Orstralyyya Orstralyyya

Well Australia day happened with minimal fuss up here in the montaines. I saw a flag hanging from a balcony and a small family (small in numbers not in stature) with Australian flag t-shirts and matching temporary tattoos of the flag on their cheeks. If there were any untoward happenings elsewhere, like icky media posturing about or actual riots I am likely to not even know about it for a few days due to a) only buying Saturdays papers and b) not having a tv except in the closet where there is no powerpoint and it's too squishy to hop in watch some. When I was little and we had to sing the anthem on the odd occasion, I thought that the chorus was something to do with a fair - like maybe the royal show or my grandmas church fetes, and that was a little confusing. I still think its confusing.

Speaking of culture (we were?), I got to see the Kienholtz exhibition atthe MCA a few weeks back when I caught the Cossington-Smith show at Art Gallery NSW (on its last day, just!):

'Ed Kienholz rose to prominence in the city of Los Angeles atthe time of the Beat era, a rapidly developing scene later associated with the beginnings of Pop Art. Kienholz emerged as a painter and sculptor creating socially conscious art with a unique force and directness. Hi tableaux and nevironments from this time are now recognised as some of the earliest, and most remarkable, examples of installational art.' More here.

I liked the strong anti-violence themes, as well as the use of lovely lovely old objects that they sourced from op shops and flea markets around the country, the Concept Tableaux where just the ideas for the art pieces were written up and illustrated as stage one ofthe work (and available for sale as such) and had to laugh at The Barter where Kienholz needed a screwdriver out on his property and got frustrated at the thought of having to go all the way into town to buy one, and the step before of producing work and selling it to get the money to go into town to buy the screwdriver. So instead he made a watercolour and rubberstamped it with three words in black: 'For Nine Screwdrivers'. He then traded this painting or the neighbours set of screwdrivers. This triggered a whole series in later years, where he traded the pictures (watercolour background with the words of the item to be obtained printed on) for items as varied as 'A Rockwell portable saw', 'A big cheese from Parma' and 'For Onnsch's Red Mercedes'. Obviously as he got more famous and the works were worth more his barter series had more barter vallue! This reminded me of a story of Kahlo - when she was low on cash would send paintings to friends out of the blue with a bill. This story always made me smile at her audacity - a bold and creative way for the artist to sustain herself! She obviously had wealthy and generous friends. Lucky for them she didn't do paint by numbers kitten paintings... now they'd actually be worth a kasquillion.

Winterson has a lot to say about art these days - have just finished reading 'Art Objects' (yes, in both senses of that meaning) and a while back 'Art and Lies'. Very sharp and insightful prose, albeit opinionated and unashamedly infavour of high culture. Will write up on Booklub soon with some dazzling quotes.