I’ve always felt that Justin Trendall’s unique state screenprints attempt to map the nature of memory; the acrobatic things it sometimes does, the mistakes it makes in the pursuit of narrative logic, that kind of thing. He’s been making the prints for some years now. A handful of new versions are currently on display at […]
December 2013
Jonathan Nichols plays David Morse and Viggo Mortensen
In 1991 Sean Penn directed his first film, The Indian runner. It is a story about two brothers. Viggo Mortensen plays the charismatic violent younger brother and David Morse plays the stoic gentle older brother. The film was set in the 1960s, but its sibling themes are timeless, timed well and present a time that […]
Like a prayer: Kate Murphy ‘Probable portraits’
Earlier this year, a gallery at Federation Square presented a large exhibition of work by a well-known international film artist. Throughout the week, school kids shoved and tumbled like wildebeest, iPhones flashed, gallery attendants stalked and on weekends mums steered prams into the legs of skinny, beardy dilettantes, young couples drifted, older ones concentrated, toddlers […]
Huh
Last year in September, JJ Charlesworth wrote a relatively short opinion piece for Art Review titled ‘At what point does nothing become too much of a good thing?‘—a pointed meandering that refers to Object Oriented Ontology (OOO hype) whilst questioning the ‘dematerialised, postindustrial rhetoric’ of Tino Seghal. In between all this questioning of material-based culture, […]
Trev goes to Frieze London and Chelsea in New York. Enjoys it, but still …
Facebook, The Age. Facebook, The Age. When will I ever ‘Facebook’ The Age? Status imminent to ‘Facebook’ The Age … (The newspaper I mean). You see I’m at Frieze Art Fair in London. I see a Rob Pruitt he’s doing well. The huge portrait of Sasha Grey the porn star is doing well, Koons is […]
Right thurr
In the corner of the exhibition Unsettled sculpture is the larger of Carolyn Eskdale’s two untitled works and it has been on my mind. The exhibition provides tactility at a distance and relief from the expectation of audience performance. ‘Tis the season of the more didactic and the make-your-own about town, but to paraphrase Chingy, […]
Chua Mia Tee’s Singapore
Singaporean artist Chua Mia Tee’s Epic poem of Malaya (1955) is a history painting of the sort we rarely see anymore—so many aspirations and doubts in the same frame. The image is of students sitting on the ground outside, under a tropical sky, listening and watching a young man speak—a teacher perhaps. It’s a scene […]