“Mum that tree over there gave me splinters!” ” That’s not a tree, son, that’s a sculpture. Give ‘em a wide berth…”

Sculpture by Marr Grounds, 1994, at Penders.

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As much as one might have wished it otherwise (given David Marr’s other Good Works), AW can’t help thinking his defense of Bill Henson has contributed to the Australia Council’s New Austerity with respect to the representation of kiddies, as described in his Shock and Horror account of the new parameters for the creative representation of all those under the age of eighteen. Yes, it’s legislative madness. But the provocation and its weak defense has contributed to the current situation. So who is surprised that this god-bothering government concludes the Art World is the “godforsaken” “shitty” “hell-hole” of Australian Culture, and uses its funding agency to take out political insurance against future transgressions? (Want to read back along this thread? Type Henson in the search box to your right).

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ArtWranglers will be starting our season in 2009 with a show of Rose Montebello’s new work. Her work is inadequately described as a kind of analogical holographic illusionistic relief. Phew! You’ll have to see it in the round! But see more details in her space on the sidebar. The work above is Ever-lasting gaze, 2008 (Colour photocopies, paper, foam core, Jak paper, wood. 33.50 x 22.50 x 6.5) and below: All you have done has brought you to this place, 2008 (Colour photocopies, paper, foam core, Jak paper, glitter, wood. 27.0 x 33.0 x 7.0). Welcome Rosie!

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Here’s a show for the summer! We want to see Bondi Jitterbug: George Caddy and his camera at the State Library of NSW until 22 February. Be sure to click the slideshow – and go to the Library Shop to see them all. This fabulously transgressive “beachobat”, (Roya Geale, Bondi Beach 1941) caught our eye in the press advertisements. If the date of this photograph really is 1941, it pushes back the history of the (illegal) two-piece a few more years… And, boy, this vernacular modernist makes Max Dupain look a bit sober…

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At Christmas each year ArtWranglers awards its honorary degrees: the Master of Vitriol and the Master of Mystification. Judging by this weekend’s review columns, for our senior arts writers the Christmas break can’t come fast enough. Christopher Allen had a miserable trip to Brisbane to review Optimism, at the QAG/GoMA, and it shows. John McDonald had a case of EOE (Early Onset Envy) in his review of the National Portrait Gallery, and spent far too many valuable words commenting on the Director Andrew Sayers’ appearance and manner. Could it be that John has just published his own HAA (History of Australian Art) and he’s nervous about the inevitable comparisons with Andrew’s? And Nicolas Rothwell spins a yarn worthy of AUSTRALIA about ghostly figures in the Aboriginal Art World, but pictures his subject, large as life, on the cover of the Weekend Australian Review. So much for conventional sensitivities about photographs of deceased Indigenous Australians… The Rothwell has been heading in this direction for some time now, but this time clearly he himself has passed over to the other side, to “the higher reaches of desert religion: to death, transformation and the shimmer of creation stories reaching into the realm of today’s life.” Actually for his Broome “gallerist” (there’s that word again!) Emily Rohr, Christmas has come twice: this is the second feature article in a week that Rothwell has published about her gallery and her artists. Money can’t buy such coverage, unless there’s something deeper going on. So alas, there will only be Endeavour Awards this year…

PS. Want a second opinion on the MCA? In her best Top Gear mode, read Elizabeth Farrelly in the SMH…

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that clock-tower is on another building, not the new Museum of Contemporary Art!

Phew… we thought it had been lopped off the old building and plonked on the new! A case for further Photoshopping, perhaps? Speaking of symbolism, MCA architect Sam Marshall says the white blocks are symbolic of the ochre [ie. pipeclay] used by the Aborigines who lived on the foreshore before white settlement. Oh yes. Alas we preferred the bigger white block of the previously-rejected design. Here’s James Weirick’s account of the process last time. Here’s the unsuccessful Sauerbruch Hutton design – minus the symbolism…

While we haven’t yet seen the New Museum of Contemporary Art on The Bowery, New York, there’s a certain blocky similarity to the look of the Marshall Plan, minus of course the materials and bravado of the New York version. You can read the MCA blurb here, and do a spooky fly-through as well! Here’s the (virtual) view from the roof, and a virtual sculpture!

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Here’s Rolf Harris (or is it Sir Rolf?) doing his thing for the National Portrait Gallery Festival of the Face which is drawing the crowds for the NPG’s first weekend, which follows the series of previews and openings which have been happening all this week.

At such events the National Portrait Gallery (designed by Richard Johnson of Johnson Pilton Walker) has been seen for the first time by the many enthusiastic visitors and the Canberrans who’ve been watching its progress over the past year or so. On Wednesday night the official opening by the Prime Minister was eloquently bracketed by Director Andrew Sayers and outgoing Chair Marilyn Darling. It was a symbolic changing of the guard. The new Patron is Ms Therese Rein. The previous Patron was Mrs Janette Howard. She and her husband Mr John mingled in the crowd of luminaries, artists and their subjects. It’s a tale of the two plaques: the foundation plaque outside with John Howard’s name, the opening plaque on the inside with Kevin Rudd engraved for posterity.

The building is a pleasure to experience. It has great proportions, beautiful use of materials, elegant spaces and vistas, and a modest lack of egotistical interference with the art. Its theme is vernacular modern, in that its wooden roof trusses are exposed in the foyer ceiling, and their forms are reflected in the plywood cladding of their exterior surfaces.

The shed metaphor is referenced by the giant “corrugated iron” roofing, which projects horizontally for some distance beyond the roof structure, and is the most assertive motif as you walk up the slope to the entrance. It’s cheeky, but engaging, and draws attention to the beautiful use of materials and building finishes throughout. Notice how the use of wood is assuming new symbolic significance and a contemporary value? These days, we see wood as a rare resource. In this context gives references both to the past (the vernacular, hand skills) and the future – natural resources, even carbon capture. It’s also warm, tactile, and engaging.

Like Johnson’s pavilion of Asian Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the forms, spaces, and materials of the building sit modestly in relation to the art on the walls, a perfect frame for its contemplation. It does what Gallery architecture should do – it creates the spaces for the kinds of aesthetic experiences that are its raison d’etre – but it also asserts itself as a sensuous bodily experience. It rivals the Lawrence Wilson Gallery at the University of WA as the best medium-sized gallery space in the country.

And Jaynie Anderson contributes the “portrait” of the day – celebs and luminaries don’t distract Daniel Thomas from a good book!  (And thanks to Jaynie for the shot of the new guard up on stage). We can report the coffee is good, but we declined the sausage rolls. Nevertheless, it’s a must-see. We’ll review the contents next week.

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Post Bill Henson, it seems self-censorship will be the order of the day for A Cautious Australia, as it is for the overly-cautious Australia Council. Especially when it comes to “semi-nudes”. However that is still to be defined. So is this the first example? We know the weekend magazines often run the same ad, presumably to get double the impact. But this weekend something strange has happened!

Either the Sydney Morning Herald pictures editor thought the semi-nude figure in the background of this ad should take a jump, or the pix ed at the Weekend Australian thought it needed all the spice it could get. But you might ask, what is/was this weird-arse biomorph doing there in the first place? (The term “weird-arse” is used here in its technical sense…)

Is there a narrative here? Or do we conclude that this Homage to Photoshop’s only reason for being is as a strategy devised by the advertising agency, anticipating that the presence/absence of  this figure in just one version will attract greater attention, as it has with us. Pity. But when Bill takes up digital photography, just think how much fun we will have… The Australia Council, sponsored by Photoshop…

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