Same Same at Artereal - 5 December

I'd been looking forward to seeing this show.  Some new work by Liam Benson in a double act with Lucas Grogan.  Even more interesting was that they were meant to be "borrowing from each other's visual language, aesthetic and experience".  I needed to head over to artereal just to check out what that meant.

Regular readers will know that I have a bit of a soft spot for Liam's practice.  I love his exploration of the australian identity and especially his overuse of symbolic australiana like the coat of arms and native flowers.  He continues that theme here with a number of works.  My favourite was the hand beaded 'Original_2013' (pictured top).  This is reasonably small (20cm diameter) but with the gold sequins really packs a visual punch with the very recognisable map of Australia.  The 'original' is designed to get you thinking, which is what I like about works that incorporate text.  Is Liam referencing native Australian's (ab)original?  There is a separate piece in the show that explicitly does.  Is he identifying himself as an original?  Is he questioning the derivative US / UK nature of some of Australian culture? etc etc. Other similarly sized embroidery works include the words "new", "I know" and "thank you".  These were all great works and very competitively priced for those whose art budgets are nearly done by December so clever also in a merchandising sense! In addition to these Liam is working on a much larger map of Australia that depicts all the different tribes of aboriginal Australia.  Punters can come in and sew different coloured sequins into the different regions (I tweeted a photo of this, so follow @biglamington not to miss out!).  What I loved most about this piece is that artereal had listed this for institutional acquisition only!  Looks like it is time to start my own mona!  I'll see if I can't head back and get a shot of this work as it nears completion.  I hadn't seen Lucas Grogan back in Sydney since his former dealer (the infamous Iain Dawson) blew up and went underground.  Lucas is based in Melbourne (has his own website, yes) and is represented by galleries in Melbourne, Brisbane and even Adelaide so it is nice that he is having a guest spot in Sydney.  Some controversy over Lucas' use of aboriginal style caused two artists included in the Big Lamington collection (textaqueen and ryan presley) to quit some of those very same galleries in 2012 so it is interesting to see if that has had any impact on his style (there is a reference to this incident in the catalogue essay by Lisa Corsi).  I think it could be just that he is being more experimental here with some embroidered text works, which the gallery appropriately describe in the form of "off-beat-gay-bush-poetry", like his 'Sex, Drugs and Kylie Minogue'.  He does include a diptych called 'We was here (billabong / swimming pool)' which continues with his established style.

Points: The 3 points will go to Liam's original.  I really am a sucker for a good bit of Australiana and this one will be coming back to the Big Lamington HQ in the new year.  2 to the flag, which should be expected from someone with such an interest in vexillology.  1 point will go to Lucas' for his Branxton sign.  Like Lucas, I also grew up in the Hunter.  I like the quote by Matthew Johns when he was asked if he was a former Hunter boy (as he now lives in Sydney) and he responded that being from the Hunter is like being a maori, and you can't be a former maori.  So there it is, once a Hunter boy, always a Hunter boy.

Ashes special!

With the current Ashes series looking like it will end in a damp draw here's a little Ashes flashback to warm the hearts of any Aussie cricket fans out there, the greats Shane Warne and Steve Waugh.  And what about the artwork?  Painted by successful portrait artist Vincent Fantauzzo.  Vincent is a regular in the Archibald and has had some success (2 x People's Choice Winner, 1 x Packing Room Prize) and has also won the $$$ from the Doug Moran prize.  I can't say when these were painted but my guess is late '90s / early 00's.  'Where are they from?' I hear you ask.  Well they just happen to be a couple of new acquisitions to the Big Lamington collection!!  I never buy art at auctions (as I prefer to support the primary market and buy directly from the artist or a new gallery show) but I made an exception in this case.  These were recently offered at Leski which is where I endulge in my not so secret vice of collecting kitschy Australiana (I also have Craig McDermott's really skinny Ashes tie from '85 - a personal highlight).

I am not sure where these will go or what I will do with them.  I would love to maybe get another artist to do an 'intervention' a la Tony Albert or even Damien Hirst.  As an aside, everyone needs to read the story about how the Sunday Times restaurant critic AA Gill got his mate Hirst to paint a single red spot on a portrait of Joseph Stalin that Christies had refused to auction (they didn't auction Stalin or Hitler so they at least they were fair).  Sotheby's sold the work (originally bought for 200 quid) for over $200k with the proceeds going to charity.  For an image just google 'red nose stalin' or clink this link.

Everything is Lit at Gaffa - 11 July

Three days later and I am back at Gaffa to see a few shows.  It is a great space in the CBD, 3 galleries AND a project space.  Today is the first day for Kirra Jamison in Gallery 1, Leyla Stevens in Gallery 2, Nick Collerson in Gallery 3 and Claudia Stevens in the project space. I was interested to see it all and struggled to coin a collective title for this smorgasbord of art.  I ended up channelling my pinball fuelled uni memories when you've managed to get all the features on the machine turned on and you don't know where to hit: 'everything is lit' ...

In a quirk of interior design I couldn't get to Gallery 1 without going through either 2 or 3.  So I decided to check out Nick Collerson's work first.  I have one of Nick's paper leaves he did a few years ago but was struggling to connect the titles to the images in this group of work.  Turns out the numbers were all squiff as Gaffa had skipped the 2.  Once that was fixed (and gallery staff alerted, my good deed of the day) it all came together much better.  These works showcase a minimal almost naive style of painting and for me I was left wanting to know more about the 'why'.  The statement in the accompanying room sheet didn't really help, however Nick's website has a more detailed post about the Gaffa show.  It turns out he is being cryptic on purpose (primarily the paintings but to me also the text).  Thankfully Gallery 1 doesn't ask that many questions.  Kirra Jamison's work in this show is at the more decorative end of abstract.  There are large (all around 120-170cm cubes and rectangles) acrylic on polyester pieces which will take the better of $7k down to smaller (76 x 56cm) gouache on paper works (like Loop, mineral blue 4, above) that will run you closer to $2.5k.  These are bright and energetic works that kind of remind me of Gemma Smith's last show at Sarah Cottier, just even more colourful. There is nothing wrong in an artwork that would actually look great above the mantelpiece so I am not going to try to ascribe some deeper meaning here.  Moving on to Gallery 2 and here Leyla Stevens has some great video works. On the smaller screen is a work called 'Buoy', which coincidentally depicts a buoy with a flashing red light (which kind of recalled the Great Gatsby, just with red instead of green) and on the big screen a work called Signalmaster (still image top). Here Leyla is performing a semaphore sequence to the empty ocean in front of her. I loved it, you could tell there was a message here but given most of us don't know semaphore (I am not even sure they would teach it in the navy these days) the meaning is obscured despite being in plain sight. A riddle you are drawn to keep watching but one that you will never solve.  One riddle Leyla has solved for the punters is the editioning puzzle.  Usually right now I would be complaining about an edition of 5 in the digital age being all about enforced scarcity to drive up prices but these are editions of 100 for $80, a complete bargain in my mind.  Finally tucked away in the Project Space was Claudia Nicholson. Her show is called Silly Homelands and includes a few of the works we had recently seen at 4A as well as a couple of new ones. There was a mix of NFS and very reasonably priced works here. Of course the star of the show in my mind, the pimpin pink dolphin 'Papi Chulo', was NFS.  The new watercolours were all great. The cabbage patch and pink dolphin myths were covered in her earlier show (for those that couldn't be bothered clinking the link, Claudia's work explores children born out of wedlock so coming from the cabbage patch or the pink river dolphin that shapeshifts into a stylish man to seduce young women at parties) but the significance of the coconuts in Los Cocos was not immediately apparent.  I really liked this body of work and I think it is an interesting exploration of culture I have no familiarity with - definitely one to keep an eye on.  Oh, and watch out for pink dolphins slipping roofies into your drinks.

Points: No conflict, no interest - there is a new acquisition here.  3 points to Leyla Stevens' 'Signalmaster' (top).  Great video, great editioning. I will definitely put my money where my opinions are when it comes to a bigger edition at a reasonable price (and in this case it is probably a little too fair!). Can't wait to see what it looks like on the smaller screen at Big Lamington HQ.  2 points to Claudia for the pink dolphins in Mamacitas (above).  1 point to Kirra for the Loops, on the night I liked the mineral blue version the best but now I am beginning to think more pastel might be the go.

FONAS plate auction - 15 November

Hey I was at this last year! Well, when you are on to a good thing, stick to it.  It's a nice evening, the wife and I sneak in an early Darlo dinner (recommend the argentine meat platter at Boca and the always good messina for gelato) and then head off and try and donate some money to the Friends of the National Art School (that's where they get the FONAS from ... but you probably gathered that already).

This is, wait for it .... a really mixed bag.  Over one hundred lots of the great and good and the people kindly trying (like Labor minister Tanya Plibersek who should really stick to her day job of taxing and spending). Quite a few familiar names, Reg Mombassa, Luke Scibberas, Guy Maestri, Wendy Sharpe et al.  My wife and I chose two plates each to have a flutter on. My top picks were Alun Rhys Jones' CMYK skull (pictured above) and Deborah Beck's NAS 2012 (pictured below).  The Mrs loved Annabel Butler's Tractor (no picture, she hasn't joined the iphone world yet, I know) and Lauren Murphy's Bike. Also in the mix was Maryanne Wick's Lizotica Ceramica and Caroline Karllsen's Untitled.  Well, unfortunately just due to the way they close the silent auction around the room in order our back up plates were off the market before the main gigs were decided.  My wife lost out in a dodgy finish as some art thief stole the tractor with a bid after the curtain had come down (admittedly he would say "as" the curtain was closing). No such bad luck for me with Alun's skull joining the Big Lamington collection.

Points:  3 to Alun, good to see an Iain Dawson alumni around the traps.  I love the phantom, and I love memento mori in art, and I really like this skull.  2 to Annabel's tractor.  I have a 3 year old art critic who would've gone nuts for this, but rest assured, there will be some vehicles arriving for Christmas, just probably not of the art variety and more of the tonka variety. 1 point will go to Deborah Beck, this appealed to my parochial instincts (and by the way, what was with the latest art collector mag kind of slagging off parochialism in art? I mean what is wrong with Australian collectors preferring to buy Australian artists?).  Well done to all.  Also highly commended to Todd Fuller volunteering to man the check out queue - a thankless task that I will give thanks for.

Mass Action: Judging - 1 September

So we were back at CWA HQ to watch one of the gun CWA cookery judges, Alison Mutton, do the honours with the output of Brown Council's 90 hours in the kitchen. They had actually made all 137 cakes, which is kind of an achievement in itself. So what did the judge have to say about all this?

Having sat through a few baking judging sessions in years past I did wonder how long this would take. Alison had been allotted one hour but that would prove to be too short as even by taking a few shortcuts and not cutting and tasting everything she was still probably going strong after two hours. First up were the cakes. Plenty eliminated after looks alone, then we got down to business by cutting which reveals a few secrets, a cherry cake was discarded as all the glace cherries had sunk to the bottom of the mix, a neopolitan cake was out of contention because the line of plain cake and strawberry cake wasn't straight. As Alison said it is easy to be critical when you are looking for faults. If you type in #bcmassaction on twitter you can read some funny tweets from those present. Quite a few in the arts world were likening Alison's quick and speedily subjective dismissals to arts grant funding. But it always does depend on the judge, and you can usually pick up some good tips if you do like Tony Albert says and pay attention. My sentimental favourites, the Lamingtons, made the final four of the cake section but lost out to a butterscotch cake. My own concentration started to flag after this and whilst scones won in the final category (Loaves, Bread, Scones and Muffins) I can't really recall what took out the podium in the fruit cake section or biscuits and slices (you'll have to check Brown Council's website when it is updated)

After judging it was straight into afternoon tea. You could buy the bigger cakes for a $5 donation but it was a free for all for the smaller cakes and biscuits. I made a beeline straight for the small lamingtons and was soon agreeing with the judge on its strong showing. I then sniffed around the winners and was heartened to see they had done some very nice certificates for the winners in each section. No ribbons, which was a little disappointing, but there had been so much attention to detail on this project I will forgive them that small oversight (and to be honest maybe ribbons is only a country show thing, I am not sure what the CWA / Land cooking contest hands out). I will give a thumbs up for the cherry cake, this had suffered in the judging but was lovely to eat. Then I was on the hunt for a cake to take home. I did like the look of the moist coconut cake with the icing that was 'too pink' for the judging but given one of the Big Lamington editorial board is not really a coconut fan (I know, I can't explain it either) I was on the look out for something else and, after being pipped by some lucky punter for the peach blossom cake, settled for the nice looking Neopolitan cake I had seen judged earlier (photo below, technically also a 'new acquisition' for the collection which gives another meaning to the phrase 'consuming art'). But in a twist nearly as ironic as some of the jumpers being rocked by the art school crowd (seriously, google image "ironic jumper" and you have nailed the wardrobe choice of at least 10% of the attendees here, a particularly striking red alpine number with snowflakes and a natty halloween special with pumpkins come to mind) there is actually coconut tucked away in this bad boy too, however my coconut disliking partner tried it and gave it the thumbs up.

Points: I cannot argue with Alison, 3 points to the scones. It is so absolutely fitting that for an organisation like the CWA the scones get the best in show. I am big into aussie icons so 2 points will go to 'Lamington 1' (there were 2 different entries in the cookbook). These were the smaller ones and I loved their icing, I may even have to amend my recipe. I will give 1 point to the Neopolitan Cake which was lauded as "delicious" by my three junior art critics later that afternoon in a separate performance piece entitled "crumbs on the floor, who made them?".

A huge highly commended ribbon to Brown Council on this. My favourite CWA / Art world interaction was this one reported on their website ...
   CWA member: "What is this? Is it judges training?"
   Brown Council: "No, it's an art work. It's a performance."
   CWA member: "It is not! Is it?"
If I could answer that question now I would say that not only is it art, it is one of the best things I have seen all year.

New acquisition - Ryan Presley's Gladys Tybingoompa Commemorative

So "new" is being used loosely here as I am a little behind in my posts. Long time readers may recall I was deliberating about Ryan's Blood Money show at Jan Manton back in October but truth be told I had already pulled the trigger on this work before it had even been finished! Yep, a first for me but the iphone shots of a half completed work looked good and the finished work looks great (and even better now framed by my friends at Matrix in Paddington). But don't just take my word for it, see it for yourself! The team at Big Lamington is lending this to some mob down in Melbourne for a show in July.

Points - 3 to Ryan, I really enjoy watching emerging artists developing their career and am keen to see what's next for this talented guy. 2 to Jan Manton who is great to deal with and 1 to the Counihan Gallery for giving Ryan's work some greater exposure.

Christmas art - 13 December

The team at Big Lamington HQ really get into Christmas. Our tree has been up for ages but we just picked up some new ornaments by local artist Nell (who has featured on these pages before, here, here and here). Nell has made a number of different designs all featuring her trademark faces. There is a love heart, leaf, ghost, cloud and a star ranging in donation from $25 for a laser cut vinyl heart to $500 for a hand made felt piece. The money raised was all for charity so I was keen to do my part and put Nell on our tree. I had two of my junior art critics with me who helped choose a good selection of ornaments which are now up on our tree. I am a big fan of christmas editions and think it is something that could be done by anyone (and not necessarily on the scale of the Norton project). Hmmm, maybe one day we can get a BL project going ....

Points: 3 to Nell for doing this, sets a great example for others. 2 for the ghosts, although perhaps a little scary for your average christmas tree. 1 for the star, there would be fights as to who would get to put this up!

FONAS plate auction - 15 November

I really enjoyed this event last year and was keen to return and check out the entries. Alan Jones officially opened the night with a nice little speech and then it was straight into it. The Friends of the National Art School (hence FONAS) have a live auction of their really big names who have donated work and then a silent auction of some familiar names and students etc who contribute hundreds of plates. Let's see if there is another plate winging its way to Paddo ...

As with last year it was a real mixed bag. Some spirited bidding on the live auction side with all plates going for over $1k. Now the auctioneer says this is a bargain as their canvasses go for many times that. True, but it is much easier for one of my junior critics to smash a plate than a canvas so we sat on our hands during this phase. The top dollar (over $3k) went to a plate by Reg Mombassa in his recognisable mambo'esque style. On the silent auction side I noticed the bigger names had slightly bigger plates, Guy Maestri (a landscape of hill end, like his recent show at Tim Olsen), Alun Rhys Jones (a monochrome skull, like his recent show at Iain Dawson) and even Deborah Marks (a figurative scene, like her recent show at Charles Hewitt) ... you get where I am going here. I put in a bid on the skull but was quickly outbid. On the smaller ones I liked Adrienne Richardson's lamb chop and Troy Emery's rainbow lion (above, which looked like it was wearing a rasta style tam o'shanter, kind of similar to the fake taxidermy he does) and placed a small bid on each as the Mrs and I were off for quick dinner on Oxford street. Upon return it became apparent 2011 was a little slower than 2010 as I had just made a $240 donation to some FONAS scholarships and picked up 2 plates!

Points: 3 for Reg Mombassa, again the best plate on the night (Reg took BL's 3 points at this gig last year). 2 to Alun Rhys Jones for the skull - I do like skulls but at the end of the day would've preferred it on paper rather than porcelain. 1 point to Adrienne Richardson for the lamb chop (left) - pass the mint sauce. You know I think I should do a plate for next year, maybe I'll offer my services to FONAS ...

New acquisition - Liam Benson's coat of arms

I did say this was under serious consideration a little while ago. Given we are moving into our new home shortly I thought it only fitting to get something to commemorate the occasion, and this photo of Liam's had been on my mind for a little while. While I am a fan of contemporary photography I don't really believe in the value of collecting editions or prints, preferring to get something unique if I am going to drop a sum of money that includes a comma. Luckily for me these photos (from an edition of 5) came in under my threshold. Sold to the man with the fetish for kitschy Australiana! I think it was the wattle that sold me, whatever happened to wattle day? They sell badges for everything nowadays and they can't keep wattle day going?

He has been getting I bit of press lately. Just after I bought this his work was in the citizen collector show (part of that art buying group which would be worthy of a separate post if I could actually get to see it, perhaps a link is easier), was interviewed on art nation with fenella (although he is looking a little bigger than when this was taken) and then he also won the 2011 Hazelhurst art prize. Keep up the good work Liam ...

Points - 3 for Liam, a great photo and I am looking forward to living with this. 2 to the friendly folks at Artereal who actually kept this in their stock room for over a month whilst we were moving and 1 for whoever starts selling wattle day badges next year in Martin Place - hit me up and I'll buy one.

New acquisitions - Ann Carrington

It is interesting where you learn about new artists: going to galleries and museums, reading magazines, and occasionally reality television. One of our favourite shows of 2010 was this crazy show called Nine by Design which followed two interior decorators who have 7 kids (and here we are complaining 3 is tough!) and build these amazing houses in New York which have really cool interiors. Anyway, one artist that they had a few pieces of was Ann Carrington. My wife adored her 'Pearly Queens' where Ann has appropriated the famous visage of the Queen from the Royal Mail stamps and done them in pearl buttons sewn onto canvas.

After a little bit of sleuthing we found Ann's website and were able to commission our own pearly queen. Unsurprisingly this image has been a hit and echoing David Frazer (who reckons he could make a living of just one of his prints), Ann has quite a few Pearly Queens out there. As a result she gives them all unique locales to reign over, apparently like the actual Pearly Kings and Queens of London fundraising (the image above is the Pearly Queen of Bow from her website). We had given Ann a few suggestions as this was something to remind my wife of her English grandparents and so ours is the Pearly Queen of Basil Street after a favourite haunt of theirs in Knightsbridge.

Points - 3 to Ann for an amazing work. Looks great on the TV and even better in person. 2 to the Mrs for organising it all. I was quite impressed when I arrived home one day to find a huge packing crate waiting near the front door. 1 point for Bob and Cortney for the referral, their book is pretty good too.

New acquisitions - Michael Lindeman

So we went and picked up our latest acquisition today which was quite exciting as I had never actually laid eyes on it. This sounds like a really novel approach to collecting art but we had a good idea of what it would look like. We had commissioned Michael Lindeman back in November to make one of his text paintings for us. Michael has been doing a series of these paintings that basically rip off ads in the trading post (pictured attached is his Sulman Prize winning work from 2010).

I really enjoyed his show at Sullivan & Strumpf last year and remember trying to picture a link between any of the advertisements in that show and any of the stuff we owned at home. There was a ad for a painting of Gosford Harbour by a Russian artist that I thought might have fit the bill until we had the better idea to ask Michael to make us our own ad. My wife had bought a painting of Sydney Harbour before we moved to the US that I thought should be the inspiration. It was by Ken Knight, an artist who has churned out quite a few of these scenes. Now Knight gained a certain notoriety when a shonky Sydney gallerist bought a few Knight's, signed them as Arthur Streeton and then sold them 3 times to different folks for their self managed super!! Well Ken Coles is out of business but it turns out someone had actually placed an ad for a Ken Knight painting that noted a couple of those points. Michael tracked down this real ad and then basically just did a bit of copyediting so it would fit in a couple of lines. Once we were agreed on the text it was off to the races. And we even got to put our suburb and phone number on it (which is why it ain't pictured here!)

Points - 3 to Michael for a really cool idea executed flawlessly, to quote 'the dude' it really ties the room together. 2 for his gallery that helped make this happen and 1 for Ken, as if we didn't have a Sydney Harbour painting then we wouldn't have needed the ad.

New acquisitions - Ben Lord's "Humaliwo Chambers"

There is one set of editions we are very fond of here at Big Lamington HQ - the Peter Norton Christmas Project. Now if you haven't heard of it there is some great background reading here. The quick story is that art aficionado and billionaire Peter Norton (heard of Norton antivirus for your computer?) has publised an annual art edition to celebrate the holiday season which he then sends to his closest 2,000 mates. Now try as we might Big Lamington isn't yet on Peter's Chrissie card list but, shock horror, some of the recipients have taken to flogging his present on eBay. I learnt about the whole story back in 2005 in an interesting New York times article (here) and have been collecting them ever since, mostly on eBay but even the Moma store has a few spares for certain years. Now the last couple of years I have been buying them off an art insider that works at an unnamed US museum so had been a little concerned that it was March and it had been radio silence from my contact. Turns out the 2010 gift was running a little late. The identity of the artist is a secret each year so I was really interested to see who it was ...

LA artist Ben Lord has done the 2010 project. Called the "Humaliwo Chambers" it has been described as a meditation on 10,000 years of California history. The gift includes three print portfolios of an imagined archeologic dig in Malibu (Humaliwo being the native American indian name from which Malibu is derived). The prints are doubles and come with a rather large stereoscopic viewer so you can appreciate them in a kind of low res 3D (Harvey Norman eat you heart out). Now interestingly, the artist has kept a couple of AP's which he is trying to sell on his website for USD $500, which with the rampant Aussie Dollar is not a bad deal (although you don't get Peter's cool chrissie card and extra little gift). Alternatively you can keep your eyes peeled on eBay where I have seen one come up already.

Why would someone want to buy another persons Christmas presents? Well, in my opinion this does qualify as museum quality art (although I won't say which museum!), and when you have all the editions up to 2009 it is pretty hard to avoid signing up for 2010 (or future projects for that matter). Collecting the annual project has been a great way to learn about new artists and get a really good survey of contemporary art over the last two decades. The Norton project has been graced by a couple of reasonably big names (usually early in their careers) such as Yasumasa Morimura (1995), Kara Walker (1997), Vik Muniz (1999), Takashi Murakami (2000) and Yinka Shonibare (2002) to name a few. My top picks from the past have been Yinka Shonibare, who did a dollhouse which was an exact replica of his house in London and the furniture all used his trademark dutch wax cloth (we have two, one for the kids to play with and one just for looking!). The Morimura piece was another favourite - a fan with a photo of him emulating Marilyn Monroe (coincidentally that picture is also on page 527 of this months art & australia magazine).

Points: 3 to Peter, as without a Norton it would be hard to have a Norton Project - a real inspiration and I hope to do my own Christmas edition one day (so I can send one to you!) 2 to Ben for a really involved project - I did feel like a kid on Christmas day as I opened my box and set up the prints in the viewer. And 1 point for all those that decide to 'regift' by selling - I wouldn't have been able to get to know about this without you.