Blog

Posted Friday, 31 May 2013

Gritty New York City

Never-before-seen photos from 100 years ago tell vivid story of gritty New York City.

Almost a million images of New York and its municipal operations have been made public for the first time on the internet.

Culled from the Municipal Archives collection of more than 2.2 million images going back to the mid-1800s, the 870,000 photographs feature all manner of city oversight -- from stately ports and bridges to grisly gangland killings.

Posted Thursday, 9 May 2013

Who Loves Books

Posted on Who Loves Books today.

The 120-foot-long scroll manuscript of Kerouac's "On the Road" will be displayed through June 1 at The University of Texas at Austin. Kerouac noted on the document that it had been "eaten by dog," namely, the cocker spaniel owned by his friend Lucien Carr. Nobody knows how many inches or feet longer the 120-foot-long artifact used to be.

Check it out:http://www.utexas.edu/news/2008/05/15/hrc_kerouac_scroll/

Posted Thursday, 9 May 2013

Architecture Insights presents

Conference:
Sustainability in Architecture : Module 1: The Big Picture; May 23
This introductory module to sustainability in architecture, introduces participants to the key factors that need to guide the practice of architecture in a world of finite resources.
For more info, go here:
http://architectureinsights.com.au/events/sustainability-in-architecture-module-1-the-big-picture/

Posted Thursday, 9 May 2013

Art21

Art21 are producers of films on contemporary art and artists—including the Peabody award-winning PBS series, "Art in the Twenty-First Century"—as well as media, educational resources and programs, and more.

Art21 was founded in 1997 with the mission to increase knowledge of contemporary art, ignite discussion, and inspire creative thinking by using diverse media to present contemporary artists at work and in their own words. http://www.art21.org/

Image credit: Short, Maya Lin, New York.

Posted Thursday, 9 May 2013

Dezeen features, "Haus am Moor by Bernado Bader Architects

Bernardo Bader Architects used locally sourced spruce, fir and elm to clad the interior and exterior of this rural cabin in Lower Austria. Based on the traditional houses of the Bregenz district, the two-storey residence has a simple rectangular plan with a steep gabled profile and a wooden deck driven through its middle. Bernardo Bader Architects used 60 trees to produce all the wood needed for the house with minimal waste. As well as the walls, the timber provided material for doors, flooring and also some of the furniture. Additional heating is generated from a ground-sourced heat pump.

Posted Wednesday, 8 May 2013

Printed Matter, Inc.

Printed Matter is the world''s largest non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of publications made by artists. Their latest promotion is for Marcella Hackbardt.

Marcella Hackbardt - Various Unbaked Cookies and Milk (5 photos)This variant on Ruscha's Various Small Fires & Milk by Marcella Hackbardt features pictures of cookie dough and the (not unexpected) glass of milk. We just got some copies back in stock, purchase here:http://printedmatter.org/catalogue/moreinfo.cfm?title_id=94019

Posted Tuesday, 7 May 2013

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

The multimedia artworks of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller emphasize aural and visual experiences that transport the viewer to other realms of consciousness. The viewer becomes a participant, either witnessing a phenomenon or becoming immersed in a scenario and vitally activating it.

FOREST (for a thousand years...)| Installation View 1/8, 2012

Posted Tuesday, 30 April 2013

Youssef Nabil

Really beautiful work by Youssef Nabil
The Last Dance # 1, 2012.

Hand-colored gelatin silver print, 26 x 39 cm each. Series of prints in the show titled, 'Time of Transformation'

Posted Saturday, 30 March 2013

Japanese Schoolgirls Perform Superhuman Energy Attacks

There is a massive internet photo trend brewing amongst youths in Japan right now that involves taking pictures of teens who appear to be releasing invisible energy that sends their peers flying. The photo mania is especially popular amongst schoolgirls who started the trend by uploading images on Twitter and labeling them as "Makankosappo", a reference to a special attack in the popular manga-turned-anime Dragon Ball series.

In anticipation of a new Dragon Ball Z movie, these pictures of teens playfully performing air-bending feats have been turning up from all over Japan. Some perform the Makankosappo move while others have adopted the more popular Kamehamehaenergy attack. Either way, whether you're a fan of the show or not, it's clear that these teens are mimicking some invisible fireball-like force flinging them across the frame at the hand of their friend.

Posted Thursday, 21 March 2013

Nick Cave HEARD • NY March 25–March 31, 2013

Take a look at this major project by Chicago-based artist Nick Cave will transform New York City's Grand Central Terminal with 30 life-size, multi-colored horses, peacefully "grazing" and periodically breaking into choreographed movement.

http://creativetime.org/projects/heard-ny/

Posted Sunday, 17 March 2013

Architecture Insights presents Kids Under Cover: 2013 'Cubby House Challenge', March 20 - 24

Australia’s foremost architecture and building firms are creating diminutive designer digs to raise money for the country’s homeless and at-risk youth. Please get involved either online or by visiting the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show!
For more info, go here:
http://architectureinsights.com.au/events/kids-under-cover-2013-cubby-house-challenge-in-the-cubby-house-village-at-the-melbourne-international-flower-and-garden-show-mifgs/

Posted Friday, 15 March 2013

Noel McKenna in the Wynne Prize 2013.

Congrats to Noel McKenna who's been included in the Wynne Prize 2013 for his beautiful work, Centennial Park 2013.

Posted Thursday, 14 March 2013

CAN THE CREATIVE ARTS BE TAUGHT ONLINE?

Take a look at this interesting article on the trend towards online tertiary eductaion. Does it apply to the creative arts?

http://au.artshub.com/au/news-article/features/arts/can-the-creative-arts-be-taught-online-194574

Posted Monday, 11 March 2013

Dawn at Braidwood

I took this photo at dawn as the mist rolled in through the valley in beautiful Braidwood.

Posted Sunday, 24 February 2013

Jesper Just

Renowned Danish artist Jesper Just will present a film project that will examine themes of architectural pastiche and cultural dislocation for the Danish Pavilion. Commissioned by the Danish Arts Council, Just's contribution will consist of five films played simultaneously in a looped format as part of one singular, cyclical narrative. The films weave together a depiction of what appears to be Paris due to certain architectural signifiers, but then assumptions are challenged as the landscape becomes uncanny. Key to all of Jesper Just's films is the question of representation. How do we create images? And how do these images, in turn, conjure ideas, expectations, and conventions?

Posted Tuesday, 12 February 2013

National Gallery of Victoria

A demonstration of Chinese water calligraphy to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Posted Sunday, 10 February 2013

Liana Kabel - Art Design Jewellery

I have been a fan of Liana Kabel's work for a while and love this fun bag.

Posted Friday, 25 January 2013

Patti Smith, 'Just Kids'

One of my all time favourite read is, 'Just Kids', by Patti Smith. A memoir of her early life in NYC with artist Robert Mapplethorpe.

Posted Monday, 26 November 2012

Diana Wells

The Kodak Salon exhibition at CCP. Check out the "Gitzo Best Landscape Image" winning image by Diana Wells, 'Untitled (Epping)'. Beautiful!

Posted Friday, 16 November 2012

Wanda Boys

The gladiatorial pose of the two youths in this image was shot on the dunes of Wanda Beach. This image explores ideas of cultural identity, the infamous history of Wanda Beach and Cronulla at large, and notions of heroism.

Posted Thursday, 15 November 2012

Orca

This image of inflatable Orca balls was shot on Lake Wakatipu on the South Island of New Zealand and references the 1977 horror film directed by Michael Anderson titled, Orca (Aka: Orca: The Killer Whale).

Posted Thursday, 1 November 2012

Beasts of Faith

This body of work has conceptually interrogated issues surrounding ‘evolution’, ‘place’ and issues of the ‘secular and non-secular’ perceptions of the 21st Century. This project critically deals with and presents a performative and interventionist approach to the ‘wild’ panoramic landscape, the positioning of the ‘remnant’ of the animal body and investigates the evolutionary journey and counterpoints to Creationism and Intelligent Design. Through the placement of contemporary objects in stasis or movement, forced into a pure ‘dioramic’ backdrop, a two dimensional ‘biblical’ image plate, allows for the place and site to be reinvigorated and seamlessly operate with objects.

This work primarily draws its conceptual underpinnings from ‘evolution’ and ‘cultural readings/mis-readings’, drawing from such key philosophical works from writers/philosophers such as Richard Dawkins and the examination of secular and non-secular positions of belief systems as applied to the narrative of the natural world in all its states of beauty, benign appearances and as a backdrop for both good and evil to be encountered and performed. Photographed in New Zealand, these images evidence and prioritize the importance of ‘place’ and a departure from the tourist gaze where place is diminished as a mere backdrop, and return to the environment as a simultaneous expression of place and experience. This is significant and conceptually important, referencing our relevancy and currency of being in the world within the 21st Century and its complexities of positions and meanings derived for the natural world, the individual and technology.

Posted Thursday, 1 November 2012

Beasts of Faith_Installation shots

Installation shots from Beasts of Faith.

Posted Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Pack Mentality

Pack Mentality at Conny Dietzchold Gallery

C-Type Photographs 900mm x 1220mm

Buljan’s intimate aesthetic has been described as poetic documentary and suggests a subjective construction, replete with histories, meanings and actions: especially important when talking about the visibility of animals. Stereotypical depictions of animals focus on their form as a recognition of nature, but for Buljan the question of form becomes most interesting when it is deliberately compromised. These tableaus are significant because they urge the viewer to ask questions about what they understand an animal to be, and suggest that in our complex relationship with animals, we must acknowledge that there is no simple way of representing them.

Posted Thursday, 18 October 2012

Apénaut

After Ilya Ivanov's (1870-1932) failed attempt to prove darwinism, Apénaut is a comment on the human quest to both conquer and understand evolution.

Posted Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Why Do Whales Beach Themselves?

Photomedia installation at the Ivan Dougherty Gallery.

This work examines how we understand, define and represent animals in Western culture. In this series, false landscapes create an environment where sculpture and the still image combine to evoke a tableau. A place in which to contemplate whether it is possible for the authenticity of the animal to exist apart from human construction. This work explores a pivotal philosophical question, Why do whales beach themselves? The fact is, we simply, may never now.

Posted Tuesday, 2 October 2012

WE ARE FOOTBALL | Hyundai A League 30 second TVC #1

Just did some T-shirts for this Football Federation TVC with Art Director Nicki Gardner. Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLV2fcF1SeU&feature=relmfu

Posted Sunday, 30 September 2012

Theo Jansen's Strandbeest

One of my all time favourite artists.

http://www.strandbeest.com/film_videos.php

Posted Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro

Check out this awesome pair. This work is called Par Avion, 2011. The body of a a Cessna 172, was deconstructed by cutting it into small pieces and applying postage stamps directly to the surface of each article. The parcels were then sent by air freight to Gallery Frey Norris, San Francisco. Par Avion or Airmail, is French and the phrase indicates a letter should be sent by air. Healy and Cordeiro think that it's apt that such postal etiquette should be placed upon the small parcels that once comprised a vehicle of air travel.

http://www.claireandsean.com/works_Frameset.html

Posted Friday, 21 September 2012

From the Moment We Leave the Forest, It's All a Givin' Up and Adjustin'

Photographed on the south island of New Zealand, this series examines the complexities of camouflage.

Posted Thursday, 20 September 2012

Ersatz

Ersatz represents an attempt to understand our experience of the urban environment as an act of symbolism, created by the human act of conferring meaning on nature.

Posted Thursday, 13 September 2012

Patti Smith by Franz Gertsch

Patti Smith IV (1979) and Patty Smith II (1978) by Franz Gertsch. Saw it in New York at the Gagosian Gallery. An all time fave!

Posted Wednesday, 8 August 2012

The Sapphires

A big cheer for The Sapphires. Following international triumph at the Cannes International Film Festival and the Opening Night celebration screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival, the much-anticipated Australian film The Sapphires had its red carpet Sydney premiere at the State Theatre in Sydney Today. It's official. The Sapphires has opened as #1 film in Australia!

Posted Tuesday, 7 August 2012

New Qantas TV commercial - "You're the Reason We Fly"

Take a look at the new Qantas You're the Reason We Fly TV commercial. We worked on hand painted outdoor festival signs and signage for an upmarket eaterie. Daniel Johns composed an epic new music score in collaboration with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Qantas.

Posted Monday, 6 August 2012

Sachiko Abe

By far the most interesting work at the Cockatoo Island site of the 18th Biennale of Sydney is Sachiko Abe's Cut Papers. Abe sits cutting paper strips intently for about an hour and a half in a tee-pee made of the strips of paper. Intense and visually striking, her performance appears serene and beautiful on the surface but is full of tension. The width of paper Abe cuts varies between 3-5mm depending on how she is feeling that day.