - Mon 10:30 am to 5 pm. T: (03) 5422 3215, www.stockroomkyneton.com

• Karen Pierce painter, illustrator, art Teacher, community artist.

Quality prints and cards. T: (03) 5476 2459, www.karenpierceart.com

lancefield

• MAD Gallery and Café To 8 December 2011 Diversions 2 paintings by lEs MaRsHall; 9 December 2011 to 2 February 2012 Anything Goes VII - Friends paintings by many MaD artists; including: MaRGaRET WaTKiNs, HElEN MilEs, GEMMa NiGHTiNGalE, DEBBiE DaKs, paul caRTER, iNGRiD vaN DER MolEN, aNToN HasEll, MElaNiE NiGHTiNGalE, MiKE JoNEs, BRiGiT HEllER, cHRis WyaTT, cHRis FoRD, BRucE RaMaGE, paul casEy, Gail casEy, JaHNE HopEWilliaMs, JENNiFER MaTTHEWs, lEs MaRsHall, HElEN coTTlE, TaNya salTER, liNDa DuNsTaN. opening 2-5pm, sunday 11 December. 18 December 2011 2-5pm: Sunday Sounds #28 opEN Mic. Music afternoon, free to all. 25 December 2011 to 11 January 2012 - closED. 22 January 2011 2-5pm: Sunday Sounds #29 opEN Mic. Music afternoon, free to all. contemporary 2D and 3D fine art, new exhibition every 4 weeks. 19 High street, lancefield. T: (03) 5429 1432; E: art@madgallery.com.au, www.madgallery.com.au, café and Gallery open daily 10am to 5pm.

• Newstead Press Home of Trouble since 2004.

talbot

• The Corridor Art Gallery upstairs at london House, Talbot. open weekends. M: 0408 596 524.

taradale

• Shelf Life Gallery at Taradale Wine and Produce Featuring: christmas art show including works by JENNiFER sHaRpE, KaTHERiNE sEpppiNGs, aNToiNETTE DE MoRToN, JENNy NEsToR, DRu paRRisH, GWyNN JaMEs and BEN laycocK, 2 December – 6 January. Exhibition opening Friday 2 December 7-9pm. Taradale Wine and produce, 120 High street, Taradale. Fri, sat and sun 11am-6pm.

T: (03) 5423 2828 • Taradale Wine and Produce live local music sat 10 December 3-6pm. come and enjoy live music in the sun, whilst enjoying a fine wine. Free admission, all welcome. Taradale Wine and produce, 120 High street, Taradale.

Fri, sat and sun 11am-6pm. T: (03) 5423 2828

u n i o n GALLERY

I

STUDIO

I

FRAMERS

•••••••••••••••••••••••••• • UNION STUDIO GALLERY & FRAMERS • PHILIP CORDINGLEY • 74 MOSTYN STREET (VIA UNION ST) • PLACE & SPACE • CASTLEMAINE t: (03) 5470 6446 • www.unionstudio.com.au • DRAWINGS & PRINTS • NOV 26 - DEC 31 OPEN 7 DAYS

42 MURRAY RIVER

mildura

• The Art Vault To 26 December Christmas Stock Show. Dual opening: 18 January – 6 February aNNE McMasTER Change of Address main gallery; JoHN WiNcH Dakindjuwa small gallery. artists in Residence: December MiNi GRaFF and aNToNia aiTKEN, MaRTiN KiNG. January, ex de MEDici, RosaliND aTKiNs, aNNE McMasTER, JaNE GREENlaND. 43 Deakin ave, Mildura, vic. Wed - sat 10am - 5pm, sun - Mon 10am - 2pm. T: (03) 5022 0013. Director: Julie chambers. www.theartvault.com.au • Mildura Arts Centre 2 – 22 December 2011, The HopE project 2011: From Barbwire to Colourbond venue: lEap project space, 39 langtree avenue, Mildura. Mildura arts centre Regional Gallery is closed while the centre undertakes an exciting redevelopment of Mildura’s arts and cultural precinct. For details on Mildura arts centre outreach projects, see our website for more information. 199 cureton avenue, Mildura vic 3500. T: (03) 5018 8330, F: (03) 5021 1462, www.milduraartscentre.com.au • White Cube Mildura Three micro galleries in three locations in Mildura. December: coliN sTRauB, KRisTiaN HaGGBloM, and Ray loWE. stefano’s café Bakery, 27 Deakin ave. Klemm’s Newsagency, 53 langtree Mall. shugg Group, 126 lime ave. E: whitecubemildura@gmail.com, www. whitecubemildura.blogspot.com

swan hill

• Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery 16 November 2011 – 8 January 2012 Recent works: JuliE cHislETT DuFFus. 28 November 2011 to 8 January 2012 Masks from the lion King production by swan Hill specialist school. 15 December 2011 – 29 January 2012 Stormy Weather: Contemporary Landscape Photography, a National Gallery of victoria Touring Exhibition Horseshoe Bend, swan Hill 3585. www.swanhill.vic.gov.au/gallery; T: (03) 5036 2430

EASTERN VICTORIA

gippsland

• Cowwarr Art Space closed December: calling from applications for artist-in-Residence 2012, January 2012 G1: painting REHGaN DE MaTHER M N M l v M x M l G2: sculpture clivE MuRRay-WHiTE. 2730 Traralgon/Maffra Road, cowwarr. Find us on Facebook or www.cowwarr.com • Kerrie Warren, Abstract Expressionist Artist corporate and private collections. studio open by appointment in crossover, victoria – M: 0411 480 384; www.kerriewarren.com.au • Gecko Studio Gallery Inkworks - printmaking from lyNDy loRD, aMaNDa THoMpsoN and ElisaBETH scoTT. 22 January to 18 February. opening sunday 22 January from 2-5pm. ‘quiet down’ - saRaH DiNGWall - new paper and glass works. 18 December to 21 January. opening sunday 18 December from 2-5pm. snAPP! – Mobile phone camera art – group show featuring JaNE poWER, coliN suGGETT, WaRREN REED, KERRy spoKEs, RicK RuTJENs and aBiGail vaN RooyEN. until 17 December. open 10am-5pm, Thur to Mon, 7 days a week between 13 Dec and 31 Jan. 15 Falls Road, Fish creek, vic 3959 T: (03) 5683 2481; E: framing@geckostudiogallery.com.au; www.geckostudiogallery.com.au

Rehgan de Mather

www.cowwarr.com

43

• Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale To 11 December Averse (meaning ‘downpour’ in French) showcases the work of acclaimed French video artist DElpHiNE REisT. To 22 January New Romantics explores the resurgence of Romanticism in contemporary australian art. To 8 January Unknown Pleasures brings to light rarely seen treasures from the Gippsland art Gallery’s collection.

17 December to 29 January. On Assignment features over 80 images by one of australia’s most well-known photographers Max DupaiN. a National archives of australia touring exhibition, supported by visions of australia. 14 January to 12 February. Be Home Before Dark is a new photographic series by Gippsland artist JaNiNa GREEN that looks at the menace of the everyday world at night. Gippsland art Gallery, sale, 68 Foster street sale vic 3850. T: (03) 5142 3372 F: (03) 5142 3373. open: Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm, sat - sun 12 - 4pm. For public holidays hours visit our website. Director, anton vardy. E: gallery_enquiries@wellington.vic.gov. au; www.wellington.vic.gov.au/gallery • Gippsland Art Gallery, Maffra 2 December to 28 January 5 + 5 = Butterfly – printmaking and sculpture by Gippsland artist NEss poWER have been created in a response to conformity. 150 Johnson street, Maffra vic 3860 open Mon & Wed-Fri 10am-6pm, sat 10am-12pm closed Tues & sun. Enquiries to Gippsland art Gallery, sale T: (03) 5142 3372

• TarraWarra Museum of Art until 12 February 2012 WilliaM DElaFiElD cooK. A Survey. The first major survey exhibition by this significant australian artist in over two decades, focusing on his landscape paintings from 1977-2011, with an emphasis on works epic in size, sensation and scope. a Gippsland art Gallery travelling exhibition.

JacQuEliNE MiTElMaN: Facetime. intimate in detail and classical in composure, Mitelman’s portraits have both the stillness of icons and the intensity of the moment. This survey exhibition investigates the development of her portrait photography over three decades.

From 19 November 2011 saM lEacH: The Ecstasy of Infrastructure. selected paintings of RalpH BalsoN and EDWiN TaNNER from the TWMa collection form the basis for sam leach’s fascinating new suite of works.

Through the recontextualisation of elements of the works of Tanner and Balson within his own painting practice, leach continues his ongoing exploration of the nexus between art, science and philosophy. For public programs and events at TWMa please visit website.

TarraWarra Museum of art, 311 Healesvilleyarra Glen Road, Healesville vic, 3777 www.twma.com.au

healesville

swan hill print & drawing acquisitive awards 2012 Entries close: Friday February 3 Exhibition dates: 13 May – 8 July 03 5036 2430 artgal@swanhill.vic.gov.au www.swanhill.vic.gov.au/gallery

44 WESTERN VICTORIA

ararat

• Ararat Regional Art Gallery Town Hall, vincent street. Mon, Wed to Fri 10am – 4.30pm, w/ends 12 - 4pm. T: (03) 5352 2836 araratregionalartgallery.blogspot.com

halls gap

• Mountain Grand Boutique Hotel Enchanting getaway in Halls Gap. Delightful dining in The Balconies restaurant with fine local wines and live jazz on weekends. conferences and functions are our specialty. if you have a longing for the way things used to be. your hosts Don and Kay calvert. T: (03) 5356 4232 E: don@hallsgap.net www.mountaingrand.com

hamilton

• Hamilton Art Gallery FRESH: contemporary australian art, 28 Nov 2011 – 29 april 2012. contemporary paintings, prints and videos from the collection. 107 Brown street, Mon - Fri 10am - 5pm, sat 10am - 12pm and 2 - 5pm, sun 2 - 5pm. T: (03) 5573 0460, www.hamiltongallery.org

hawkesdale

• Customs House Gallery 85 Dawson street, Hawkesdale vic 3287. open by appointment. Director : Des Bunyon. E: arthouse@aussiebb.com.au T: (03) 5560 7283; M: 0448 348 974

horsham

• Horsham Regional Art Gallery until 18 Dec Desert Psychedelic: JiMMy piKE. original prints, textile lengths and garments produced during the height of indigenous cultural renaissance. Toured by Museum and Gallery services Queensland. Horsham Regional art Gallery, 21 Roberts ave, Horsham.

Tues - Fri 10am - 5pm, sat - sun 1 - 4.30pm.

T: (03) 5362 2888; E: hrag@hrcc.vic.gov.au; www.horshamartgallery.com.au

natimuk

• Goat Gallery a new show every month featuring the widely ranging skills of local artists. 87a Main street.

Weekends 1 - 4pm and by appointment.

M: 0418 997 785 www.goatgallery.com.au

NORTHERN VICTORIA

benalla

• Benalla Art Gallery aNGElica aRRiaGaDa – Engaging the Structure to 11 December; The Best of the Best to 22 January; TiM BoWTEll 17 December – 29 January. Bridge street, Benalla, victoria, 3672. opening hours 10am-5pm.

T: (03) 5760 2619. E: gallery@benalla.vic. gov.au; please check the website for details: www.benallaartgallery.com

shepparton

• Glasson’s Art World, High St Shepparton art supplies, graffiti art products, artists Designer Gallery, Dookie art Retreat, archival framing, painting trips. E: info@glassonsartworld.com.au, www.glassonsartworld.com.au • Shepparton Art Museum Sir John Longstaff: Portrait of a Lady, 18 February to 22 april 2012. 2012 Indigenous Ceramic Art Award, 18 February to 22 april 2012. 2012 sidney Myer Fund australian ceramic award applications open online 1 Nov 2011. shepparton art Museum, 70 Welsford street, shepparton vic 3630; T: (03) 5832 9861; E: art.museum@shepparton.vic. gov.au; www.sheppartonartmuseum.com.au acting Director: Ryan Johnston. Free Entry.

The Museum is closed for redevelopment until saturday 18 February 2012, please visit the website for details on the saM launch party and updates on the redevelopment.

wangaratta

• Wangaratta Art Gallery 10 – 23 Dec 2011 + 3 – 29 January 2012, vicToRiaN QuilTERs - One Step Further. closed 24 Dec – 2 Jan inclusive. susaN MaTHEWs Quilts – Wangaratta performing arts centre Foyer. Wangaratta art Gallery. Director: Dianne Mangan, T: (03) 5722 0865, F: (03) 5722 2969, E: d.mangan@wangaratta.vic.gov.au or gallery@wangaratta.vic.gov.au

Delivering the best contemporary art, craft and design to regional Victoria and beyond

Find out more at netsvictoria.org.au

54

stralian books

Ned in a Nutshell

with Jean-François Vernay accomplices, Ned took to the bush after forming a gang with his brother Dan and two mates – Joe Byrne and Steve Hart. The arrest and condemnation of Ned’s mother and relatives aggravated these embryonic Ned Kelly’s rebellious behaviour is tensions and prompted a number of clashes often presented as part of a general with the despicable British authorities, such as struggle, involving mostly Irishmen, against the Stringybark Creek massacre. Bogged down the tyranny of the British colonial system in outlawry, the runaway gang added up bank throughout the nineteenth-century. Some robberies and raids (Euroa or Jerilderie) before quick examples of upsurges of nationalism are: meeting final defeat in a pitched battle pitting four the 1804 Castle Hill uprising of Irish convicts helmeted figures against a huge party of police. in Sydney, the 1854 Eureka Stockade, opposing The notorious larrikin faced the noose at age Ballarat miners headed by Irishman Peter Lalor twenty-five in Melbourne Gaol. and the Victorian government, Henry James Historical fiction does not aim at giving access to O’Farrell’s failed attempt to murder Prince a higher form of truth than what could be found in history reports. It should rather be seen in Alfred during his Sydney tour on 12 March 1868, and the case of John Dunmore Lang, the complementary terms, as historical novels find their purpose: “When the facts have been lost son of Irish convicts, who castigated English to time, and when a time has been lost to the domination while advocating an Australian facts.” (Thomas Mallon). That is why the authors Declaration of Independence. of these imaginative reconstructions of history In a perhaps additional act of rebellion, many are at liberty to present their version of history highwaymen like John Donohoe, Matthew Brady, through a perspective of their own. Jean Bedford’s Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner, John Gilbert and Ned Sister Kate (1982) explores the Ned Kelly legend Kelly have been enshrined into folklore. While through a feminist lens by shifting the focus literature indulges in lionizing historical figures, to Catherine Kelly, whose subsidiary role has anniversaries are always good opportunities to nevertheless been instrumental in the survival of prompt memory duties. Unfailingly, the centenary the gang until its final capture and extermination. of the death of Ned Kelly (June 1855 - 11 The author erodes the phallocentric myth of Ned November 1880), Victoria’s most notorious Kelly by revealing his strong attachment to his bushranger, motivated the publication of no less mother and his transgressive drives with strong than six historical novels in the two following allusions to homosexuality and crossdressing. In decades, more than 25 years after Frank Clune’s Kelly Country (1983) Bertram Chandler makes The Kelly Hunters (1954). full use of his fertile imagination and his fantasy The eldest son of Irish ex-convict John Kelly and tale reads like an anti-historical novel that is more of Ellen Quinn, Edward Kelly (Ned to his mates) concerned with the future than with the past. By grew up in Victoria leading a life of petty crimes exploring the “frightening possibilities” of letting resulting in a series of gaol terms. A victim of history take a new course, not only can narrator circumstances and police persecution, he was Duffin Grimes write about anything, history accused of assault in April 1878 by Constable included, but he is also able to shape it. In his Fitzpatrick who was rejected by Ned’s younger sympathetic reading of the ill-famed bushranger sister Kate. As warrants were issued to arrest ‘the legend, Robert Drewe’s Our Sunshine (1991) villainous archfiend’ (John Molony) and his alleged challenges the nineteenth century harsh >>

“Ned appears to be the scapegoat of a conspiracy of journalists who relished in painting the picture black.” press which kept diabolising Ned. The very title of Drewe’s historical fiction refers to John Kelly’s nickname for his son, and the whole book may be interpreted as an attempt to rehabilitate Ned’s image by repeatedly blowing up the villain myth. Ned appears to be the scapegoat of a conspiracy of journalists who relished in painting the picture black. Historically speaking, Ned was reduced to voicelessness and dispossessed from his own story by being systematically disparaged by the reporters of the time and even barred from publication, as none of his accounts were accepted in print. Drewe and Peter Carey gave Ned a chance to take over and tell his own story: Ned addresses the reader in Our Sunshine, and an imaginary character in The True History of the Kelly Gang (2000). Carey’s “work of literary ventriloquism” (Jason Steger) allows him to lend Ned a voice which is rendered in an almost punctuation-free colloquial and agrammatical narrative with variegated dictions and tones – an amazing literary tour de force! To get the tone of his multi-award winning novel right, Carey drew his inspiration from the historical letter the bushranger wrote in the provincial town of Jerilderie in the Colony of New South Wales.

Most of these Kelly novels follow an archetypal plotline which includes a sketchy account of Ned’s childhood at Eleven Mile Creek (Victoria), followed by the April 1878 infamous incident with Fitzpatrick resulting from his love/lust for the young Catherine, then the formation of the gang and their outbreak, the Stringybark Creek shooting of three policemen, the gang’s first bank hold-up in Euroa (in North East Victoria) and the following raid on Jerilderie (in New South Wales) from which Ned dictates his legendary letter, Joe Byrne shooting his long-life friend Aaron Sherritt, schoolmaster Thomas Curnow escaping the siege of the Glenrowan Inn, which eventually burns down, and finally the train derailment failure followed by the death of all members of the gang. Some peripheral elements, which we could list as follows, have fleshed out these stories:

Ned’s arrest for being drunk and disorderly, the influence of fellow-bushranger Harry Power on Ned’s ideals, the split public opinion, crossdressing cognate with homosexual overtones, the six Queensland Aboriginal trackers dogging the gang, the armours made from ploughshares, not to forget Ned’s final arrest and trial before Judge Sir Redmond Barry, and the fateful hanging.

Enmeshed in the Australian Romantic imagination, Ned’s paradoxical image has fuelled passionate debates in Australia. Half-angel and half-demon, now a creative villain, now an archetypal victim, a social bandit impersonating a Robin Hood avatar, at once a dispenser of justice and a man subject to trial, an outcast who grows into a political activist, Ned can hardly be pigeonholed.

Yet, like most mythical heroes, he must be defined through one distinctive physical or moral feature. Bedford and Drewe emphasize Ned’s humaneness, Chandler highlights the rogue’s boldness, while Carey portrays a domestic larrikin.

Figures like Ned Kelly, who have fallen victim to injustices and untimely or spectacular deaths, are bound to rise to mythic status. Myth-making is therefore the adequate reversal-of-fortune device that offers individuals both some compensation for their lives of misery, and some lingering resonance for their legendary tragedies.

RECOMMENDED READING FOR XMAS: Learn more about Australian fiction in The Great Australian Novel – A Panorama (Melbourne: Brolga, 2010).

by Mark S. Holsworth

It is a fact of Australian life that musicians, ar tists, teachers, librarians, nurses, social workers and many other well-educated people working in what can broadly be described as culture are vastly underpaid.

Aside from the superstar economics at the very top of a logarithmic scale graph of income, your average culture worker, the 99%, now donates $6,400 per year to culture in terms of the income gap between their wages and those of the average Australian worker.

“There is a negative income gap between professional artists working in the arts sector and the general workforce,” states an Australia Council census study published in 2010. “The census study shows this gap in real income widened between 2001 and 2006.”

Australia Council has previously conducted research into artists’ income in 1981, 1983, 1987, 1993 and 2002, and while it has all been helpful in gathering accurate facts, there have been no real conclusions drawn from this evidence, nor have we seen any visible improvement in the average artist’s lot in life.

Geoff is a professional bass player who has been doing regular paid gigs for over five years solid, and relies heavily on a Centrelink parenting payment to make ends meet. “Is culture in Australia a charity?” I asked him. “As a working musician I would have to say yes.” Geoff replied.

“In Australia it’s the problem that everyone expects you to play for free – there’s friend’s parties and weddings of course, but I’ve worked on full albums with other musos I’ve met along the way just because we hit it off musically.

All of that work is done completely gratis, so

there’s this silent economy happening all the time, every day. Every day we give it away, man ... though now and then an APRA cheque for $3.30 arrives for something I played session on ten years ago. Playing music is a lot about having a good time, right? So, I guess people might think, why should the band get paid for having a good time too? But you know, a hungry bassist is not a healthy bassist – man needs meat!”

Seeing culture as a charity case is both a realistic description of the way that cultural activities are supported and an extremely pessimistic view. The 2010 Australia Council report claims that: “Over the past 30 years, parallel with this research, governments have implemented strategies and programs which have: increased opportunities for artistic practice and careers, increased audiences for and participation in the arts, (and to) ensured artists’ incomes have held their ground.”

Unfortunately these claims are not demonstrated by the accompanying facts. Increased opportunities for artistic careers cannot be demonstrated by the figures reported, which show a levelling out of the number of artists, and that artists’ incomes have declined further in comparison to the general workforce.

Aside from these contradictions in evidence and conclusions, the problem with the Australia Council’s research is that there are few recommendations to improve the situation. The Council recommends that artists need more >

by Matt Emery

> business skills, and that they should use new technology. This places the onus on ar tists to improve their economic situation, which essentially ignores the responsibility of the Australia Council, and for that matter the Government and the rest of society. There is a brief mention that the Australia Council should “explore reforms in tax and social security arrangements to support ar tists.” Although it is not clear what else the Council has recommended on this subject since 1997.

So what can be done? There is a lot more potential for taxation reform and social security arrangements to benefit artists. In Ireland the income of creative artists (not performing artists) is totally tax exempt. The GST could be completely removed for the work/services of writers, composers and visual artists as in Denmark, Norway, Finland, Poland, Latvia, Spain and Switzerland, or reducing it as many other European countries have done.

And what can artists do to bring such reforms about? A few artists, like Stewart Homes, have proposed art strikes. This involves artists withdrawing their services from society, but aside from its polemic and publicity value such strikes have had predictably little effect. Engaging in culture jamming art that attacks those with economic and political power is also unlikely to have much of an effect.

Artists could stop supporting political parties that have repeatedly failed to enact sufficient taxation and social security reform to address the problem, but compulsory voting and preference allocation in Australia will undermine this. Finally, artists and culture workers could accept their status as a charity case and continue to simply beg for money without shame, a bit like priests do.

Above all what needs to be recognized is that culture is not a charity, and that any moves to reduce it to such will only ever result in a stopgap measure designed to deal with a pressing

“All of that work is done completely gratis, so there’s this silent economy happening all the time, every day.”

In France, Spain and Finland there is a special pension for writers; Argentina is considering a similar initiatives that would offer the pension to those who are aged over 65 and have published at least five books or invested more than 20 years in “literary creation”.

problem in the hope that a real and permanent solution can be found. Culture – the health and education of our people – is an absolute necessity in life, and culture workers should be appropriately rewarded for their labours.

Mark S. Holsworth writes Black Mark – Melbourne Art & Culture Critic http://melbourneartcritic.wordpress.com/

< BLOODY TYPICAL: An artist’s impression of Batman’s treaty with Port Philip aborigines in 1835 for the purchase of 600,000 acres of land. Source: A. Garren (ed), Picturesque Atlas of Australasia, 2 vols, Picturesque Atlas Publishing Com.

words and pics Ben Laycock

My mate Jim has started this new craze.

He calls it Video Architecture. He sets up an easel right on the street and waits for some unsuspecting artist to waltz along. This can take anything up to five minutes in urbane Castlemaine.

When your common or garden artist lays eyes on a blank canvas s/he starts to twitch and can’t help daubing it with paint. It was ever thus. But here is the magic – the image begins to appear on the building over the road via some pretty and fancy high tech electronic apparatus that I will not delve into right now due to lack of expertise. It’s kind of like plein air painting in reverse. Instead of the image of the building appearing on the canvas, the image on the canvas appears on the building via remote control. Freak out! Accompanied by quadraphonic doof doof turned up to eleven the whole show is quite a spectacle. It went down a treat at the last Castlemaine Fringe Festival so Jim decided it was ready for the big wide world. First stop Natimuk.

It is equipped with all the modern conveniences: a fire, a water tank, a drop toilet and several garden chairs for sitting and admiring said mountain.

Now the strange symbiotic relationship between the Lutherans and the rock ants has taken on a whole new dimension. They have combined their manifold skills to put on a show that would not look out of place at the Olympic Games opening ceremony, I kid you not. All five hundred Natimuk Muks are sitting in their deck chairs, joined by another five hundred ring-ins, here for The Natimuk Fringe Festival, waiting with bated breath. It is a moonless night without a breath of If you are not a climber you may not have wind. A rare moment on the Western Plains but heard of Natimuk, but Natimuk is to rock perfect conditions for a show that needs perfect climbers what Mecca is to Muslims. Their conditions. The local primary students have made spiritual home. It’s a sleepy little town nestled a little animated movie that is being projected in the lee of the imposing edifice of Mount on to the one hundred foot tall wheat silos. The Arapilies, abode of the Gods. For countless biggest screen I have ever seen. A fifteen-metre generations it has been populated primarily marionette begins to rise from the ground and by fire and brimstone Lutherans, but now that dance and play and interact with the film and the your climbers are starting to get a foothold, so tiny humans that dangle and twirl about making to speak, the demographics of the wee hamlet are looking decidedly changeable. On any given grotesque shadows. The giant puppet speaks to weekend you can spy them crawling all over the us with the voice of one of the Preppies saying, “when I wake up in the night all the shadows rock face like ants looking for the sugar bowl. look like monsters”.

My other mate Jim is a notorious climber. He looks for all intents and purposes like a human The entire elaborate extravaganza was orchestrated by local Natimuk Muk, Davey Jones being, but as soon as you let him loose on a (pictured), who is obviously not just a rock ant sheer rock face he turns into a spider. He has a little plot surrounded by endless wheat fields but a Fucking Genius! View the show on Dave’s as far as the eye can see, except for a stunning blog: http://theartofdave.blogspot.com/ www.benlaycock.com.au view of the sacred mountain itself.

continued from page 19

You Ought to be in Pictures / Inga Walton

> either by invitation, or by filling his car with the salvaged remnants of Hollywood’s glitter after it had been dumped. Kobal’s voracious appetite for film ephemera encompassed photographs, original negatives, small private collections, and later when the opportunity arose a star’s or photographer’s archives. (His friendship with Clarence Sinclair Bull led to Kobal inheriting the photographer’s scrapbooks and albums.) As Kobal’s friend, critic and academic John Russell Taylor remarked, “John had the almost supernatural instinct of the true collector ... interests so extensive, and an acquisitiveness so obsessive, that he could put together such an all-embracing collection, entirely for his own delectation”.

Although Kobal reveled in gaining access to the ‘royalty’ of Hollywood yesteryear, he was similarly intrepid in his efforts to rehabilitate the careers of their long forgotten collaborators behind the lens. The thoroughness and tenacity of his research “allowed Kobal to become the impresario of the history of Hollywood photography”, writes co-curator Robert Dance. Kobal’s attempts to authenticate uncredited or misattributed stills and his interviews with numerous industry veterans made a vital contribution to an overlooked area of film history. Working closely with the photographers themselves or their estates, Kobal published various anthologies and mounted over twenty-five exhibitions dedicated to Hollywood portraiture, beginning at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1974. As its reputation grew, such was the demand for loans and access to Kobal’s personal collection that he began charging a deposit to ensure pieces were returned, which prefaced its development as a public archive, and then a charitable foundation in 1990.

like a dishevelled god. ‘Hemingway woman’ Ava Gardner in clinging black satin for her breakthrough part in The Killers (1946). Images of grace and mystery that bear no closer relation to ‘reality’ then they did when they were taken, but retain the same capacity to fascinate. So successfully could these portraits convey the seductive potential of motion pictures and those who starred in them, that Kobal contended, “film is the only thing of any creative worth that this century has produced. If not, it is still providing the most fun.”

IMAGE CREDITS Pages 20-21: George HURRELL, Jean Harlow (1911-37), MGM, 1933. Gelatin silver print.

Pages 22-23: Eugene Robert RICHEE, Louise Brooks, (1906-85), Paramount (1929/2007), platinum print from Kobal’s passion and foresight in preserving these the original negative. Above: Robert COBURN (1900captivating frames has allowed us to gaze once 1990), Rita Hayworth (1918-87) for Gilda Columbia more upon the beguiling and somewhat remote Pictures, 1946. Gelatin silver print. . All images courtesy faces of these much-beloved stars. ‘Platinum blonde’ of John Kobal Foundation, London.

Jean Harlow’s fluttering eye lashes casting delicate shadows over her flawless cheeks. Louise Brooks’ sleek black bob contrasting against her alabaster skin and a luminous strand of pearls. Gary Grant’s devastating style; Betty Grable’s cheeky pin-up smirk; Veronica Lake’s ‘peek-a-boo’ flaxen tresses; a pensive Rock Hudson gazes down, shirt agape,

Made In Hollywood: Photographs From the John Kobal Foundation, Bendigo Art Gallery, 42 View Street Bendigo, (VIC), 3 December, 2011 – 12 February, 2012 - www.bendigoartgallery.com.au See also: www.johnkobal.org

52

Miles Richardson Junior’s Corie Echen, Highlands of Scotland 1880 and John Mather’s Wintry weather, Yarra Glen 1895 highlights “the increased ambition of watercolourists in the later 19th century whose ‘exhibition watercolours’ competed with oil paintings in terms of size, brilliance of colour and >> “the most comprehensive exhibition of German modernism ever to be shown in Australia,” effect and range of subject matter.” Captivating.

Runs until 19 February 2012. www.ngv.vic.gov.au says Prints and Drawings Curator, Dr Petra Kayser.

Visitors can expect a diverse collection of works Another artist who brings out the sentimental including paintings, prints, photographs, sculptures side in me (after growing up loving his work) is and films that provide a unique insight into a Ken Done. What better way to appreciate the fascinating era – historically and artistically. Runs work of this iconic Aussie artist than through until 4 March 2012. his latest exhibition, Beaches at Cyclone Gallery, continued from page 33

There’s something sentimental about watercolours paintings. Perhaps it’s the softness they emit, even if they depict a serious subject, like a storm brewing on the horizon. I’m not sure why, but I had a preconceived notion that NGV’s exhibition, British Watercolours 1760-1900 would exclusively consist of landscape paintings from some of the iconic big boys, such as Turner and Gainsborough. Whilst landscape images certainly play their part in the exhibition, other aspects of life, particularly in Britain throughout this period also feature. For me, the strength of the exhibition lies in the diverse range of images featured, including rural life in Britain, as depicted through Samuel Palmer’s Carting the Wheat (1848), which contrasts with images of exotic locations, such as Samuel Prout’s Bridge of Sighs (1825-52). The inclusion of large, striking works, such as Thomas

South Melbourne. Done’s unmistakably vibrant works went hand-in-hand with Australian culture during the 1980s and 90s. This is Done’s first Melbourne exhibition since 1996 and he explains that even though “My career has given me the opportunity to exhibit in many corners of the world … on home soil I’ve often stayed close to Sydney, where I live.” Beaches evokes memories of long, lazy summers and Done believes that “beaches are something close to the hearts and homes of many Australians, and it’s great to bring my artwork down to Melbourne, where Victoria’s beautiful coastline is so often celebrated.” The exhibition consists of artwork, as well as art inspired pieces that will also be available to purchase throughout the exhibition. Bring on summer! Runs until 16 December. www.cyclonegallery.net.au >

Melburnin’ / Courtney Symes

> “…gorgeous, hypnotic and just a little addictive” are some of the words that Juliana Engberg, ACCA’s Artistic Director and curator of Pipilotti Rist’s I Packed the Postcard in my Suitcase uses to describe Rist’s work. Elaborating on the exhibition further, Engberg believes that “Pipilotti’s works are visually sumptuous and organically overloaded with a playful fecundity. Sexy is sinless and naughtiness is without wickedness in Rist’s playful romps through the elements of earth, wind, water and fire.” Rist’s ACCA exhibition will consist of “trippy, psychedelic video projections” splashed across the gallery’s walls and ceilings. Works featured in this exhibition are a combination of key works from Rist’s recent exhibitions, as well as a new commission for ACCA. This is Rist’s first major exhibition in Australia, but the renowned Swiss artist has already taken Europe and the US by storm in major exhibitions, festivals and biennales. Rist’s installation, Homo Sapiens in the Church of St. Stae captured the art world’s attention at the 2005 Venice Biennale. Runs from 21 December 2011 until 4 March 2012. www.accaonline.org.au

will be accompanied by an interesting program of events, including an artist’s talk on Saturday 10 December at 2.30pm. Runs until 17 Dec.

To celebrate the centenary of women gaining the vote in Victorian Legislative Assembly elections, Counihan Gallery’s annual Women’s Salon exhibition will explore the theme of the voice of women. This contemporary art exhibition will feature works in a diverse range of mediums such as sculpture, photography, painting and installation from female artists, crafters and designers who are based in the Moreland area. The exhibition

Also at [MARS] this month, Charles Anderson and Tim Schork’s Cloud Chamber forms part of a large collaborative project titled Punto in Aria. Exploring the complexity of our network of relationships in life, Cloud Chamber aims to make these usually ‘virtual’ connections visible and tangible to exhibition visitors and a broader audience. Tom Fantl Photography and Cloud Chamber both run from 1 – 20 Dec. www.marsgallery.com.au

Portraits of contemporary artists such as Sam Leach, Tony Lloyd, Adam Cullen, John Wolesely, Alan Mitelman and Rick Amor, as well as young, emerging artists such as Heidi Yardley, Belle Bassin and Simon Pericich will appear in Tom Fantl’s latest exhibition at [MARS]. Fantl’s show is comprised of 120 photographs of artists captured in various locations throughout the city, such as bars and cafes, over the last ten years. The diverse assortment of works is by no means an undercover paparazzi operation, or a collection of formal portraits. These images reveal a more intimate side of the artists when they are most relaxed, i.e. having a beer or a BBQ, hosting an exhibition opening or working in their studio.

Although these images were originally captured as part of Fantl’s personal visual diary, over a decade the collection of images grew swiftly to the point where many artists encouraged Fantl to collate and showcase his work.

COVER: Ernest BACHRACH (1899-1973), Marilyn Monroe (1926-62), RKO, 1952/2007. Platinum print from the original negative. All images courtesy of John Kobal Foundation, London. Made In Hollywood: Photographs From the John Kobal Foundation, Bendigo Art Gallery, 42 View Street Bendigo, (VIC), 3 December, 2011 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 12 February, 2012 - www.bendigoartgallery.com.au Issue 86 December 2011 / January 2012 Trouble is an independent monthly mag for promotion of arts and culture, distributing to over 1,200 locations Nationally. Published by Newstead Press Pty Ltd, PO Box 177 NEWSTEAD 3462. ISSN 1449-3926 ABN 46 138 023 524 STAFF: administration Vanessa Boyack - admin@ introuble.com.au | editorial & advertising Steve Proposch - art@introuble.com.au | listings - listings@introuble. com.au CONTRIBUTORS: Mandy Ord, Inga Walton, Danilo Paglialonga, Jase Harper, Courtney Symes, JeanFrançois Vernay, Mark S. Holsworth, Matt Emery, Ben Laycock, Ive Sorocuk.

Subscribe to our website - www.introuble.com.au 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 from the first of every month of publication but accepts no responsibility for any inconvenience or financial loss in the event of delays. Phew!

Michael Shannon

Australian Romantic Realist A major figure in Australian art from the 1950s to the 1980s who recorded the lyricism of ordinary life.

10 Dec to12 Feb Image: Michael Shannon, Cairns (detail), 1965, oil on canvas. Private collection. Š Estate of the artist.

Open daily 9am - 5pm Free entry Art Gallery of Ballarat

40 Lydiard Street North Ballarat Victoria 3350 Telephone: 03 5320 5858 artgalleryofballarat.com.au