.. to Brissie and QCP

G’day, Echidna’s

Here we are in the salubrious surrounds of Tiger Airways’ departure lounge…

on the rail transit from Brisbane airport… and on the apartment ledge in Brissie.

 

We’re up here for Wombats’ No:2 daughters’ part in a group exhibition at

Queensland Centre for Photography.

More of that later.

 

Its been a very long time since I was in Brissie and it has changed a lot.

 Image on left: used to be the Treasury Building, now a Casino... and if that’s not a metaphor of Australian governance I don’t know what is.

  Man upstaging dog…. I’m not kidding!

Young buskers had me thinking of a little girl drawing in the Musee Rodin. they were very good, too.

A much more vibrant city than when last seen…may it continue as such under its new regime.

At The Art Gallery I met and chatted with Henri van Noordenburg who was also going to QCP…. check his website .. very fine work.

http://www.vannoordenburg.com.au

Kate Bernauer “I need a compass not an anchor”

Interesting works “…is an examination of our purpose and place in society.”

“Circles” I found quite intriguing in that the figure in the centre seemed to be a symbol for a nipple on a breast. Interestingly, too I found the increase in contrast in the catalogue images added much to the punch of the pictures.

Kathleen Winder “Columba Livia”

Portraits of pigeons .. clear, simple, straightforward expositions which allow an informing view of genetically modified birds. One comment was that they were in the vein of haute-couture fashion photography statements  which although an interesting insight says, I think, more about the commentator than the images.

 Gerwyn Davies “Steel Town Disciples”

“…playfully interrogates the construction and performance of normative and dominant masculinities and their iconography and in doing so, aims to contest the authority of prevailing masculinities and their commonplace representations”.

Yep! They were fetishistic and reference was made to Baroque Nature Morte and lighting but Caravaggio ‘s brio has become turgidly tub thumping.

Yavuz Erkan “Unorthodox Aphorisms”

“…..poeticise in the power relationships between showing, looking and being looked at.”

Catalogue made reference to “…a range of hues that are highly sensual”

I found the high key and limited tonal range belied that sensuality in the images. Rather, they took on a thin, sickly, cloying and insipid tone.

The placements struck me as too precise for such little content … these had the effect on me of a finger-nail being dragged down a chalkboard. 

Nicolette Johnson “A Real Winter”

 A rite of passage, a return to roots and a documentary of a journey…  very gentle and personal images that needed cross referencing to effectively contextualise them.

Was the framing intended as an institutionalised document?

Paula Mahoney “Just a Touch of Death”

A presentation of a series of portraits of different people, in the same pose, from the same viewpoint and in the same lighting, not resting their hands on the skull, symbol of vanitas…. Which is presented as a lone, irrelevant, or ignored(?) image.

It was an interesting concept in that you are somewhat forced by the repetition of elements to concentrate on the differences in the personalities.

“The images were photographed in the traditional way of the Baroque portraitist Cornelis de Vos.” This is disconcerting as much of de Vos work is generally lit from almost front, top and not as presented here at 90’ , “off prompt.”

Hmm, Baroque? More  High-Renaissance to me.. the light is not an active part in the composition as it invariably is in baroque work and these are presented in a very planar fashion, space stepping back parallel to the picture plane rather than sliding obliquely away which would have suggested a more complex lighting plan. I also thought these works could have been more successful, framed and at a smaller scale. 

 Annemarie Dzendrowskyj  “Betwixt and Between”

The notional terms- ‘Twilight’/’Haze’ suggest a relationship of sorts that already exists between these two states

Painterly and evocative videos.

 

 

The contemporary fashion of extensive external referencing to somehow validate the existence of the works really gets an outing in this show.

I have now, the same rule of thumb for this practice as I do for advertising: The quality of the product is generally inversely proportionate to the amount of blather!

I think it’s a “blind” for the conceptually askew and those suffering from personality relevance deprivation.

It seems to me that much “art-photography” really tries too hard to be ART.

The heavy hands of “relevance”, the “glance askance” faux snapshot, the “choreographed meaningfulness” of staged landscape, the banal obviousness of “seminal metaphor”, the misappropriation of “art historical concepts”.

All of this is so bloody mock-serious.

Where’s the fun?

But its good to see it all; as each has its own merits and its also fun to hear other “takes” on the meanings, although as said earlier, we often express more about ourselves when critique-ing than we do of the work. 

Kathleen with significant admirer

 

And finishing with a “teaser” for the next post

Giselle, Wilis....

Politics

State of Tardis’ top bird, the reluctant Ted Baillieu (genus: Silvertail lncompetens) was finally snared (after ten invites) for an interview with the redoubtable Josie Taylor on ABC’s “7.30 Victoria”: subsequent interview showed why.

His best shot came when challenged as to why he’d taken so long to appear; answering along the lines of ….I give lots of interviews and you’re quite welcome to come along any time.       

So there! 

And looked embarrassingly uncomfortable when Taylor suggested there were rumours that his media minders were advising him to go public as little as possible.

It was a contrived set-piece; there were no questions as to the obliteration of public secondary school and TAFE funding, Whooping Cough vaccinations, the sacking of environment workers, the corporate shambles at Hartie’s, the demise of private school, Mowbray College (from the maladministrations of a board of “enthusiastic amateurs”).

Baillieu doesn’t think his backbencher (allegedly)-with-hand-in-the-till, Geoff Shaw, should be charged by the police as no-one has laid a complaint…. I wonder if I could?

A member of the public did try and was fobbed-off by the police with what he said sounded like Tardis Govt. “spin”.

When Police start being overtly party-political you know something is really rotting in the state fabric.

But he thinks his Liarbrils are “….growing the State….” Yeah, right!

(Museum of Victoria has canned its work experience program for school students …”lack of funding” from Tardis Govt.)

The Tardis State: where all goes Backwards.

Mr Rabbit and Pyne the Whyne competed for the “Best Parliamentary Schoolboy Lark” by trying to escape Federal Parliament Question time by………………….. running away! 

These people see themselves as a credible government in waiting? 

Duuhhh! 

Apart from their tasteless jibes, like “…dead man…” and their importation of the worst of American political practice what else can one think of them except as being a vicious, vacuous and policy bereft assortment of petty mealy mouths whose lack of alternative policy was exposed when recent Treasury numbers showed Auz to be in quite a healthy state.

The “Henny-Penny” crew’s doom-sayings were shown to be just dismal rantings for a bogan audience; Dun & Bradstreet quoted in its Global Risk Indicator that: “… Australia is one of the safest trade and foreign investment destinations globally…. best ranked in the Asia-Pacific….”

Australian Federal Police are looking decidedly dog-legged and impure after it is revealed (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-05/people-smuggler-discovery-a-catastrophic-failure/4052174)that people smugglers operating out of Canberra were admitted as refugees and spent 3 months in detention (fellow passengers spent 2 years) and when the prime suspect escapes the country after being publicly revealed AFP said they couldn’t arrest as they had not enough evidence “…. because of lack of resources”.

Wheat Board execs in Iraq bribery?  Case closed due to “…lack of resources”… smelly? You bet! 

Should Howard, Reith, Costello and Downer feel relieved? You Bet!

Prostitute “found” by Ch.Nine alleged to have bonked Thomson (Labor) 5 years ago escapes to Ch Seven and says she got it wrong and apologises to Thomson and family. Shows more ethics than either Nine or Seven and the Liarbrils with their grubby tabloid boganisms.

Ex Senator Mark Abib (nominally Labor) now works for James Packer. Always was a numbers man!

Beware the “kingmaker”, James, he’s got form.

Cheers Echidnas,

Shane