Biennale of Sydney #1: Black and white and red all over

The Biennale has opened to mixed acclaim.

"Boring as batshit"... "Rich, intense, mysterious"... "Dry and political"... "Confronting and provocative"... "Very monochrome" "Fun, fun, fun'... "Pretentious rubbish"... these are just some of the comments noted by LF at the vernissage and opening events, which seems to indicate that director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (CCB) must be doing something right.

It's too early for a comprehensive review of the work, but LF's initial impression is of a Biennale that is overwhelmingly European in its influences, despite the presence of many artists from all over the world. This is understandable given CCB's pedigree as a curator of 20th century conceptual art, especially the (initially Italian) Arte Povera movement, having written and edited the impressive Phaidon publication of that name.

The concept of Revolutions, although obviously operating on many levels, appears to be most firmly rooted in a fascination with the Russian-French-Italian-American 20th century intellectual left, and the social and artistic convulsions resulting from their brave new ways of thinking about the world. This is not a negative by the way. It's probably about time we had a rigorous and comprehensive survey of the ways in which these influences still permeate every aspect of western, and much non-western, contemporary art. This may be the most thorough survey of these influences since René Block's much-admired 'The Readymade Boomerang - Certain Relations in 20th Century Art' Biennale 0f 1990, nearly 20 years ago.

The admirable and very clever 'Online venue' (http://www.bos2008.com/revolutionsonline/) and catalogue seem to echo this idea - following of threads of influence, expressed via doodled scribbles and arrows, allowing one to explore linkages and correspondences across cultures and eras, in an open-ended way. A great piece of web design.

The catalogue also deserves a special mention - not least for having the courage to stick with monochrome throughout, featuring only drawings, many of them rough conceptual scribbles, from the participating artists. The difficulties of compiling these catalogues so far in advance is that much of the work is yet to be created or is site-specific, so too often we end up with a brochure of 'best-known-pieces' - one page per artist, without any context apart from some formidable up-front essays. CCB has stuck with the page (or 2) per artist, but created a rich textual accompaniment, with key writings by influential (mainly European mid 20th century, with a couple of Americans thrown in) 'revolutionary' thinkers. Marx, Lenin, Fanon, Debord, Benjamin, Breton, Lacan, Derrida... everyone's there. Once again this is not a negative, but reinforces the earlier comment about the European intellectual left underpinning of the Biennale's theme.

The inclusion of Australian (eg Taussig, Richard Bell) and American (eg Hoffmann, Torres-Garcia) writers, and of such diverse Australian contemporary artists as Shaun Gladwell, Tim (TV) Moore, Destiny Deacon and Mike Parr, plus artists from Asia, Latin America and Africa, does not really mitigate this impression, but rather enhances the perception that the art world globally has yet to emerge from the intellectual paradigm that began with, well... Duchamp. 'Le Mâitre' had to come up sooner or later. It's almost a banality these days to trace the demise of 'retinal' art to Marcel Duchamp, but it's nevertheless true. Probably. Maybe.

So... we have that upside-down bicycle wheel again, reminding us of the Biennale's theme, and signalling the birth of conceptual art. OK... got that. Spirals and rotating devices abound, especially at AGNSW. On entry, Michael Rakowitz's impressive 'White Man Got No Dreaming', a homage to Vladimir Tatlin's famous tower (of Babel) references, among other things, the impending 'redevelopment' of Redfern's Aboriginal neighbourhood. Bruce Nauman's neon sculpture of 1967 (made before everyone was doing them) 'The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths' (shown above) is backed by Ross Gibson's 'conversation' booth. A study by the late, great Robert Smithson for his 'Spiral Jetty' nestles unobtrusively along the way, and it's good to see recreations of some of Len Lye's bizarre constructions, nicely juxtaposed with Jean Tinguely's infernal machines and Rebecca Horn's "Cutting through the past'. There are some pleasing in-jokes for those who know their 20th century art history.

Cocakatoo Island is the most interesting venue, and fabulously atmospheric - get there or be square - the ferries are free and frequent from Wharf 2/3 Walsh Bay. The artists party in the Turbine Hall (lit revolutionary red) on Wednesday night was quite a blast, and well-conceived as an event, although many artists expressed disappointment that the art was off limits for the night.

More to come, but in the meantime some impressions of opening events, photos ©Team Flaneur.

Australia/Japan - Bill Viola: the Shock of the Blue

Although the powerful St Saviours video installation was on for a brief time only, there is still time to catch 'The Fall Into Paradise' at AGNSW. LF has taken to visiting this extraordinary short work whenever at the AGNSW (which has been often of late), purely for the exhilarating shock when the two bodies hit the water. We urge you to go see this if you haven't done so, preferably in an altered state. Grouped under the title 'The Tristan Project', these videos form part of the spectacle that Viola helped create for Peter Sellars' production of Wagner's 'Tristan ad Isolde' for the Opéra National de Paris, which continues to tour the world, and premieres in Japan soon.

SYDNEY
Bill Viola: The Tristan Project: 'The Fall Into Paradise', 2005
Level 2 Contemporary Projects Space
until 27 July 2008

Bill Viola: The Tristan Project: 'Fire Woman' and 'Tristan’s Ascension' (The Sound of a Mountain Under a Waterfall), 2005
St Saviour's Church, Redfern
9 April - 17 May 2008

JAPAN
Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner, Opéra National de Paris.
Conductor: Esa Pekka Salonen, Director: Peter Sellars, Video: Bill Viola
Premiere: July 20, 2008, 3:00pm, Hyogo Performing Arts Center
July 27, 31 2008: Bunkamura Orchard Hall

Left above© Bill Viola: still from 'The Fall Into Paradise' 2005. Video/sound installation. Photo: Kira Perov
Left below© Bill Viola: still from 'Fire Woman' 2005. Video/sound installation. Photo: Kira Perov

Sydney: Bill Henson re-opens

Bill Henson 2008
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery
until 21 June
Viewing by appointment

Above left: © Bill Henson, 'Untitled #17', 2007/08
type C photographs, 127 × 180cm, analogue prints
Courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery

LF joined the happy throng at RO9G's Biennale welcome drinks, and was able to view this rather subtle exhibition as the artist intended it to be seen, the 'confiscated' works now restored, with a PG rating. As often in past shows, figure studies are juxtaposed with shadowy landscapes and sombre interiors to create Henson's familiar dark poetics. No huge change is visible in this show, although some observers have commented that some of the figure studies are more 'descriptive' or 'literal' than in the past. There is no apparent "despoliation and abuse" (to quote an earlier comment by Edmund Capon - see full context below), and these solo studies of a young girl and boy, sometimes in extreme close-up, exhibit an almost tender innocence, a sense of the privacy and shyness of adolescence.

Odd then, that these relatively innocent images are the ones to have created such a furore. In the meantime, one of the much more confronting large diptyches from 1995/6 has remained hanging as part of the AGNSW's rotating modern art collection, see below. LF has noted apparently incurious families with toddlers viewing this without evident ill effect.

© Bill Henson, Untitled 1995/961995-1996
diptych: 2 type C photographs, adhesive tape, pins, glassine
Purchased 1996
Courtesy the artist and RAGNSW

In a 2002 documentary on Henson's work aired on ABC-TV (and recently re-screened) Edmund Capon, the director of the NSW Art Gallery, has said of this series "There are images that are close to despoliation and abuse, but they're sort of orchestrated with this wonderful sensual baroque exoticism at the same time."

In 2005, when a major retrospective of Henson opened at AGNSW, Ben Cubby (Images that stir the mind, SMH, January 7, 2005) wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Henson is nonplussed by the idea that his work is morally murky. "For me, perhaps you have a tenderness and fragility, but at the same time you have a sense of violence or threat or violation. You have all of these seemingly opposing forces. That creates a certain ambiguity, which can be unsettling ... Many times in the past people have said to me that their mind is being pulled in one direction and their heart somewhere else. Which I think is great because, if nothing else, it takes them on a journey."

Some other memorable quotes from recent times:

"Whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff - frankly I don't think there are any - just allow kids to be kids."
- Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, May 2008

"Henson's images are veritable symphonies of decadence and beauty, of squalor and opulence, of mysterious darkness and ominous light, of quiet obsession and subversive ecstasy."
- Edmund Capon, Director, Art Gallery of NSW, May 2008

"You can call it anything you want, but at the end of the day, these are images of naked adolescents."
- Hetty Johnston, Bravehearts, May 2008

"In the end it's only a representation. We're not being asked to agree or approve."
- Judy Annear, Senior Curator, Art Gallery of NSW, May 2008

"Henson's art is worth defending, because he is a great artist and his themes - solitude; intimacy; transitional, incommunicable states; desecration; what the critic Dennis Cooper called "moments of intense self-mourning", and so on - are addressed with profound sensitivity and understanding. They have found expression over the years not only in images of the faces and bodies of teenagers and young adults, but in a whole array of other imagery, including landscapes, still lifes and urban crowds. Of course, there is a kind of artist (one sees more and more of them these days) who finds a taboo and breaks it, hoping thereby to create a sensation. Henson is not that kind of artist. He is well aware that his work has the potential to stir up controversy. (He has sensible and sensitive things to say about this, but he is acutely aware that one cannot ultimately control the reception of one's images.) But his vision is authentic and original. And it is highly sensitive to emotional ambiguity, as great art should be (and politics never is)."
- Sebastian Smee, The Australian, May 28, 2008

The Classification Board, under its new chief, former ABC head Donald McDonald, is far less troubled by Henson's work. Earlier this week it cleared five images - four of them had been partly censored - and it has now given the young girl on the invitation a rating of PG.
The board's guidelines state: "Material classified PG may contain material which some children find confusing or upsetting, and may require the guidance of parents or guardians. It is not recommended for viewing or playing by persons under 15 without guidance from parents or guardians."
The picture came to the board for classification when it was found in a blog discussing pornography and the sexualisation of children. The classifiers found the "image of breast nudity … creates a viewing impact that is mild and justified by context … and is not sexualised to any degree".
While a minority of the board thought the impact of the picture was "moderate", none of the classifiers called for any restriction on its display.
– David Marr, Sydney Morning herald, June 6, 2008

We leave it to you, the jury.

Sydney: SafARI 2008 kicks off at MOP

SafARI exhibits the work of emerging, unrepresented Australian artists across multiple Artist-Run Initiative (ARI) venues in Sydney during the crucial opening weeks of the Biennale of Sydney (BoS)

SafARI Opening Night
6.00pm to 9.00pm Friday 13 June 2008
MOP Projects, 2/39 Abercrombie Street, Chippendale, Sydney, NSW, 2008
Join us to celebrate the opening of SafARI 2008 at MOP Projects.

SafARI Public Forum with special guest speaker Barbara Flynn
3.00pm, Sunday 22 June 2008
Gaffa Gallery, 1/7 Randle Street, Surry Hills, Sydney, NSW 2010

Don't miss this opportunity to gain insight into collecting emerging art from one of Australia's most well regarded art advisors, Barbara Flynn. A valuable forum for both artists and collectors, Flynn brings perspective to this topic developed through more than 30 years of involvement with contemporary art. Flynn has formed collections for the major Australian corporations and art collectors over the last ten years in Australia. Her first jobs were in museums in Germany and she operated her own galleries for emerging artists from 1980 to 1994 in New York.

SafARI Artist Talks and ARI Tour
2.00pm sharp, Saturday 28 June 2008
Meeting at MOP Projects, 2/39 Abercrombie Street, Chippendale, NSW 2008

Meet most of the SafARI 2008 artists while on a SafARI tour with
curator Lisa Corsi.

Please note that access to Gaffa is via stairs.

SafARI Closing Party
6:00pm, Saturday 28 June 2008 (following artist talks and ARI tour.)
China Heights, Level 3, 16-28 Foster Street, Surry Hills,
Sydney, NSW 2010

More info: http://www.safari.org.au

Sydney: Elcho Island's Chooky Dancers

LEft: Chooky Dancers and a new friend at the AGNSW.
Photo © Le Flaneur

A cut-down touring group performed at AGNSW on Saturday 14 June, to an enthusiastic audience of all ages. They later went to the Sydney Swans vs St Kilda match at the SCG, and were taken 'backstage' to meet the Swans players, a very different kind of crowd.

Go you good things...





Below: Zorba the Greek Yolngu Style: The Choooky dancers from Galiwin'ku on Elcho Island performing their interpretation of Zorba the Greek at the Ramingining Music Festival on the 30th September 2007 in Arnhemland, NT, Australia

Mexican Visions: Denise De La Rue at Gagosian Los Angeles

Matador
Denise De La Rue
Gagosian Gallery
456 North Camden Drive
Beverly Hills, CA
Jun 14 - 21, 2008

Left: © Denise De La Rue
'Ignacio Garibay, Mexico City, Mexico', 2006
Analog print on color glossy paper, 48-3/8 x 35-3/8 inches (123 x 90 cm), Ed. of 3
Courtesy the artist and Gagosian Gallery

Mexican photographer Denise De La Rue's debut exhibition at Gagosian LA will be interesting.

From the press release:
"De La Rue's Matador series offers a glimpse into the complex social and moral implications of modern bullfighting, a cultural cornerstone of the Hispanic world. She portrays the mythic bullfighters of Mexico and Spain immediately after the fight, often bloodied. Her large- scale photographs dissect the constructed façade of the fight to provoke new perceptions of familiar images.

Removed from the immediacy of the ring, De La Rue places the matadors in settings that are reminiscent of Baroque portrait painting. Museums and mirrored dressing rooms draped with tapestries are backdrops depicting religious scenes. De La Rue uses her primarily male subjects to examine the accepted tenets of the bullfighting culture and to expose the dualities embedded in this historic tradition. She explores the dual identity of these heroes of the past, part ballet dancer - beautiful in their ornate dress and elegant dance in the ring; part warrior - locked in mortal combat with the toro bravo. At the same time, she asks viewers to consider both the lionization of the fighters in Hispanic cultures and the pervasive disapproval of the sport by the rest of the world. Matador expands on her previous series profiling Mexican wrestlers and continues her exploration of the many identities and personas that shape our world.

Denise De La Rue was born in Mexico City in 1972. She is a graduate of Art History from the Centro de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City and studied at the Escuela Activa de Fotografía, Mexico City, and the Academia delle Belle Arti in Florence, Italy. She was also a participant in the group show "Mextilo", at the Centro Nacional de las Artes in 2005. She lives and works in Mexico City.

An artist's book, MATADOR, accompanies the exhibition."

London: Jake & Dinos Chapman channel Adolf Hitler at White Cube

If Hitler Had Been a Hippy How Happy Would We Be
and Fucking Hell
30 May—12 Jul 2008
White Cube
Mason's Yard, London SW1

Left: Jake and Dinos Chapman with their re-created 'Fucking Hell' installation
Photograph: Joel Ryan/PA
Courtesy the artists and The Guardian, UK

Mark Brown wrote in The Guardian ( May 30, 2008):

Five years ago the artists Jake and Dinos Chapman were labelled vandals for defacing a set of Goya prints. There may be less fuss over their new target: 13 watercolours of dubious quality by a man who never made it to art school despite his best endeavours. Adolf Hitler. Yesterday the brothers revealed new works including the amateurish Hitler paintings, on which they have painted rainbow skies, smiley faces and colourful stars and flowers.

The artists take delight in what the tyrant's reaction might have been. "If hell exists and Hitler is there, I think he is turning in his grave," said Jake. The brothers spent £115,000 on a "job lot" of pretty dire paintings by Hitler. They said that they were exploring themes of redemption and had made Hitler's art "better by it being worse".

The Hitler watercolours are the sort of works that can be seen in junkshops the world over, say the brothers, describing them as impoverished and benign.

"They are absolutely archetypal of the miserable representation of art that was going on then," said Dinos. Too much time could be spent looking at the art to try to read the mind of the man Hitler became, they say. "All they indicate is that this person is not very good at art, they don't indicate this person will become a terrible tyrant," said Jake. The last time the brothers had a go at someone else's art was in 2003. In Insult to Injury, they took a collection of 80 Goya prints and drew puppy and clown heads on the faces. It offended some and delighted others.

The brothers - once called "the cleverest of the Young British Artists" by the critic Matthew Collings - also marked the fourth anniversary of the loss of one of their most celebrated pieces of work, 'Hell', destroyed in the 2004 Momart warehouse fire in east London, by revealing its successor. This time it is entitled 'Fucking Hell' - also on show at the White Cube gallery in central London - is nine glass cabinets arranged in a swastika formation with tens of thousands of miniature figures enduring awfulness on a grand scale. The original installation was lost in the east London fire which destroyed much of Charles Saatchi's stored art collection four years ago.

"You couldn't fail to see something funny about Hell being on fire," said Jake. Their first thought was: let's do it again. Jake said: "We wanted to rescue the work from the sentimentality that soon clothed the work after it burned, an affection for the work that wasn't there when it actually existed as an object, so the idea of a world without Hell was unacceptable to us.

"While everyone else was whingeing around kicking their legs in the air like overturned cockroaches, the first thing we said was we'd remake it". The Chapmans did not realise Hell was in the fire at first. "We thought it was in special storage for the stuff that he [Saatchi] really liked," joked Dinos.

Backstory (The Guardian)

Adolf Hitler, like so many amateur artists, thought he was rather good with a paintbrush, if not brilliant. After school he applied to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts but was turned down because he lacked a school leaving certificate. He tried to persuade it with the quality of his landscapes and, much to his fury, was turned down again. Hitler's view of art was straightforward - he liked sentimental landscapes. What he didn't like, he labelled decadent. He instructed his minister for popular enlightenment and propaganda, Josef Goebbels, to lead a purification purge against this degenerate art (ie virtually all modern art) as "part of the Jewish conspiracy". He complained that modern artists "see meadows blue, skies green, clouds sulphur yellow, and so on ..." In 1937 the Degenerate Art exhibition was held in Munich. Organised by the Nazis, it was to show how corrupting the art was. If Hitler Had Been a Hippy How Happy Would We Be subverts his work with a sky of rainbow colours.

Heavy fun, go see.

Police raids in Sydney, Drama Queens at Art Basel

Image courtesy Crikey.com.au

International artwatchers have been aghast at the shenanigans in Soudan Lane (Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery) in Sydney and other locations in Australia, including Canberra's National Gallery of Australia (NGA), where a large number of works by Bill Henson (some in the collection for 20 years or more) have been 'seized' by police and impounded on the premises, pending further investigations. Sydney hasn't had such a 'grande scandale d'art' since the hogs ate momma, as they say in Texas. Or perhaps Australia's Ern Malley affiar?

We won't bother to go into the specifics, which have been exhaustively documented, except to say that Bill Henson is a very interesting artist, perhaps the more important for provoking the debate Australia is now having with itself, and as usual failing (as a society) to face the ghastly truth - that child abuse is the dark underbelly of Australian suburbia, and the family is where it largely occurs. Oh, and yes, there ARE unpleasant predators out there, and it's very naive and possibly criminally negligent to put such images on the net.

Roslyn and Tony Oxley have emerged from their gothic mansion (LF likes to imagine a scene from 'The Fall of the House of Usher') and flown out, and are no doubt relived to be breathing the pure, clean, enlightened air of Switzerland, and enduring the social excitement of being the subject of "ongoing investigations" by the authorities. Henson's work is slated to appear as part of the Roslyn Oxley9 'stand' among the commercial galleries, and there will no doubt be a phalanx of press there, keen to see whether not only are we producing porn, but EXPORTING it!

What a hoot! What an international embarrassment! Quel Grand Cringe! (pronounced Crraaainnje)
It shrivels the soul, yet thrills it with a delicious sense of outrage.

For a good blow-by-blow account of the unfolding drama see The Art Life: http://artlife.blogspot.com/

The image above is by an unknown humorist, accompanying an article by Alex Mitchell: "Bringing down Henson: Police, politicians and pester power join forces" on Crikey.com.au
For the full article: http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20080530-How-police-politics-and-pester-power-combined-to-bring-down-Bill-Henson.html

Finally, watch out for the performance 'Drama Queens' by artists Michael Elmgreen (Denmark) and Ingar Dragset (Norway) as part of the 'Art on Stage' program at Art Basel.

Art | 39 | Basel
Messe Basel, Messeplatz, Basel, Switzerland
Wednesday, June 4, to Sunday, June 8, 2008.
Daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Media Reception
Tuesday, June 3, 2008, 10 a.m, Hall 1 (Art Unlimited)

From the Press Kit:
Art Basel's Show Management will be in attendance, as will the members of the Art Basel selection committee. All will be happy to provide information and give interviews from 10.30 a.m. to 11 a.m. The vernissage for invited guests and the media (admitted upon presentation of the press ticket) takes place that evening from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The 39th edition of Art Basel takes place in the museum- rich city of Basel (Switzerland) from June 4 through June 8, 2008. As the world’s premier art show, Art Basel is the annual meeting place of the international art world. This year’s 300 exhibiting galleries from all over the world were selected out of a record number of over 1,000 applications and will be showing works by over 2,000 artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. The Art Unlimited hall, with its 60 large- scale projects, and Art Basel Conversations, featuring internationally respected panelists, represent further highlights.

The Art on Stage platform (presented in association with the Theater Basel) will provide the framework for the performance Drama Queens by artists Michael Elmgreen (Denmark) and Ingar Dragset (Norway). The local museums also have fascinating exhibitions (including Chaim Soutine, Andrea Zittel, Monika Sosnowska, and Fernand Léger) and a broad range of events in store.

Over 300 of the world’s leading galleries will be exhibiting at Art Basel (for a list of exhibitors, go to www.artbasel.com/go/id/elg/)

See you 'on the floor'. Or not. Hmmmm...
Groses bises cheries.

Vale, Yves

Yves Saint Laurent
1936 - 2008

Gehry's Serpentine Pavillion in London takes shape

Forthcoming Summer 2008
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, Kensington Gardens
Designed by Frank Gehry

Left: Model of Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2008
© Gehry Partners LLP 2008

From the press release:
The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2008 will give London the first example of Frank Gehry’s spectacular architecture. The highly articulated structure – designed and engineered in collaboration with Arup – comprises large timber planks and multiple glass planes that soar and swoop at different angles to create a dramatic multi-dimensional space. Part-amphitheatre, part-promenade, these seemingly random elements will make a transformative place for reflection and relaxation by day, and discussion and performance by night.

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion series, now entering its ninth year, is the world’s first and most ambitious architectural programme of its kind, and is one of the most anticipated events in the international design calendar.
Frank Gehry said: “The Pavilion is designed as a wooden timber structure that acts as an urban street running from the park to the existing Gallery. Inside the Pavilion, glass canopies are hung from the wooden structure to protect the interior from wind and rain and provide for shade during sunny days. The Pavilion is much like an amphitheatre, designed to serve as a place for live events, music, performance, discussion and debate. As the visitor walks through the Pavilion they have access to terraced seating on both sides of the urban street. In addition to the terraced seating there are five elevated seating pods, which are accessed around the perimeter of the Pavilion. These pods serve as visual markers enclosing the street and can be used as stages, private viewing platforms and dining areas.”

Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects, Serpentine Gallery, said: “Frank Gehry has designed an extraordinary Pavilion that opens up unexpected vistas to the Gallery, and the Park. It is a visionary scheme.” The Pavilion will be the architect’s first built structure in England. He collaborated for the first time with his son Samuel Gehry. The Pavilion is a fully accessible public space in the Royal Park of Kensington Gardens, attracting up to 250,000 visitors every Summer and is accompanied by an ambitious programme of public talks and events.