sylvia loves peter madden...

"ssshhh" 2005
metallic foil, acrylic, wood, found objects

image

this guy looks bloody cool! what grabbed me about this piece was the regal magnificence of his golden horns and the fact that he is chowing down on butterflies.
i feel a really magical vibe from this work, as if rams really do eat butterflies for breakfast. i like the small detail and the fact that he has made it out of found objects. i really like it for its composition and formal qualities. its all about the nature in this one, with the small bird nesting in his twig/antlers. the red tears? ... perhaps because he is mounted on a wall. im still not quite sure, but i know i think its cool. what do you reckon?

madden is a NZ born artist. his works explore co-dependance, cycles of death and transformation. he has exhibited in the Sao Paulo Biennale, and has collaborated with Sam Sampson.

Artlink, Vol 26, # 2

p.s i find it amusing that he works with sheep & is from NZ.

Jane Dodd in Object

Jess h.....Object, pg33, edition 40
I looked at an article about Workshop 6 which is a group of jewellery designers from New Zealand. The work that caught my eye in this article was that of Jane Dodd. Dodd creates jewellery that in a way create their own world. Such as a piece called Princess and the Pea
, 2002, made from copper, brass, silver and 18ct gold, 2002 which comprises of charms in the shape of mattresses. Although these objects could be functional i think they work well as an artwork, stacked as if from the fairytale itself. Another piece, The Village, 2000, made from silver and 18ct gold is a series of rings that have details making them look like simple huts and houses. Stacked they look almost like little morrocan or greek villages. This again is really effective beause they could be functional but work batter as almost a narrative of a miniture world. I really like this work because it is so delicate and the details are really simple and effective. I couldn't find an image of this work but examples of more of Dodd's work are on this link www.form.co.nz/artists/jane_dodd.htm

Celeste Jose talks about Jurgen Teller yo!

Frieze, issue #88 jan/feb 2005... about page 16.

This 'report' was actually inspired only by an image advertising a show Jurgen Teller was having. But he seemed intriguing so I looked into him a little more on the internet. The image that originally got my attention was this one...



... then i went to a few sites and found out about him. He is a german fashion photographer who's work is more about a shift away from perfection and leaning toward being raw and seemingly spontaneous. He also seems to want to capture moments in time rather than focus on aesthetics. For example, dropping of a ball into water, a girl with her head turned, his models as the appear when they arrive at his studio rather than after they're 'done up'. I think this is pretty interesting, also really like the qaulity of his work (kind of faded, tacky, old looking- naff, is that right?)... well once you consider to 'priviliged' position some of these people seem to have in society the appearance of the photo is much more interesting because Teller's subjects 'power' is NOT conveyed, in a way he is re-humanising celebritydom.

more photos from online...



yves saint laurent, 2000, photographed by juergen teller



kristin mc menamy, versace heart, 1996, photographed by juergen teller,

Tate Triennial in Art Monthly

Jock Walker
This article was a review on the tate triennal in london march 1 to may 13 didnt really like reading the article thought there was alot of irrelevent information. The artists that i like and thought were very interesting were Scott myles, the bricks in the doorway its just gives you an wow feeling you want to walk through it or something, there wasnt much written reveiwing this work or about this artist but i don't think the work needs explanation. Mark Leckey's 'Drunken Bakers'. Didn't find any pictures. but the description of this video with black humour sounded interesting, pair of bakers who drink themselfs to oblivion som potent booze puke fall over stand back up fin more booze and do it again ' its slow pace makes it confusing unpleasent depressing but reliefing in a way. Art Monthy some good artists well set out easy to undersand some article a little boring.
Aryt monthly pg 24-26, June 06 No 297 IMage will not laod doorb way in wall filled with bricks

PORN......*cough* Bob Colacello - Caligula and the politics of fame

SIM: Flash Art, May June 2006, no 248, pg 106 - 109


In this interview with Bob Colacello we learn about his career in filmmaking and the famous personalities he's met along the way.
Since i had gone to see the 5 minute porn trailer, as he likes to call "Caligula", i thought it might be nice to understand why he created the contraversial short movie, instead Francesco Vezzoli was mainly asking questions about who he has worked with through the medium of film in his time. One such famous character was Andy Warhol who dabbled in the industry of filmmaking, where the two met.
Vezzoli continued to ask countless questions about his connection with Warhol, which i found to be a little off the topic of Caligula, but nontheless interesting.
He then went onto asking him about politics, moving from one subject to the next, all being linked by Warhol's influence in his life.

I really didnt think that this interview was all that interesting and certainly did a huge roundabout way in getting back to the main topic of Caligula. I did learn that there were some interesting relationships between Colacello, Warhol, Rosselini, and other big names of the past. But what i didnt learn was why Caligula was remade.


Image at: http://www.curtainup.com/caligula.jpg

Tony Garifalakis

Gemma:
Ashley Crawford looks at Australian artwork that has been banned from recent international exhibitions in the article "Lost in translation" (Art Monthly Australia, Aug 2006 no.192 p23). Crawford looks at two exhibitions curated by Natalie King that took place earlier this year. Firstly Silenzi which was held in Venice and secondly Supernatural artificial: Australian Photography Today, an exhibition which toured around Asia. It was the artwork that was banned from Silenzi that interested me most. The piece was by Tony Garifalakis who was selected along with two other Australian artists to 'immerse themselves in Venetian culture' during a five week residency and to create new work to be exhibited with three Italian artists. The three artists were each given a working Venetian church as a studio which gave them great insight into the immensely important aspect of religion in Venetian culture. This was especially reflected in Garifalakis piece Nothings song.

(I'd already written this before I had access to a computer with internet and so couldn't look up to see if there was a picture of the artwork I wrote about, there wasn't.. but I have chosen a similar one of Garifalakis' pieces to give you an idea of his style.... and now it's not loading it even though it's saying it has. argh. so. fail. I'll just put in a link- http://www.physicsroom.org.nz/gallery/2006/family/6Tony-Garifalakis.jpg)

Garifalakis researched representations of death and funerary act in the Venetian churches and was intrigued by the obscure rituals and monuments etc that were involved. He combined the ideas these gloomy ideas with that of the idea of the celebration known as the Day of the Dead in Mexico which, while it deals with similar things, is a joyous occasion. The article quoted him saying 'Horror and its representations in art history and popular culture are the central themes of my work'. His piece that was to be exhibited is an installation which, while challenging, to my fairly unchristian eye seemed reasonably inoffensive. The installation features a fabric, death metal clad, corpse and several panels decorated with skulls, skeletons and other rather odd and morbid pictures. However like the example of his work I have included the images he includes are backed with bright colours in a very pop art-esque style. Other inclusions were red candles burning in a red box (apparently suggesting a satanic ritual) and a noose.

The installation was deemed inappropriate for the exhibition the day before the opening however I found this work interesting from it’s origins and themes right down to simply, it’s aesthetics.

Marjetica Potrc in Frieze

Benjamin:

Frieze Issue 99 May 2006
page 136 - 141
'Form Follows Function'

An image of a bright pink and green dry toilet. If thats not something that will catch my attention while perusing a journal I don't know what will. Add to that an excitingly alliterative article name and wow, here comes a review.

Marjetica Potrc, in addition to having a name that defies pronounciation, was originally trained as an architect but now melds her original training with an art sensibility.

Her structures aim to not only point out a shortcoming in caused by globalism and capitalism, but to provide something to aid the problem. Potrc's project 'dry toilet' came from a six-month stay in Caracas, Venezuala as a solution for disposing of waste and creating fertiliser without requiring any water, of which there was little at hand.

In addition to third world interventions, she has also completed installations in cities such as Liverpool and creates images and text from objects that solve similar problems ingeniously that she admires. One of these, from a series titled 'Power Tools', is the 'hippo water roller' (shown), which allows transport of water from a well in South Africa.


I find Potrc's structures are interesting in that they walk a fine line between architecture, art and perhaps urban planning. I find these pieces interesting in that the structures she creates, while architecturally based, would not have come about without an artistic influence.

Pink and green toilet that helps grow a garden without water? Totally awesome.

Marjetica Potrc's Website : www.potrc.org
Image 1 : http://web.mit.edu/LVAC/www/exhibitions/images/Potrc.jpg
Image 2 : http://www.potrc.org/photos/drytoilet_web_DryToilet2.jpg
Image 3 : http://riesenmaschine.de/bilder/upload/hippo_water_roller.png

Richard Grayson @ Matt's Gallery London

By Brad.

Hello Everyone.

This review appeared in Art Monthly 2.05 on page 283 and focused on Richard Grayson's piece entitled "Messiah".

What this guy has done is approached an Australian country and western band called 'The Midnight Amblers', and worked with them to develop 19 songs, the lyrics of which are taken from Handel's 'Messiah'. As the article states, Messiah occupies "a prominent place in British culture whilst encouraging the belief that Christ was indeed the person who would bring salvation to the world..".

If a country and western band performing Messiah isn't excellent enough, he's then gone on to present the band performing these songs via a large double screen video projection, one screen showing the band, the other playing the lyrics. The performance appears heartfelt in a country kind of way at first, then it becomes clear that the performers are actually miming to a pre recorded track. Mouth movements don't fit and the instruments on the soundtrack do not match those being played.

The review explains that this is all a reference to self proclaimed saviours Bush and Blair and the artificial, insincere and contrived garbage that they produce during 'speeches'. All well and good I say, but I just like the idea of a country and western band (in)sincerely miming to their own country and western versions of the Messiah whilst playing the wrong instruments. Could be about anything and I wouldn't mind a bit.

Robert Gober in Freize

Robert Gober "Untitled" 2004-5. Bronze, cement, recreation of American robin, water. 175x100x104cm

Alix:

Before I begin I must admit that it was the work that was acompanying the review that caught my eye and not so much the review. So much so that I decided that I was going to photocopy it and quickly rush home.

Robert Gober's show at the Matthew Marks Gallery in New York is his first show in 11 years and was created specially for the gallery. It featured all the objects that he is famous for working with, such as crucifixes, were placed around the gallery as if they truely belonged in a church. Ofcourse Gober being a political artist did not just place crucifixes around 'willy nilly' and chop of the heads and desecrate them as such. They had a deeper meaning than that. Combining the questionable ideas of religion, politics, sexuality, mortality and memory he has created a show that I'm sure definately would have stirred up a little storm in the very religious USA.



Review taken from Frieze
Issue 49 July/August 2005

Image from http://jameswagner.com/mt_archives/Gober2005.jpg

Tomas Saraceno, Flash Art Magazine

Dannii Sutton

when flipping through Flash Art Magazine a man randomly floating in a room caught my attention... it was an article on an installation artist called Tomas Saraceno. The photograph in the magazine was beautiful, it alsmost looked like something from a dream. This installation came from Saraceno's discovery of a 'mysterious substance' called aerogel, a lighter-than air material used in space suits. Saraceno redesigned the substance and created a new structure for 'solar power driven floating objects based on a pioneering use of the material. I think this installation would be great to see, cos how often are you going to get the chnce to see a floating man? :)

Flash Art, page 112, Vol XXXVIII, No. 240, Jan-Feb 05, By Thomas Bayrle

Obsessed.....

Josie:
"Obsessed" by Kathleen Whitney
Sculpture April 2006, Vol. 25, no. 3, page 45>>

I was flicking through this journal that being honest haha I had never known about, therefore had never read...I really liked it!Usually I'd stick to my photographic journals because I don't like ones with too many words..but this had lots of colourful pictures and not too many mind- boggling words ...(just letting you all know!!- so I recommend it!).

This article focused on "obsessive" artists who create sculptures sort of through an obsession..there were a couple of differnt artists in this article but i mainly liked Susan York's installation "Center of Gravity" 2004. Using the materials of wallboard, graphite and porcelain, she created a number of cubes and arranged them in a room. Ok- I know some of you might be thinking this is a little weird and maybe somewhat boring...but I found it extremly intriguing and open-ended. So much has been done to create what she has, although there is so much that possibly could be done...but I really am drawn to the simplicity of her idea- as it is somewhat irrational. I think that "Obsessive" artists...(never knew they had a title)....are very unique and a little crazy in their work, but thats what I like....I shall definately look more into this, and you guys should too:)....!!!
Bye all!

(image from www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag06/april_06/obsessed/obsessed.shtml)

Yoshitomo Saito in Sculpture

Jessie:
Sculpture, Jan/Feb 2006, Vol 25 No1, pages 30 - 35
Image from: www.hainesgallery.com
Yoshitomo Saito is a Japanese artist who casts bronze sculptures using the lost wax technique. Originally a glassblower he changed his medium after moving to America in the 1980's. He says "Briefly I thought I should build installations or make videos like Bill Viola. But then I sensed the invisible concensus that any traditional methods in practise in sculpture were going to be obsolete and I rebelled against that."
What caught my eye was the work in the foreground of this picture. It is called When the wind blows and although it looks like a tumbleweed, I like its permanence - there is no way that this is going to move with the breeze. Saito has also done a series of bronze pillows, which are beautifully plumped and slumped and creased (they reminded me a bit of Polly's beds from Foundation), and a series of unfolded take away containers and cardboard boxes called Imagiro, which he describes as "reverse origami". Check out the journal for images of these.

Patrick Brown in Black Market

Sally:
Art Link, art history: go figure Volume 26 No. 1 2006, pg 15.
Patrick Brown likes his work to be an educational, visual expreience which reveals issues happening in the now. The photograph featured, which i discovered in Art Link taken by Brown, shows us the horrors of pan-Asian trafficking of endangered species. Browns exhibition "Black Market" was held at Fremantle Prison, which included more of his arresting art works. Artist's like Brown make art more powerful in the bringing of awareness into our, sometimes, selfish self obsessed little lives.