The Select (the Sun also Rises )

Cleverly playing with form to reveal the content 

by Gai Anderson

Based on the play by Earnest Hemingway

Performed by Elevator Repair Service

Seen at the Theatre Royal Hobart, as part of Ten Days on the Island, March  2013

In these days of enthrallment with film as the ultimate form in which classic stories are enacted dramatically, transforming a classic 20^th century American novel to stage engagingly is quite a feat. But that’s what New York’s experimental theatre company Elevator Repair Service (ERS) like to do. They take the content of existing American literary forms – TV programs, non fiction writing, novels, plays etc., and then play with the form of enactment: mashing them up, juxtaposing theatrical styles, using slapstick, comedy and their highly developed abstract choreography.

Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is the third of a trilogy of American classic novels, which included a 7-hour version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby where every word of the novel was spoken onstage. It’s the text that keeps it grounded and allows them to experiment with the form, apparently. 

In the case of The Select (The Sun Also Rises ) they say they found a play inside the novel – and the show is essentially narrator-led storytelling, (“ she said”, “I said”) interspersed with heightened clipped moments of interaction - feeling at times like a noir-film as radio-play, and at others a Pinteresque drawing room drama crossed with a comic strip. 

While the action is not boring, at 3 + hours, its words demand considerable focus at times particularly in the slower first act, as the narrator sets up the lives of a group of lost and damaged, post-war bohemian expats, endlessly trying to fill their vacuous lives with excessive drinking and partying in Paris bars. And there is the rub I guess - these are not pleasant people to be watching up close, and perhaps why I have never really warmed to Hemingway’s novels.

But there is also much fun, as the lush wood-paneled bar room set transforms simply into taxi, streetscape and bedroom with clever light and sound. The satire that really drives this stylish show is held by a deliciously heightened soundtrack feeding the staccato slapstick action. Sound effects of endless breaking glasses, pouring wine and laughter - coupled with surreal moments of abstracted dance and movement, a waiter who constantly juggles wine bottles and a continuous revolving  chorus of colorful local characters.

 

But in the second act, as the action moves to Spain and what is now a love-octet becomes ridiculous and painfully tragic, the pace really picks up and the real brilliance of ERS is revealed.  Set amongst the color of the bullfight and fiesta of Pamplona, the contrast between the desperate vacuous white characters, the passionate Spanish and their adulated toreadors is extreme. Here Hemingway’s message is cleverly exaggerated through the choruses of endless sculling of alcohol, and the Ren and Stimpy version of the young man Toreador (played by a woman) bull-fighting with a table sans-horns. It is silly in the extreme against the mashed up sounds of bad matriarchy-band music but totally and hypnotically brilliant.

In the end whilst I’m still not sure about the 3+ hours, I definitely got something of the genius of Hemingway - as the desperate-for-passion, tragic white-woman, destroying the men around her, is paralleled with the desperate-for-tragedy as passion of the Spanish and their blood-thirsty bullfighting .

I might even try some of Hemingways novels again, but will definitely try ERS , again should I get the chance.

AS WE FORGIVE

by Kylie Eastley

As We Forgive is a play written by award winning playwright Tom Holloway specifically for Hobart based actor, Robert Jarman. Last night was the opening and Jarman played to a packed house including the usual VIP's who showed their appreciation with a hearty encore.

As We Forgive consists of 3 monologues; each a narrative that discusses three important elements to the human psyche. The first is vengeance. Jarman appears on stage as an elderly man dressed in a tweed jacket with cane in hand. He slumps into an old arm chair and welcomes the audience, thanking them for coming out on this 'auspicious evening'.

He tells the story of a man living an ordinary life within a very small world; his home, the local shop, a nearby park. The story unfolds and we hear how this world is shattered by the actions of another and the impact this has on him. Rather than hide away in fear he instead opts for vengeance as a way forward.

Ten Days on the Island 2013

We have a small team of writers covering some of the events and performances that make up this year's Ten Days on the Island. Thanks to Tasmania Times for linking to our site and of course to Ten Days on the Island for providing tickets for our writers. Check out what we think here...coming soon!

Ralf Haertel-Curator and Artist

Ralf Haertel was the co-curator, along with Rob Duffield, of the recent Shadows program at the Marion Bay Falls Festival. Aside from this Ralf also installed works that reflected both the surrounding environment and celebrated 10 years of the festival. Listen to what he has to say and check out more about the Shadows group at the Shadows blog...

Ralf taking a break during the installation of works

Environmental Artists coming out of the Shadows

Vicki West's words made from dodda vine hover above the thousands of people whose focus is the main stage of the Marion Bay Falls Festival. This is art that embraces it's location and, if you are open to it, introduces interesting discussion and insight. The punters may not understand the meaning of the words lome merker (deep water) leaturi (wave) gunta (earth) and karnelare (echo), but this work can be appreciated as it is suspended against the backdrop of the hills, bush and coastline. There is a lovely layering and irony about these Aboriginal words hanging so comfortably above the land that was once inhabited by another and is now covered in a swarm of music lovers.

Vicki West's Water Waves Earth Echoes

Ralf Haertel's very tactile &
 luscious Earthpoles

Unlike the safety of a white walled gallery, the paddocks, waterways and trees of the Marion Bay property that accommodates the Falls Festival does not have the usual cues that guide the audience. Aboriginal artist, Vicki West is one of 12 environmental artists who produced artwork that sat in and around the 15 000 festival goers. Such festivals were once purely music, but in the last 5-10 years they have incorporated an arts program with performance, visual arts and installations.

The challenges in developing art that can be included in such events must be huge. The OH & S issues alone could stimey most, but then there is the added acknowledgement that the majority of individuals attending these events are tanked on alcohol and drugs. This represents a huge issue for artists wishing to engage with individuals within the crowd without encouraging the destruction of artworks. How do they do it and what is the intention? And how does environmental art fit into this context? It's one thing to develop an artwork that is bright, shiny and engaging, but does message laden and conscience driven art have a place at such events.

What is Sonja's work about?

VID00020 from Kylie Eastley on Vimeo.

What Sonja did at the Falls

VID00019 from Kylie Eastley on Vimeo.

Sonja Hindrum's Pleaides

I was lucky enough to spend time with some of the artists involved in the Shadows program at the Marion Bay Falls Festival 2013. Here Sonja Hindrum shares her thoughts about the work she produces...

VID00018 from Kylie Eastley on Vimeo.

The Arrival

By Thomas Connelly

The crowd gathered and chatted, looked at mobile phones, took photos and texted envious friends. Some sat on recently installed bleacher seats, some on giant hot pink bean bags, some stood in the centre of the hall surrounded on both sides. The rising din echoed off the hard walls and was at the same time muffled by the soft humid crowd. Phones flashing, children laughing. Out the open door the blue blue of the river. Warehouses along the waterfront and the low foothills retreating to infinity. And then the hushing anticipation as the musician took the stage and nodded here and there with their instruments warming up and calming nerves.

The Arrival on stage (www.benw.info)

We were gathering to see a performance of Ben Walsh's Orkestra of the Underground scores Shaun Tan's The Arrival.

The lights fall and rise, eyes appear and fade away, rapid changes and snatches of folk music and other snippets of sound and sense swirl and build to a frenzy of faces and drums and horns and a take your breath away in a galloping pace. The music flows, images fade and now we see fearful children under covers. A clatter of drums, the wail of horns. Mystery and Menace. After the rapids, a slow cool eddy.

starchild

If I had the power of Orpheus, O Father, to bewitch the rocks to dance with me by my song...
Iphigenia in Aulis 1212 - Euripides

After seeing some MONA FOMA performances at the Princess Wharf I waddled my self over to the Peacock Theatre to see a chamber opera 'starchild' by Tasmanian composer Dylan Sheridan. Even though I knew next to nothing of the composer or of the piece I had high hopes for this work. In many ways it is best to know very little about the artist. Like the rest of us, artists are selfish little jerks in the main, and to know too much about them only opens a series of doors into rooms of doubt, fear and envy. I am glad to say that I was not disappointed.

The Peacock Theatre was a very different venue from the Princess Wharf. The Peacock Theatre is small, Princess Wharf is huge. The Peacock is intimate, the Wharf is one of those spaces that makes one think of old 1950's tropes of the post Atomic Age, the lonely battlefield and the individual lost in the crowd. Coming into the cosy space from the late afternoon angle of natural street sunlight, it took a few moments for my vision to settle into the gloom of the theatre. As I adjusted to the dim artificial light the stage and the many details came into view. This was a small simple piece, with only four musicians plus some electronics controlled by the composer. One singer and a child who sings a song at the end of the opera.

I was interested to see how this could be done. The conceptual idea of the opera is in the idea of the 'far-off song' carried on the wind. The endless song of crying far off, unable to be touched or to even be heard properly. Is there a better way to think about this? Is there a better way to discuss the ephemeral and the ineffable, than by using the structure of the dream?

Three loud claps, a drum beat, a woman's scream. And here recalling Finnegans Wake we fall; not however into shame and disgrace, but into a dream.

As in a certain class of dreams the scene was sparse, alien, with few objects and interactions. The small space of the theatre was used to maximum effect. The musicians were integrated into the set design. Obvious when one looked, but with a turned head the musicians seemed to fade away to became Satie's famous furniture, or like the Silence in recent episodes of Doctor Who.

Opera is in many ways the greatest of all art forms, in that it uses all other art forms. Music, dance, gesture, speech, painting and more. This is not to attempt to rank types of art, but merely to point out the unifying aspect of opera.  In this production the scenery was sparse, but effective in all ways. A small table, a floor of artificial grass, the netted and muted coverts for the musicians to play. All of this slotted together and supported the dream state nature of the work. With a small, empty arena for performing the action, it is important for the lighting to 'do more work.' In this case the lighting was able to texture the simplicity of the set design, revealing and concealing in turn, imparting a dream quality to the commonplace. A thin aerosol filled the stage so the lights could fall like solid cubist rays of pure fiery light onto the beautiful dancing place. This misty, obscuring light did much to reveal the mental state of the singer and to add solidity to the nebulous world of the interpretation of a dream.

Like a dream emotions moved quickly, from lighthearted confusion to moments of terror and panic. Internal questions unknowable spilled across the dream story. External stimuli imposed themselves on and were incorporated into the dream nature, be it the whistling wind in the background, the abrupt alarm clock, a far off laughing transforming into crying and back again into laughter, the branches tap tap tapping on the window.

And the 'heroine' sang of her and our confusion, like Gaugain. Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?  Soprano Allison Farrow used her voice to tell the story to move along from one scene to the next. Her voice became another instrument, an extra layering onto the simple yet complex music created.

After a day of listening to male bands and male artists it was a much needed break to hear a woman's voice being brought to the fore.

This was a lovely little piece and one I would happily recommend. I can understand some not enjoying the work, but to my mind it was a success. This simple short chamber opera was enjoyed so much that the audience seemed surprised and a little disappointed when it somewhat abruptly -  ended. But this seems a good thing, surely it is much better to leave the audience wanting more rather than saying you have gone on too long.

Don't know if I should feel vindicated in my view of this opera, or should I think I am completely wrong? Seems the Mercury and I are on the same page, as it were.

The Lull before the Storm

by Kylie Eastley

It's a breezy warm day when I arrive at Marion Bay to spend time with some of the artists connected with the Shadows program. For those heading along to experience the Marion Bay Falls Festival, art may be the last thing on their minds. But the impact of having art experiences included and sculptures installed throughout the property should not be underestimated.

Andy Vagg's Alumination

Shadows is part of a larger art program that includes a range of activities, mostly within The Village; a temporary enclosure that includes stages and tents that accommodate live music, circus, burlesque, massage and workshop venues.

It's where you might bump into Abigail, Mae and Ashley from Team Textiles or Tristan Stowards and his inflatable birthday cake trampoline. It's all part of the festival scene. But step outside The Village and something else is happening.

Surrounding the whole site are the environment sculptures of the Shadows group. It's a loose collective of environmental artists, many of whom are based in Northern Tasmania.

On this day, before the crowds arrive, I am lucky enough to see the works at their best. Without the distraction of tents, noise and people I can hear the tinkling of Andy Vagg's aluminium can flowers, titled Alumination. They are installed in random arrangements on the top of the poles that line the main walkway entrance to the festival. In the breeze the shiny metal flowers flutter and create a high pitched tinkling.

Teetering on top of tall poles positioned around The Village are Dan Kershaw's beautiful slick black organic sculptures and on the hill opposite the site is a collection of wood sculptures created by Martin Cole. With a sense of belonging, they rest into the paddock while all around the winds whip the yellowed grasses. There is a sense of peace and tranquillity. Shared meals with the artists and production crew, chats with healers and a stroll around the property. But it is momentary. The thousands are about to arrive.

Embracing an Abundant Life

By Rose Killalea

St Peters Church in Rome

I find myself in Pakistan, the muezzin just outside my window calling Muslims to prayer on a cool and dark evening. I'm here to work with Medicine Sans Frontieres (MSF) in a hospital in Taliban territory. My personal mission in my down-time, suggested by a friend, is to write about art in the churches and mosques of Pakistan. I grab this idea of hers with both hands, inspired immediately by the art/church connection, and the challenge of writing. Little do I know I will be confined to quarters in Pakistan for security reasons, and will never get to explore beyond the walls of the compound.

But Pakistan comes to me instead, through the many locals I work with, and I see their love of beauty and art in the gorgeous fabrics of the shalwar kameese the women wear, in their handmade jewellery, in the superbly decorated trucks and tuktuks they drive, painted and gilded on every part visible to the naked eye.

Shadows at Marion Bay

Kylie Eastley is heading North tomorrow to check out the art installations produced by a group of environmental artists including Vicki West, Martin Cole, Ralf Haertel, Sonja Hindrum and many more. Check out more about the exhibition at www.shadowsartatfalls.blogspot.com.au

KIMISIS – FALLING ASLEEP

Production by IHOS OPERA as part of the Queenstown Heritage and Arts Festival
October 2012

by Elizabeth Barsham

Inspired by the Greek Orthodox feast commemorating the Dormition, the death of the Virgin Mary and her assumption into Heaven, Kimisis takes the theme set by yesterday’s commemorative activities to another level. In the Church this service lasts several hours, but Con Koukias has considerately compressed his version into just twenty minutes.

The Unconformity Project

by Elizabeth Barsham

 

“I’ve never seen so much interest in rocks!” exclaimed the happy geologist from Devonport.

Far too many people were crowded into the LARQ gallery in Queenstown for the opening of The Unconformity Project, and loving it.

The Iron Blow - some of the rocks that inspired Julian Cooper

 We were surrounded by the wonderful bold, colourful paintings of Julian Cooper, LARQ Artist in Residence in 2011. Julian lives and works in Cumbria in the UK Lake District, and climbs rocks and mountains when not painting. The rocks around the old Iron Blow are not of great interest to a climber, but they inspired some terrific paintings, and these are great, energetic celebrations of stone. Julian's rock walls are alive and sparkling, reflecting harsh sunlight off uneven planes, hiding their secrets in shadowed clefts.

Everything Must Go

By Eliza Burke

Image courtesy of Theatre Royal

Rachel Leary’s Everything Must Go is a very funny and at times very touching monologue set at a garage sale in Tasmania’s Huon Valley. The sole character, Nancy Browne, is selling off a motley collection of belongings from the family home – a toilet-roll doll, a tyre swan, a deer’s head with one eye –you know the sort of things! – as well as a few not so familiar items like a jar of goat poo and two bickering pet bricks. She is moving out of the valley where she has always lived pending the multi-million dollar suburban development of ‘Perfect Ponds’.

On the surface Everything Must Go is a hilarious series of skits based around the various objects on sale and Nancy’s observations about the nature of life in the valley and the people who live there. But as the play progresses, deeper meanings emerge about loss, change and self-survival creating a unique fusion of comedic and dramatic theatre and a raw poignancy that stays with you long after Nancy has left the stage.

Hungry For You

Dark and funny adult puppetry is back in Hobart !

Directed by Merophie Carr and seen at the Peacock Theatre, Hobart

Gai Anderson

It’s a rare treat to see new independently created local theatre in Hobart and Hungry for You, created by puppeteer/ performers Mel King , Kirsty Grierson and Mel Mills- Hope (as Extended Play Projects) had me transfixed from the first moment at the Peacock Theatre last weekend.

JESSE EYNON - MIDLANDS History & The senses

A Preview of Paintings

Oatlands Gaol

27 October – 1 November 2012

By Lucy Wilson

Jesse Eynon chose to paint the Tasmanian Midlands for the light, its theatrical light. From her Cygnet studio she liberated herself by packing just what she needed to embark on a six-week Tas Regional Arts residency based in Oatlands. Having surrendered to the demands of mothering three children, the youngest now being six, she left her family behind to devote herself purely to painting.

It takes Jesse a long time to find a fragment in the world she wants to paint. She always knows when she finds it. It speaks to her gut instinct. The fragments she found were stretches of road, moments in cloudscapes, archetypal images like a man walking with dog, and old town buildings. The images she exhibited in Oatlands speak of a powerful meeting between her paintbrush and the fragments she found – almost as if they’d been waiting to be painted by her.        

I'll Break My Own Heart

By Kylie Eastley

The name says it all. I'll Break My Own Heart is all about the torture and journey of love; the darkness, the disturbing and the beautiful. This is cabaret. It is sexy one hour degustation from Rose Grayson, who both devised and performed the show.

Dressed in fish net stockings, a corset and top hat, Ms Grayson welcomes the audience with Illusions a song written by Frederick Hollander. A good choice, as the subject matter, if you hadn't already guessed from the title of the show, is about love, lust, passion, hate and heartache. The trauma and wonder of love is conveyed in 19 songs and poems. There's a little storytelling, a little chatting with the punters, but mostly the audience experiences the range and beauty of Ms Grayson's voice.

The Unconformity Project - LARQ Combined Openings - Queenstown Heritage & Arts Festival

By Lucy Wilson

Walking to the Opening of The Unconformity Project at LARQ (Landscape Art Research Queenstown) run by Raymond Arnold, I caught sight of Mount Mother Lyell in the late afternoon light. Spectacular. The sun was illuminating the bare rocky surface, which glowed through its weather washed patina. I soon learnt in the exhibition speeches about ‘the Western Feeling’.

It was in The Unconformity Project that geology and art came together. Where the movement of human endeavour above and below the surface of the earth encountered the natural and mysterious movement of rocks below. Vivid connections were made by artists Tim Chatwin, Julian Cooper, Ruth Johnstone and Jan Senbergs in a four part exhibition.

COPPER CULTURE Queenstown Heritage & Arts Festival 12-14 October 2012

By Lucy Wilson

An inspired gathering occurred in Queenstown in Western Tasmania last weekend.

“Oh, is that the town that looks like a moonscape?”

Yes.

It’s the mining town that 100 years ago thrived; it must have with fourteen pubs, and another thirteen in nearby surrounding towns like Linda and Gormanston. The North Lyell mine, affectionately called “Mount Mother Lyell” had a disaster that ravaged the heart of an isolated community and left 42 men dead. The second biannual Queenstown Heritage & Arts Festival marked the centenary of this disaster on 12 October 2012 and over the weekend wove family history and reunion, with mining and environment, with contemporary art. It was a compelling mix. Set in an extraordinary town with the copper brown-coloured Queen River running through. Surrounded by the scarred hills left bare and orangey moonscapesque from 130 years of miners plunging ever closer to the core of the earth to leach out its ore. 

Still – Darren Cook & Matt Warren : Queenstown

By Lucy Wilson

It rained as we walked the inhabited but somehow derelict Queenstown streets, to the old disused West Coast District Hospital to see Matt Warren and Darren Cook’s installation Still.

As we entered others exited muttering, “…it’s noth’n, just noth’n, just two rocks in a corridor”. Yet we found it intriguing. In the abandoned wide corridor with its smooth shiny reflective floor and walls painted in pink tones, a dark eerie feeling set in. We were able to explore, but our wandering was interjected by the local volunteer who pointed out what each room used to be: Intensive Care, maternity, the nursery, surgery and so on. Her commentary loomed large and focused on the flurry of the hospital's yesteryear rather than allowing viewers to be still and quiet to allow the sound, video and installation to prevail. 

Kimisis - Falling Asleep – IHOS Opera : Queenstown

By Lucy Wilson

In signature style IHOS Opera staged their performance Kimisis in a unique setting, this time in Old Hanan’s Transport Warehouse in Hunter Street, Queenstown. The audience gathered just inside the old dark shed, as piercing daylight poked through thousands of little holes in the corrugated iron walls. Greek incense wafted and a wheelbarrow of sand held a golden abundance of slim burning candles.

The Drink by Peter Waller - Queenstown 2012

By Lucy Wilson

Peter Waller’s installation The Drink was in Linda, a once-thriving town 7.5km up the road from Queenstown by Conglomerate Creek, where most of the miners used to live. (Queenstown was actually where the office staff and managers used to live.) There’s only a café there now next door to a striking ruin of the Royal Hotel – a double story concrete shell.

The old hotel’s grey walls have neat, rectangular holes where the windows would once have been grander. It was through one of these, peering into the dining room I experienced a moment of something I don’t know a word for but means a mixture of tranquility, peace, beauty and inner resonance.

It was like a simple yet smartly framed picture of reflection hanging on the floor.

Wall-to-wall water.

Back In Town

by Elizabeth Barsham

I took several photographs of the mountains above Queenstown, but photographers Claire Krouzecky and Raef Sawford spent a full day up on Philosophers Ridge taking turns at set intervals to photograph a 360 degree panorama of the hills. They used old-fashioned 35mm slide film and the hundreds of slides resulting from this day’s work had to be sorted into twelve different sequences of landscape transformed by the changing light as the hours passed.

Over the Hill

by Elizabeth Barsham

Early in the last century Linda, terminus of the railway line from Kelly's Basin to Mt Lyell, was a major town and Gaffney's Royal Hotel was but one of several serving its inhabitants, the majority of whom were employed at the North Lyell Mine at the time of the 1912 tragedy. Last drinks were finally called in 1952, and the burnt-out concrete shell of the old hotel has been a landmark for travellers on the Lyell Highway ever since. This weekend it is enhanced by Peter Waller’s installation, The Drink.

The Disaster

by Elizabeth Barsham

The hospital entrance hall is dimly lit. The only lights are on a television screen in the corner, and they are elsewhere; rescue teams work around the clock. The sound is off and all is silence. Square black steel and plastic chairs line the walls of a large vacant room. Not the usual waiting room – there is a hand basin half way along one wall. Offices are empty, but for another soundless television set showing flames flickering red, reflecting an eerie glow in an unlit room.

I venture down a passage to the first ward but no nurse rushes to protest my presence. The ward is empty. Stripped empty, leaving only the curved curtain tracks and a single curtain offering no privacy. In the middle of the floor is a child’s picnic, a cloth and a picnic basket, pretty little china cups and saucers, plates, bowls and teapot scattered as their youthful owner fled. Some contain dark liquid – not coffee. Others are buried under piles of sugar or flour, domestic echo of the mullock heaps outside. By now I am feeling decidedly uneasy. The incongruity of discovering several lumps of ore, not large, but significant, resting on the carpet behind me does not help.

Backing out, I make my way towards the other end of the building, confused and alone in the dark passage. Everything is wrong. Emergency lights flash red and blue in a darkened room; elsewhere windows glow with light that provides no reassurance for the curtains are drawn. Doors marked “staff only” gape open on empty spaces. Flour is piled in corners.

Go West as Artentwine 2012 Begins!

by Patrick Sutczak

After a generous invitation to the opening of the fabulous community celebration of the arts within the West Tamar Valley, I drove confidently along (ahead of time I might add) to my destination. As I crossed the sister bridge to the west, I could see the older and iconic King’s Bridge set against the backdrop of the beautiful Cataract Gorge out of the corner of my eye. This always pleasing scene was gone within a flash and I was on my way into Riverside for the official opening of Artentwine 2012 at the Windsor Community Precinct.

Smouldering Dancing Queens - Caravan Burlesque

by Gai Anderson

Caravan Burlesque

Finucane & Smith,

Theatre Royal , Hobart

Finucane and Smiths Caravan Burlesque is an action packed show, a scintillating, body - beautiful, writhing, all dance-spectacular. Driven relentlessly for the most by a boisterous rock and roll, disco, pop, gogo and even Bollywood soundtrack, its short and sharp, song and character-based routines are fantastically entertaining.
 

Filled with endless luscious costumes, bordello-red velvet set, seductive lighting and atmospheres you can cut with a knife, it is all, and more, than we have come to expect from the latest reincarnation of carnival burlesque. And that’s without even mentioning the shoes!

Interferon Psalms

by Thomas Connelly

Interferon Psalms – Luke Davies (Allen & Unwin). Wow and I have to say wow! Have just finished Interferon Psalms, and what a roller coaster ride of a read it was. We have been told, since the days of the Seven Sages, not to speak ill of the dead. This rule should be extended to include not speaking ill of the ill. It would take a brave one to search out pedantic flaws in this collection of poems.

In Finite Blue Planet # 3

The power of Landscape

Gai Anderson

 

Subankar Banerjee

 

Caribou Migration I,Brant and Snow Geese with Chicks, Caribou Tracks on Tundra, Caribou Tracks on Coal Seams II.

The power of landscape continues with the work of New York Based Indian Artist Subhankar Banerjee. The beauty of his large-scale, incredibly detailed still-photography –  aerial views of pristine  landscapes – is startling.

The combination of composition, colour, light and form grab you immediately, like the most exquisite paintings. But then slowly, as you move in to take a closer look at the incredible detail of the environments he captures, a different vision begins to appear. For these landscapes are alive with beings - caribou and snow geese in this case.

In Finite Blue Planet #2

by Gai Anderson

Water as Danger  

PHIL HASTINGS 

Steadfast, 2009

Water continues as a theme in the 7-minute film Steadfast, where U.S. artist Phil Hastings uses the interaction of man and water to comment on the human condition – which like the ocean is ever changing.

Last Bight at the Biennale - In Finite Blue Planet

by Gai Anderson

 

Focus rather than scatter
With one small bight at the Biennale of Sydney already under my belt I feel like I could have taken a month to begin to take it all in. My first Sunday at Cockatoo Island was one of total scatter -  overwhelmed by the surging crowds and imposing nature of the site, the art works for the most seemed random in quality and difficult to even get at.  

Back for another bight and this time, having researched the curatorial premise in more detail ( thanks Lucy Wilson, see Art Wank), I will  focus-in on the Art Gallery of NSW where 26 artist are presented  side by side ( on two floors) as In Finite Blue oceans.

Artwank - 18th Biennale of Sydney

By Lucy Wilson

If you flip to page 2 of the 18^th Biennale of Sydney Guide or look online at http://bos18.com/exhibition-overview, you’ll find a statement headed all our relations by the Artistic Directors Catherine de Zegher (curator and writer) and Gerald McMaster (curator, artist and writer).

Travelling to Sydney to experience the Biennale I was keen to read what the curators had to say. But unfortunately I found their style of writing hard to follow, with the seemingly big concepts at either end of a sentence clanging like a brain twister, which unfortunately landed in a heap.

untitled (oysters and tea cups)

By Patrick Sutczak

It was as if I had happened upon an accident. As if the pressure was too much the door had bowed, buckled and given way, swinging open with violent force spilling the contents from within to flow and settle on the ground resting where it may for my observation and consideration.  Had I missed the eruption, or was this glacial – instant upheaval or gradual shift? Paradoxically, I think this is one and the same. Oysters and tea cups - nature and the civilised, change and adaption.

 

Again, Jonathon Jones dips into his heritage in order to explore how cultural intersections have, and are continuing, to occur in Australian history through ritual feast. This time, he looks at Aboriginal winter feasts of oysters, and the introduction of tea by the British into Aboriginal communities.

Tame Pussy

By Elizabeth Barsham

Three small boys are discussing the colours in a large stencilled and sprayed painting, taking turns photographing each other in front of it. They have been out with the spray cans themselves and one still has a paper mask hanging round his neck. We are surrounded by huge, spray-painted images by graffiti artists Aedan Howlett, Hiiragi, Jacob Leary, Jamin, Phibs and Tom O'Hearn, but we are not in an alley between grimy concrete walls. We are in the super-respectable tastefully restored Barn at Rosny where the artists have spent the last week creating six mural-sized paintings for StArt, the Clarence City Council's annual Festival of Street Art.

Outside in the sunshine there is a free barbecue, face painting and live music; visitors make badges, stencil designs on calico shopping bags and try their hand at spray-painting and reverse graffiti (drawing into the grime on detatched car doors).

A group of Yarn Bombers help children make big, colourful pompoms, hanging the results from the bare branches of a winter tree. With Council support the guerilla knitters were able to afford far more, and more colourful, wools than usual, and handrails and bollards along the street sport eye-catching stripes.

Designs by three digital artists have been printed up billboard size and mounted on the walls of the shopping centre. School children's drawings and paintings compete with commercial displays in shop windows. On Monday it will all be gone; the only artwork to distract shoppers and commuters will be the usual advertising signs.

untitled (barra)

By Patrick Sutczak

Finding myself in another tunnel and once again finding myself having to stop.

The idea of a tunnel acting as a thoroughfare across Cockatoo Island (I assume to save time) is proving problematic in that very intention. For now, these are gallery spaces, sites of artistic installation, and sites of interventions. I could also say they are sites of reflection. I am the token tourist on Sydney's Gloucester Street who could be seen stopping every five meters to photograph the original terrace housing – or to peer into the excavations beneath the YHA accommodation, and actually enjoy it. There is something about history that captivates me, and certainly the endevours to unearth it, preserve it, and more importantly to learn from it. A captivation shared by many, but not enough. But those structures are the solid things, the remnants still here – the kind of relics that can be cordoned off, dusted down, chipped away at and displayed - things of permanent exhibition. What if history is oral, migratory, or is testament to an assimilationist – how might we engage with that? Biennale artist Jonathon Jones raises his hand…

Swarm (ASX) & The bee library

By Patrick Sutczak

One of the greatest things about an arts event like the Biennale is that as a viewer, works reveal themselves as the venue is explored, quite often when you least expect it. Before me, as I sat on the bench after meandering around on the upper part of Cockatoo Island, the work of Scottish born artist Alec Finlay was sparking my curiosity. His installation dotted around the grassy area in front of me consisting of sound, sculpture, and books (they were above my head), was inviting closer inspection, but I didn’t engage. Not at first.

Madeleine Goodwolf - Drawings & Paintings

Madeleine Goodwolf's exhibition was opened by Lucy Wilson on 24 August 2012 at Handmark Gallery, and this is what she said...

those poignant moments
by Madeleine Goodwolf

Welcome everyone to the Opening of Madeleine Goodwolf’s Exhibiton of drawings and paintings … (dot dot dot) … and no prints!

I’ve enjoyed seeing this series of Maddy’s drawings a few times. The first time I saw them was one night when I dropped in on Maddy and we had a cup of tea and were chatting and I asked her what she’d been up to, and she said “drawing”, and I said, “can I see?” and she said “yeah”. So we whipped out the back to the studio and scurried up the stairs … and it was exciting to see these drawings – black charcoal lines on big white paper. There was a tenderness and an aliveness and a beauty about them.

And what was more exciting was seeing Maddy and how happy she was about doing drawings ….and not print making anymore. Really? Gulp. Madeleine Goodwolf, Printmaker of nearly 20 yrs with a reputation that crosses oceans, and not just Bass Strait but across to Germany and beyond, and has been collected by many art lovers and acquired by prestigious collections.

Dune, 2007-12

By Patrick Sutczak

The Dog-Leg Tunnel carved through the rock of Cockatoo Island’s impressive bulk beckoned me in as I sought a respite from the unusually hot morning sun. Square cut and dimly lit, a backbone of sleepers lined the path ahead while bearing tons upon tons of earth and rock against their aging frames. Progression through the long tunnel sees the light grow even fainter as it fades to black creating a menacing space that evokes a degree of trepidation. However, there is nothing to fear here. What Daan Roosegaarde has created within this subterranean thoroughfare is a sensual installation that provokes as much thought as it does engagement.