by Jonathan Nichols & Amita Kirpalani I The idea of a ‘traumatic object’ is around and can be found lurking in conversations about dOCUMENTA (13). Between us this year, the language of trauma is closer to being caught up with what happens with art making and art writing. Which is slightly different. As I read […]
December 2012
The mind is a muscle: Yvonne Rainer’s ‘Trio A’
In April 2013 a workshop and showing of Yvonne Rainer’s iconic performance piece, Trio A, will be held in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. I plan to participate in the four-day workshop to be hosted by the VCA. I was introduced to Trio A via YouTube a few years ago. I had spent the summer in […]
Eyes wide shut
In building a figure from clay we might start from the inside—the kernel of vital organs perhaps—and work our way outwards. This process would mean that each substrate, each increasing layer, would be felt into being by the fingers. Classical sculpture (or drawing, or painting) insists that any figure is first and foremost a volume […]
Sadie Chandler: Café society
Figures and faces have always been a feature of Sadie Chandler’s iconography. From her varnish-obscured portraits of an anonymous, genteel European ancestry to her pre-Mad men mad women strutting their stuff, and the latest forays into the group portrait as social document, art and life converge. Most recently, Chandler worked on the Moreland portraits, a […]
Eat, clay, love
Yoko Ozawa rides her bike to Northcote Pottery, and rides home with a 5-kilogram bag of clay. Placing the clay on the table next to her throwing wheel, Yoko sketches small shapes in a notebook alongside recipes for glazes. Yoko prepares a ball of clay, kneading it to release pockets of air. This is the […]
Being there—experiencing the art of Louise Bourgeois
I was at a gathering the other night where I mentioned that I was planning to write my next Stamm piece on the current Louise Bourgeois show at Heide. ‘Oh God, blah blaaah … the mother, the father, the nanny … how many articles have I read about that!?!’ ‘Nooooooooooooo!’ I say, ‘I’m going to […]