image: ‘my icarus’ graphite on board 90cm x 120cm
‘Face Mail and Junk Book Blues’ opens on Saturday night at 6pm. Exciting new video work, drawings and paintings by Damien Kamholtz will be shown at RAYGUN (29 Annand Street). Come down for a drink and meet Damien.
Images are from the Ryan Renshaw website
A few weeks ago Ryan Renshaw visited RAYGUN to see Sarah Ryan’s exhibition ‘Two worlds, one of them being ideal’. Ryan is easy going and lovely, he loved RAYGUN and the show, and is now showing Sarah’s work in his project space at Ryan Renshaw (his gallery). Tarn and I went down to Brisbane last night to the opening and had a wonderful time. The work looked amazing in the fabulous space, it was a lovely night, view the Ryan Renshaw website here
Education for Socially Engaged Art by Pablo Helguera is the first “Materials and Techniques” book for the emerging field of social practice. Written with a pragmatic, hands-on approach for university-level readers and those interested in real-life application of the theories and ideas around socially engaged art. The book, emphasizing the use of pedagogical strategies to address issues around social practice, addresses topics such as documentation, community engagement, dialogue and conversation, amongst many others.
The book was published by Jorge Pinto Books in 2011 and can be acquired online.
I found this interview with Christine Hill on Lee Walton’s website and thought I’d share it. Hill is head of the Department Media, Trend and Public Appearance at Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany. The interview discusses her work and the link between the making of art and the very unconventional and intriguing project Volksboutique. Here’s part of the interview……..
‘Volksboutique began as a thrift store/sculptural installation in Berlin back in the ’90s when she left New York and landed in Germany. Visitors would open the door to her underground shop, tea was served, clothes were cheap and people congregated to discuss topics ranging from identity and self presentation, to weather and the effect of tourism on the neighborhood (via).
Volksboutique projects kept on evolving, surprising and questioning the audience and the art world. She franchised the boutique for Documenta X in Kassel in 1997, then abandoned her role as a salesgirl and mutated into a late-night talk-show host, a tour guide, a masseuse, a handbags and retro-looking stamp kits designer, etc. Turning everyday job into an artistic activity that could either be presented inside galleries or taken on the road inside carefully crafted trunks’
-AL
The Guggenheim Lab is designed to be a pop up space which is constructed and deconstructed in nine different cities across the world over the next 6 years. It’s architecture is designed to feel like you’re in a city rather than in a building. The relationship between private comfort and public comfort is explored through tha labs interest in contributing to a dialogue within a city, aiming to produce a dialogue with the community discussing problems and creating solutions, coming from the people. This project has been developed from not just an art background but through a think talk of people from different backgrounds and interests coming together to create a platform for positive actions. The centre is free for visitors and was in New York from August 3rd – October 16th, it is now in transit to Berlin. Here is the website
I always like knowing what blogs other people follow and then getting new blog recommendations… so I thought as I’d like to share with you some of favourite things this month I’d mention some of my favourite blogs (in no particular order) –
www.vvork.com (pictured above)
– this is one of my favourite art blogs, if not my favourite.
www.thedesignfiles.net
– I’m pretty much guaranteed to read ‘the design files’ everyday!
http://ffffound.com/
– I love checking out this site for image inspiration.
www.mono-blog.com
– This is mono.kultur’s blog and I regularly blog for this site so you have to check out this one!
Recently I read Foucault’s essay ‘Of Other Spaces’ which looks at the way that we react to spaces and how they are constructed to fit within the ideologies of society especially within the human environment. The essay deals with the histories of the spaces and how they have changed from the mediaeval to exist within a contemporary context with technology influencing the spaces which are transferred into ‘sites’. Foucault explores spaces which society have both constructed and based themselves around as well as the importance and high regard traditionally of spaces such as gardens and cemeteries, as well as others such as museums, libraries and funnily enough, trains. Foucault looks at the difference between internal and external spaces, and the utopian and its dichotomy which Foucault describes as hetrotopology, which is defined by Foucault as ‘a sort of simultaneous mythic and real contestation of the space in which we live’[1]…. Foucault goes on to explain that, ‘It is necessary to notice that the space which today appears to form the horizon of our concerns, our theory, our systems, in not an innovation; space itself has a history of western experience and it is not possible to disregard the fatal intersection of time and space[2]’.
I loved it, its interesting to take a deeper look into space which is generally something that we exist within without much more thought. I’ve included a link to the full text here if you want to have a read – Essay
AL
Ashleigh Bunter of A. Bunter Projects who I am pleased to say is on RAYGUN’s board of directors, has written about Sarah Ryan’s show ‘Two worlds, one of them being ideal’. Visit the website to read more and see the images.
This morning Adam forwarded me these images of Esther, who is the wonderful Grandmother that we were invited to write to as part of Adam Mosers project “We wouldn’t trade those years” at RAYGUN in January. These images show Esther replying to the letters that visitors to Adams exhibition wrote. everyone’s so excited to receive their replies!
Hello, it’s Sarah Ryan here. Ali and Tarn have invited me to contribute to this blog over the next month so I thought I’d tell you about some of my favourite things over the month… and I thought that I’d start off with magazines. I love magazines and I would buy so many if I could! I’ve edited down my very long list to just 3!
mono.kultur – mono.kultur (current issue pictured above) is a really exciting Berlin-based independent publishing project that I’m really thrilled to be a part of. Each issue of mono.kultur is dedicated exclusively to one artist from the various genres in culture, such as fine art, music, film, literature, etc. Every issue consists of one very long and in-depth question/answer interview – no more no less. Carefully edited and designed, mono.kultur give a focused selection of artists the time and space that they deserve. Previous issues have featured artists as diverse as Miranda July, Tilda Swinton, Dries van Noten, David Shrigley, the Wu-Tang Clan and David LaChapelle amongst others. If you haven’t come across mono.kultur yet you can buy issues and subscriptions here. And you can also fill out a mono.survey for the chance to win a year’s subscription!
032c – I don’t subscribe to many magazines but this one that I definitely subscribe to. 032c is another great publishing project out of Berlin. Here’s what they say and I couldn’t explain it any better – “032c is a contemporary culture magazine that fiercely believes in the intelligence of its readers, and rises to the challenge of surprising them. Published twice a year, it is both timely and timeless – a celebration of and for the most cutting-edge in art, culture and fashion.” This is such a super interesting magazine. I totally recommend this one!
Dumbo Feather – “Behind extraordinary ideas, there are extraordinary people. Dumbo Feather is a magazine about these people.” I really wanted to add an Australian magazine to the mix too. This is a magazine that I also subscribe to and the above really says it all – it’s a magazine with stories about extraordinary people!
RAYGUN 