At the end of a long nutty week I went to see the Ricky Swallow exhibition, The Bricoleur at the National Gallery of Victoria.
It was like a little gift I hardly knew I needed.
If I was a millionaire I would buy both of these
History of Holding 2007
One Nation Underground 2007
images via http://www.rickyswallow.com
DEAD LOVERS TWISTED HEART
An exhibition of drawings by Daniel Johnston
Pretty Rad… And he even busted out a few tunes at the opening accompanied by British music journalism legend Everett True!
If you’re in Sydney go take a look…. it’s on until Feb 13th
One of my favourite pieces on display at the MOMA in NYC, at the entrance of the special exhibition In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960–1976 is a still from Bas Jan Ader’s I’m Too Sad To Tell You (1971). Jan Ader worked in conceptual arts many facets including film, installation, performance and photography. Much of his work played on suspension, emotion, irony and illusion. It is haunting and mesmerising.
Jan Ader’s final work of art was his own disappearance in 1975, when he embarked on what he called “a very long sailing trip.” It was part of a triptych, ‘In Search of the Miraculous’, and was his attempt to cross the Atlantic in a 12.5ft sailboat. Six months after his departure the boat was found half submerged off the coast of Ireland. His greatest act of suspension and, ultimately, commentary on the fragility of life.
In January 2010 Bas Jan Ader: Suspended Between Laughter and Tears will open at The Claremont Museum of Art in California.
Rene Daalder’s film Here Is Always Somewhere Else about the life and work of Bas Jan Ader was released last year. Watch the trailer here.
Spotted having lunch at the Colonial Cafe in downtown NYC, street skateboarding legend and artist, Mark ‘Gonzo’ Gonzales.
He has been making art almost as long as he’s been skating… pen drawings and watercolours. His most recent show, ‘South West’, at the Half Gallery was inspired by South Western-style rugs and Navajo patterns. Gonzales also takes photographs, writes poetry, designs clothing and makes ‘zines. He appeared in Harmony Korine’s film, Gummo and recently directed the video for Coconut Records’ Any Fun featuring a skateboarding Chloe Sevigny… He’s an all-round cool character.
vianatalieinnyc
Louis Vuitton partnered with artist Camille Scherrer to present the new Louis Vuitton : Art. Fashion and Architecture book.
MAD FOR MURAKAMI
When I was in Hong Kong in May for the opening of Louis Vuitton’s A Passion for Creation exhibition at the HK Museum of Art, I got to meet the lovely Mr Takashi Murakami - contemporary art’s cutest contributor and Louis Vuitton’s ongoing collaborator. We sat down in his pop-tastic corner of the exhibition and talked about his menacingly smiley vision of the world. Here’s what he had to say…
He’s oh so high tech. His computer is his paintbrush and, like Warhol before him, has a whole factory at work on his pieces. “Anytime I’m using my factory’s creative process, I cannot say ‘my’ piece, I can say ‘our’ piece. Everything in my studio is a collaboration with many people. It’s a general business. I employ 120 people. We make animation work now and also live action film, which will be released next year.”
There was no beating around the bush when it came to working with Vuitton. “It was a very fast collaboration. Marc emailed me and asked if I was interested in working with Louis Vuitton and my answer was ‘yes’ and the next day I flew to Paris and we talked for 30 minutes, that’s it. And in this short communication I had to find out what is the question to answer? So that challenge was a very, very ambitious project. We have a very good timing. It’s kind of like a marriage, you fall in love…
The collaboration with Louis Vuitton in turn inspired his own art. “When I started my travelling show, Copycat Murakami, I asked Marc if we could make a collaboration with the product because I love camouflage and I asked if I could produce my camouflage with the Louis Vuitton Monogram and he immediately said yes. So for example, the canvas, everything, came from Louis Vuitton and we just stretched it onto a frame. I believe this is truly my art piece. It comes from Marcel Duchamp’s Ready Made, this is a Ready Made bag to me, from the bag to the [art] product, it’s a really strange cycle. Some people say this is not art, but I believe myself this is my true art. Everything I believe has the same value. Before, I had never worked with fashion, but after the collaboration with Marc and Louis Vuitton it forced me to communicate with what is fashion and art and what’s inside the Tokyo fashion culture?”
His disposition is not as sunny as it first appears. “All the time, I’m very angry about everything, like ‘oh my god, the room service is so late’ like ‘I want to take a nap’ but this is my personality. When I was a kid in junior high school, I wondered why I was so upset all the time. This is my problem, maybe. I believe I chose the profession of an artist because I couldn’t interact with other people. Hopelessness is my main theme. You know, smiling face, but at the same time, double faced…”
He believes the recession will be good for the art world. “When I debuted, no one cared. But because no one cared, it was a good art piece, I think? It wasn’t linked with money, it was just a concept and just a communication through the work, that it true art. Now it is a business too also, so that is really sad. But after the crash we can come back to honest opinion and an honest way to make an art piece. So in two, three years maybe everyone can see the really good art pieces. The very young artists that no one knows will come up, so it’s really good timing.”
But he also believes in the business of art – his factory churns out everything from million dollar pieces to cheap toys and mementos you can buy online. “ I learn a lot from Hiyoku, the Japanese print stuff was very cheap price and low level value when [it was] created 300 years ago, and now it’s an art piece. So anything has the possibility in the future to be a treasure. That’s why each piece can’t be divided into the level in which it was created. When I make each piece, for example the postcard and a painting, there’s the same attention. Sometimes my young assistants wonder ‘why Takashi, this is a postcard’? Yes but it has the possibility in the future to be a treasure also, this is my concept.”
