I enjoy the kinds of informal connections that you can make by simply looking at different artworks. Sometimes the brain has to catch up to the eye and try to explain away coincidences, or alternatively make a case for initial and perhaps superficial visual similarities to become more than that. It’s always positive to begin […]
June 2012
Shades of grey (gray)
Thanks to Narelle Jubelin’s reference to an obscure literary masterpiece, and those recent works of erotic fan-fiction by EL James currently topping the best-seller lists, this month’s posting continues on a theme. The occasion is Jubelin’s occupation of the stairwell of the former Caulfield Technical School E Block (now the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Monash […]
‘I’m not even supposed to be here today’, Clerks (1994)
When I was a pre-teen, it was the fully-fledged teenagers I knew who were able—as perhaps only teenagers are—to recount swathes of dialogue from the 1994 film Clerks, directed by Kevin Smith. I can’t help but quote critic Brad Laidman (surely not his real name?) at length, since Laidman’s review/lament encapsulates both the film’s plot […]
Through the frame—another extemporaneous musing
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is how we experience art. Mainly because my own ability to visit shows has become so limited for a time. Openings are out, studio visits impossible and any exhibitions I do get to are on the fly. My only conversations with artists of late have been more […]
A quiet one
Friday night, aged seventeen, sitting, waiting. I’ve had a Mars bar from the freezer, Dad’s reading The Age, Mum’s watching a documentary on the Queen, I’m waiting for them to go to bed so I can watch the SBS Friday night movie. No friend has called me. I don’t want to call around, it could […]
Raafat Ishak’s ‘decadence’
Around 1994 Raafat Ishak and I were interested in the French word décadence and its local translation, which had been flipped to read ‘decline’, in the magazine Art & Text. The magazine’s usage was ‘The decline of the nude’. This became the basis for an exhibition where we re-flipped the title back to The decadence of […]