I gather this award is supposed to give an emerging artist's career a leg up (& their bank balance a good one too - it is $30k). It certainly should take up a few lines on the resume as the title is a mouthful. I came down to Woolloomooloo on a Friday lunchtime to check out the entrants and take down a Curry Tiger from Harry's cafe de wheels.
It was art first and a few familiar sights all around. JD Reforma's installation was similar to something I saw at MOP, again some Jonny Niesche's work I think I recognised from Firstdraft (see image top, JD on the left and the glitter is Jonny's). Then I realised you mightn't have had to make anything new for this and just submit work representative of your career. This makes a bit more sense. The winner of the fellowship was Jamie North (installation view above), whose work reprised a recent show at Sarah Cottier. It is pretty interesting but I do wonder at the conservational aspects of keeping the plants alive. I'm not sure my gardening skills are up to it. Apart from more familiar names I also liked David Capra who rocks another flag (or banner really) in his video Intercession, Marian Tubbs randomly framed triptych (which looked like a single work had been framed and then sliced into 3 non-symmetrical pieces) - points here, always good to see something new and Mark Shorter's video where he acts like a white feathered yowie on Mount Wellington in Hobart.
Points: 3 to Jonny Niesche. The more I see the glitter, the more I like it. What is that theory about familiarity again? 2 points to Marian Tubbs for rethinking the standard approach to framing & display - it is always hard to do something different (at least this was the first time I had seen it). 1 point to Mark Shorter for the totes bizarro video. It might have scored higher but I did think it a trifle unnecessary to see his junk.
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