REVIEW: In the Year 2525

This selection of Grays newest work revolves around the same concept realised in three different ways. Gray examines the Moiré (pronounced: mwa-rei) effect: an optical illusion which occurs when two sets of grids or sets or parallel lines are overlaid at slightly different angles.

This work is a departure in terms of aesthetics and mediums compared to Grays previous work of delicately sculptured miniature craft forests of paper tendrils and fern fronds or organic colourful chaos, which was a notable presence in his 2010 solo exhibition (‘Attack Decay Sustain Release’) at Craft Victoria and which was the sole focus of his exhibition (another solo: ‘Tudo Que Acho/ Everything I Think’)the previous year (2009) at The Narrows.

The moiré effect is an illusion, a suggestion of something that doesn’t exist and Gray likens this to anthropological forecasting: seeing what is present within contemporary culture and trying to predict the as yet unrealised, undetermined and unknown future. This act of seemingly logical-soothsaying by some individuals has had devastating effects, like the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, although more often it has been responsible for envisioning optimistic future utopias as dreamt by writers and dreamers of science fiction, such as musicians Zager and Evans who penned the song ‘In the year 2525’ which forms the title of the exhibition.

These thoughts of the far off future was also inspiration for Grays sound work exhibited as a part of The Zero Dollar Show at West Wing gallery (a temporary space run by West Space) a month before ‘In the year 2525’. Gray recorded an audio tour of Melbourne Central as though the shopping centre were a complex projected reality used as a teaching device for students in the far future as a part of a history lecture.

Grays musings of the moiré effect are manifested as three distinctly different types of work: a large scale installation, smaller drawings, and framed moiré patterns screenprinted on mylar which have then been placed over moiré screenprints on paper, which capture the effect in action.

The installation (above) is comparable to his miniaturist jungles of vegetative paper works, except on a larger scale and utilising more industrial materials. Multiple A2 sized sheets of Perspex with parallel lines created with black electrical tape are suspended from the ceiling, which demonstrate the visual interference of the moiré pattern in the wild, a natural environment of angled planes (ply wood panels) and bold straight lines ruling their way through the chaos (long strips of electrical tape).

Grays framed works (above) act like smaller versions of the installation: live captured moiré patterns, confined to a restrictive enclosure, living examples of visual interference keep in captivity and trapped for its privileged owners wall.

The drawings are perhaps the most curious of the trio. Being works on paper, the lines share the same flatland and fixed positions, the human eye (and mind) can’t compensate for the discrepancy caused by the mismatched angle of lines.

The exhibition will also host a series of ‘acoustic tests of pre-post-human perception’, which is a pre-post human way of saying 'gig', which will include Snawklor, Mof Far Far Rah, Julian Williams, and Northlands at Utopian Slumps gallery on Sunday 20^th of Feburary from 6:00 til 9:00pm.

The present is just a suggestion of a future illusion.

Things I Wish I'd Known- West Space

"Things I wish I’d known"
Ross Coulter, Melody Ellis, Brad Haylock, Veronica Kent, Sanné Mestrom, Lillian O’Neil, Patrick Pound, Ben Sheppard, Utako Shindo, Tai Snaith, Kieran Stewart and Dominic Redfern, with essays by Phip Murray and Kelly Fliedner
West Space
6 November - 28 November 2009

What would you do differently if you had your time over? Many people will say ‘nothing’ in defence of their impeccable past choices, but i think that it is okay to be wrong. ‘Things I Wish I’d Known’ is a group of works that hone in on this lament of hindsight.

Ross Coulters video work (above), ‘The 2007 VCA Graduation Video’ recalls a dream Coulter had in which an art mascot, or ‘the coach’, berates him, and in turn, the viewer with moral boosting affirmations, en masse, on loop.

Tai Snaiths collages meld short personal proverbs of advice ( ‘get over yourself’ and ‘go into yourself’) with a literal, visual translation of the phrase ‘double vision in hindsight’ by adding an extra pair of eyes to black and white fashion portrait photography from a past era, allowing the subject to see the future in colour, and supposedly twice as well.

Brad Haylock states that whatever you expect, will surely always end up coming to fruition, and resulting in disappointment, in his case, marching in the streets and getting nothing but a lousy placard.

Melody Ellis passes on her thoughts to the audience, in the form of small cards with a single instruction or piece of advice on each that the audience is invited to take. As opposed to having the cards printed, Ellis has typed them out herself using a typewriter onto the coloured card, thus reliving her own advice in the repetitious act of typing and also demanding she type it correctly; there is no room for error using a typewriter and coloured card.

This is the 'advice for those undertaking a BFA’ exhibition. Good luck in your future pursuits exhibiting artists, your past selves did okay knowing what they did.

http://www.westspace.org.au/program/things-i-wish-i-d-known.html

ToonaParstaBongMyst- Simon McGlinn

"ToonaParstaBongMyst"
Simon McGlinn
West Space
6 November - 28 November 2009

How it all works is a big joke. On entering the gallery to view McGlinns ‘ToonaParstaBongMyst’ at West Space, the viewer encounters a seemingly minimal installation of three video works shown on TVs sitting (meditating? drug affected?) on the floor. Each different, seemingly without connection despite sharing an off-beat, slightly bleak humour and that each video is named after its duration in minutes and seconds. The three video works are all short, almost seamlessly looped, and convey their message regardless of whether they’re viewed for a second or their entirety (perfect for our generations attention spans that have been raped by 30 second advertising, bite-size youtube clips and sugary, gurana infused energy drinks). McGlinn uses the repetitive nature of the videoworks, which is usually common in works of this type, to highlight the bleakly humourous nature of the redundant, incessant echoing actions of a satirical, Sisyphean nature.

Each work features a single focus or feature: Wide-eyed eyeballs floating in a black void, the planet earth spinning in outerspace, and the coming and goings of urban dwellers in a street over 24 hours. The featured subjects can be simplified to be representative of: god (or some divine being who exists as crazy excitable planet sized eyes darting around in an abyss), our planet (as spaceship, home, vessel, bio-sphere), humanity (temporary, mortal, creatures of habit and familiarity). Humanity habitats the Earth, Earth exists in space and god is all. McGlinn makes a mockery of all three. The all seeing eyes, gods embodiment hover peacefully in a starless vacuum, without warning they become comically frenetic, darting about, crossing each other’s paths, no longer respected but certifiably idiotic. The earth itself is viewed from afar, an indeterminate speck among the stars and as we zoom in on this life harboring vessel turning on its axis we realize it is a charade, a cheap parody of our planet, a plastic dime-store globe. Not even our existence is spared from the cynicsm of McGlinns observation, he depicts us in a generic pixilated town akin to an 80’s video game, coming and going, seemingly without purpose, day in day out, trapped in a futile existence.

A lot of McGlinn’s work (including that which he does with collaborative ‘Greatest Hits’) seems to be about taking a format, a blueprint, a procedure, an underlying structure of how a certain system, tradition or concept works, goes by and then subverting it, debasing it, either by highlighting its simplicity, mocking its authority by representing it in low-fi reproduction and or materiality.

There is a subtle fourth work in the gallery, an installation work that can be easily missed because of the dominance of the video works, a single nail at average viewing height in the middle of an unused wall, rotating slowly in the vast white painted space, mirroring our planet, hanging in a black abyss, turning fruitless, seemingly without purpose, as meaningless as an illogical god, a planets orbit or our own limited mortal lives.

ARTICLE- "art is full of :-) at the moment"- Ace Wagstaff

"art is full of :-) at the moment"
Ace Wagstaff
2009-03-31


Is it just me or are there less and less people attending gallery opens and art events at the moment? Its a little bit sad. I thought it might be just me or my overly imaginative paranoia assuming that as soon as I turned up to an exhition, everybody left, mainly in fear of having to socialise with me. Thats not the case though. Thats rediculous. I'm a fantastic conversationalist. Ahem. Personal social insecurities aside, I can understand why gallery attendee numbers may be down at the moment, what with all the bleak news (bush fires ravaging half the state, a colossal death toll, the country sinking into a recession and the world economy imploding), it wouldn't be very considerate if we were enjoying something as socially inessential and lavish as the arts, especially in a time that calls for us to be collectively frugal and solemn. However, I feel (notice the emphasis on the "I") the melbourne art scene has been pretty full of win at the moment. I havent been to many openings, which is hazardous in an industry like the arts, which is more like a social arena that requires individuals to see and be seen, but I have seen many shows the day after, after the wine spills from the night before have been cleaned up and all the obnoxous, heavy, hot air that was issued forth from superficial conversations the night before has dissipated, which is a much more pleasent way of doing things to a degree.

Welcome to my fave's from the last month:

At Craft Victoria on Flinders Lane, the Chicks on Speed are exhibiting in the gallery space. On second thoughts, they aren't really exhibiting, they arent really using the gallery as a plinth to show their work but more as a communial space for people to interact and engage in the creative act, keeping true to the Chicks one Speed DIY ethos. The girls are running a variety of practical workshops throughout their stay in the space and invite visitors to try their hand with some needle and thread on a massive banner collaborative banner thats covered in all manner of sewn on media varying styles of stitching any time during opening hours.
http://www.craftvic.asn.au/gallery/2009/chicksonspeed-exhibition.html


"Cock and Bull" curated by Kate Daw and Vikki McInnes at the Margaret Lawerence Gallery is all about the boys. And lies. And the lies boys tell. And its about art. Its is art. Woah. The title of the exhibition ties in nicely to the all male cast, John Beagles and Graham Ramsey (Beagles and Ramsey), Jon Campbell, Tony Garifalakis and Matthew Griffin, as well as being a reference to a fictional autobiographical novel in which most of the humour comes from exageratedly complex explanations and epic, chapter-length explanitory detours ("The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" by Laurence Sterne). Beagles and Ramsey have a zillion video works playing on tables which is a feast for square eyes. Matthew Griffin's video projection in the back room is a highlight that features Griffin playing as a small handed potter, the artist as all concept and small skill, reapeating the same action to created the same object in a sisyphean loop. Jon Campbell has converted a false entrance of the gallery into a brightly coloured, circus like doorway, complete with offical looking signage above it loudly exclaiming "INSUFFICIENT FUNDING".
http://www.vca.unimelb.edu.au/EventList.aspx?EventTypeID=4


Dale Frank's exhibition "The Big Black Bubble" at Anna Schwartz is colour. Beautiful, big, glossy, sublime colour. The works size is awe inspiring, the shortest edge on any of the works being two metres. The largest work dominates the space at two sixty by five hundred, a mass field of black, varnish on linen, titled "Ryan Goslyn" after the movie star (from such films as the irratingly romantic "The Notebook", feel-good american high-school football and racial issues "Remember the Titans" and indie flick "Lars and the Real Girl"). The dried surfaces hide liquidy pools of varnish and oil, oozing away beneath the lush coloured gloss facade. Like I said: beautiful, big, glossy, sublime colour.
http://www.annaschwartzgallery.com/works/exhibitions?artist=15&year=&work=11640&exhibition=282&page=2&future=&projects=&current=1&c=m


Westspace has a hatrick with Ieuan Weinman's "The third wave of Stupa building", Nicki Wynnychuk's "A flag and a flagpole" and "A life Quite Ordinary" by Charles O'Loughlin.

Weinman combines the the method of painting through layers into a method from which to create a video work. This duality of mediums, painting and video, is strengthened by exhibiting the painted image on canvas as an installation, tacking it directly to the wall, as oppsed to stretching on a timber frame, which lets it flow down and over the floorspace and also places the screen of the accompaning videowork within the canvas, each giving the other strength in the combined concept and message of "The third wave of Stupa building".
http://www.westspace.org.au/program/ieuan-weinman.html

"A flag and a flagpole" divides the space with invisible borders, boundries, between four impromptu made flagpoles and flags in seperate areas of the space. Each constructed from found materials from in slash near the exhibiting site, bringing the normally superfluous collateral of the community outside and around the gallery, into the space and elevating it from common, invisible debris into a symbol, nay, a bearer of authority and power... but whose? The community inadvertedly responsible for the materials? The artist for the act of creating the idea and the object? The gallery which temporarily owns the artifacts through the act act of housing them? I foresee the answer being a much more complex one than these propositions and those greater answers probably belonging to an intellectually loftier idea relating to society, power and government. Good. It gives the work more weight than I can give it here in this article.
http://www.westspace.org.au/program/nicki-wynnychuk.html

In "A life Quite Ordinary" O'Loughlin has timed and recorded his daily activities and who he's interacted with, then redusced that information to numbers and colours and mapped it out, exhibiting the graphs as images without keys or legends. The idea that these multicoloured lines are true recordings of what their title suggests is quite convincing even though there is no real evidence. That is perhaps my only lament with the work, is that they appear to have such mathematical exactness, and I sort of prefer a little ungrounded magic or mysticsm with my science.
http://www.westspace.org.au/program/charles-o-loughlin.html


How very blessed we are to have all this fine work on display all at the one time, and the exhibitions coming up in the next few days promise to be grand: "Us Vs Them" an exhibition featuring Tully Moore and Taree Mkenzie at TCB Gallery, "Drawing Folio" group show curated by John Nixon and Justin Andrews at BlockProjects and, the upcoming "Hamstrung: Creativity Within Constraints" at Platform curated by Anusha Kenny. Yep. Melbourne is rockin socks aye tee em. Now I should really go as my 'cold-and-flu-day-and-night-relief' nighttime tablets are kicking in and wakefulness is fading. Yours Sincerely, Ace.