ArtWranglers is mothballing this blog. However the archive remains alive, and we will continue to take comments on recent posts. In the meantime your blogwrangler will continue to publish with similar themes, observations, and opinions in a new format at iconophilia – with weekly rather than daily posts. For those who are suddenly feeling a bit nostalgic, we’ve archived all the embedded wisdom of the last two years of ArtWranglers’ posts on the new blog. If you were a subscriber (a Wranglerphile) you can now re-subscribe to iconophilia (and thus become an iconophile). Click over now, and enjoy, bookmark, subscribe, or just dabble – whatever your fancy dictates! See you there from time to time…

PS Wondering about the image? Who would have thought that “mothballing” something could unleash latent energy? The humble mothball is more than it appears!

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See the story in The Art Newspaper. And then read about the phenomenon of private museums in the U.S. (John Seabrook in The New Yorker) then Angus Trumble reviewing Sarah Thornton in the TLS, concluding “what it was once like to dance on the brink of a volcano”. (thanks to Breakfastpolitics for the last two leads).

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This weekend Paul Keating strikes back at last weekend’s puff piece about Director Craddock Morton’s own account of the limitations of the National Museum of Australia. As you might expect, Paul can’t help a bon mot or two, describing John Howard as “possessing the cultural and artistic sensibilities of a filing cabinet”, as he gives his account of the decisions made on his own watch. “The salient point, however, is that having brought forth a lemon, the principal advocates of a museum of Australia are now setting up the apologia for its failure”. For our part, ArtWranglers has been more concerned with the micro than the macro: read back along the thread.

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See ArtDaily

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Enjoy this eccentric image listed as a Thea Proctor watercolour in the next Bonhams and Goodman auction catalogue. Signed, but no date, no provenance, or argument – or precedent, for that matter. Early postmodern, perhaps? Gotta love the Ingres reference, and the little pink baby totem against the sun tan. Doesn’t seem quite right to me…

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Rachel Jesse-Rae O’Connor recommends you don’t miss the Felt Tip Pen Show in Melbourne at Rear View Gallery (Rear of 244 Smith Street Collingwood – enter via Stanley Street.) with some of Melbourne’s best felt tip pen artists… Jeff Steele, HyperColourCastle, Neli0, Fred Fowler, Mandy Ord, Tim Danko, M.P Fikaris ,Sam Wallman, Cougar Flashy, Michael Hawkins, Tim Molloy, Textaqueen, Lucien Spectre, Steph Hicks, RJRAE, Stewart Cole, Tom O’Hern, Makatron, James Reka, Gosia Wlodarczak courtesy the artist and Arc Onc Galley, Melbourne, Alice Mrongovius, Richard B-B, Trevelyan Clay, Sam Karmel and Claire Tracey. Curated by RJROC and and Micheal Fikaris. The show runs till the 24th wed – sun 12-6pm.

The artwork is by Melbourne based Fred Fowler.

And don’t forget! RJROC’s next show at ArtWranglers opens 8th May.

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…was a quarter of a century ago. We were being sold our first Macintosh. Do yourself a favour, go to YouTube and see how Ridley Scott made the first Mac commercial. Launched at the Superbowl. Maximum exposure. “… you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984″.

Two things have brought on this rush of nostalgia. One was the Radio National interview with Peter Singer on robotic warfare this morning. The second was the annoying book I am reading which suggested that artists in the West were not producing images about war or the arms race during the eighties.

Then I remembered this Sydney University Art Workshop poster still glued to the wall at the Art School, image by Nigel Lendon, printed by Pam Debenham. That’s how it was, pre-Macintosh.

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… but more scary? Here are the clues: it’s in hundred dollar bills, two pallets high, and the blurry dot on the left is a man…

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Rose Montebello’s exhibition is open for this weekend only at ArtWranglers, 18 Morphett St, Dickson: 11.00 to 5.00, Saturday and Sunday.

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…who made this painting on bark currently on display. So it’s on exhibition without a label! The National Museum of Australia has a long history of exhibiting copies and facsmilies without attribution, so this example is but a continuation of their curatorial standards (sic). Several experts agree that this representation of a Macassan Prau is most likely a copy produced and sold in the 60s or 70s in one of the Brisbane missionary societies, either the Central Methodist Mission, in Albert St, or the Anglican Church Mission, in Ann Street. A history yet to be told… These pictures were painted by Aboriginal people (probably), and there are many examples of this kind of “Brisbane bark paintings” floating around the secondary market. But what a pity that the NMA didn’t draw on its extensive holdings of authentic bark paintings from NE Arnhem Land to make their point? Here’s another example: signed “Tracey”, “Tracey Bull”, and “Kellie Bull” on verso.

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