Words and things

Concrete Poetry is both a form and an attitude to poetry that emphasises the visual and material elements of letters and thus words in relation to their meaning. 'Words and Things' is a project Patrick Jones set out to produce to represent concrete poetry and text-based art in Australia. A project that took him four years and that has attempted to dissolve the traditional form boundaries between art and poetry. The material considerations of 'Words and Things', both environmental and aesthetic, lead the reader into a work that is more like a sequence of short films than a standard book. Contributors to the book included Richard Tipping, Aleks Danko, Alex Selenitsch, Peter Tyndall, Geoffrey Baxter, Peter OMara, Jeff Stewart and Marie Sierra.

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Word as Image: Islamic calligraphy in contemporary art

In the broadest terms calligraphy can be seen as a prescriptive form of drawing and in this liberated sense an artist is free to investigate its role as both message and ornament. This article looks at the nature of Islamic calligraphy via the works of two very different artists working in Australia today Iranian born Hossein Valamanesh and Naeem Rana of Pakistan. With the significance of language and the written word in Islamic culture it is hardly surprising that visual artists have in recent decades turned to it as the source of cultural and political potency.

Sarah Thomas

APT5

5th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT5) Queensland Art Gallery Gallery of Modern Art Brisbane 2 December - 27 May 2007

Timothy Morrell

Sacred texts

Books hold a privileged place in our society as keepers of knowledge, spiritual truth and cultural heritage. Melinda Rankin examines the role of books in artistic practice and the robust relationship that exists between artist and book via a willingness to challenge some of the apparent conventions of structure and content. Simryn Gill, Ken Orchard, Alex Selenitsch and Gerard Genette are artists whose practice is deeply entrenched in the seemingly offensive act of fiddling with these sacred texts. For these artists, the slicing, tearing and unpicking of books is not an act of violence or irreverence. In subverting the original narrative to their own purpose, they reconsecrate the text into artworks creating contemporary objects of veneration and desire.

Melinda Rankin

Fluxus and after

Fluxus is a phenomenon that defies ready classification. This article highlights some of the printed and published matter that Fluxus inspired, starting with Maciunas-directed productions, those of Dick Higgins and other examples of individuals working in Australia today. A common factor in the instances of all Fluxus activity is a passion for improvisation and experimentation, a conscious elevation of the mundane and over-looked, often an active zeal in the face of disturbing political events, and not least, a stress on producing unusual and visually arresting statements. Australian artists following the Fluxus tradition here discussed include Michael Phillips, Madonna Staunton, Alex Selenitsch and Richard Tipping.

Anne Kirker

Rodney Glick/Lynette Voevedin

24Hr Panoramas Rodney Glick and Lynnette Voevodin Curator: Gary Dufour Art Gallery of Western Australia Perth 16 November 2006 - 21 January 2007

Jasmin Stephens

The virus and the oracle: words as signs

Jane Goodall explores the notion of text and the word as a kind of virus, something William Burroughs considers a parasitic organism, especially as is the case in contemporary visual and semantic culture. Words act as signifiers for semioticians, but their visual presence in art makes them work as spatial indicators, suggesting that they contain directions or instructions. Here Goodall poses the potential of words in revealing something else about themselves: a secret yearning not to give orders but rather to be oracles, channelling strange truths from who knows what sources. Artists discussed include: Suzann Victor, Susie Lingham, Joseph Ng, Tony Schwensen, Samuel Beckett, Cheo Chai-Hiang, Redza Piyadasa, Heather Ellyard, Barbara Campbell.

Jane Goodall

Ann Newmarch

Anticipation Ann Newmarch Prospect Gallery Adelaide 5 - 26 November 2006

Ian Hamilton

Hiraki Sawa

Hiraki Sawa New Media Gallery, Level 3 National Gallery of Victoria International Melbourne 7 July - 3 December 2006

Anna Zagala

APT5

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Editorial

Richard Tipping looks at the role of text and language from an historical and contemporary context, covering areas of interest such as recent technological advancements, graffiti culture and going as far back as 46,000 years to briefly discuss some of the oldest found examples of Indigenous cave art in the south of Australia. Along the way he looks to medieval and ancient Phoenician developments, Clement Greenbergs promotion of painting as a purely optical experience, one in which text has no place except as another kind of surface, the role of Dada in claiming the relationship between word and image and discusses other important figures such as Duchamp, Brancusi, Stephane Mallarme, Christopher Brennan, Picasso, Braque, Kurt Schwitters, Charles Olson, Alex Selenitsch, Allan Riddell, Rosalie Gascoigne and many others.

Richard Tipping

In black & white: text in Indigenous Queensland art

Timothy Morrell examines the significance of words within the context of Australian Indigenous art subsequent to the efforts of colonisation in neutralising indigenous identity through assimilation. The point is made through this article that: Words give artists the opportunity to be more direct than they usually are with images. Morrell uses the case of a handful of Queensland based indigenous artists such as Gordon Bennett, Richard Bell, Ah Kee, Fiona Foley and Vanessa Fisher.

Timothy Morrell

Gwangju Biennale, South Korea

2006 marked the 6th Gwangju Biennale: Fever Variations in South Korea. Stephanie Britton sets the scene for what she describes as having been generous and daring, though not grand or pretentious and never (that kiss of death) magisterial. This event saw a definite shift from an international focus to look more intently at Asian preoccupations of the recent past as played out in the minds and hands of artists. Some of the simple headings at the recent Biennale were Myth and Fantasy; Nature and Body; Trace of Mind; Past in Present, as a way to initiate dialogue and illuminate the stories of how Asian artists began to work within an international context. Some of the artists showcased were Xu Bing (China), Kim Jong-ku (Korea), Miwa Yanagi (Japan) and Lee Sookyung (Korea).

Stephanie Britton

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