in the loop april 3: quick picks
There’s a lot of epic art out there: a metropolis of music, rooms filled with bodies, shopping malls sprouting monuments, big pictures, big game and shifting histories. We suggest you keep notes.
metropolis new music festival, melbourne
Matthew Herbert, playing as part of Metropolis
Melbourne’s Metropolis Festival has expanded its metaphorical city limits this year with some very adventurous programming. For those firmly in the contemporary classical corner there’s visiting UK composer, pianist and conductor Thomas Adès. There are also concerts featuring DJ/composer Matthew Herbert (UK) and electronic ambient composer Mira Calix (UK). Australia’s Ensemble Offspring, Speak Percussion and Syzygy will perform as well as The Wild (featuring Erik Griswold), presenting a curious re-imagining of The Cure’s “Pornography.”
Metropolis New Music Festival, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra & Melbourne Recital Centre, April 8-20; http://www.metropolisfestival.com.au/
13 rooms, kaldor art projects #27
Clark Beaumont, Co-existing, Kaldor Public Art Project #27: 13 Rooms
courtesy the artists
Clark Beaumont, Co-existing, Kaldor Public Art Project #27: 13 Rooms
Surely no-one needs to be told, but maybe the fact that it’s only on for 11 days hasn’t quite hit home. This high-art extravaganza will present intimate performance based work—“living sculpture” (press release)—by leading international artists such as Marina Abramovic (see RT113), Joan Jonas, Xavier Le Roy, Tino Seghal and Damien Hirst. The 13th chamber will feature Brisbane-based emerging artist duo Clark Beaumont in the only new work in the event.
Kaldor Art Projects #27: 13 Rooms, curators Hans Ulrich Obrist, (Serpentine Gallery, UK), Klaus Biesenbach (MoMA PS1, US), Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay, April 11-21; http://kaldorartprojects.org.au/13rooms/index.html
trio a/dance is hard to see, sara wookey
Sara Wookey, Trio A
courtesy of the artist
Sara Wookey, Trio A
Trio A is a seminal work choreographed by Yvonne Rainer in 1966 that informed a new approach to contemporary dance. US-based dancer Sara Wookey has worked extensively with Rainer and is one of a handful of people allowed to ‘transmit’ this choreography to other dancers. Wookey will be running workshops in Perth and Sydney teaching Trio A, as well as presenting a performance lecture about Rainer and her work.
PICA: lecture April 6; http://www.pica.org.au; Performance Space/UNSW Io Myers: workshop April 9-12, lecture April 13, Io Myers Studio; http://www.performancespace.com.au (The project is initiated by Hannah Mathews with thanks to Performa.)
mca: ultimate vision, monuments to us; workout
Hub of Democracy, Centre Court, Westfield Hurstville
photo Lara Thoms
Hub of Democracy, Centre Court, Westfield Hurstville
Lara Thoms (see RT Studio) has been hanging out in the mall in Hurstville for the last few months, asking local youth about their favourite things—which colour, word, time, music? After the votes have been counted Thoms will create a series of celebratory monuments, some physical, some performative, in and around the Westfield complex.
MCA/C3West: Ultimate vision, Monuments to us, Lara Thoms, Westfield Hurstville, April 5-10, http://www.mca.com.au
Brian Fuata (Wrong Solo), Reverse Lecture 2012
courtesy & © the artist, photo Catherine McElhone
Brian Fuata (Wrong Solo), Reverse Lecture 2012
Also at the MCA is Workout. Over one week seven artists will be given a day to create a performance exploring “workout as both a strenuous exercise routine and a test of performance capability” as well as the ”creative act of ‘working out ideas’” (press release). Featuring David Capra, Domenico de Clario, Brian Fuata, Sarah Goffman, Agatha Gothe-Snape with Susan Gibb, The Motel Sisters (Liam Benson and Naomi Oliver) and Jodie Whalen.
Workout, curator Anna Davis, Museum of Contemporary Art, April 22-28; http://www.mca.com.au
wang gongxin, maap space
Wang Gongxing, Basic Colour (2010)
courtesy MAAP and the artist
Wang Gongxing, Basic Colour (2010)
Have you noticed a lot of pigment hurling in advertisements and video clips of late (eg Pink’s “Try”)? As usual mainstream media merchants are sucking out ideas from contemporary art. The use of pigment is most notable in the works of Anish Kapoor (showing at the MCA until recently) but also in Chinese video art pioneer Wang Gongxin’s five-channel video piece Basic Colour (2010). “[T]he slow accumulation of coloured pigment on each image is a kind of performance-based painting” (press release). This work is showing at MAAP Space along with Maybe Have Wind which explores manipulations of time and speed in the video format.
Wang Gongxin, MAAP Space, Brisbane, til April 26; http://www.maap.org.au/
the big picture, stills gallery
Penelope Umbrico, 541795 Suns from Sunsets from Flickr (Partial) 1/26/06, (2006-ongoing), detail of 2000 4″ x 6″ machine c-prints
Next up at Stills Gallery is an exhibition that asks “If a picture speaks a thousand words, what can a thousand pictures reveal?” (press release). The Big Picture will feature, photographic, video and installation work by Daniel Connell, Drew Flaherty, Gemma Messih, Patrick Pound, Penelope Umbrico (USA) and Tim Webster exploring how the plethora of visual imagery that is now being generated and consumed is affecting our sense of the sublime.
The Big Picture, Stills Gallery, Sydney, April 17-May 18; http://www.stillsgallery.com.au/
big game hunting, fiona hall, heide
Fiona Hall: (l-r) Cervus elaphus/red deer Europe, North America 2012, IUCN threat status: least concern; Pan troglodytes/chimpanzee, Equatorial Africa 2012, IUCN threat status: Ailuropoda melanoleuca/giant panda, China 2012, IUCN threat status: critical
All images courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Fiona Hall: (l-r) Cervus elaphus/red deer Europe, North America 2012, IUCN threat status: least concern; Pan troglodytes/chimpanzee, Equatorial Africa 2012, IUCN threat status: Ailuropoda melanoleuca/giant panda, China 2012, IUCN threat status: critical
Also looking at big ideas is Fiona Hall’s exhibition at Heide in regional Victoria. The centrepiece is Hall’s recent work for Documenta (13), Fall Prey, in which she uses military camouflage material and found objects to create curious hunting trophies of endangered animals.
Big Game Hunting, Fiona Hall, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Vic, till July 21; http://www.heide.com.au
the agony the ecstasy and i
The Agony and the ecstasy and i
image Ivan Shaw and Simon Runkel
The Agony and the ecstasy and i
In this post-postmodern world all works of art talk to and about each other and this is clearly the case in dancer Tarryn Runkel and actor Lauren Hopwood’s The Agony, the ecstasy and i, a work that engages with the issues raised by Mike Daisey’s similarly titled solo show about Steve Jobs in which his representation of fiction and reality became a bit too blurry for some.
The Agony, the ecstasy and i, director Cara Philips, The Blue Room, Perth, April 16-May 4, http://blueroom.org.au/seasons/seasonone2013/
oi you!, urban art festival adelaide street art festival
While Melbourne is synonomous with ‘street art’ each of Australia’s capitals has its fair share and Adelaide is set to celebrate its own urban expression. Hopefully the irony is not lost that the major street art exhibition will take place in the Adelaide’s centre of all things cultural, the Festival Centre and will feature major works from internationals including 22 pieces from the king of urban art Banksy. (It’s a touring exhibition organised by a New Zealand group http://streetart.co.nz/.) There’s also a range of activities highlighting local work such as city tours and a ‘scrawl wall’ for locals to try their hand.
Oi You!, Urban Art Festival, April 20-June 2, Artspace Gallery Adelaide Festival Centre and Adelaide Streets; https://www.facebook.com/OiYouStreetArt
the past is a foreign country, the paper cut collective and trantrum
Emily Daly, The Past is Foreign Country, Paper Cut Collective
photo Justine Potter
Emily Daly, The Past is Foreign Country, Paper Cut Collective
Paper Cut Collective is a new performance collective in Newcastle NSW. With the help of local theatre for young people Tantrum, they will be presenting their first show, The Past is a Foreign Country. It’s in the verbatim theatre mode and explores how retelling the past inevitably reshapes it.
The Past is a Foreign Country, Paper Cut Collective & Tantrum, Civic Theatre, Newcastle, April 10-13; http://www.tantrumtheatre.org.au/season-2013/the-past/
still in the loop
The Good Room, I should have drunk more champagne
The Basement, Metro Arts, Brisbane, March 27- April 13
www.metroarts.com.au/
Drawn from Sound, curator Cat Hope
Spectrum Project Space, Edith Cowan University, Perth, March 28-April 12
http://www.drawnfromsound.com/
Made in China, Australia
McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery, Langwarrin, VIC, (a Salamanca Arts Centre & CAST Touring exhibition), March 17 – June 9
http://www.mcclellandgallery.com
RealTime issue #113 Feb-March 2013 pg. web
