australian rozie

As a fan of all things Warhol, I Bought Andy Warhol by Richard Polsky was on my reading wishlist. Luckily I picked it up at Ariel for only $8 (a hard cover even). I know I said I wasn’t going to buy books anymore, only borrow them from the library (btw speaking of library books… oh that’s another story) but it was cheap and it wasn’t available at the library. The author is an art dealer (since the 80s) and his goal is to buy an Andy Warhol artwork (under $100,000). The book also covers how the world of art dealers and art auctions worked in the 80s and 90s. His style goes from condescending to self deprecating, sometimes he sounded like a ‘wannabe” and others times a big snob. I was interested in the many references to Andy Warhol of course, but also the Californian art scene (which I had just recently learned a lot about after watching The Cool School). He also referred to work by Joseph Cornell whose work I only discovered when I went to SF MOMA last year. Overall it was an interesting story, but his writing style kind of annoyed me.

Kota Ezawa’s The Simpson Verdict

Originally uploaded by Australian Rozie

During my “spare time” over the last two weeks, I’ve been to see a few exhibitions in Sydney. Here are some highlights:

Southern Exposure Works from the Collection of the San Diego MCA, 21 March - 1 June 2008.
Take a walk through the past four decades of contemporary art from America’s West Coast, with a new exhibition showcasing works from the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
Jeremy Blake - Winchester Mystery House. I like how seeing an artwork leads me to find out about things I never knew about (random trivia?) such as the Winchester Mystery House.
Bill Viola - Eternal Return 2000 & Heaven and Earth 1992. Most of the Bill Viola stuff I have seen is very BIG & LOUD! These two works at the MCA were a bit different. One had two monitors facing each other with footage of his dying mother on one and his new born child on the other. It was a bit eerie looking at the poor old woman in such a state.
Jump by T. Kelly Mason and Diana Thater’s structuralist 16mm game involving jump-roping and a Bob Dylan song (Subterranean Homesick Blues). There were 4 different performances of the song in different styles such as folk and polka.
also at the MCA
Fiona Hall: Force Field 6 March - 1 June 2008.
This exhibition presents an in-depth survey of the work of Australian artist Fiona Hall from the 1970s to the present.

World Press Photo 08
This exhibition features the award-winning photographs from the 51st annual World Press Photo contest.
There were amazing images from war torn and poverty stricken countries as well as emotive portraits. One series I found striking was by Oliver Gulmann in the Comtemporary Issues section. It simply had photos of people watching TV, they were from varied places such as China, Morocco, USA, UK, Africa. What striked me was their expressions - zoned out, mesmerised and bored. It made me think about how mind numbing watching too much tv is!
I also liked the series by Travis Dove on images of Skatopia.

For a complete change the next exhibition I went to was Taisho Chic at AGNSW.
This exhibition explores the impact of the simultaneous clash and embrace of modernity and tradition on arts and design in Japan of the Greater Taisho period (1900–1930). 22 May - 3 August 2008. I really loved the artworks presented here, the modern meets tradition Japanese screens, prints and objects. I really liked the kimonos with modern patterns and I love art deco era hairstyles on Asian ladies.

You may have noticed my recent entries have been quite negative and critical, so I thought I’d write about some other stuff going on.
I am making my first ever zine called “Australian Rozie” (funny that)! I’ll be selling them at the MCA Zine Fair on Sunday 25 May 2008. I’ll be sharing a table with Aliza from work and Becky Jo & co. I’ve always wanted to make a zine, I used to pick them up when I was in high school and recently there has been a resurgence of zine making amongst people I know. So it’s a bit of a “perzine” - a personal zine where I’ll write about stuff I’m into and give worldly advice. Just like this blog I guess. The fun part is I get to design it myself, which is a change from work where I never get to chose my own layout, fonts or colours, there’s either a corporate style guide to follow or some art director tells me what to do. My zine will be all ME ME ME!
Who knows if anyone will buy one, I don’t even know how much to sell it for. Hope to see some of you guys at the Zine Fair - it’s part of Sydney’s Writer’s Festival too.

The older I get, the more I really think about Anzac Day and why we get a day off. Imagine if every guy you knew between the age of 18 to 50 was sent overseas to fight in a war against a far away enemy and some of them never came back. Kids today… they don’t know what it would be like. Anyway, I thank the people that gave their lives, so my family could come to Australia over 50 years ago (that’s a long story, I’ll tell you another day) and live happily ever after (sort of).
So I didn’t do much this weekend:
Baked some Anzac biscuits
Watched the Anzac Day parade on TV
Catch up with old uni mates
Yum Cha for Nadia’s B’day
Driving Lesson
Made a roast
Bill Viola: the Tristan project @ St. Saviour’s Church, Redfern
Watched Fargo
Laundry x 3 loads
Lunch with Thommy
Practiced parallel parking
Update my flickr pics

Alex Trochut

Originally uploaded by Australian Rozie

I always find creative conferences really interesting and inspiring. I don’t go to every one that comes around due to either the cost or not being able to get time off work to attend. Anyway, I managed to get a freebie to Semi Permanent 2008 from work because one of the “creatives” decided not to attend. It was actually a 2 day pass, but I could only go on the Saturday.
I’m not going to talk about the speaker’s work too much as you can just go to their sites and check it out. I’m more into blogging about my thoughts on their actual presentations on the day. Each talk went for an hour (and for some that was way too long).

Alex Trochut was the first presenter (and as it turned out - the best of the day). He started with some family history - his grandfather was a typographer too. It was so interesting to see the work of his grandfather and how it has influenced him. It was great to see the old school way to do type in the 1940s. “No undo!” as he said. Trochut then went on to show his own work (which was awesome) - really cool typography and illustration for some huge clients such as Nike, the Rolling Stones & British Airways. He demonstrated his methodologies & experiments and was very personable. I liked him a lot.

Next up Australian artist Anthony Lister (now living in NYC, as you do).
When Lister approached the stage he was dragging along a guy in a Spiderman suit with his hands cuffed. Lister then shot him with a cap gun and Spiderman spent the rest of the talk lying on the stage. After that he started his “presentation”. I say “presentation” because he pretty much had nothing prepared. He was so relaxed that it seemed like we had just woken him up and it was a hassle for him to complete a sentence. He played a slideshow of photos of him and his mates pulling cones, falling off their skateboards and throwing up. My first impressions were… this guy is a nob! At this stage a lot of people started walking out. People started shouting questions at him and he’d say “oh ok, let’s talk about that”. Eventually he did show some of his work and talk about it but overall it was a piss poor effort - people had paid good money to attend this conference. The only redeeming factor was that he gave away some of his prints by throwing them into the audience at the end. At least they would be worth something.

Superfad were next. Superfad is a brand-driven design and live action production company. One of the principals/creative directors from their Seattle office spoke. Sorry can’t remember his name, the Semipermanent site had a typo with the wrong speaker name from the company. First impressions were that he didn’t “look like a designer”. Don’t want to sound mean but he was dressed “uncool“. He was a good presenter and was quite self deprecating. Some work was very corporate (for banks etc), some “cool” clients such as PS3 & MTV. He spoke about their process, methodology and the company culture. Work in progress, stuff they pitched but didn’t go ahead as well as finished ads were shown. He spoke about a brief for a car cleaning product that was pretty much, make sure it has hip hop, cars and hot chicks. I’m sure the boys in the audience were impressed. I thought the final ad to be completely ridiculous and sexist but whatever… sex sells.

Amy Sol, a Korean born artist based in Vegas was next. Her work is very beautiful. She does fantastical artwork on wood. I really appreciate her vivid imagination & whimsical subject matter (dreamy girls and weird animals out of context). Some of Amy Sol’s paintings take up to 80 hours to complete and she often doesn’t leave home for weeks on end! She showed photos of her studio workspace and how she makes her own paint from pigments. One colour palette is called “faded fruit punch”. Amy was very sweet and articulate but after a while, it got a bit boring just seeing more and more examples of her work. She too gave away some of her prints and the audience went crazy trying to get one.

The last speaker I saw was from the Swedish digital agency North Kingdom. The speaker was very, very hot but by this time of the day, the presentation had to be extremely compelling to keep me alert. He showed how their projects came into fruition. I liked how they chose to make an actual 3D model of an island and shoot it rather than just do it digitally. Some really nice web work here, but the speaker was a bit nervous and didn’t really capture my attention. There was one more presentation after this, Pixar but I was so tired and I’ve seen Toy Story, so I went home.

So overall it was an inspiring day, that kind of makes me feel depressed but optimistic. You know what I mean?

GOMA

Originally uploaded by Australian Rozie

What can I say? The Andy Warhol exhibition at GOMA was awesome. So much Andy, so little time. It was quite crowded when we arrived, but people were queuing out he door by the time we finished. Seeing so many works by my favorite artist was just fantastic. The art was well presented and covered all his genres and media. I didn’t get to sit down and watch the TV/Video stuff as you had to wait for the person before you with the individual headphones. Maybe a few more would have been good. I’ve seen some of the Andy TV stuff before but it’s always good to see it again. I really liked seeing the illustrations from his early commercial work up close. Also quite a few things I hadn’t seen before (in books) from the 70s and 80s. The photo booths where you get “Warhol-ed” were fun, but it would have been nice if you could email the image to yourself as a keepsake. The recreated Silver Cloud room was so cool, I think everyone enjoyed playing/observing the silver clouds. As always, his Time Capsules are fascinating (saw a whole lot in Melbourne a few years ago) - I liked the invitation to a “after-dinner-disco-dance” at Studio 54, hosted by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager! As you do… Anyway, I’m so happy i saw this show - it was fantastic (and thanks Dave for taking me to sunny Brisbane).

Well, I’m not into cars but I do love art. After an incredibly boring morning at work, I went for a walk to the MCA in my lunch break. In front of the MCA Cafe/Amex Hall were some sharply dressed BMW staff. It looked like some kind of private function which I wasn’t invited to. The nicely dressed lady asked me if I would like to see the BMW Art Cars exhibition, so I went in. As a lot of you know, I’ve been on a bit of an Andy Warhol bender recently. I only finished reading Death and Disaster: The Rise of the Warhol empire and the Race for Andy’s Millions this morning. So I wander past a Ken Done number, then lo and behold… there was an Andy Warhol car right in front of me!!! I was also very happy to see video footage of Andy actually painting on the car in 1979 as well. It never rains but it pours. ha ha. More info here but it’s a pretty ugly site.

Last night I went to the AGNSW for a celebrity talk at Art After Hours with J & J. Myf Warhurst was the “celebrity” speaker and she herself said that she didn’t feel like one, but I had more Myf than Paris this week. I hear her every morning on Triple J, then I saw her at the art gallery, then I went home and saw her on Spicks & Specks AND The Chaser. Anyway, I was wondering what wisdom she could impart on us about the An Incomplete World exhibition. Mostly she spoke about how music and art are related and her personal response to some of the artworks presented. She added funny anecdotes about her “arty/alternative” parents and growing up in country Victoria. I was excited to see this show because it had not one, but TWO Andy Warhols! You all know he is my most favourite artist. Seeing Warhol’s Joseph Beuys piece up close was great as I didn’t realise it had flocking (something you just don’t see in a reproduction). All the works are modern and I really enjoyed seeing all these great artworks up close. I also loved Andreas Gusky’s 99c store photograph - it’s HUGE, it CHEAP. Gursky holds the record for the highest price paid for a photograph by a living photographer for his work 99 Cent II Diptychon which sold for USD 3.3 million in 2007. Other artists include Roy Lichtenstein, Sarah Morris, Damien Hirst, Nobuyoshi Araki, Lucian Freud, Cindy Sherman and Australian Maria Kontis. Another good thing about this show is that it is free.

I went to the ACMP Trampoline screening & awards night at The Chauvel in Paddington. I’d never heard of ACMP, but my brother (who works for one of the sponsors) said there’d be free food & drinks, so I went along. Australian Commercial and Media Photographers (ACMP), was established in 1991, and acts as a united voice for Australian professional working photographers. Anyway, they had a competition for “emerging” photographers (students, assistants, photographers with less than 3 years experience). They presented the work of 15 finalists on the big screen. The work was quite diverse, from fashion shoots with mega retouching to photo-documentary to nature. It made me want to take more photos (unprofessionally). The 7 winners were given a nice Crumpler bag and a Sony digital camera, as well as a chance to participate in a Master Class at Saatchi & Saatchi. The host seemed to be a bit of a last minute ring-in, perhaps the order and pace of the event could have been better. But overall it was a pleasant evening with some inspiring work to think about.

Today I went to see The Frick Collection 1 East 70th Street New York, NY 10021. Ok I didn’t actually go to NYC, I saw it online. It’s very comprehensive and very detailed with your good ol virtual tours etc. The Frick Collection includes some of the best-known paintings by the greatest European artists, major works of sculpture (among them one of the finest groups of small bronzes in the world), superb eighteenth-century French furniture and porcelains, Limoges enamels, Oriental rugs, and other works of remarkable quality. Go on take a trip to see some art