Diego Bonetto and Emma Jay
Dear.....
The work I wanna tell you about is by Diego Bonetto and Emma
Jay. Diego is an artist studying at the Uni of Western Sydney, and
Emma is a dentist. Both are activists who are keenly involved
with the Midnight Star Squatted Social Centre at Homebush.
Out at the Kingswood campus of the Uni of Western Sydney
there is a beautiful decrepid old drive-in cinema. It was operating
from the '60s til 1984, when the manager said that it was the
onset of video rental stores that was forcing him to go outta
business. (Diego found that in a local paper from the time - I love
that such a document can help to pinpoint a transitional moment
in the history of technology)... anyway its now owned by the Uni
and they've used it as artist studios for their masters students,
and a bunch of ex-honours students nearly succeeded in setting
up a gallery in the old projection booth, but the uni shut it down
and now the building is condemned. The whole site is pretty
amazing tho, there are those undulating bitumen crests where
you used to park yer car, and the whole area under the ex-screen
is like a forest of weeds.
It's in this weed kingdom where Diego and Emma located their
project "WeedKiller/PestController" - they created an audio-tour
of the weeds on the site. You get a CD walkman and a glass of
champagne, and follow the trail of numbered stakes hammered
into the ground throughout the scrub. Cheesy instrumental
tracks fade into detailed and quite scientific botanical data about
the particular weed, its origins and distribution, threat to the
ecosystem. It_s hilarious that they've treated lowly weeds with
the same reverence as a botanist would lecture on rare and
exotic succulents. And it_s really interesting, too, to note that
some of the most common plants we see everyday are
classified under the "Noxious Weed Act 1993", and landowners
must "fully and continually supress and destroy all W2 weeds
growing on land for which they are responsible".
The analogy between weeds and squatters is clear to the
artists...it's just as clear that the classification of weeds is
arbitrary, changeable and political (just as has been the
introduction of foreign species (including European humans)
into Australia). Weeds find a place to live and thrive, often in
otherwise inhospitable terrain...
I have a book of short stories by dissident chinese writers from
the 1950s called "Fragrant Weeds"... Tonight Jane cooked
"Foeniculum Vulgare", Caramelised Fennel with Creamy Polenta
- fennel occurs mostly "as a weed of wastelands, alluvial flats,
river banks, roadsides, railway embankments and irrigation
channels. It is capable of forming dense infestations which
exclude other vegetation". It is delicious.
For the next guided tour contact Diego on 0411293178 or
diegowho@hotmail.com
Simon Ingram on Maddie Leach
Maddie Leach's Ice Rink and Lilac Ship
Gallery Six, Waikato Museum of Art and History / Te Whare Taonga o Waikato
July 2002
Potentially one of the highlights of New Zealand's 2002
exhibition calendar is Maddie Leach's Ice Rink and Lilac Ship. A
stretch of ice purpose built for skating upon ran 28 of this writer's
paces down the length of a generously sized well lit gallery
space. In an adjoining gallery, a slow contemplative video
projection of massive ship passing over ocean all in Lilac,
seeming to act as sounding board, increasing the resonance of
the star attraction: The Ice Rink.
Like much new art exhibited recently in public galleries in New
Zealand, The Ice Rink's supporting material suggests the work
in question has a dialogue with modernism, ". the work can
serve as an unusual piece of minimalist sculpture ." Indeed it
could, but is there such a need? 28 paces of ice, a collection of
delighted viewers becoming participants, cool frosted air all
seem somehow constrained by what might just be an
unnecessary, possibly constraining, catch-all distinction.
Parents and children alike cordially cued together. Bobbing,
wobbling and gliding off down the strip, they seemed to actualize
the work according to their actions and interactions with the ice
and others. No need a discourse of minimalism, then. Work like
this is able to realize a kind of plenitude not because it is coded
with information about art, historical or otherwise, or because of
cultural resonance. Rather it is because materiality matches
what one might call its 'idea driver' seamlessly.
The artist, who has made a feature of her work a certain
commitment to ice skating, mentioned that she had chosen to
steer clear of sequins, the Strictly Ballroom scenario. One might
say that Paul Mercurio's pants are traded for the stealth and
addiction to winter of Peter Hoeg's wonderfully atmospheric Miss
Smilla's Feeling for Snow with great success in what is a very
good exhibition by this young New Zealand artist.
Simon Ingram
Bari Caton on brain-tanning
What a buckskinner does.
Well, for a hobby I enjoy making brain-tanned buckskins from
deer hides. So I'm a buckskinner. Actually, I don't skin the deer
myself, nor do I go hunting to kill them. I don't kill anything. I get
all the deer hides for free from the local butcher during
deer-hunting season, since the hunters only want the venison
meat.
Brain-tanning is the native, primitive, aboriginal way of preparing
hides, practiced around the world for thousands of years.
Modern chemical tanning is a poor substitute. It's done by
scraping the fur and the layers of dermis and epidermis off the
animal skin, and then soaking the skin in the brains of the
animal for anywhere from 20 minutes to 24 hours. Every animal
has enough brains to tan it's own hide: squirrel, deer, buffalo,
you name it. Every animal except teenagers, of course.
After soaking in brains, the skin is then pulled and stretched until
it becomes like soft pure white flannel. Then it is smoked over a
punky, smoky wood fire, which turns it that nice honey color
buckskin. White buckskin will stiffen up like rawhide if it gets wet,
but for some unknown reason, the smoked hides can get wet
(even in the washing machine), and when they dry, they remain
soft. Then you can use the hides to make clothing, bags and
pouches, or anything you want. It's wonderful to do beadwork on. West Jefferson NC
If you want to learn more about braintanning, try
www.braintan.com
http://www.braintan.com
http://www.braintan.com which is run by Matt and Michelle,
two of my teachers. Happy tanning!
Bari Caton
Bully - Chris Chapman
Bully
Lions Gate Films 2001
Directed by Larry Clark
Written by Zachary Long and Roger Pullis
Based on the book Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge by , Jim Schutze
As a photographer, Larry Clark has, since the late 1960s,
documented the sex and drugs lifestyles of certain groups of
American youth. His classic photobook Tulsa put him on the
map, and since then he has produced various bodies of work
that focus on the intensities of that period in life that might
generally be called adolescence. His 1980s book Teenage Lust
was more about sex than drugs (but for Clark, they are almost
always connected), and his colour photographic works of the
1990s heightened the intensity by zooming in on the markers of
puberty: wisps of hair on boys' cheeks and upper lips,
skateboard-grazed legs, drops of sweat. Clark also made really
interesting, if lesser known collage works: groups of photos,
newspaper clippings, notes, sometimes objects like
skateboards and t-shirts, that spoke about youth violence,
suicide and the unrequited love of parents and peers.
Clark's film Bully is his third (following the infamous KIDS, and
the recent Another Day in Paradise). Bully is based on a true
story where a group of Florida teenagers murdered one of their
own, the motive being his continued harrassment and bullying
behaviour. The trademark intimate camerawork and closeup
heat is there, but a few things seem to grate. Clark seems most
at home with subject matter set against a gritty backdrop: the
rural landscape of Tulsa, Texas; the downtown grime of New
York city. The aqua and pink bedlinen, tropical locale, and
convertible sportscars of Bully seems more Beverley Hills
90210. The story is a powerful one but it is under-developed. The
chain of events that lead to the murder of Bobby Kent (played by
Nick Stahl) are hazy and haphazard, which may of course have
been the case, but this makes the murder seem too
inexplicable. Perhaps being unfamiliar with Florida ambience,
Clark has tagged the film with unnecessary references to his
interests outside the film: a collage of posters reads uncannily
like a Clark installation, there are intimate scenes between
younger and older brothers that are incidental to the narrative.
Critics have suggested that Clark's lingering shots of the teens'
sexual antics, and of the young naked female actors in particular
are gratutitous; and that the murder scene is unnecessarily
drawn out. I didn't find this to be the case: teen intimacy has
always been a biggie for Clark, and, the muder scene is brutal
without being overtly goresome.
The film ends with a roll-call of the characters and the sentences
each received. This is the most shocking aspect of the story. The
sentences seem extraordinarily heavy, with several receiving life
imprisonment. Bobby's best friend Marty Puccio (played by the
beautiful Brad Renfro) was almost always a bystander to the
entire sordid chain of events, an endless victim of Bobby's
taunting. He was executed.
Chris Chapman
War Boy - Chris Chapman
War Boy
Kief Hillsbery
Picador, 2000
Hillsbery's novel War Boy opens with a declaration by its
narrator: "I'm Rad I'm deaf I don't talk I'm fourteen I'm telling the
story. And storytellers lie so why bother you ask." Rescued from
a scenario of deep family violence by twentysomething mentor
Jonnyboy, skateboarder Radboy travels to San Francisco and
makes several discoveries about his own life. He and Jonnyboy
meet up with Finn and Critter, a pair of 'kweer tweekerboyz', all
are variously punks and skins, with convictions and hearts of
gold.
Told in first-person from Radboy's point of view, the dialogue
uses abbreviations, slang, variations of language like
customised signing. There is a high degree of affection between
Radboy and his posse, but its never exploitative. Radboy takes
his own time and terms to figure out his emotions and eventually
find love.
Apart from Radboy's journey into himself, the narrative is fuelled
by a social activist scenario involving the bombing of a
tree-felling corporate, and the subsequent kidnapping which
goes wrong.
Since Radboy is deaf the sensations of touch and particularly
smell are important: the identifying characteristics of different
boys' sweat; the calming and memory-energising aromas of
home-cooked food; and the acrid stench of a burning fox
carcass. Communication flows in gestures, looks and actions.
Chris Chapman
Ruark Lewis on Sophie Coombs
SOPHIE COOMBS - "X marks the spot"
'Front Room' Sydney
Autodidactic: a drawing and an etching.
Sophie Coombs shows a room- piece empowered by its sense
of absence. In this room is juxtaposed two gestures. They are collected together in the spirit of a spontaneous improvised mark. Here the sign is abstracted to form a brooding dialogue. It's sensability is that of the autodidact. In the pristine white gallery environment, a space so white that an X cross that she struck directly on one of the walls becomes an action, a taunt, a sign of its own limitations. This crossing action is set up theatrically, and one might suspect it as a strategy the artist uses to insure that viewers inspects the small etchings on the opposite wall with a new respect. Her
drawings are densely surfaced haptic affairs, laboured over yet maintaining fresh movements and surface tension. Her compositions spread like riverlets and lines in complex sets of overlay. Her game of figure-ground oscillate in an unsure paradox. A baroque sense of space. That might become but draws you back. Does Sofie Coombs have a cross to bear?
Hardly, this current showing the walls accomodate
another set of 'marks'.These are the first etchings she has exhibited. The outcome of a new experiment incorporating print media. The lines remind me of Dieter Roths drawings for their wilfulness, yet the scale here is minature by comparison. Full of agile movements and surface penetration. This is subterrainean territory, a slow unfolding psychic drawing of an artful tactician. And for this I think they are very interesting.
Ruark Lewis
Christopher Gill on Susan Hiller
Susan Hiller
witness 2000
biennale of sydney 2002
watch ! he is listening ! "had focused on our house, when we
passed by our house" a six year old boy stands in a moon lit
gallery, motionless & alone parentless but poised, a car- stereo
speaker "we realized that it could not be a meteorite not beneath
the clouds" denuded of its plastic cladding and attached to a
long length of sheathed "a blue white light" copper wire is
cupped to one ear, a serene babbling "a blue green illumination"
emanates from 599 other speakers, each uttering testimonies to
ufo sightings and alien "a few men dressed in silver" abduction,
cascade from a radial structure above. various other "my
telephone rang at 2 am" spectator bodies are arranged within
the installation, they too attach speakers "i was shocked to see a
huge rugby ball shining in the sky" to their ears, and like the six
year old they are calm and irrefutably present, their body
language "i was sitting in a tube, a vacuum tube" serene rather
than clutching "drove like mad back to the petrol station". the
configuration of the spectator citizens evoke "tell the media do
not panic we mean no harm" a sense of civic harmony rarely
experienced these days, in the early years of world war three "my
name is fred i don't want to give my surname". a mother and
daughter seem to dance "at the railway track i stopped to allow a
man leading a cow pass by" or rather frolic around the
installation as if killing off idle moments around a fountain in the
town square "followed all the way by the ufo". there is no time
here only order, a voluptuous young women enters giggles and
then leaves to fetch her boyfriend "the wife of the man leading the
cow" and while they listen "when i rang the police they said the
chief inspector had seen it" i notice the six year old has spirited
himself away. abducted ? "they did not stop" another man, older
but still young, sits "a bright orange illumination" in the corner,
outside the radius of the installation but not apart "a bright
orange illumination heading north . north east" on a wooden
chair vacated by the mesuem security guard, quietly watching
like an empowered citizen "i am very sure it wasn't a plane i've
never seen a plane act like that" drinking coffee, playing chess
as a sleeping baby in a pram is briefly abandoned "then it
reversed and dropped to the ground" by its nanny dead in the
center of the installation, and the baby wakes and she too
assumes the posture of self possessed citizenry "i could hear a
voice in my head a very clear voice" waiting there, without a trace
of anxiety for the nanny to pick her up. watch, she is listening!
Christopher Gill