A Rococo Miasma of Whimsy

G'day Possums,

Art imitates life and what better at imitating the flatness of current Oz life than photography; so Mrs Wombat and I toddled off up the road t'other day to the eighth Ballarat International Foto Biennale.

Art also reflects the mores and practices that manifest societally as culture and the contemporary parallels exhibited are ominous in the extreme.

We parked opposite the Mining Exchange and given that that venue usually displays a cornucopia of imagery, headed there...oops, there was only Fiona Foley's "Who are these strangers and where are they going?"  A lack of labels made one look harder for context and deciding that we were looking at an installation utilising objects, video and photographs, proceeded.

Fiona Foley: "Who are these strangers and where are they going?"

Reality #1. Although Network Noine will not admit it paid The Red Terror from the Deep north to disrespect the indigenous custodians of Uluru by climbing their sacred site.....particularly after her insult turned to farce when, A/ she didn't have the bottle to go up much further than 40 metres , B/ couldn't walk down and had to, more aptly and toddler-like, slide down on her derriere, it still provided this repulsive woman all the publicity she craved.

 Reality#2 Defending their traditional Gomeroi country from mining, a family is suing Faux Environment Minister, Real Estate Ley after she rejected their heritage protection bid in favour of a controversial Chinese coal project. Acknowledging the project could cause "mental health impacts … a sense of dislocation, displacement and dispossession," but said by way of digital salute, the social and economic value of the project took priority.

So, invasion, dispossession, manipulation, slavery, despoliation and arrogant acceptance are the theme but installation is theatrical and apart from the ominously flattened midden "runway" of oyster shells leading to the empty tent this exhibit was too far spread in this huge space to be effective; and for my taste the staged photo's too prosaic and really, pretty ordinary and in some cases "cute," (Black KKK ???) to be much other than presenting a "very worthy" exhibit.

And then popping into the Central Highlands Waterworks historical exhibit next was a trifle surreal .....viewing all those Victorian workers and worthies digging up Wadawurrong country with such gusto.....

....and followed in turn by sublime Israeli arrogance with "Soldiers" where Adi Nes makes banal cartoonish pastiches of old master works and themes like "The Pieta" and "The Last Supper".....Haw, Haw, nudge, nudge.. wink, wink...you xtians...

but he provides at least some reality by showing four soldiers pissing on what I assume is most likely,  "occupied territory."

 

Adi Nes: Soldiers

Reality# 3. Coming into the open and phoning the Ruling Rabble's private militia Deputy Plod Gaughan, Obersturmfuhrer  Pezzi Pezzullo congratulated his AFP bovver-boys for their teamwork in raiding Annika Smethurst's undies drawer and said "Well done, tomorrow is another day." By which, he obviously meant that the successful rehearsal at A.S's meant "go-go-go" for invading the ABC the next day!

Obersturmfuhrer Pezzi thought negative commentary about his congratulatory epistle to fellow professionals was not meant to indicate "a supposed attitude to press freedom" ....whatever that is!

Reality #4 Its been a very quiet anniversary for Scummo, The Happy-Clapper, Liar from the Shire, Hypocrite and Pentacostal Prime Miniature ... as he has done nothing in 12 months worthy of  celebration.

Visiting Timor-Leste, Scummo assiduously avoided the demonstrations against the secret star chamber proceeding against the whistle blower and his lawyer who "blew" Oz's perfidy in bugging the Timor Gap oil treaty talks.

Also playing down this episode from his taxpayer funded retreat in London was Bookshelves Brandis, who knew that by proceeding when Plastic Attorney General he was dragging Little-Johnny, Fishnets-that-Batter and himself through the mire of their own corruption and obviously sees the Unxtian Porter's stupidity in not understanding even that in his slavish roll-over to Potato-Head's fascist vanity and fantasies as even poorer judgment than the event itself.

The New York times allegedly called these works "shrewd send-ups of the pervasive macho, military presence in Israeli life...".... now, who says the American's don't understand irony?

There were the Watchtowers dotted down Sturt St, the Missiles in Police Lane, Boy-o Xmas cards at The Forge and the Blind Radius series Part2, Dolls in the Trade Union and photographs of dioramas downstairs there too... Gosh, If I had have known I was making art by photographing these for a children's book I would have entered, too!

http://shanewombat.blogspot.com/2019/03/legacys-and-how-cat-got-belled.html

Portraits in The Town Hall were lacklustre in the main... and Petals, neither Mrs Wombat nor I were moved enough to even vote in the public choice. 

Consuelo Cavaniglia: I came Back, Toward Myself

The Bauhaus was interesting although it was a pity Ruff hadn't given a nod to the influence of  Kandinsky and in  the overall curation, acknowledgment at least to  Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, particularly his work "Vision in Motion."

Zoe Croggon

 In talking earlier about the nature of the works, they're ominous for the very reason that they hold no "bite", they're almost all "throw-away-lines," disinterestedly whimsical in only noting an event or action without serious passion or involvement and seemingly produced for an audience of jaded over-sophisticated tastes and of the lightest touch. "Rococo"?

The curation similarly seemed haphazard and uneven, aesthetically unsure whether it was exhibiting sculpture, installation art or photography and I'll not be seeing the "show-stopper" because I thought conceptual art's "process over form and content" died in the last century's early seventies and besides, "Where's Wally?"  holds little interest after the first time.

But for the rest ....there's always tomorrow.... to coin a phrase....

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane.

Ta-ta, Tuvalu.

Shane in the Snow

G'day Possums,

It's been a bit cold here in the burrow but nought compared to the frigid shoulder our prime miniature du jour, liar-from-the-shire, happy-clapping- faux-xtian-anti-christ got from Pacific Island's leaders when he snotted on their aspirations at not wanting their nation states to drown because of the developed worlds penchant for fossil fuels.

Sporting a maliciously designed islander hat of flowers that made Scummo appear more thickly Bogan than usual  and flanked by his "bestie-of-the-moment" The Shifty-Eyed Hawke, Scummo  managed not only to alienate our Pacific neighbours but also promote the Chinese cause in the region, insult New Zealand's PM ( yes, they have a real Prime Minister), embarrass Australia internationally, and with "proof-positive" demonstrate again just how bereft of social and economic nouse, climate and energy policy this rancid IPA controlled Ruling Rabble are.

Fearing the Bogan Happy-Clapper, Anti-Christ  was getting deserved bad press by the sheer lack of enthusiasm in his Pacific debacle that was being displayed by the Ugly American's media, Sydney's Turd from 2GB, Toilet-Boy, Jones employed his famous double play where he distracts attention with a "look-over-there..." comment but which also gains the narcissist the notice he so desperately craves from his dwindling audience of geriatric racist, misogynists.

Calling for Scummo's minders to advise the Liar-from-the Shire to tell NZ's Jacinda Ardern that she should have Scummo "....give her a few back-handers..." and have a  "...sock pushed down her throat..." by having the temerity to question Australia's commitment to amelirorating climate change,

Toilet-Boy thus added to his already replete lexicon of misogyny and hate speech and basked in the notoriety of his foulness when called to task, with the insulting justification that he had meant to say "stick a sock in it"...and that he, once again victim, had been "wilfully misinterpreted".

But advertisers who must have thought otherwise began to desert 2GB and management warned Toilet Boy that if he insulted Adhern again his contract was void by applying the old 375 -strikes-and- you're-out, rule!  
So, Toilet-Boy, hero to the last, apologised to Ardern, "...like a man..." in the hope of stemming the tide of receding revenue.

But why is this damaging, toilet-trolling, race-baiting, misogynist, climate denier and love-letter writer to young school-boys employed as a public broadcaster in the first place?  This is another matter that says much about the right-wing's, values, concept of free speech....not to mention, taste  but as Fictions The Innumerate, Frydenberg said "...he's the mainstay..." of the Ruling Rabble's propaganda arm!

Not to be outdone in the "look-over-there" game Scummo,  unfortunately escaping the drowning Pacific, landed back in Oz to announce....Ta, Daaaa... that he's on the warpath against that dreadful mob "Get-Up".

(Yawn)!
But his deputy, Mc What's-is-name couldn't resist his paternalistic, provincial and undiplomatic best by telling an audience how much we cared for the Islanders ..."...cause they will survive... 'cause they come here to earn money to pick fruit"! 
This is leadership?

Down South and reprising Thomas a' Beckett's C12th stance on the primacy of canon law over the secular, Victoria's Catlic Archbishop Denise Camisole avowed that he would prefer prison rather than reporting to police, paedophilia heard expressed in the confessional.

Why then, are these types with insitiutionalised "form" and flouting the law allowed to run schools and be tax exempt?

As the world economy falls to pieces and silence permeates Oz, one can perhaps appreciate the point of Labor's opposition leader Albo's very quiet behaviour. In being seen and not heard  it becomes difficult for even the Ugly American's putrid media to blame them for what patently are the sins of the most corrupt, divisive and incompetent ruling rabble in the nations history.

It's winter Petals, but my discontent is not with the snow.

Hoo-roo,

Shane.