...a Final Fringe with Sliced Onion

Shane at BIFB

G’day petals,

 My third and final stint around the Ballarat International Foto Biennale on its last day was a bit of a “Fizzer”.

Julie Hough’s show venue, Soldiers Hill Gallery was closed, due to a funeral… Jeff Moorfoot’s was closed again;  I had tried earlier in the week but Mr Redes was closed then as well. 

As was Inexterior at the Foundry showing Donna Crebbin’s nocturnal landscapes.

I had more luck at Seymors on Lydiard where John Alcock’s “The Stages of Being-Going Forward” was showing.  Mostly stridently coloured landscapes under the pseudonym of “Bushie John”  I must admit to preferring his more subtle works like this, Titled: “Dressed by Pure White No. 2”  than the garishly coloured and crumpled canvas printed landscapes.

“Dressed by Pure White No. 2”

Then onto Trades Hall to look at Kristen Diemer’s, “Ways of Seeing “ (paraphrasing that delightfully bolshie 70’s Art Historian, John Berger) and her Lumen Prints.

Lumen Prints

Lumen prints are made similarly to photograms where objects are placed directly onto photographic paper and exposed to light. Except in this case, sunlight is used for exposure and there is no chemical development only a “fixing” bath if you wish to use that.

Lumen Prints

I remember many years ago when working as a Darkroom Technician that we occasionally did contact prints onto Printing Out Paper or POP prints under direct sunlight. After watching the print “develop” in the sunlight, we then stabilized it in Hypo and washed it as normal. Very Old-School but a lot more fun than looking at the back of a digital display.

Kristin’s works were delightful in their nuances and concept of using photography in its most primal and basic sense. These are travel photos literally light years away from the prosaic “scene” or the egotistical and narcissistic selfie.

For those of an old fashioned bent here is some further information.

http://www.alternativephotography.com/wp/pop-printing-out-process/printing-out-processes

As written in the first “post” on the BIFB, Silvi Glattauer, Michelle Williams and Raquel Betiz were the “Fringe” stand-outs for me in this 2015 biennale. It was interesting too that I think that the Fringe was possibly the strongest it has been for the past 10 years.

Most, if not all exhibitions being presented well in their chosen venues although some explanations on the didactic boards verged on art-wank most were explanatory rather than philosophical meanderings.

 2017? We’ll see.

Wombat Droppings

Or the chronicle of the inexorable Aussie slide from egalitarianism to fascism.

Well, “Von Fop” Turnbullsnob has politically assassinated Rabid-the-Hun.  So although denying the bleeding obvious, the Liarbrils really do sing to Labor, “Anything you can do, I can do better,” but feel less guilty about their mongrelness and we have a new Prime Miniature; but with five of these in five years we are rivalling Italy in being ultra democratic in the Warholian sense of everyone having their 15 minutes of fame…. or otherwise.

True to their genetically hypocritical form many of the “Brutii” were quick to expunge their pragmatic bastardry and guilt by extolling “what a decent chap/visionary/ humanitarian/ seer/ saint” Rabid-the-Hun was even though, at the same time, he was tardy in calling the GG to officially relinquish his office, and then only by fax, his staff were being very slow to leave the building, he was blaming the press for his demise and those who leaked to the press, and his official diary of events went missing as he said he would be no bother, and he has yet to have the Balls to sit in parliament! Oh, well… bully does as bully is.

Shane with Sliced Onion

”Von Fop Turnbullsnob has made much of the bright future we will have under his benevolent dictatorship where all will benefit from the Chinese doing the work, and where technology will blossom like a thousand imported plastic lotuses.

It’s a pity Von Fop was the Communications Minister who said his  downgraded National Broadband Scheme was to be, "Fast, Affordable, Sooner" but it turned out to be the equivalent of two tin cans with copper wire between and at an extra of $15,000,000,000.00,and now also 4 years behind schedule.  His “vision” also included all of the budget settings that made Rabid and Eleventy so reviled and the country more like the banana republic Keating warned of 30 years ago.

But the Sheeples love a smiley face and think, all’s right with the world.

Except none of the IPA's fascist elements developed in the past 2 years such as Anti-terror laws, Data retention, legislation against protests, The SS- like Border Force (or Farce), attacks on the independence of the ABC and Freedom of speech, attacks on the environment, the privatisation of the health services, the cruelling of the Arts; Environmental policy not worth the paper it’s written on, the maintenance of the concentration camps for refugees, the secrecy in most government departments and the attacks on welfare, the unemployed, the mentally ill and the elderly…. None of which, you can be sure will be re-mediated or altered.

But the Sheeples love a smiley face and think, all’s right with the world.

Mal Von-Fop Turnbullsnob

So with Rabid gone and sulking, Hockey spitting the dummy and leaving, Boofy Bilson losing his guernsey and probably spitting the dummy, too;  rather than call for three separate by-elections Von Fop, if the polls are good, will manufacture a double dissolution of both houses of parliament, win that and get on with the fascist takeover of Australia.
Remember, Hitler won an election, too.

But the Sheeples love a smiley face and think, all’s right with the world.

Baaa, Baaaaaa, Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Hooroo Possums,
Shane