Some Kinds of Duration by Nicholas Mangan

By Anneliese Millk
Gallery 3, Centre for Contemporary Photography, 404 George St, Fitzroy, Melbourne

Until 01.04.2012

What do an outdated photocopier, a demolished incinerator and an ancient Mayan Palace have in common? The answer apparently lies in duration, design and decay. Nicholas Mangan’s mixed media installation Some Kinds of Duration explores the symbiosis between these seemingly disparate components, seeking to reveal multiple histories simultaneously and a surprising continuity between forms.

Some Kinds of Duration is the outcome of Mangan’s archival investigation into the history of the Pyrmont incinerator. Designed by architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahoney in 1935, the incinerator destroyed the waste of Sydney's population until 1971. Despite being a utilitarian, urban building, the incinerator’s design embraced delineated art deco and bold Mayan reliefs. The impressive structure was finally demolished in 1992, although remnants of its surface decoration have been preserved in the Powerhouse Museum.

Primed – New Painting in Tasmania

Academy Gallery, UTAS
Curated by Catherine Wolfhagen
By Anneliese Milk

Following the straightforward premise of Tasmanian artists and their latest journey with paint, Primed is anything but simple. Curated by Catherine Wolfhagen, Primed brings together complex new works by diverse artists: Amanda Davies, Annika Koops, Jonathan Kimberley, Richard Wastell, Catherine Woo, Neil Haddon and Megan Walch. Beyond the common ground of Tasmania and the medium of paint, these works find a symbiosis that is at once surprising, challenging, and alienating.

Online (fishing)

Curated by John Vella
Plimsoll Gallery, Centre for the Arts, Hobart
Friday 21st May 2010

By Anneliese Milk

How long is a piece of fishing line? The answer depends on the artist using it. In Online (fishing) curator John Vella has reeled in a small and exciting group of contemporary Australian artists by using fishing line as ‘bait.’ Featuring the work of four artists and one artist collective, Online consists of five separate installations aligned solely by their use of fishing line.

RENDEZVOUS

Rhonda Voo with the Croo

Exhibition /Installation/ Performance / Residue
Entrepot gallery, Hunter St, Hobart.
9-5 daily until May 20th

By Gai Anderson

If you have a chance this week, get down to the Entrepot Gallery where a group of artists continue to play together responding to the word ‘Rendezvous’ through performance and live art. They aim to keep the space “alive” and inhabited by changing artists on a daily basis. Following the “live “ creation in the gallery, a trace or residue of the work is left to accumulate over the weeks of the exhibition, leaving tantalising, exciting, and sometimes oblique traces of what has happened here.

ArtRage 2009

Tasmanian School of Art, Centre for the Arts, Hobart

Friday 7^th May 2010

By Anneliese Milk

When the work of eighty secondary school art students from across the state is brought together under the one roof, you can expect the atmosphere to be diverse and electric, with the occasional nuance of teen-angst. Presented by the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, ArtRage 2009 encapsulates all of that and more. It is an engaging and sprawling exhibition representing every possible medium, theme, colour and emotion.

What is initially striking about these emerging artists is their evident mastery within their chosen mediums. A sweeping statement, perhaps, yet a large portion of the work on display is as technically sound as you would expect to encounter in the work of artists twice their age.

DRIVE WEST TODAY

By Kylie Elizabeth Eastley
MOFO 2010
Peacock Theatre
Wednesday 13th & Sunday 17th January

Throughout the MONA FOMA 2010 program there is a selection of tiny morsels that are accessible, interesting and challenging. DRIVE WEST TODAY is a collaboration between Hobart based musician and sound artist, Josh Santospirito and Melbourne audiovisual performer Anthony Magen that is well worth experiencing.
Individually, they improvise a range of unique sounds and images that collectively create a sense of harmony, rhythm and tranquility. The small audience who gathered in the Peacock Theatre to experience this collaboration was transfixed by Magen’s images projected onto the quarry rock face that is the backdrop of the intimate theatre.
Using a video camera affectionately known as ‘Elmo’, Magen projects fragile and intriguing images with the use of such ordinary objects as tea candles and beer glasses. Reminiscent of tadpoles, fish eggs or microscopic organisms they wriggle and twitch.
Santospirito responds to the images, improvising with his two electric guitars and a selection of effects pedals to loop, layer and mesh the pluckings, strums and sounds he draws from his instruments.
Never having worked or performed together the pair meld beautifully. Organic images and sounds emerged from both artists who linked musicianship with technology to create a strong cohesive piece of work.
The pair performs together in six shows, with the last three shows on Sunday 17th January.
Anthony Magen also appears alongside performing artist Rod Cooper in HELMETHEAD in a series of shows at the Peacock Theatre.
www.mofo.net.au

Evolution: Patricia Piccinini

by Kylie Eastley

As adults even with our full range of life experiences, education and understanding it is refreshing to experience an exhibition that takes our breath away and makes us feel something. Having already seen this incredible depiction of evolution gone mad, I decided to take my ten year old daughter to view Piccinini's creations. Her passion is for the natural world, so I thought it would be interesting to gauge her reaction to these beings.

I was not disappointed. Finding myself watching her more than the works, she instantly recoiled from the work, but then softened and explored, looking at every detail.

She asked when viewing the small child surrounded by Tasmanian devils...'is she real. Is she?' her pleading eyes almost wanted me to say yes, as it was so incredible to accept that these peaceful souls before us were synthetic. Made by man not nature.

The next day it made for great school yard conversation.