Contact: Between Memory & History is the annual photography festival in Toronto with 150 venues across the city. Here is the contribution of the Italian Embassy: works by Raffaelo Mariniello. More later…

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this impulsive device is a work by Olafur Eliasson, who currently has light and movement works all over the MoMA. It’s nice to imagine the shape of the invisible anti-monument thus created…

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As you would expect. This splendid fountain was co-authored by the architect Richard Meier, the landscape architect Laurie Olin and the then director, John Walsh. See how the water runs through the crack in the rock from the top level to the bottom level? Courbet comes to mind… But maybe the cracked rock is itself a subtle reference to the way the travertine marble was split to form the blocks which make up the walls of the Museum itself? And what’s that crack in the firmament way off in the distance?

It’s an Ellsworth Kelly, Untitled, 1988 (bronze).

Now here’s the backstory, as relayed by John Walsh. As the conceptual structure of the museum spaces were coming together, the function of the central courtyard as a social space, city square, piazza, became a priority to be resolved. Meier had a sketch plan which showed a fountain of some kind, geometric in nature, loosely cubist in spirit. As the three parties to the plan (Meier, Olin, and the museum people) mulled it over, the idea of a Californian boulder emerged, a counterpoint to the Italian marble surrounding it, a reference to the rocky hilltop on which the Getty is built. After some extensive searching, Olin discovered some waterworn glacial marble boulders in the forest outside the town of Columbia, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, in northern California, the source of Los Angeles’ water. An expedition was mounted, and the local fire brigade (who owned the rocks) constructed, with the aid of their fire trucks, a live fountain mock-up, water, pond, and all. Muddied and wet, art and its elemental origins coalesced, and the boulder began its journey south to its symbolic future. Now that’s aspirational public art for you!

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while we’re waiting for the announcement of Canberra’s Northbourne Mounument here’s a stunning echo of Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the IIIrd International. This version of a work by Ai Weiwei titled Chandelier, 2002 (spotted in the SMH Good Weekend’s publicity for his show at the Campbelltown Arts Centre) is unfortunately not in the show. Apparently Chandelier is an early version of “Working Progress (Fountain of Light)” 2007, here shown at the Tate Liverpool. We wish.

Want to go deeper? In addition to the exhibition at CAC curated by Charles Merewether (past director of the Biennale of Sydney), there is another show at Sherman, and a new book by CM himself. Listen to CM and AW on Artworks, with Amanda Smith. For more chandeliers, of a different kind, go here.

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So here’s a sneak work-in-progress preview of Beatle Collins’ latest tsunami scale wave being constructed at Marr Grounds’ bush sculpture park at Tanja. Peter Collins is new to the art world – this is just his second sculpture. His first wave sculpture – see our previous post Stick Art – is at Philip Cox’s property just up the coast on the Murrah River. This caught Marr’s eye a month ago, on a visit with ArtWranglers, and a commission ensued. Marr started collecting sticks without any idea of the scale of Beatle’s ambition – and since the work began, he’s done nothing else. Watch this space for images of the finished work…

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They make carpets in three dimensions in Kabul – but I didn’t stop to ask about the rental. Narcomansions is the term coined to describe these… Damn! I’ve run out of adjectives…

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Want to see the policy in action? Click here…

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in downtown Dickson. This is a 1934 Chrysler DeSoto Airflow, imported to Australia with right hand drive, one of five remaining in the country. The Chrysler Airflow was designed by Carl Breer, with the help of wind tunnel technology, and was therefore a precursor of things to come. Unfortunately it didn’t look any faster, except in reverse, so it was a financial flop.

whereas this is a hot (radioactive) Airflow sitting on Jeep running gear, on Whidbey Island. It was said to have been modified and used by a uranium prospector. Now this is a desire object…

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