Some thoughts on the Triennial

Opening night of the Auckland Triennial at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki

Anthony Byrt’s take on the 5th Auckland Triennial, If you were to live here, for Artforum’s scene and heard is now online.

More Yelling

This time care of the late Polish artist Wojciech Bruszewski
(via A Sound Awareness).

Brief Candle

Alex Wolman, ‘Brief Candle’, performance still

LOL recently visited this year’s iteration of the national graduate show, Hatched, at PICA in Perth.  Included in the exhibition was a video of an endurance performance by WA artist Alex Wolman entitled ‘Brief Candle’.  In it, Wolman screams relentlessly – for 51 harrowing minutes - until he physically can’t scream any more.  In fact, he inadvertently burst a lung in the process.  

A link between this work and Marina Abramovic and Ulay’s 1978 performance ‘AAA AAA’ is immediately apparent.  Both works are distressing in their positioning of the audience as inherently passive.  As viewers we witness subjects in a state of extreme physical distress yet we’re powerless to help them.  Wolman’s work in particular has an urgency and rawness to it that makes walking away from ‘Brief Candle’ virtually impossible.  Instead, we must bear witness to his horrible struggle, egging him on to the inevitable point of conclusion.

You can watch Alex Wolman’s ’Brief Candle’ here.  

Hot Photo Friday – Giulia Agostini

Giulia Agostini, from the series ‘Dogs’, n.d.

LOL on Instagram

Leg of Lamb has finally succumbed to the wily charms of Instagram.  Check out all of my latest happy snaps here.

Go Grayson!

Grayson Perry arrives at the Baftas

Grayson Perry wore a rather saucy gown to the Bafta TV awards on Sunday. Designed especially for him by Central St Martins student Morgan Levy, the beaded satin number features a rather explicit, ahem, ‘pearl necklace’ (be careful googling that…).  Perry was in attendance to receive an award for his three-part Channel 4 documentary series, All in the Best Possible Taste, that explores – you guessed it – modern British taste. It would seem that some British media including the Daily Mail found the cross-dresser’s awards garb supremely distasteful, avoiding the glaringly obvious by describing the gown simply as a  ”nude panelled dress”. ‘Tasteful’ or not, LOL reckons he looks fab-u-lous.

Something Beautiful

Tony Fomison, ‘Beethoven’, 1981, Auckland Art Gallery Chartwell Gift Collection

Amidst the flurry of Triennial activities in Auckland last week, LOL encountered a work at Auckland Art Gallery that was, simply, beautiful. It was included in a modest exhibition of paintings by the late NZ artist, Tony Fomison. All too easily pigeonholed into the ‘New Zealand Gothic’ category, it is fair to say that Fomison’s work is often sombre, sometimes tortured – inhabited by distorted figures that variously recall Polynesian folklore, religious iconography and even the torment of the dead and dying.  This is what makes ‘Beethoven’ (above) so arresting.  Unlike Fomison’s typically dark terrain, the solitary figure here inhabits a domain of light, and one can’t help but entertain all of the symbolic associations that go with it; warmth; enlightenment, hope.  A strange McCahon/Friedrich fusion, Fomison’s ‘Beethoven’ – painted over 30 years ago – is still radiant.

Triennial Bound

Leg of Lamb’s off to NZ for the opening of the 5th Auckland Triennial, If you were to live here, curated by Hou Hanru. Normal posts will resume next week but you can keep an eye on Twitter for all the very latest goss. (Lots of Triennial related in-jokes for Aucklanders in the viddie above too…)

Hot Photo Friday – Nicholas & Sheila Pye

Nicholas and Sheila Pye, ‘Sitting on a Unicorn’, 2004

No no no!

Sweater featuring artwork by Damien Hirst

There’s a guy called Alec Weitl who spends his time photoshopping images onto sweaters.  These sweaters don’t actually exist.  Rather, Weitl uploads them to a tumblr site for hipsters the world over to admire. The monstrosity above, of course, is a reproduction of Damien Hirst’s vacuous £50m diamond encrusted skull, ‘For the Love of God’ (2007).  With plans to go into production, LOL wonders; who would actually wear this?!

And for further musings on Hirst’s ‘glittery bauble’; nothing beats the vitriole of the late Robert Hughes (below).