the art life

Branislav Kropilak, Garage Series. Kropilak.com

Got new work you'd like to share? Send images and description of your work to thearlife at hot mail dot com. Images should no larger than 350k each

Labels: new work, photography

"A long-forgotten 1960s censorship scandal about nudity in art has returned to the walls of the Mosman Art Gallery, whose director, Tony Geddes, is accused of censoring the work all over again to protect the sensibilities of the suburb's ''conservative'' residents.

The gallery is in the middle of a retrospective of the work of artist and Mosman resident David Perry, 76, whose experimental film A Sketch on Abigayl's Belly was banned by the Commonwealth Film Censor in 1968.

The two-minute film of Perry's then wife's pregnancy, which features shots of her massaging oil into her breasts and other nudity, was seized by Customs officials and impounded when it returned from screening in the finals of the West German Short Film Festival in 1969.

Perry was a member of the Sydney-based film collective UBU Films. Its manager, Aggy Read, was convicted of exporting a banned film.

In 1970 Don Chipp, the minister for customs and excise, overturned the ban. The curator of the current exhibition, another UBU member, Albie Thoms, says the film has been screened without incident across Australia ever since.

Until now, according to Perry, who claimed yesterday Mr Geddes had refused to include the film in the retrospective. ''Tony Geddes said he couldn't show it in Mosman because he was concerned that some of the conservative people in Mosman would be offended,'' he said. ''It was disturbing because it is one of my best works.''

While Mr Geddes is on leave, the acting director of the Mosman Art Gallery, Katrina Cashman, said she was ''surprised'' to hear of Perry's complaint.

''From our perspective, that's not what happened,'' she said.

Mosman can't stomach '60s nude art film, Sydney Morning Herald

Labels: art news, censorship

random image


Random Acts of Elevator Music are preparing their itinerary and plan to bring productivity-raising muzaktronica to as many city office buildings as possible in Sydney and Melbourne. Let us know if you want to experience these soothing oscillations and melodies in your elevator! Email cityfreqs@akm.net.au or tweet to twitter.com/cityfreqs and we'll put your building on our itinerary. Leave a mobile number or email address and you’ll receive notification of when Random Acts of Elevator Music are about to come your way (and we won’t tell your supervisor that you gave us the inside tip…)


Random Acts of Elevator Music are back in 2009, performing live muzaktronica during office hours in buildings throughout the Sydney and Melbourne CBDs, helping to increase productivity in workplaces everywhere. Random Acts of Elevator Music is the latest project from City Frequencies, a collaboration between Matt Adair and Nick Wilson, who work together on sound projects within the metropolitan environment.

For further information visit: www.akm.net.au/cityfreqs & www.twitter.com/cityfreqs

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

Labels: press releases

Labels: exhibitions, new work, painting

"Hou Hanru's 2007 Istanbul Biennial was a notoriously unwieldy affair. "Not Only Possible But Also Necessary: Optimism in a Time of Global War" assembled an unprecedented number of artists in multiple venues (two of them unreachable except via taxi), under an equally inflated curatorial thesis inspired by Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's weighty examination of the contemporary world order. The four-member, all-female curatorial collective behind this year's Biennial, the Zagreb-based What, How and For Whom (WHW), have clearly taken Hou's version as a model of what not to do.



"What Keeps Mankind Alive?" is a line in Bertolt Brecht's 1928 cabaret-musical The Threepenny Opera. WHW summon the Marxist playwright Brecht as a general symbol of their own declared commitment to "a full-fledged political program that is also completely aesthetic." Then, they relegate him to the catalog to do what they do best: curate. A comparatively smaller number of artworks are organized according to two main curatorial premises as simple as they are effective. A selection of adroit (but not immediately familiar) works from the 1970s through the 1990s provide historical grounding, while artists scattered across the Biennial's three sites act as binding agents for the exhibition as a whole.

"Viewing a selection of artists at all three venues—the waterfront customs depot Antrepo; a former tobacco warehouse in the historically European quarter of Galata; and an old Greek school which shut down in the 1980s for lack of students—surpasses a sense of mere déjà vu. Artists KP Brehmer and Vyacheslav Akhunov recur from last time, and themselves combine into a curatorial thesis in and of themselves, one which reiterates WHW's catalog call for the "politicization of culture" in the face of the "culturalization of politics," yet doesn't stiffen into a specific art historical narrative. At Antrepo, the Tashkent-based Akhunov's "Leniniana" series of collages (1977–1982) bury Lenin, his followers, and an imposing metropolis in heavy snowbanks. Up to their knees in snow, but nonetheless pursuing their revolutionizing goals, the characters' actions are rendered both futile and entrenched in a classical, genre vocabulary. At the tobacco warehouse, a square meter pedestal is covered in open matchboxes that house tiny reproductions of nearly two decades of Akhunov's often satirical collages and sketches: a miniature rebuttal to the grandiosity of the propagandistic imagery the artist so often manipulates..."

Walking the 11th Istanbul Biennial (With or Without Video), Art In America.

Labels: Biennales, international exhibitions, video art

Arteri|Art + Culture|Malaysia have published an obituary for our friend Emil Goh, whose recent sad passing was recorded here on the 9th of September:

Emil Goh (b. 1966, Malaysia) passed away last Monday 7 September at his apartment in Seoul.

Emil was an artist, designer, traveller, foodie, people person. We cannot lay claim to him in earnest as our fellow countryman – Emil really belonged to a broader sort of society, a ‘man of the world’ in a very today sense. Yet there was certainly the Malaysian in him, who loved to eat good food, banter, and kaypoh in a positive and creative way. Most of us in Malaysia will only know of Emil through his work, which has been shown intermittently here in curated shows at the Balai Seni Lukis Negara (National Art Gallery) and elsewhere. Some of us know him as the son of the painter Sylvia Lee Goh, who would be touched that those in the art world here, especially artists, have voiced real sadness and shock at the news of his passing.

Emil made an impact wherever he put down his hat. He went to Australia in 1985, studying psychology (Newcastle University) and then Fine Art (Sydney University), developing his practice across different media, particularly video and photography, while becoming a key figure in the contemporary art community down under. He was one of the co-founders of the Asian-Australian Artists Association who set up the groundbreaking Gallery 4A in Sydney. He also spent time in London in the late 90s, studying for his Masters at Goldsmiths College, which is when I met him for the first time. In 2003 he took up a residency at Ssamzie Space in Seoul and ended up staying on. It didn’t take long for Emil to ‘take root’ in any of these communities, where he made literally hundreds of friends. Emil was a super-connector of people and ideas with an unstinting enthusiasm for contemporary art and urban culture. For someone looking in, Emil’s life seemed to be very much about making things happen, and his work about watching things happen, seeing them come together.

Emil took part in over 70 exhibitions and projects across Australia, Europe and Asia and his work has been pretty widely written up in international magazines like Flash Art, Art in America, Theme, Wired Online, and Art Asia Pacific. Emil’s work doesn’t slap you in the face or make overt statements, but it finds the pulse in the life of things taken for granted, particularly in the urban everyday, appealing to the personal without taking it hostage.

He got to the very heart of the media he used. His videos harness our fascination for the moving image and film, taking the simple foundations of time and focus. He traced the passing of a day, his camera simply panning slowly through friends’ apartments in London, Hong Kong and Seoul (Between – three versions 2000-2005), he re-spliced a whole movie into three jumbled parts (Remake (Ring),2004), and raced us through the trailer to ‘Speed’ in quadruple time. He made mini-films of a cellphone ringing, feet walking along a stairmaster, a cyclist coming in and out of traffic. His photographs were just about capturing that moment with a camera, whether high-rise buildings lit like lanterns in the night, a working woman sitting asleep in an underground train, or snapshots of couples posing wearing identical clothes (couplelook series, 2004).

Read the rest of the post here .

Labels: art news, obits

Kazuki Takamatsu, Our Best Place, 2008.
Acrylic on canvas, 586x320mm


Kazuki Takamatsu, Meal time, 2008.
Acrylic on canvas, 420x420mm


Distantfeerism: Kazuki Takamatsu

Labels: new work, painting

Of all of Australia's small press publications, one of the most exciting is the fully independent and downright eccentric TRUNK. Promoted here in the lead up to its first handsome publication, TRUNK #1 was themed on Hair, and invited writers, artists, poets, designers and any creative person with a wish to get involved to submit material for the launch issue. Now in bookshops and available online, TRUNK is calling for contributions to issue 2, themed around Blood. As their website explains:

Blood is a fluid, living tissue—a complex mix of platelets and plasma. Far more than a physical and chemical solution of red and white cells, haemoglobin and protein, blood is the most ubiquitous and profound symbol for the deepest of human concerns: life, death, love and sex.

We seek writing and art that explores the fascinating cultural, medical, geographical, historical, religious and social aspects of this abundant bodily fluid. Submissions must be accessible, curious, entertaining and stimulating.

We encourage fiction, poetry, art, photography, recipes, essays, photo-essays and interviews about all things bloody—see the list below for a comprehensive list of suggestions.

The deadline for material is October 30, 2009. Click here for the submission guidelines, or visit the webiste.

Labels: art magazines, art projects, books

Greetings, Oh how I find it difficult to talk about my work! Let me see...



I usually work in ink and pastel; this allows me to compose my pictures very quickly. Indeed, I seldom spend more than an evening on a particular drawing. (I do enjoy painting - but it is an expensive enterprise!) My drawings are large; the photograph at the very end of my film gives you an idea of size.



The process of creation is simple. I often spread out my paper on the floor – and just sit and sketch away. A few weeks ago I constructed a drawing board (proving to be far better for my back). I work in my small (extremely crowded) bedroom, as I don’t have a studio (but I love this environment).



I think of my portraits as illustrations. I’ll work at a face until it looks ‘real’. Sometimes a draft is more favourable than the ‘final’ copy.



I like to listen to recordings of Bible passages when I work. Scripture speaks to my soul.




Eyes. I like eyes. Emotional eyes. And the chaos that surrounds them – well, I see it as chaos.



I convey emotion through line(s). I don’t really shade my works. I criss-cross. I weave. I guess that’s the best way to describe what I do.

mroa2638 - Michael.

Labels: drawing, new work

The news arrived this morning via mutual friends that much loved artist, curator, writer and publisher Emil Goh has died suddenly of a heart attack in Seoul. He was 43. After moving to South Korea on an OzCo residency in 2004 and settling there permanently, Emil made an impact on the Seoul art scene as a teacher and lecturer and as an exhibiting artist. Tributes from friends and family on his Facebook page are testimony to his status as one of the art world's great guys. Emil was equally well known in Australia, exhibiting widely in a variety of artist-run and commerical galleries, and his tireless enthusiasm for contemporary art, fellow artists and his genuine, warm and friendly personality will be deeply missed. Farewell a great friend of the art life.

Update via Studio BBQ:

Just got a sad news from Wendy Gan about Malaysian Chinese artist Emil Goh:

"Emil passed away suddenly on the morning of 7 September 2009 in Seoul. He had a seizure of some kind in the morning. The ambulance was called but his heart had stopped beating by the time the ambulance reached the hospital. His girlfriend was by his side. This has been a huge shock. He was still young and with no health problems that we knew of. We do not yet know what exactly happened. I hope you will remember him for the enthusiastic foodie and wonderful artist and designer that he was. He had a keen eye for the mundane but quirky beauty of small things and his vision, his sense of humour and his mind that bubbled over with intellectual curiosity and delight in the world will be sorely missed by all of us."

Update 2: "This Friday there will be a service for him in Seoul. 11 September 09 at the St Francis of Assisi Catholic chapel in Seoul (707-10 Hannam-2Dong, Yongsan-Gu, Seoul 140-210, Republic of Korea. Tel +82-2-793-2070)." via email.

Labels: obits

Who's that woman in black with the pearls? It's Emily Fitzgerald of the Australian Patrol, that's who, and she's on a mission to capture the fun and frivolity of openings, art festivals and all gatherings where the cognoscenti gather to compare opinions, thoughts and...gloves.

Australian Patrol arrive at openings with a discreete mini DV in hand and a gi-normous microphone to buttonhole people for their insights. With 73 videos and counting on their YouTube Channel their mission statement is to seek "out the eccentricities and obscurities in the Australian cultural and artistic world." Recent uploads have included such luminaries as artists Guy Peppin, Rose Vickers, Joe Furlonger and Jun Chen talking about their work, exhibitions such as The Rex Irwin Ceramics Show 09 and the Cockatoo Island installations - they even managed to buttonhole John "Daddy Mac" McDonald having a good old chinwag with an admirer about the Venice Biennale at a Ray Hughes Gallery wine 'n' cheese soiree. So far, mission statement achieved.




The Australian Patrol arrived in their Sunday best for last week's opening of the 58th Blake Prize, capturing the full gamut of the wise and wonderful opinions of people who brought with them their own axes, no doubt looking for a place to grind 'em.

Can't see the video? Click here to view.

Labels: art openings, video art

From Isobel Johnston...

The raven is a bird often seen as a portent of evil or a bad omen. In their absence or their presence there lies the unsettling suggestion that something evil follows. From the six ravens that legend requires be present to prevent the fall of the kingdom at the Tower of London to the Edgar Allen Poe poem The Raven, it’s a bird that is seen as a harbinger of doom.


Matt Glenn, Raven 1, 2009.
Mirror, plastic, high gloss auto paint, 74.5 x 43.5 cm.

Matt Glenn’s exhibition Raven, recently shown at James Dorahy’s Project Space was a tight and beautifully counterbalanced show where gothic mirrors echoed gunshot car duco pieces creating a sense of unease in a space where past and future coexist. Six images reflected the other - the mirrors coated in black baked enamel and the six coloured and steel surfaces. The panels, with their immaculate surfaces ripped through by gun shots (mostly discrete bullet holes made by a .38 calibre rifle but some are blasted with lead shot) captured the feeling of uncertain times both past and present. Raven also acts as both a prompt and aide de memoir for other haunting shows.

The nature of what gets reviewed and what doesn’t seems as random as most other things in life quite often determined by space, time and deadlines as much as by merit. Some shows have a much greater lasting impact than the duration of the exhibition and become cardinal points of reference for other exhibitions, pointers to future directions, often signalling the beginning of a particular artist’s or group of artists’ emergence into the art world consciousness.


Robert Habel, Paessagio Urbano Italiano, Rogues Gallery 2008.
Oil on canvas, 170x170cms.

This afterglow impression of recalling other exhibitions was also tripped at Firstdraft with Visage shown in April this year. Curated by Felix Ratcliff this was a group show of painters. A number of these artists are represented by Gallery 9 and have had interesting shows in the last year or so. Jake Walker had work showing simultaneously at both Firstdraft and Gallery 9. As well as exploring the boundaries of portraiture the idea of small scale painting in a range of media from watercolour to oils the work signalled a shift of direction. Visage echoed a trait apparent in earlier shows by numerous artists recently where small works and assorted media have began to take hold.

In Visage, Julian Hooper’s haunting portraits whose subjects of flower/figures morphed still life and portraiture into one. Michelle Hanlin’s metamorphosis took another form as it punned Dali-esque and shadow puppets for a psychological portrayal. Colour, abstraction and a shift in scale gave the show its edgy-ness.

Julian Hooper’s show at Gallery 9 last year comprised works originally created for the frames belonging to a NZ regional gallery that he filled with his strange vegetal personages. At Gallery 9 they were shown devoid of the collection's frames and placed in a different series of frames creating a kind of additional absence. The show served as a good example of an interesting concern that has been appearing in many recent exhibitions - a focus that taps into subject matter that might best be described as ‘stretching across time’. This suggestion seems to be being made by a number of different artists in a variety of ways and deals not only with quotation or appropriation but also with a disruption of the idea of a pictorial continuity or a seamless surface; replacing it instead with absence often seen as gaps in the picture plane that are both literal and metaphorical.

Jess MacNeil’s work does this conceptually as well as actually by removing the figures but leaving their trace as they transverse their urban landscapes. This was demonstrated in her powerful show at Gallery Barry Keldoulis in March that bought together her video works and her painting in a synergistic coalescence of matter, medium and immateriality. Sean Rafferty’s Ghost Mountain at Mop in January traced a link between memory and recall of both the filmic and the real. Rafferty used cardboard, graphite and film to play off nostalgia burning it instead into the viewer’s mind as an after image rather than a recollection. And so it goes that the nature of viewing work is also about recalling absent work, it’s serendipity is our part in the process but beyond this comes hindsight - the lynchpin for generally acknowledged agreement. It is very easy to digress into a round up of the high lights every notable show and maybe that’s the clincher for why this sort of retrospection is usually anchored to a specific artist’s work and not discussed in such meandering terms.


Ben Cauhci, The Start of It All, 2009.
Ambrotype.


And with that in mind it was in fact two quite specific shows that have been doing the haunting for me - The New Victorians (University of Sydney Art Gallery curated by Louise Tegart in 2008) and A Fragile State (Martin Browne - curated by Matt Glenn in January 2009) Even the some of materials read like a list of ritual ingredients for some spell or hex- hair, bone, wax, ink and air -in both exhibitions.

The New Victorians was a great little show (little only in terms of the space and great in so far as the work went): the Sydney University Gallery is a small space and in true Victorian style it quite a tight hang. Ben Cauchi’s ambrotypes - one off photographic plates - captured the spookiness of an age where the spiritual loomed large. Liyen Chong use of her own hair to embroider pieces served as a memento mori both implied and actual. Chong’s work reappeared in Matt Glenn’s A Fragile State.


Liyen Chong, I don't know who I am but I know who I might be, 2008.
Hair embroidered on linen, 32x37cm.

A Fragile State was a marvellous wake up call. It asked us to consider not only the act of viewing and the materiality of the work but suggested a parallel thread between the experiential and the actual, the seen and the unseen as if these aspects of the art works could stand in for that lived experience. Roh Singh drilled holes in sheets of the perspex to make solid forms appear from thin air. Built up with layers of clear acrylic sheets the image was sandwiched as though it were both fixed and yet suspended, caught in the moment between one movement and the next, like a single a heart beat that divides life and death. Stuart Fleming’s mesmerising ink dot painting suggested the possibilities of phenomenology where colour takes on both the form and the idea and we are aware of another kind of perception of it. Charles Karubian and Leslie Rice’s paintings seemed to share a kind of ambiguity as if the figures in their paintings were being reabsorbed into their dark backgrounds. Destabilising the idea of painting as able to suspend time and space they too took on a fleeting quality. In various ways and to varying degrees each of the artists in the exhibition demanded some kind of reassessment of our experience of the artwork.

Isobel Johnston, August 2009

Labels: artist run galleries, commercial galleries, exhibitions, Isobel Johnston, painting

Under my direction the Art Gallery of NSW will:

Have many more contemporary art exhibitions 20% 33
Coast along until my forced early retirement 6% 10
Require school groups to be tethered 13% 21
Get rid of video art once and for all 22% 35
Boost the film and video programing into a thing of wonder 8% 13
Expand the bookshop to cover the entire ground floor 10% 17
Clear out all the dead wood, including actual dead wood 10% 17
Cheesecake, breakfast lunch and dinner 10% 16

162 votes total

Labels: poll

"Cartrain, a 17-year-old graffiti artist embroiled in a feud with Damien Hirst, has been arrested after stealing pencils from the millionaire artist's latest installation

"Last year Cartrain was ordered by the Design and Artists Copyright Society to hand over collages based on Hirst's famous diamond-encrusted skull, For the Love of God, and pay the £200 in profits he made.

"In an act of revenge, Cartrain visited Hirst's installation Pharmacy in July, which was being shown as part of Tate Britain's Classified exhibition until it closed last month, and removed a few of the rare "Faber Castell dated 1990 Mongol 482 Series" pencils.

"Cartrain then made a mock "wanted" posted that read: "For the safe return of Damien Hirst's pencilers I would like my artworks back that DACS and Hirst took off me in November. It's not a large demand... Hirst has until the end of this month to resolve this or on 31 of July the pencils will be sharpened. He has been warned."

"But the stunt backfired when the antiques squad from the Metropolitan Police arrested the artist, informing him the pencils were worth £500,000 as part of the overall installation which was valued at £10 million..."


Teenage artist arrested for stealing pencils from Damien Hirst, The Telegraph UK

Labels: art news, art theft

"A SILENT, ten minute video of young music fans letting loose in front of rock gods playing on stage has won the main award at this year's Blake Prize for religious art. The $20,000 prize went to 32-year-old Sydney artist Angelica Mesiti for her video work Rapture (silent anthem).It was filmed from a concealed position beneath the stage at the Big Day Out earlier this year, as hard rock and metal bands played to the audience. Mesiti, though, would prefer viewers not to place too much emphasis on the actual location of the film and concentrate instead on the ideas of spirituality suggested in the piece. She said the work was exploring the “extreme experiences” when people become lost in the moment outside sanctioned religious spaces. “I was just interested in these notions of worship and ecstasy and transcendence and where they're actually found in a contemporary setting,” she said. Christopher Allen, The Australian's national art critic, said of the winner: “Ecstasy is cheap.” And of the show overall, he was less than impressed. “The show itself is fairly lacklustre,” he said. “There's very little that has any inspiring sense of the religious or the spiritual.”

Sydney artist wins Blake Prize with 'religious' video, The Australian



"I thought it was a bit of a long shot because it isn't the most conventional treatment of religious or spiritual kind of subjects, but I'm really glad that they've shown that there's a willingness and an openness about those subjects," [Mesiti] said. The winner of the John Coburn emerging artist award, Grant Stevens, also used digital video to show how the internet is changing the way people discover themselves. "I was quite interested in how MySpace and other online forums like that are now these venues for self-definition and self-identification and self-reflection too, and often that text involves reflection on likes and dislikes," he said. "I guess I was interested in how those things now might stand in for other more traditional forms of reflection or spiritual endeavours." The chairman of the Blake Society, Reverend Rod Pattenden, says the winning works show the sometimes traditional prize is heading in a new direction.

Blake Prize awarded to video artwork, ABC News

"True to the Blake's history of provoking debate, it got a lashing last month from the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, who cited what he saw as "anti-religious" and kitsch work, singling out among the finalists Adam Cullen's depiction of David and Goliath and photographer Belinda Mason's Christ-like 3D image of Brisbane's suspended Father Peter Kennedy. Mr Pattenden said he saw the exhibition as "wonderfully educative and I hope that religious leaders who might see this as potentially blasphemous might come along and learn something". The exhibition is on view at the gallery of Darlinghurst's National Art School, where the awards were held, until October 3."

How videos killed the painting stars, SMH

Labels: art news

Until the Kingdom Comes, by Simen Johan


Got new work you'd like to share? Send images and description of your work to thearlife at hot mail dot com. Images should no larger than 350k each

Labels: new work

Protest at the opening ceremony of the Beijing 798 Biennale

"The inaugural Beijing 798 Biennale, held in the sprawling 798 art district in China’s capital, saw a chaotic opening on 15 August, with major works by Chinese artists widely censored by authorities. The biennale was arranged with international contributions operating independently at numerous private galleries in the 798 complex, which were not affected by the censorship and avoided the operational issues that hampered the main exhibition hall. Billed as the first non-government biennale in China, the event was hampered by a lack of funds, operational support, and some inexperience on the part of the organisers, who were predominantly Chinese art journalists.

"In steaming temperatures of around 40ºC, hundreds stood out in the sun to listen to opening speeches by assembled dignitaries. The ceremony was briefly interrupted by a demonstration and water being thrown at the platform. The demonstration, whose purpose seemed obscure, was performed by a group including a deaf mute in ancient Chinese costume, a man wheeling a cart of bedpans and another man wearing a metal mask accompanied by someone dressed as a bride. 798 Biennale’s chief curator, Zhu Qi, said they were protesting about their exclusion from the exhibition..."


The Art Newspaper

Labels: art news, Biennales, international exhibitions

Hany Armanious, Sphinx 2, 2009.

"By 1992, Egypt-born Australian artist Hany Armanious had exhibited his work in five solo independent or commercial gallery and two influential institutional exhibitions —the 1991 Australian Perspecta and the 1992-93 Biennale of Sydney: The Boundary Rider. By the end of 1993 his work had been included in many more exhibitions including the Venice Biennale’s 1993 Aperto exhibition. In his review of Armanious’ 1992 exhibition at Sydney’s Julie Green Gallery, Jeff Gibson made note of the decrepit (“scungy”) aesthetic at play in Armanious’ work: “The objects (ready-mades), artworks (drawings, paintings, and sculptures), and assemblages crammed into this exhibition are mostly composed of used and abused materials—‘crippled’ armchairs, discarded appliances, packaging, plastic utensils, and so on.”

"Gibson also evoked the works’ commentary on consumer waste, but it was the humorist in Armanious that stood out: “Were it not for the extremely endearing and perverse humour that this exhibition exudes, we might not wish to further pursue such an obvious challenge to connoisseurship.” Later, Gibson referred to Armanious’ “comic-artistic terrorism”. Armanious’ early works resonated with conceptual import, flirted with transcendentalist themes, and showed an unusual sensitivity to degraded materials; however Gibson’s review of Armanious’ work made no reference to the abject or to grunge.

"The oddly comic aspect of Armanious’ work, along with emerging artist Kathy Temin and some other Australian artists who had already established careers, was explored in the exhibition Wit’s End, curated by Kay Campbell and shown at Sydney’s fledgling Museum of Contemporary Art from February to May 1993. [...] Kay Campbell explained in the book accompanying the exhibition: “[The artists] contest the modern view of the world in a way which is intrinsically comic by at once acknowledging and opposing the banality, futility, and misery of life [thus they] create a disjuncture of meaning, liberating stereotypical cultural idioms and subverting codes of understanding.” Of Armanious’ work in the exhibition Campbell said: “Works are not regarded as individual self-contained entities, they interrelate in multi-layered and witty relationships linked to the physical and contextual space in which they are exhibited.”

Understanding Grunge Art, Christopher Chapman in Broadsheet

Labels: grunge, sculpture