Kabul Kids is a curatorial project I have been working away on for the last six months or so with co curator Palwesha Yusaf. If you are in Sydney come down to Information & Cultural Exchange (ICE) in Parramatta this Friday for the panel discussion of Kabul Kids, featuring SBS Dateline's YALDA HAKIM, Palwesha Yusaf, Candy Royalle, and Bilquis Ghani.
About:
Kabul Kids is the result of a photography project that was undertaken in 2009 by Sydney-based freelance photographer Palwesha Yusaf, aiming to shed light on the perspectives of children in conflict situations while providing a creative outlet to the children of war-ravaged Afghanistan.
A group of children (three female, three male) between the ages of nine and eighteen years from Hope House, a Kabul orphanage run by Australian aid organisation Mahboba’s Promise, took part in several photography workshops covering composition, light, subject and technique. They were then handed a camera with which to document their life and explore their creativity both within and outside of the orphanage enclave.
The result is a series of images that depict intimate scenes of friendship and communal living at the orphanage, creating something akin to an ‘orphan’s family album’. Other images depict honest and compelling street scenes from the centre of Kabul and its surrounding environment, with some of the most raw coming from the eldest participant, Ibrahim, who has since gone on to enrol with the AINA photo media agency in Kabul.
WHEN:
Time: 6:30 pm Exhibition open from 6 – 9pm Date: Friday 25th November Address: 8 Victoria Road (Switch Digital Arts Centre) Parramatta NSW 2150
At this point in time next year the sporting world will be packing its lycra, helmets, goggles and whips (it seems we always forget about equestrian) and travelling to London for the Olympic Games; which will open on the 27thof July 2012. As an international bazaar of athletes and tourists swamp the new Olympic Village and Olympic park in East London, they will be belittled by the soaring edifice which will be Anish Kapoor’s The ArcelorMittal Orbit. This colossal structure will loom over the games at 115 metres and will certainly consume all of the 19.1 million pounds commission provided for this sculpture.[i].
Anish Kapoor needs no introduction to anyone who has had even the slightest graze with the visual arts sector; he is as close to a super star as a visual artist can get in current times. The darling of the London art scene despite being born in India, he was the first living British artist to have a solo show which utilised the entire of the London Royal Academy. In the winter of 2010 this exhibition alone attracted over 260,000 visitors in three months[ii] . In May of this year he will be the talk of France as he participates in the coveted Monumenta, subverting the cavernous and commanding nave of the ‘Grand Palais’ in Paris and joining the fine company of previous Monumentaartists such as Richard Serra.[iii] Kapoor is now one of the most collectible artists in contemporary art with a market price increase of over 91% since 1998, most of his sculptures now easily reach over 500,000 US dollars at auction.[iv]This is an undoubtedly impressive career however, with the burdensome privilege of financial solvency and un-questioned credibility, can Kapoor’s body of work still contain the same quality which had him recognised in his humble beginnings?
The ArcelorMittal Orbit which will be created for the London Olympic Games is not just a baffling title. ‘Arcelor Mittal’ is a massive corporation which deals in steel imports and exports; it has a gross profit which reaches easily into the tens of billions and has bankrolled 16 of the 19.1 million pounds needed for the Anish Kapoor commission. When an artist becomes the bedfellow of a major steel conglomerate ( which also is a major sponsor of the games itself ) and is the delivery man for both local and national government interests, Kapoor’s creative integrity maybe be compromised on many levels. The London Government official press release for the commission announcement in March 2010, illustrates the varying interests of all parties involved. “London Mayor Boris Johnson said: ''Long after the (Olympic) Games are over our aim is to have a stunning spectacle in East London that will be recognised around the world...When visitors from every corner of the globe plan trips to our must see attractions they will now eagerly include The ArcelorMittal Orbit!’”. Following this comment from Johnson, CEO of ‘Arcelor Mittal’, Lakshmi Mittal added his own statement: “London will have a bold, beautiful and magnificent sculpture that also showcases the great versatility of steel.” Finally the Minister for the Olympics and London Tessa Jowell, ended with the particularly interesting quote that the sculpture will attract tourists like “honey to bees”.[v]
The eager statements from the main stakeholders for this commission do not seem to reference artistic legacy and integrity. Rather the press release could be talking about a new theme park or the Big Banana in Coffs Harbor. When considering art, the words spectacle, tourist attraction and the fantastically sinister analogy to bees do not exactly put the art world at ease. Scandalous comments regarding the aesthetics of this structure are abundant and all use some magnificently severe metaphors; underneath these enjoyable barbs from critics remains a very valid unease about Kapoor’s new sculpture as it questions the integrity of this artist and his apparent intentions. Perhaps all that Kapoor is doing with his most famous commission is placating a few, new found and powerful friends and a lot of fluffy press whilst creating nothing more than a garish eye sore for tourists to be photographed under? Kapoor claims that his initial motivation for creating the sculpture is “the opportunity to involve members of the public in a particularly close and personal way.”[vi]Perhaps this intention is genuine and perhaps it is not, but how a 115 metre sculpture is going to realise this vision is anyone’s guess. Dan Fox, senior editor at Frieze Magazine articulates particularly well his own misgivings for The ArcelorMittal Orbit: “Are the people of Stratford (local residents) supposed to tug their forelocks in gratitude to the munificent elites for their largesse? (‘Thank you kind sirs for giving us this bloody great big tower we didn’t know we needed!’)...T he bottom line is that The ArcelorMittal Orbit is a monument to politics and big business...File under ‘art and power’.”[vii]
Anish Kapoor’s 2010 exhibition at the Royal Academy was one of the most highly anticipated events of the London art calendar. Over whelming numbers passed through the rooms of the Academy with many patrons exclaiming they could hardly move at more than a shuffle, such was the congestion. The exhibition was a semi survey of Kapoor’s career with the inclusion of his early, vividly coloured pigment pieces through to freshly completed sculptures. This exhibition was the place to find a sense of Kapoor’s evolution as an artist, from his beginning roots through to his current position as a top player in the contemporary art world.Kapoor’s work is always entertaining and engaging on an easily obtainable level and probably accounts for his widespread success. In this exhibition it was plain to see the appeal of his sculptures and the signature references to masculine and feminine, executed in the seductive reds commonly associated with his practice were seen here. [viii]
This exhibition served to highlight stark changes in Kapoor’s work and the effects of commercial interests worming its way into his practice. Tom Lubbock for The Independent noted that “lately Kapoor's art has been drawn, not only to illusion and symbolism, but to big spectacle. The result is generally vanity. In the RA's (Royal Academy’s) forecourt, a 15-metre column stands, made of 75 mirror-spheres, reflecting themselves and their surroundings – an executive toy, vastly enlarged.”[ix] The ‘executive toy’ sculpture mentioned is singled out for all the wrong reasons, especially when compared to the really joyful, early works of Kapoor. These smaller pigment covered objects in eye numbing reds, the brightest of yellows and a fantastic deep blue still pack a punch today over twenty years after their creation. This only serves to expose as Lubbock drily states the “vanity” of Kapoor’s recent sculptures.
None the less The Royal Academy exhibition for Kapoor was a success and further bolstered his name in the public arena. Waldemar Januszczak, art critic of the London Times and fiercely respected globally, articulates perfectly Kapoor’s appeal: “(in relation to an installation at the Royal Academy exhibition) I cannot imagine a more crudely masculine spectacle than this (machines) brutal splashing of wads of sperm across the pristine gallery surfaces. The crowds will love it. It’s a phenomenal piece. We are in the presence of a very effective gallery operator... (Kapoor) has become master of sexy audience manipulation of the kind that art has increasingly begun to demand since it joined the entertainment industry.”[x]
It is seen in the practice of many of the big artists of our time (Ai Wei Wei and Antony Gormley) that to be at the top of the contemporary arts ladder one must defer to a certain amount of PR savvy to appeal to the general public, a public which is accustomed to the hype and vulgarity of a Hollywood celebrity culture. Considered to be Kapoor’s rival for the top spot of ‘art king’, Antony Gormley is no less subtle in courting controversy and popular appeal. Gormley’s installations such as ‘One & Other’ in Trafalgar Square in London, 2009 saw selected members of the public standing on plinths in the famous square with free rein to do as they please. This was often engaging, embarrassing if not always controversial. This work sparked a lively debate about public art and roused similar questions that are associated with Kapoor’s work. “One &Other is a perfect model of such (art) practice, being populist, inclusive and above all participatory...The real question is... whether such projects are in fact art.”[xi] Considering the turn to the spectacular that Kapoor’s work has taken, perhaps it is valid that Kapoor has adjusted his practice to suit a wider audience with the chance for greater recognition and thus more possibilities, he is merely keeping up with the ‘big boy’s’. After all it wasn’t his earlier works which were enthralling an audience at the Royal Academy it was as Januszczak notes, a giant, ejaculating penis.
Kapoor is not slowing down his work load or production either; Kapoor has a schedule crammed with engagements leading up to and well beyond 2012. In less than a month Kapoor will yet again be in the spotlight in France for the opening of Monumenta.As any Kapoor exhibition will elicit, the event will expect to bring in 150, 00 visitors in five weeks; a massive amount of patrons even by Parisian standards.[xii]In talking of his ambition for the Monumenta project Kapoor states that “The ambition is to make a work of significant scale...and give something which is contemplative...and has some sense of a real awe about it.” Kapoor then continues to discuss how this will be executed and notes that once again this will have an architectural focus. [xiii]
The immediate thought which comes to mind is ‘haven’t I seen this before and don’t I see it in the future for Kapoor’s career, realised in the 2012 Olympic commission’? In Kapoor’s work for Monumenta we will see another colossus which is more of a very nice structure rather than an artwork, after all that seems to be what Kapoor does now. In describing the Monumenta project Kapoor typifies his current body of work, one which is designed to shock with scale and draw major crowds.
From this recent snapshot of Kapoor’s career it does seem that Kapoor has chosen the more glamorous route of giant sculptures which create easy news stories and a never ending supply of press hype. Kapoor is an example of where visual artists can be easily directed when fame and money come gushing forward, away from a closed circle clique and into mass culture. It will be interesting to observe how time will re frame Kapoor’s work when this wave of success subsides and all that remains standing is his artworks alone. I am sure his body of work will be debated heatedly in the coming months and for many years to come.
Tortuga Studio’s EASYSPEAK exhibition opened a couple of Fridays ago; it all started so well, with this writer arriving very reviewer like and dutiful.
Somewhere along the line things got jovial.
This resulted in waking up Saturday morning with a wine stained room list and notes which amongst other choice scrawls, included ‘must call the horror lady’ and ‘nipple/ bondage- sexy...investigate?’ Suffice to say this was not a typical ‘white cube’ opening night.
The theme of this large group exhibition of over forty artists was prohibition and paid homage to the underground ‘blind tiger’ spaces of the twenties; these spaces were home to the illegal sly tipple and were often symbols of equality and free speech at the time, thus the title EASYSPEAK.
The title of the exhibition and the opening night event is where the speakeasy theme of this exhibition end. The seemingly random selection of works sit haphazardly and crammed in the sprawl of curious spaces at Tortuga Studios with many of the larger works inhabiting their own nooks. Some honourable mentions of the exhibition include the collection of works by Perran Costi. A handful of eight pieces by Costi housed in a smaller room focused on the theme du jour of the art world right now ‘the fragile environment’. Costi’s mixed media skyboxes and baggage series were literally tiny rays of light shining through in the dimmed haze of their surrounds. Dishevelled briefcases housed tiny patches of grass and idyllic back lighted blue skies; the works were a study in memory and landscape and were both charmingly romanticised and loaded with cause. Costi’s works were sure to resonate with many of the inner west local patrons of the event as they also referenced the increasingly financially impossible ‘Australia Dream’ to own property. The strength of this collection of works lies in Costi’s strong cohesiveness in practice amongst an overwhelming amount of different artwork vying for space in the studios. Garth Knight’s series of five photographs, a depiction of fantasy erotica were pleasurable to view as a fine study in intricate detail and consideration but in this context were not allowed to be considered further as my eyes played tug of war with the other artworks swarming around the photographs which were detractingly contrasted. Jo Shand’s Thou Shalt Not series- an irreverent, modern subversion of the Catholic Church’s Ten Commandments on red cedar tile were sold before I arrived. This was hardly surprising as they possessed the instant likeability and shallow complexity befitting a pleasant hallway artwork.
Amongst the works on show are more than a few mediocre pieces and many could have been culled to make this a stronger ‘exhibition’. But Tortuga studio’s is first and fore mostly a studio for creation and development and this is certainly apparent within the studio- both refined and unrefined. Best of all it was just pure fun.
To any one who may read SOMENEWPLACE. Thanks. Sorry.
It turns out being an adult whilst being a student is a head fuck and time sap.
I have also over- committed to many an outside project and have been writing for das500 and Arts Interview. Both of whom receive far more hits than my humble spot on the interwebs.
Posted above are the articles I have created for these guys in case you have not read them yet.
And sorry for future instances when I leave my blog desperate and alone for extended periods of time.
Maaike Pullar is the crazy forager lady of the inner west of Sydney. You may find her swimming in the dumpster outside your apartment block, knee deep in detritus or scavenging derelict bench tops from the freshly evicted heroin dive next door to you. From these unloved chair frames, wrecks of lounges and grime entrenched scaffolds Maaike performs her magic. Furniture resurrection.
The trend du jour of the recycling world is the term upcycling: rather than simply restoring a piece of furniture to its former glory, something is created which is entirely new and of greater worth both artistically and technically. Upcycling is specific to a new function being imposed on an object through assemblage, deconstruction or modifications.
“salvaged goods to art just squeezes in as upcycling, but while I've always thought of my chairs as a canvas, ultimately I want them to still have that function, as a chair, which is why I choose the term resurrection over anything else.”
Maaike’s work transcends the basic repair and re use ethos, finding an artistic voice and definitive style in her practice. “Each new find determines its own identity, demanding the right fabric, the right imagery and the application of a new skin. I may work on commission but I create art”. Maaike’s work has developed a cult following in the villages of Sydney recently, particularly with her text and graphic based works. Frequently splicing choice words or phrases into her furniture, Pullar evokes a sense of ownership to place and time which acts as a powerful bond between the furniture and the household it finds a place in. Past examples of work have used the names of Sydney suburbs, tea towel snippets of whimsical phrases and nostalgic vocabulary. Something as simple as the words tea time on a panel of one of Pullar’s chairs or the suburb names Darlinghurst or Marrickville spliced into an arm piece evoke memories and experiences which are unique to its owner and fuse a strong relationship between object and person.
Not always textual, a common theme in Pullar's work is a gentle subversion of icons and tradition, as if testing our recognition and fealty to deconstructed ideals and mismatched expectations. Pullar spent her early twenties living in Mexico and this is resplendent in her works, seen in her vibrant use of colour and large canvases of Mexican packaging. The evocation of memory make Pullar’s work a desirable foreign trinket; as an impartation of her own personal experiences and as a representation of exoticism.
So next time you are trawling the streets of Sydney and you see what appears to be a woman possessed, rifling through a strangers garbage, trying to extricate a bulky seventies coffee table, give her a hand. She might just turn it into spectacular.
For all things Maaike, including her very lovely blog visit:
One can contract many STD's in trying to get into the right creative crowd and cultivating the right connections.
Change is afoot. NEW BREED is a brand new creative talent agency run by the lovely Julia and Lee who are committed to finding genuine creative talent no matter who you are or how well connected you are.
So stop swimming in the rivers of creative bullshit and join New Breed on the dry, fruitful banks of greatness.
To say I follow Tom Polo’s work with a fanaticism and loyalty reminiscent of a pre pubescent girl to Justin Bieber is a fair comment. So it was with great expectation that I took my giddy self to his new exhibition Hit and Miss at the Parramatta Artist’s Studio Gallery. The exhibition is designed to be a retrospective look at Polo’s work from the last two years.
The exhibition was divided into four ‘galleries’ (for those who haven’t been to this space it is basically two rooms). The first gallery was new work by Polo, the words ‘Self Sabotage’ immediately engaged the viewer with Polo’s world after stepping into the gallery from a busy Parramatta midday. In stark black and white this work is nicely balanced by the thoughtfully placed smaller work ‘Maybe one day’. Similarly in this room is a small acrylic work ‘Hit and Miss’ with the colourful ‘No Idea’; an inconspicuous small painting in the corner. The area is punchy and clean and gives a nice visual introduction into Polo’s practice.
More Better, acrylic on MDF 2009
Walking into Gallery two; ‘Continuous one liners’ is an assortment of slogans, self help mantras and ironic gems. Polo is best known for this work and has been exploring this practice through the two years the exhibition covers. The placement of over sixteen works in such a small space generally detracted from the works as singular pieces. This was only compounded by the garish blue-hued wall the works were hung on. Although this is perhaps a deliberate technique to reference contemporary culture in which we are overloaded with this type of vocabulary; each banner got lost in the mish-mash. I couldn’t help but feel a few choice combinations as seen in the previous room would have been more effective.
Hit and Miss, acrylic on canvas 2010
Gallery three and four contained some more recent works by Polo; ‘The peak of human excellence’ and ‘The new science of personal achievement (Tony)’. These further explored the idea of contemporary self help culture through a subtle homage to Anthony (Tony) Robbins. The works on offer show a nice progression from the text in the previous rooms and it was great to see works by Polo which were not based on words.
For those who are familiar with Polo’s work; there is a nice flow in theme and content. For those new to Polo’s work this may all seem like one giant paint-based installation rather than a two year retrospective. Any small amount of signage or introductory text to the exhibition would have helped this immensely; indeed it would make this exhibition more accessible to the fairly bustling square outside the gallery. This being said; the work of Parramatta Artists Studio in launching early career artists into the sector is extremely valued and sometimes massive warehouse spaces to show works uncluttered and unlimited budgets to create overwhelming press hype is simply unavailable. The location of the exhibition was actually wonderful. Polo’s work addresses and re contextualises the mundanity of everyday routine; no location would be better than the sprawl of suburbia which is Parramatta and its surrounding suburbs.
No Can do, acrylic on canvas 2010
In such an intimate space there is always the unexpected chance of meeting the artist ; as I mumble awkwardly with Polo; I am secretly trying to resist the urge to get down on one knee and beg him for a free work in exchange for slave labor or frankly anything savoury or otherwise in exchange for a canvas. On the train home I couldn’t help but resonate absolutely to Lisa Havilah’s words in the ‘Hit and Miss’ catalogue, (which, by the way is a fantastic souvenir of Polo’s work to have if you cannot take home the real deal) “there is an attractive materiality to Tom Polo’s work that make you want to take it home immediately.”
So yes there are some operational flaws within this exhibition but Polo’s irresistibly appealing retrospective of work is undeniable.
Now we are all waiting for the obvious line so I am going to give it. Tom Polo’s Hit and Miss: A definite hit.
