1. Dan Graham and Atelier Bow-Wow’s powers combined!

Seeing these two (well three really) people work together on their tour of Sydney is one of those moments that only a Biennale could create. More

Tracey Moffat’s collaboration with Gary Hillberg, REVOLUTION, 2008 made for this Biennale is one of the most engaging works at the MCA. Although León Ferrari’s, La civilización occidental y cristiana / Western Christian Civilization, 1965 (Jesus nailed to a airplane cross) and Maurizio Cattelan’s, Novecento,1997 (stuffed dead horse) * have both received a lot the media attention, however it was works like Moffat’s and Hillberg’s which really stood out. *Brackets my addition More

“If This Fall into they Hand, Revolve”!

Now I trust a few of my smarter readers have recognised the quote above straight away. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, of course, one of the greatest comedies ever written. And the recipient of that instruction is the overwheening Malvolio; he’s reading a letter purporting to come from his boss, Olivia – in fact it’s from his enemy Maria.

In most productions of the play, poor old Malvolio turns round at that point – as you would! But, just last week on the Phillip Adams program (ABC Radio National), I learnt to my joy that the old Bard didn’t have anything as mundane as circular movement in mind at all. He understood ‘revolve’ to mean “Think about it real hard”!!! More

A couple of weeks ago (14th-16th of August) I attended the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair as well as the 2008 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. The weather in Darwin was rather warm (34 degrees celsius every day) which made a nice change from the particularly cold Sydney weather that we have been plagued with of late. For those of you not familiar with the Telstra Awards, the award was established in 1984 to recognise the important contribution that Indigenous artists make to the visual arts in Australia. According to the awards website ” The Award attracts a range of Indigenous artists from all parts of the country and about 100 works are selected each year from around 300 entries. The diversity and style of work submitted each year reflects the changing face of contemporary Aboriginal art practice”

In total there five different prizes given in four different categories. The prizes are:

* Overall Award - $40,000 prize
* the Telstra General Painting Award - $4000 prize
* the Telstra Bark Painting Award- $4000 prize
* the Telstra Work on Paper Award- $4000 prize
* the Wandjuk Marika 3D Memorial Award (sponsored by Telstra)- $4000 prize

You can see a list of the winners here:
http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/museums/exhibitions/natsiaa/25/pdf/room_brochure.pdf

What does the Telstra Aboriginal Art Awards have to do with the Biennale I hear you ask, well, the winner of the general painting award was Doreen Reid Nakamarra (see bio details here) who happens to be one of the artists who created a work for the biennale. The work that won the $4,000 Telstra General Painting Award (image 1) is an untitled work that depicts designs associated with the rockhole site of Marrapinti, west of the Pollock Hills in Western Australia. “The lines in the painting depict the creek at the site and the sandhills that surround it. In ancestral times, a group of women of the Nangala and Napangati kinship subsections camped at this site during their travels towards the east. While at the site the women made nose bones, also known as marrapinti, which are worn through a hole made in the nose web. During ceremonies relating to Marrapinti, the older women pierced the nasal septums of the younger women who were participating in the ceremony. Nose bones were originally used by both men and women but are now only inserted by the older generation on ceremonial occasions. Upon completion of the ceremonies at Marrapinti, the women continued their travels east passing through Wala Wala, Ngaminya and Wirrulnga, before heading north-east to Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay)”. (description from Papunya Tula Artists)

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During an early morning floor talk on Saturday, 2 August, Dr Dougal Phillips offered a small crowed of Biennale goers a little insight to the mind and works of the Italian Futurist composer, Luigi Russolo. Dr Phillips was to be accompanied by sound artist, Alex Davies but he was unavailable to attend on the day. In his absence however, the talk generated a discussion about early twentieth century modernism’s foresight into the sound scape of our contemporary era.

Russolo was born in 1885 in Portogruaro, Veneto, Italy. Russolo’s father was director of the Schola Cantorum in Latisana and organist at their local cathedral. After moving to Milan at the age of sixteen, Russolo attended Accademia di Brera (the Academy of Fine Arts, Brera) where he studied drawing and painting. In his early works, Russolo employed a divisionalist, almost pointillist technique to depict the increasingly industrial landscape developing in Italian cities at the time. More