No.1 Neighbour at QAGOMA

There was only one downside from checking out the show of Papuan art on at the Queensland Art Gallery when the Big Lamington was in Brisbane over summer.  And that was we might have seen our favourite show for 2017 by mid-January!!

Yes, that's right kids I loved it.  The show itself was a bit of a survey, with artists from the 1960's, through to today.  Of course, for those that came in late, Papua New Guinea was once a colony of Australia, getting its independence in 1975.  I grew up hearing fascinating stories of the country as my own father had spent some time working there in the '60s.  You enter through this great lobby with a painted longhouse ceiling (pictured bottom) before going through the different eras in a counter-clockwise direction.  I loved the naive / self-taught style of the art which matched the Tok Pisin (Pidgin English) titles - some examples include Simon Gende's "No 1 Kiap Blong Australia Mr Jim Taylor I brukim bush long Highlands Papua Niugini" (or The first Australian Officer Mr Jim Taylor, in an exploratory mission in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea) or Mathias Kauage's "Man draivim elikopta" (Man flying a helicopter).  I also loved the folk art where folks had used brightly coloured yarn in place of traditional fibres for bags (pictured below) and also incorporated art onto traditional shields (pictured top).  Quite a lot of commercial themes seeped into this folk art, whether tribes were outright sponsored by SP Lager or whether they just enjoyed it wasn't entirely clear.  A Big Lamington favourite, Eric Bridgeman also made an appearance (pictured above) with his group of wheelbarrow shields "Kuman Pawa" (shield power) which take this symbol of the Highland identity and manhood (the shields) and tweak it ever so slightly.  To me, this is contemporary art done well.  The sincerity of the work really shines through, never mind that they would also look absolutely fabulous in my tiki bar!

Points:  could be a first but the 3 goes to "Unidentified Artist" who did both the shields in the top photo (I am guessing that they are indeed separate artists but you get the point).  2 points to Eric Bridgeman, loved the upcycled shieldbarrows.  1 point to Sifas Morea for the Boroko Motors yarn bag (pictured above), turns out I am a sucker for naive product placement!  Highly commended to the folks who did the inside roof of the gallery, an amazing Tiki style extravaganza.

Michael Zavros - The Prince.

One of my favourite all time images is Richard Prince's untitled cowboy.  It's my screensaver on every computer I've used for years.  And even cooler it is in Patrick Bateman's apartment in American Pyscho.  Well now it is also in Rockhampton.  At least a copy anyways.  Michael Zavros (he of Bulgari art award fame and a finalist in this years Archibald) has appropriated the appropriator and done some painting copies of the photos of the ads ripped from the mags.  Phew.

For all my loyal Rockhampton readers get there before April 7, otherwise you will have to schlep down to Brisvegas (where it is on until 7 July).  It doesn't appear to be coming to Sydney so I plan on supporting NQ arts by purchasing the catalogue (I think the above photo is the front cover of the catalogue)!  Maybe will be able to hand out some points then.  Given all the brouhaha last year about appropriation with that former Tim Olsen gallery photographer this is an interesting concept.  I would love to get Richard Prince's thoughts on it!

The pilgrimage to MONA - 5 March

I think if you are reading an Australian art blog then MONA will need no introduction. Gambling millionaire David Walsh's 'secular temple' demands a big journey from the art faithful living on the mainland so the whole team at Big Lamington made the pilgrimage to Tasmania to pay our respects.

Highlights were everywhere, the following is a haphazard selection of mine. If I was a little more diligent with my "O" device I think I could have saved myself some typing and just posted the link to what I saw ...

First up was the Fat Car by Erwin Wurm. My son loved it and we very nearly had our first touching infringement of the day! Next was Daniel Cunningham's funeral song jukebox. It is an interesting work where he got a ton of art world types to list the song they wanted at their funeral. I thought a few participants were taking the piss a little bit (because if Iain Dawson really wants Tina Arena played at his funeral then I need to have a word) but mostly I really appreciated a good listing of contemporary Australian artists. We also got to see Nell's 'Let there be Robe' room (which they started taking down in the afternoon, a little early in my mind). I quite liked Damien Hirst's spin painting, and especially Walsh's thoughts on it courtesy of the gonzo section on the O device. The junior critics appreciated the word waterfall (aka bitfall) a little more than I did, I grant that it is a good spectacle. Then it was feeding time, not for us but for the cloaca's! The kids loved watching the Cloaca Professional eat his lunch and sure enough like clockwork we were back at the appointed time to see it do the business. In fact we enjoyed the first one so much we raced down to see another of the machines do its business as well. While down in the Delvoye area we were also impressed by some of his other work, primarily the delft shovels and his anal kisses (pictured above) which I thought were hilarious.

On the whole I absolutely loved it. Amazing venue, great building, interesting art and an inspiring backstory. This is the 'golden rule' put into practice (the golden rule is one of my favourite sayings: he who has the gold makes the rules). David Walsh himself has called it an adult disneyland and there are subtle and not so subtle references to the house of mouse everywhere. The branding is slick and omnipresent, the merchandise tie-in is pretty good (Moo Brew beers and Moorilla wines etc), you can stay on site in their own cabins and they even have their own transport (in MONA's case catamaran ferries as opposed to Monorails but it is a long trip from Hobart's CBD although I note their mayor would like our old one)). An interstate visitor won't get much change out of $100 once you factor in lunch and a trip to the shop. But I don't begrudge any of this. David needs this little business to pay for itself so he can keep buying stuff to fill it and I was happy to make my contribution. I only had two minor complaints. First was that it could've been a bit more kid friendly (and I don't mean changing any of the exhibits, just some kid friendly meals in the cafe and maybe an art playroom). There are plenty of art lovers of breeding age out there and the art itself is fine for infant consumption in my humble opinion (and there are even journo's on my side). Second was the postcard selection. MONA's enlightened photo policy receives good press but when you say in your visitor guide "Still photography is allowed. No flashes or tripods please. No videos or photographs may be reproduced, distributed, sold or displayed on personal websites without our permission. Buy a postcard." then you'd better have a pretty darn good postcard selection. Now I more than most like to buy postcards of the art I liked from museum visits and the selection here was pretty thin. They even had some postcards from a Wim show in Beijing of art I didn't even see at MONA. Anyhoo, as I said, very minor complaints really. On to the points ...

Points - 3 to David Walsh. The whole experience is very impressive, definitely adds up to more than the sum of its parts. I will be back. 2 to Wim Delvoye, the star of the current show. My kids loved the cloacas and I really liked the shovels and funnily enough bought quite a few of the kiss postcards to send to mates! 1 point to Fiona Hall for the banknotes with leaves (aka 'Further Shore'). Not very sex and death at all but quite a nice piece and one I would happily have on my wall.

Merry Christmas from GoMA - 24 December

Christmas eve and the team is up having a Queensland Christmas. With wet weather setting in for the weekend I decided to take one of my junior art critics down to GoMA (the Gallery of Modern Art) on the riverfront in BrisVegas ...

I had read somewhere that GoMA was quite family friendly and the first two exhibitions lived up to the hype. We liked Yayoi Kusama's show and in particular, 'The Obliteration Room'. This work comprised a series of 3 interlinked living rooms that were all originally bright white. Everyone, mainly kids but a lot of adults were getting really into it, was given a sheet of stickers when entering the room which then resulted in the rooms becoming a multi coloured blur of colour (we were here in week 3 and the above photo must've been taken in week 1, hardly any white space left now). Obviously very interactive which is an interesting start to a museum visit as everything else then disappoints with the usual no touchy rule. Which is exactly what we were told when visiting the other kids exhibit, 'we miss you magic land' by Pip & Pop (or Tanya Schultz Nicole Andrejevic as the ATO would know them). This was all rainbows, unicorns and pastel colours that primarily made from sugar and cake decorations according to the literature. We did enjoy the computers at the end and the little game although it was a bit taxing for a 4 year old. Lunch successfully navigated at the river cafe we were upstairs to check out the 'adult' section. Some interesting stuff including a Tracey Emin fluoro work, a Julian Opie video, a nice Scott Redford sculpture (although not as good as the motel sign out front) and a very good Tony Albert ephemera work (Sorry backwards). The gift store had a pretty good selection and we picked up some additional stocking stuffers although I reckon they could've done with a better postcard selection.

Points - 3 to Yayoi for the sticker room, fantastic concept for getting the whole family involved. 2 for Scott Redford's motel inspired brisvegas sculpture and 1 for magic land which we didn't miss as much as they expected.