Currents III
Where is some of the best art being made in Australia and who is making it? Our biennial CURRENTS series of in-depth essays is a mini-survey of work by eight mid-career artists who have hit their stride. Craig Walsh, Raquel Ormella, Helen Fuller, Mary Scott, George Gittoes, Farrell & Parkin, Lynette Wallworth and Deborah Kelly work in a wide range of media and out of a range of geographies. Other features are Tim Acker's insights into current challenges faced by Indigenous artists with forgeries and ripoffs still happening, and a look at the Graffiti Research Lab who visited Adelaide recently. Plus book and exhibition reviews and more. Editor Stephanie Britton.
Topic list: Asia, community, globalism, indigenous culture, politics, popular culture.
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Articles in vol 28 no 3, 2008
Craig Walsh transfigured nights, surprising days
Artist profile by Stephanie RadokThe artworks developed by Craig Walsh over the last sixteen years in Australia and around the world take the immediacy of the moving image and place it in unexpected places doing unexpected things.
With a strong global profile he is increasingly being asked to participate in prestigious international events, most recently Drift 08 in London and Koganecho Bazaar in Yokohama. —
Deborah Kelly's gods, monsters and probable histories
Artist profile by Ilaria VanniEach of Deborah Kelly's projects has multiple identities and is cut to fit a certain idea. They are 'both nomadic and site-specific, traversing worlds from art institutions to supermarket shelves and creating multifarious audiences along the way'.
Her best known work 'Beware of the God' was first projected over the MCA in 2005 and was last seen at the 2008 Singapore Biennale. —
George Gittoes art and the war on terror
Artist profile by Joanna MendelssohnGeorge Gittoes' latest film Miscreants was made in Pakistan and records the contradictions of life there with the polemic of Goya and the speed of an MTV music clip.
This film follows his earlier cult films Soundtrack to War and Rampage. Gittoes is never a dispassionate observer, he continues to paint and to draw, making war art that is emotional as well as rich with the difficult truths of our time. —
Helen Fuller: domestic forensics
Artist profile by Cath KenneallyHelen Fuller's art is vivid and complex. Poet, novelist and broadcaster Cath Kenneally communes with Fuller about op shops and the many voices and hidden languages in her installations and paintings. Fuller spends time reflecting on the past, her travels and the present moment in pungent artwork wrapped in humour and whimsy as well as gut-punches. As Kenneally eloquently puts it: 'presented to the world is neatness, order, sacrifice, hidden is the straining, the bulging out of categories.' —
Landscape and complexity: Raquel Ormella
Artist profile by Bec DeanRaquel Ormella's art is political and takes many circuitous approaches to complex issues. Her recent work Wild Rivers: Cairns, Brisbane, Sydney shown in the 2008 Sydney Biennale called up a political landscape of maddening complexity even as it emphasises the need for direct action. Bec Dean writes: 'Ormella is a kind of critical idealist who understands not only the effectiveness of lobbying and the power of the individual in bringing about change but also the slow-burn persistence of such change.' —
Lynette Wallworth: shared moments of revelation
Artist profile by Ted SnellLynette Wallworth's New Media Art is subtle and complex. Empathy is the emotion at the heart of all her works such as Invisible by Night in which the viewer activates the work by reaching out to make contact with a grieving woman and Hold in which viewers catch imagery in glass bowls. Wallworth's international profile is rising. She has exhibitions planned for France (Aix en Provence Festival), the Melbourne Festival in 2008 and the Adelaide Film Festival 2009 and with each new project she is striking an emotional chord in her audiences that resonates long after the physical engagement with the work is over. —
Rose Farrell and George Parkin: home (operating) theatre
Artist profile by Dylan RainforthRose Farrell and George Parkin's art consist of photographs of tableaux involving the artists in sets that they build in their home. They frequently copy old medical illustrations in which the reality of the past is both made to live and to seem ever more mythical. Dylan Rainforth takes an informative and affectionate approach to the complexity of Farrell and Parkin's modus operandi and their newest photographic series called Restoration. —
The dramatic tensions of some place: Mary Scott
Artist profile by Mary KnightsTasmania-based Mary Scott's art ranges across media from traditional to cutting edge. Sometimes she meticulously paints oil on linen from digitally devised imagery, at other times she uses multiple inkjet prints as the final work.
Focusing on Scott's 2007 exhibition Some Place at Criterion Gallery in Hobart, Mary Knights describes her hallucinogenic and unheimlich works as depicting 'with detachment and clarity the spectrum of human fragility.' —
Aboriginal art: it's a complicated thing 
Feature by Tim AckerTim Acker, an independent arts consultant working with Aboriginal artists in remote and regional Australia, writes about the current situation.
Questions of ethics in the sale, and making, of Aboriginal art are under review and an Australian Indigenous Art Commercial Code of Conduct has been developed though the 2008 Federal budget failed to fund its roll-out.
Acker suggests that consumers become more educated about the art and about the provenance of the works they buy. —
G.R.L. giving people opportunities to tear their city apart since 2005
Feature by Charity BramwellIn March 2008 James Powderly and Evan Roth of the New York-based Graffiti Research Lab (G.R.L.) spent time in Adelaide during the Festival as guests of Carclew Youth Arts. The Graffiti Research Lab is dedicated to outfitting graffiti writers, pranksters, artists and protestors with open source tools for urban communication. Today, an inventory of street artforms would include tagging, muralling, political sloganeering, stencils, stickers, paste-ups, installation, guerilla projection, culture jamming, and advertisement hacking. Powderly and Roth define graffiti as anything that happens outside in the city without permission. At the heart of all G.R.L. projects is the concept of open source , and perhaps it is this approach that has been their greatest area of influence.
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Problematic artworks or my doctor told me to take up painting to help me cope with the panic attacks
Feature by Suzanne SpunnerSuzanne Spunner, a graduate of Melbourne University's Art Authentication Program at the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, writes about the successful landmark prosecution of Pamela and Ivan Liberto for forging Rover Thomas paintings in November 2007. Meanwhile in April 2008 artist Nat Thomas, half of the art duo Nat and Ali, in an exhibition entitled 'Appropriation: how appropriate is it?', made and showed fake Rover Thomas paintings as an art prank. 'My doctor told me to take up painting to help cope with the panic attacks' is a quote by Pamela Liberto from the transcript of the case, appropriated by Nat Thomas as the title for one of her fake Rover Thomas works. —
Bal Tashchit: Thou Shalt Not Destroy
Review by Sophie KnezicBal Tashchit: Thou Shalt Not Destroy
Curators: Melissa Amore and Ashley Crawford
Jewish Museum of Australia, St Kilda
8 April – 29 June 2008
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Biennale of Sydney 2008 Revolutions - Forms That Turn
Review by Stephanie RadokBiennale of Sydney 2008 Revolutions - Forms That Turn
Curator: Caroline Christov-Bakargiev
18 June – 7 September 2008
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Companion Planting
Review by Bryony NainbyCompanion Planting
Lucy Bleach, Michelle Cangiano, Dean Chatwin, Raef Sawford, Amanda Shone
Curator: Jack Robins
CAST Gallery, Hobart
May 24 – June 15 2008
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God-favoured, Rodney Glick: Surveyed
Review by Ric SpencerGod-favoured, Rodney Glick: Surveyed
Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery
13 June – 10 August 2008
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Ian Friend: Thirty Years of Works on Paper 1977-2007
Review by Angela GardnerIan Friend: Thirty Years of Works on Paper 1977-2007
Curators: Gordon Craig and Anne Kirker
QUT Art Museum, Brisbane
24 April- 29 June 2008
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III Performances (in white cube)
Review by Russell KeltyIII PERFORMANCES [in white cube]
Linda Lou Murphy
Ana Wojak & Fiona McGregor
Alison Currie
Curator: Melentie Pandilovski
Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide
30 May – 5 July 2008
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Kate Rohde: flourish
Review by Justine KhamaraKate Rohde: flourish
Curator: Jenna Blyth
TarraWarra Museum of Art 20 April - 20 July 2008
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Performances at Biennale of Sydney 2008 Revolutions - Forms That Turn
Review by Jo HigginsPerformance at Biennale of Sydney 2008 Revolutions - Forms That Turn
Curator: Caroline Christov-Bakargiev
18 June – 7 September 2008
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The Lovely Season, Enrique Martinez Celaya
Review by Naomi GallThe Lovely Season
Enrique Martinez Celaya
Liverpool Street Gallery
27 February – 27 March 2008
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Translating from the dead to the living, Karin Lettau
Review by Jane DeethTranslating from the dead to the living
Karin Lettau
Design Centre, Tasmania
24 April – 20 June 2008
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Uneasy: Recent South Australian Art
Review by Niki SperouUneasy: Recent South Australian Art
Curator: Timothy Morrell
Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia
20 June – 17 August 2008
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Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award 2008
Review by George PetelinXstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award 2008
Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), Brisbane
11 July – 12 October 2008
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Other articles & reviews
in this issue
- Artrave
Artrave by Edblog - Aberhart
Book review by Stephanie Radok - Jon Cattapan: possible histories
Book review by Ian North - Perils of the studio: inside the artistic affairs of bohemian Melbourne, Alex Taylor
Book review by Juliette Peers