But the Archibald Prize likes you...

Each year, the Art Gallery of New South Wales puts on “Australia’s most extraordinary art event”[1], the Archibald Prize.  It’s a huge deal.  Unfortunately, it may be one of the only times in the year when the general public gives a tinker’s cuss about contemporary art.  So why do art critics seem to give it so much grief?

Each year, mud is slung at the Archibald by those whose opinion we’re all supposed to trust because they’re the professionals.  In The Australian, Christopher Allen gave us the angle that there’s too much painting based on photography and that the whole show is staged for people who don’t know anything about art.[2]  A weird combination of criticisms, I think.  It’s hard to complain about an exhibition being too populist and whinge that the paintings which make it up use a common frame of reference for most, considering that most of us carry a camera everywhere we go.  I can only imagine that Mr Allen would much prefer the Archibald Prize to be made up of heaps more painterly, difficult-to-relate-to paintings, and generally be a far more unpopular event.

Del Kathryn Barton
Hugo
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2013/29358/

John McDonald (writing for The Sydney Morning Herald) on the other hand, called Del Kathryn Barton’s 2013 winning portrait of Hugo Weaving “basically a coloured-in drawing, as much an illustration as a painting”.[3]  Well, at least it doesn’t look like a photo, I guess.  In a fairly scathing preview of the prize, McDonald referred to some of the finalist’s work as cloying, stultifying, unpleasant, and trying too hard.  So apart from swallowing a thesaurus, he’s pretty much said that the whole field weren’t good enough examples of art to be part of a showcase event.  I guess he needs to keep his cranky reputation going by biting the hand that feeds him.

So, the Archibald Prize features too much work that looks like a photo, paintings that are little more than illustration, or are flat and dull, or generally not up to standard.  Arrrgh!  There’s not much left to hang!  It’s the same kind of people who complain that there’s not enough funding for the arts in Australia, but you can’t take the line that the arts should be totally elitist and at the same time expect the general public to fork over tons of cash to keep it going.  “Hey!” I hear you say.  “You’ve said before that you don’t mind art being a bit elite, stop changing your mind, Leslie!”  It’s true, I think art-making should be a bit elitist, but art appreciation is for everybody and if the Archibald Prize caters for a non-art-viewing public, great.  At least contemporary art is getting some sorely needed exposure.

The one thing that the critics all seem to agree on is that the trustees of AGNSW, the folks who select the winner, have no idea what they’re on about.  There are so many art prizes around the nation all year round which are judged by critics, curators, directors and an assortment of other arts professionals, why shouldn’t there be one judged by an arbitrary group of arts-interested “political cronies and captains of industry” (as Joanna Mendelssohn so aptly put it)?[4]  Again, it’s the idea that the general public has any form of ownership of the arts that the critics seem to be frustrated with.

Whether the critics like it or not, the Archibald Prize is popular, and the negative responses they put out year to year can only be doing them, and the arts in general, a disservice.  For the people who only really experience the arts through the Archibald, they may only read one review a year.  And to consistently see it run down by the very people who are supposed to champion Australian art, the only conclusion they can come to is that it’s not worth visiting an art gallery or seeing a play or reading a poem or listening to music because apparently we only produce crap in this country.  No wonder people will visit the Tate, MoMA, or the Louvre when they travel, but will never go to a major gallery in their own country.  Contemporary Australian art isn’t rubbish, and art isn’t just for the people ‘in the know’, it’s for everyone.

I have no problem with the Archibald Prize whatsoever.  It may be a little idiosyncratic for Australians to love portraiture, but what’s wrong with that?  We celebrate everything else that’s unique about our society and culture, so why not celebrate our public fascination with pictures of people.  It’s like an annual anti-tall poppies syndrome extravaganza, showcasing some of our best and brightest citizens.  Especially when you don’t know the subject of the portrait, you find out who it is and learn a little more about our wonderful and diverse community.  That is, until they announce the winner, and then we can all argue about which painting we thought should have won.  But people talking about which piece of art they thought was best seems a whole more productive than picking out the pieces you thought weren’t up to scratch.

I think a big thank you should go out to all the artists who enter the Archibald Prize, whatever their style.  They obviously don’t mind the exposure and public recognition that comes with being a finalist.  I can honestly say that I’ve never heard an artist complain that they’ve become too popular or that too many people appreciate their work.  The facts are quite plain: the Archibald prize is a drawcard for AGNSW; artists aspire to win it; it creates positive exposure for the arts; and it generates funds for the arts.

I only hope that the 2014 Archibald Prize is met with some positive press for a change.  Instead of whinging and moaning about every tiny detail that doesn’t meet our ridiculously high standards, let’s talk about all the good stuff, and finally be proud of our nation’s most prestigious art prize.  I know I am.

Mitch Cairns
Self-Portrait
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2013/29361/

Abdul Abdullah
The Man
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2013/29356/

Michael Zavros
Bad Dad
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2013/29394/

Xu Wang
Self-portrait (interviewing Maoist victims)
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2013/29391/

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[1] Artgallery.nsw.gov.au (2013) Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2013 :: Art Gallery NSW. [online] Available at: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/archibald-wynne-sulman-prizes-2013/ [Accessed: 23 Mar 2013].

[2] Allen, C. (2013) Portraiture that looks like a snap to paint in Archibald Prize. [online] Available at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/portraiture-that-looks-like-a-snap-to-paint/story-e6frg8n6-1226597610423 [Accessed: 23 Mar 2013].

[3] Mcdonald, J. (2013) Vines, an indefinable lifeform - but where's the insight?. [online] Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/vines-an-indefinable-lifeform--but-wheres-the-insight-20130322-2glat.html [Accessed: 23 Mar 2013].

[4] Mendelssohn, J. (2013) Australian art's great circus: loving and loathing the Archibald. [online] Available at: http://theconversation.com/australian-arts-great-circus-loving-and-loathing-the-archibald-12904 [Accessed: 23 Mar 2013].

The Prince: Michael Zavros: Rockhampton Art Gallery

Michael Zavros
Prince/Zavros 10, 2012
Private collection

Michael Zavros
Prince/Zavros 9, 2012
On long term loan from a private collection 2012.
Proposed gift to Rockhampton Art Gallery under the Federal Government's Cultural Gifts Program

Walking into The Prince by Michael Zavros at the Rockhampton Art Gallery, the first question that springs to mind is ‘Who is this Prince?’.  Pretty quickly, that question fades away when you come across the astounding technical quality of the paintings and drawings.  But in the back of your mind, the question of the Prince’s identity lingers on.

It’s very hard to escape the beauty of the artworks in this exhibition.  Zavros has the ability to make paint and charcoal do things they really shouldn’t be able to do.  You’d be forgiven for mistaking quite a lot of the pieces for photographs.  They have the depth and atmosphere usually only reserved for classic photography techniques.  But this is really only half of the story of what makes them beautiful images.  The composition of the artworks is their key.  Some of the images show wide open spaces, some of them seem uncomfortably close, but each of them is composed and cropped in a way that serves to expose the beauty of its subject.

Zavros readily admits being lured in by the wonder of an attractive image, part of the reason he chose to ‘reauthor’ the enduring images of cowboys from the Marlboro cigarette advertisements, and rephotographed by American artist Richard Prince from the 1970s to the 90s.[1]  These images have had quite a life.  In the 1960s, Darrell Winfield was a gritty rancher who was photographed by the Leo Burnett Agency for Phillip Morris (the manufacturer of Marlboro cigarettes) to help make Marlboros seem more manly.[2]  Richard Prince, while working for publishing giant Time-Life, rephotographed the advertisements, giving an artistic reframing to the pages he referred to as ‘authorless’.[3]  Enter Michael Zavros, who has now painstakingly reproduced the same images as finely crafted paintings and charcoal drawings.

The term often bandied about with both Michael Zavros and Richard Prince is appropriation, which means using other people’s images in your own artwork making little changes.  And although this term works really well for Prince’s rephotographs, it doesn’t quite cut the mustard for what Zavros does.  Even though his works essentially look the same as the cropped, Prince images, they feel warmer now; they don’t have the cold, mercenary feel of a photo of a photo.  He uses ‘the awe of a handmade object’[4] to inject the image with new cultural currency that disappeared over time with the fading of cigarette advertising from popular culture and the knowledge that rephotography is no longer a cutting edge concept.  He re-energises images which are not forgotten, but are no longer blockbusters.  Zavros has plucked these beautifully composed images from their twilight, and given them a new, more potent existence.

So, the Prince is Richard Prince, right?  I don’t think so.  It feels like a far too obvious red herring from an Agatha Christie novel.  The non-cowboy images that make up the rest of the show may enlighten us a little more.

Three other sets of paintings occupy the space, a set of three nostalgic screen dumps; a series of tiny, tightly cropped images of menswear; and three opulent interiors featuring game hunting trophies.  Individually, the paintings may be taken as flippant exercises in technique, but they really shouldn’t be thought of in that way.  Together with the Richard Prince reworkings, the exhibition acts as a form of portraiture, building up an impression of this elusive Prince.

Michael Zavros
Suit Suite (installed), 1999
Private collections
Images courtesy Rockhampton Art Gallery 

The advertising images of men’s suits and finery, the Suit Suite, control the viewer physically in the room.  It’s made up of a large series of quite small images obviously taken from catalogues.  The attention to detail in the production of the paintings draws you in, making you move very close to their surface, but the arrangement and expanse of the installation forces you to take a step backwards just to see them all together.  It’s a very gentle physical manipulation of the viewer, but one that must be obeyed.

The Prince puts himself in some powerful company.  Apart from the abundance of tough cowboys in the rugged outdoors and the male models clad in crisp suits, we’re also greeted by three of the coolest stars ever seen on a television screen; John Travolta, Madonna, and Betty White.  You may think that this is a weird cluster of celebrities (the absence of a decent collective noun has been noted…), but each holds a particular power over us.  John Travolta combing his hair has the presence of a young man who doesn’t think he’s awesome, he knows it.  He’s cooler than you.  Accept it.  Madonna (in her prime) makes everything sexy.  She’s strong and independent and untamed.  She’s the wild girlfriend you never had.  And Betty White is just like your mum, only way, way funnier.  They all make us feel a little inferior, but in a way that we just accept and maybe even enjoy.  But the paintings aren’t regular portraits, they’re presented through the visual filter that makes them accessible to us regular folk; the television screen.

Michael Zavros
Tony combs his hair for Saturday night, 1998
Courtesy of the artist

Michael Zavros paints and draws things he likes.[5]  The images he creates are like hunting trophies, ideas and thoughts he’s had the urge to capture and conquer, much like the luxurious interiors he’s rendered.  These works are the most like a self-portrait in the show.  They show a clean, orchestrated scene with polished timber floors, beautiful artwork, and the remains of a rare creature destroyed and turned into a fancy knick-knack.  They show an obsession with collection and care of objects with undeniable beauty.  They show understated strength and confidence. 

Leaving the exhibition, you’re left with quite a clear image of the Prince.  Whether that’s a portrait of Michael Zavros himself, or an invented persona is unclear.  The ambiguous Prince is strong, in charge, controlling, precise, analytical, and nostalgic, but without being overbearing, pompous, or in your face.  The Prince has a definite royal air about him, head held high.

Michael Zavros
The Tiger, 2012
Private Collection

Michael Zavros
Man in a wool suit, 1999
Private collection

__________________________

The Prince by Michael Zavros is on exhibition at the Rockhampton Art Gallery: 16 February – 7 April 2013

Michael Zavros is represented by:

Sophie Gannon Gallery: sophiegannongallery.com.au

Grant Pirrie: grantpirrie.com

Phillip Bacon Galleries: phillipbacongalleries.com.au

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[1] Zavros, M. Interviewed by: Leslie, K. (15 February 2013).

[2] Lichty, R. (c.1977) Darrell Winfield, Marlboro Man. [PDF]. Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, UCSF, fhq51b00. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fhq51b00/pdf, [online] [Accessed: 16 February 2013].

[3] Prince, R. (1992) Interview by Larry Clark. In: Prince, R. and Kawachi, T. eds. (1999) 4X4. New York: Powerhouse Books, p.94.

[4] Zavros, M. Op Cit.

[5] Ibid.

The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, even the name of the show is a mouthful.  I had the opportunity to travel to Brisbane to spend a day at the APT7, and to try to take it all in.  There’s no way around the fact that this is a huge show.  Massive even.  Even for a person like me who loves nothing more than looking at art, it was a marathon.  An unbelievably enjoyable marathon.  For those of you who are reading this and are thinking, “What the what are you whatting talking about?” I shall explain a little more.  Every three years, the Queensland Art Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art puts together a very big survey exhibition with a focus on art from the Asia Pacific region.  It pieces together some of the very best examples of cutting-edge art practice from our home turf and neighbours.  This year, artwork from Papua New Guinea and West Asia were included along with work from Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia and many other nations[1].

The size of the show is mind-boggling.  It fills all of GOMA and a great deal of QAG, with artworks ranging in size from works so small and precariously placed you need to use a telescope to view it, to 30 metre installations and neck-craning architectural pieces.  This is a fact I love about the APT7.  It isn’t a blockbuster exhibition where all the works are ‘regular’ sized and the crowd stays at the optimum viewing distance shuffling around until you’ve seen it all.  You have to walk in and around and up to and away from the art just so that you can experience it properly.  It’s a truly interactive exhibition, without an overabundance of gimmicky, hands-on artworks.  Not only is there the physical interaction though, there’s also a finely balanced mix of intellectual, art history-lovin’ artworks, with emotive response driven works, with just plain old interesting stuff.  Painting, sculpture, installation, film, video, dance, and music all represented well.  All of this together makes for an almost literal tsunami stimulation that’s quite difficult to digest in a single viewing.

   

Large-scale survey exhibitions like the APT7 are a bit like compilation CDs, they’re finely crafted collections that hope to represent a whole year’s (or decade’s or genre’s) goodness.  And just like those albums, there are the big hits and then there are the tracks that you didn’t expect to be so good, but are well worth the listen.  I was pleasantly surprised by a couple of aspects of the APT7.  The amount of site specific and temporary or ephemeral artworks really surprised me.  There are many works that were painted directly onto the gallery walls, or that are built into the fabric of the gallery itself, or that are created from disposable materials.  These fantastic artworks just won’t exist beyond the end of the show.  The fact that there are so many of these types of artworks really gives the whole exhibition a sense of urgency; if you don’t catch it now, you never will. 

It pains me to say this, but I was a little hesitant when I heard about the inclusion of so much work from PNG.  It’s just not a country that has a real contemporary art reputation.  You’ll be pleased to know that my mind has been changed.  When I walked into the PNG section I was greeted by a huge work made up of heaps of traditionally painted panels.  It took up most of the wall, and in front of that were a series of massive totems, and I thought, “I get it.  They’ve blown up the proportions of the traditional work to make it all contemporary-like”, and to be perfectly honest, I was still fairly dismissive.  But when I read the information panels, I was absolutely floored.  The scale of these artworks isn’t exaggerated in any way whatsoever.  They’re traditional, au natural, and stunning.  Sorry, Papua New Guinea, I severely underestimated you.

Like always, this compilation disc has its platinum singles.  Indonesian artist Uji Handoko Eko Saputro (aka Hahan) has delivered a selection of vibrant, street art inspired works focusing on the struggles of being an artist and surviving in the contemporary art scene.  The three painted works and one sculpture are real crowd-pleasers; graphic, funny, and beautifully crafted, although somewhat ironic considering the artist’s gripes about money-grabbing art dealers and cruel critics while being the (literal) poster child of an international art event.

 Less hyped, but equally impressive is the work of Tiffany Chung from Vietnam titled roaming with the dawn – snow drifts, rain falls, desert wind blows (2012).  This enormous herd of tiny glass animals is overwhelming.  It glitters in the light as a huge single piece, but when you get close, individual animals appear all seeming to march as one.  It forces so many heady thoughts through your mind at the same time you’re looking at something so pretty, it’s an odd experience.  Thoughts of religion and pack mentality and emergency migration and peace all swirl around as you start to be able to detect minute colour differences between the figures which brings you crashing back to  thoughts of temperature differences in the manipulation of the glass and logistics of care of so many tiny fragile pieces.

 

For me, the absolute standout work is Canine Construction (2009), by South Korean artist Gimhongsok.  Looking like a balloon animal made of black garbage bags and standing on guard on the middle floor of GOMA right at the escalators, it’s easily dismissed as space filler.  In fact, while I was admiring it I heard at least three people scoff that it was just garbage bags and anyone could make it.  If you bother to spend a little bit of time with the sculpture, you begin to notice that it’s stiff, it’s not rustling in the aircon or moving in any way you would expect a flimsy, garbage bag creature to move.  And it seems to have an unusually commanding presence for a party favour made of junk.  When you give it a closer inspection and read the accompanying information panel, you’ll find that it’s actually cast in very expensive resin, and the artist loves messing with ideas of ‘appropriate’ art materials and viewers’ expectations of art.  His dry wit and impeccable technique can be seen in another sculpture which looks like a pile of cardboard boxes and a rolled camp mattress to form the word ‘love’.  Both works seem like low-rent copies of existing famous sculptures, but twist your experience of the exhibition to make it a wry, intellectual joke.  Gimhongsok is at once a creator of conceptual art objects and a biting critic of his own artistic domain.

 

The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art is a slick production.  The kids’ area is up to GOMA’s usual super-high standard of making interaction with contemporary art accessible and fun, there’s ready access to guided tours and extra information on many of the works by scanning QR codes with your smartphone, and even the merchandise is good (I bought a Gimhonsok key ring!).  If you can, make the trip to see this behemoth of an exhibition.  If you live in Brisbane and you haven’t been yet, go now.  Right this instant.  The Queensland Art Gallery and The Gallery of Modern Art have outdone themselves with APT7, and I can’t wait for APT8 to arrive in three years’ time!

The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art is open at The Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art until 14 April 2013. 

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[1] Qagoma.qld.gov.au (2012) The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT7)- Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. [online] Available at: http://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/current/apt7_asia_pacific_triennial_of_contemporary_art [Accessed: 12 Jan 2013].

Dropping the C bomb...

When I hear the term Community Art, I find it difficult not to think of kids painting ugly murals, sewing circles putting their work in a glass cabinet, and dare I say it, occupational therapy.  Not cool, I hear you say, but I’m afraid that’s the stigma community art has.

 

The interaction between communities and the arts is really important, and just recently I’ve come to realise that things have changed since I developed my (frankly) narrow-minded view on what Community Art is.  The root of my old beliefs is an issue of language which brings with it a social divide: Art versus art.  (Capital) Art people believe that (lower case) art people are quaint because they try so hard to make pretty pictures but have no idea of the complex nature of ‘real’ art, and find it irritating that everyone gets to say they're an artist because they once participated in a weekend workshop.  (Lower case) art people believe that (capital) Art people are elitist wankers who think that if your art isn’t publicly acknowledged or in a huge gallery it’s rubbish, and will defend even the ugliest, ‘least artistic’ turd in a gallery saying that it’s an important piece of art history.  No prizes for guessing which camp I call home...

 

But now I’m slightly older and (hopefully) wiser, I can see that these things aren’t so black and white.  The community groups that get together to paint a mural, or to take part in a workshop, or use artistic activities to work through an issue or even just to be sociable, are engaged in what I can see as one of three categories of Community Art: Arts-based community activities.  And while these activities aren’t high art in any sense, they do serve a purpose in the community, and they do expose artistic thinking and processes to a very wide audience.  Not my cup of tea, but who made me the king of everything artsy, right?

 

Building a community of artists is another of my categories of Community Art.  This is something that’s vital in developing the arts in any wide community.  Artists need to be in communication with other artists to stay connected with the world around them and to continue their practice in any meaningful way.  This happens in heaps of different ways, but I don’t think they’re always recognised as a community of artists because they’re not structured networking systems like clubs or organisations.  Quite a lot of the time it’s really about socialising at arts events and getting to know the other artists in your local area.  Schmoozing around and keeping your ear to the ground is how you participate in these communities.  Having said that, clubs, groups, and organisations do make it easier to be a part of an artistic community, for example the amazing job Creative Capricorn do in my local area in connecting artists and facilitating projects.  Networking has become even easier now with the use of social media like Facebook, where artists can meet up, spread word of shows and projects, and post and comment on each other’s work.

 

Although these first two categories of Community Art are great, this is where I think things are getting exciting.  Community-focussed arts.  This is where arts organisations use their core business of producing and promoting the arts to develop social interaction and positive community values.  I’ve come across two fantastic examples of this in recent times that really exemplify the idea of community-focussed arts.  The first is my local gallery (the Rockhampton Art Gallery) which has recently changed the way it manages its shows, and begun to involve the wider community to a greater extent.  It’s started to hold exhibitions which are aimed more towards the traditionally ‘un-artsy’ people, in particular exhibitions highlighting local sporting heroes (including one specifically about rugby league) and a fashion-based show.  They’ve also started showing works which may have been considered a little risqué for a regional gallery, making the gallery a bit more cutting edge and appealing to a younger crowd.

 

A call went out from the gallery to help purchase a Ben Quilty painting via donations.  This isn’t a new concept by any stretch of the imagination, but the call promised to make contributors of over $500 an official Donor.  This is almost communal ownership of a piece of contemporary art!  My only real issue is of the $500 threshold.  Why not acknowledge everyone who donates?  Someone may not be able to afford to drop that much cash, but could maybe scrape together five or ten bucks for the cause.  Personally, I’d love to see the painting exhibited right next to all of the names of those who donated.  They could even be arranged with different text sizes to represent the size of the contribution, but imagine seeing your name (no matter how small) next to a fabulous painting that your dollars helped to buy.  Now that’s community engagement!  But I digress... all of these measures have begun to make the gallery a central part of the community, not just a space for art weirdoes and oldies to spend their time.  The art has begun to shape and build the community around it.

 

The other amazing example of community-focussed arts is an initiative in Toowoomba called TheGrid.  This is a space that houses well over ten different artistic enterprises in the one building.  Again, not a new concept, but it’s the spirit in which it is run that makes all the difference.  It blows away the old ideas of an arts centre that’s hidden away from the world, known only to a special few; it’s inviting and exciting and inspiring.  But best of all, it’s not an ‘everyone gets to put their painting up’ type of space.  It’s serious (capital) Art, but specifically aimed at engaging whole communities.  It has a gallery, creative writing programs, dance spaces and programs, retail spaces, and even film makers.  You can’t just rock up and have your turn at being an artist, but if you have skill or dedication or talent or even just a vague interest, you can become involved and mingle and share and explore, and with any luck build up the community using your own skill set.  Creativity and community engagement are the twin backbones at TheGrid.  It’s a prime example of how the arts can be community driven, but not watered down.

 

Turns out that I’ve always been quite passionate about Community Art, I just didn’t quite understand the whole spectrum of the term.  The notion that I have this blog at all is testament to that fact.  I do believe that everyone should engage in the arts, and I love the idea of the community being truly involved in arts organisations and events.  I just hope I don’t visibly cringe the next time I see an ‘art exhibition’ of first-time crochet workshop participants.

_____________________________________________

http://creativecapricorn.com.au/

https://www.facebook.com/theGRIDhybridARTScollective

https://www.facebook.com/artgalleryrockhampton

https://www.facebook.com/groups/230133613696489/ (Contemporary Artists of Rockhampton)

 

Sam Jinks: Body in Time: Rockhampton Art Gallery

 

Generally, being reminded of your impending death is a pretty depressing event.  You don’t expect to leave a reminder of your oblivion with a warm, serene, and comfortable sense of calm.  However, this is what you get when you visit Sam Jinks: Body in Time, currently on show at the Rockhampton Art Gallery. 

I was lucky enough to meet with Sam as the exhibition was getting its final touches before the opening.  Our conversation meandered, covering a multitude of topics, and it became clear that the gentle, human touch emanating from his exquisite sculptures are a product of the artist’s contemplative and focussed nature.  The thing that surprised me most from our discussion was the fact that he does not consider his work hyper-realistic, even though the overwhelming majority of the descriptions of his art place it in that category.  He went on to explain that although he was capable of it and has done so in a past life working in the film industry, he doesn’t feel that he needs to ‘take it to the nth degree’ to allow the works to have the level of impact they require.  Amazing, considering that, to me at least, the works look like they could open their eyes at any moment.

As you enter the room, you’re drawn to the large, anatomic exploration of the artist’s face on the far wall titled Calcium Divide (2011), and before you know it, you’re surrounded by bodies, whole and in fragments.  None of them seem overly gruesome or off-putting, due to their unnatural scale, either too big or too small to be actual human parts.  And even the more visceral portions of bodies don’t feel like viewing a corpse.  The room has both a cool, scientific feel, and genuine, human warmth to it. 

The level of detail and care taken to make these works look like realistic representations of people is awe inspiring.  ‘Organised imperfection’ is the term Jinks himself used when describing the complexity and beauty of the human form.  It also became clear throughout our meeting that producing and presenting these works is almost a compulsion for him.  That it can provide a certain catharsis through completion.  This need to make bodily objects to meet his exacting, analytical standards comes through to the viewer in a way that makes you alert, but not alarmed.

When you scan the room you realise that you’re surrounded by slices of life, literally and metaphorically.  Pre-birth all the way through to acceptance of mortality, and death itself is present in the room at once.  Most of the works are presented in a way so that you are at matching eye levels, making the experience very intimate.  We’re used to seeing diagrammatic life cycles of frogs and butterflies, but to be physically surrounded by a human life cycle is a very humbling experience. 

Strangely, these works don’t seem to dredge up massive emotional responses, something that is intentional on the part of the artist who said, ‘I’m not trying to tug at people’s heartstrings’.  His making process of trials and tests of materials and effects, coupled with the clean, almost taxidermy-style presentation of the works actively reduces the emotive response, leaving you with serene, contemplative feelings of appreciating our short but beautiful existence. 

We all know that each visitor to the exhibition will approach and read the works in their own way, but I’m quite sure the joy of life, the spectre of death, and awe at technical brilliance will be present in a vast majority of those readings.

Sam Jinks: Body in Time is on exhibition at the Rockhampton Art Gallery from 24 November to 27 January 2013

 

Walter's Ghost

This is the blurb I wrote to be presented at the unveiling of an installation work of mine, titled Walter's Ghost, that will be on permanent display at the Walter Reid Cultural Centre in Rockhampton.  It was very capably read by Rod Ainsworth, the Creative Director of Creative Capricorn, as I was unable to attend the event. 

In addition to thanking Creative Capricorn, and the Rockhampton Regional Council for commissioning this work, I’d like to thank Shane Burgess for his fantastic cabinetmaking skills, Rockhampton Trophy Centre for all their help with the laser cut stencils, and Kontraband in Toowoomba for their advice on spray nozzles and paint.  Without these people, this artwork would not have come about.

______________________________________

Ken Leslie

Walter's Ghost, 2012

Mixed Media

300 x 300 x 600mm (30 pieces)

 

This artwork is unique for me.  Firstly, because installation art is unfamiliar territory for me, and also because a commissioned work has the added complexity of having to fit a vision of other people, not just satisfying my own musings.  Something I’m dreadfully unaccustomed to.  I did, however, very much enjoy the challenge, and ended up creating a flexible installation piece titled ‘Walter’s Ghost’ consisting of 30 plywood boxes, each labeled with a Walter Reid and Company Limited logo from one of three different eras of its existence.  The dimensions of the boxes have significance.  Each is 300 x 300 x 600 mm, the size of an early liquor or wine carton, the major trade of Walter Reid and Co.  The work has been designed to be an echo of the past of the building.  Originally built as a warehouse by Walter Reid around 1900, it has been used as an arts centre since 1977[1], and with each passing year, and each refurbishment, the original purpose and life of the building fades a little more.  My aim is to hint at a trace of the past, to recognise, remember, and celebrate Walter Reid, without whom, we wouldn’t have this amazing building at all.

The Oxford dictionary defines the word ‘ghost’ as ‘an apparition of a dead person which is believed to appear or become manifest to the living’[2].  In other words, it’s a spirit that straddles two plains of existence; not really here, and not really there.  My work does exactly that.  It defines several opposing realms, but doesn’t quite fit into any of them.

The work is obviously a product of modern manufacturing methods; each box is made of 12mm plywood, glued and nailed using a nail gun, yet each one bears the insignia of a company long since closed.  They’re neither modern nor vintage.

Two of the three images are taken from actual company logos, and the other is in the style of pre-20^th Century packaging.  On close inspection, you’ll notice that they’ve been applied to the crates using spray paint and stencils, another very modern technique.  They’re neither replicas nor remixes.

The boxes are empty, with no access points for opening.  They will never hold cargo, but have been made a specific size for the transportation of specific goods.  They’re neither useful nor useless.

The crates are made of purely functional, industrial materials, just as they would have been had they been made for transportation purposes.  No effort was made to hide that fact.  But they highlight the beauty of the natural materials, and echo the beauty of the industrial surroundings.  They’re neither functional nor decorative.

The stack of crates (however it’s arranged) will blend into its post-industrial surrounds.  Maybe it’s relics found in the basement, maybe it’s a delivery waiting to be sorted, maybe it’s a historical display, maybe it’s a place to put your drink, maybe it’s an artwork.  They’re neither on display nor part of the environment.

This is a substantial list of what this artwork isn’t!  What it is, and will continue to be, is the spectre of a man who altered the social and physical environment of this region, and a reminder that his actions are still benefiting us today.

 

   

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[1] Gistitin, C. (2004) The Walter Reid Community Arts Centre. [pdf] Museum & Gallery Services Queensland. p.1-3 http://www.magsq.com.au/_dbase_upl/gistitinc.pdf [Accessed: 28-10-2012].

[2] Definition of ghost - mythical being, small amount and visual phenomenon. 2012. Definition of ghost - mythical being, small amount and visual phenomenon. [ONLINE] Available at: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ghost?q=ghost. [Accessed 27 October 2012].