Art news
DRS CREW was spawned in Sydney by PLAZM in 1999 and has since snowballed to become a thriving collective of 15 artists. Their new (and appropriately titled) Melbourne show is a celelebration of friendship, co-ordinated vandalism and many schooey's down the pub. Showcasing works by Que, Skael, Mepher, Numskull, Baker, Radio, Tony and Army, they apply their skills to everything from painted canvas to projected animations, vector prints and stuffed toys.
In Sonia Leber and David Chesworth’s Almost Always Everywhere Apparent, exhibition goers become overwhelmed by a sonorous and prison-like super sized structure. Within its walk-through environment, viewer/listeners are subjected to a surround soundtrack of grunts, groans, moans, utterances, cries and choral outbursts, all accumulating in what is indeed a compelling exploration of hierarchical systems and social control. – JD
If you find yourself in Copenhagen over the next few days and fancy a little reprieve from the fashion week fallout and Henrik Vibskov scarves adorning the necks of all and sundry, visit The Room Project in Nikolaj Kunsthalle. Photographer Annette Merrild has taken to peering into middle class living rooms across the globe, revealing both a common thread (strangely TV) and latent differences – a picture of humanity without a single subject in the frame.
Check out the onlne portfolio of Katoomba-based artist Adrienne Doig. Doig, whose practice embraces embroidery, appliqué, installation and multimedia projects, is a compulsive and prolific self-portraitist, uploading a new book of sketches each month.
I finally caught Antony Gormley's Blind Light at London's Hayward Gallery. Britain's superstar sculptor showed new monumental works including one of the largest ever urban public art
commissions, Event Horizon, 31 sculptural casts of the
artist’s body. Like a game of where's Antony, on approaching the gallery across Waterloo Bridge, steel figures start popping into your periphery, scattered across building rooftops, some so far away they're just distant specks, yet all seem to be watching you.
Once inside we're faced with Space Station, a colossal steel mass
weighing 22 tonnes, like a rusty piece of space junk hurtling through space. It's illuminated solely by the glow from Blind Light, a luminous glass room filled with dense mist. From the outside you watch as visitors disappear into the mist, reappearing as they comically feel their way along the glass walls. Once inside it's damp and spooky, we laugh nervously, the way you laugh in a ghost train. Voices of other visitors are suddenly distant, only seeing people when they almost walk into you.
Allotment 11 is 300 life-size concrete units derived from the dimensions of people aged between 18 months and 80 years. Wandering through the corridors of concrete boxes, we examine and lean on them, finding private alcoves to chat. As my friend kept pointing out, Gormley provided numerous opportunities for a first date kiss- in the mist, behind some concrete, on the rooftop statue spotting. Immersive in every sense, there was no precious distancing of the art from the viewer, rather an interesting spatial dynamic between the actual viewers. Rather than lesson the experience, the crowds heightened it, squeezing into spaces, avoiding others in the mist, bumping, peeking through square holes, confronting and interacting.
Born in Wellington a couple of years back, community art collective
Craftwerk has knitted itself a merry wee trail across the Land of the Long
White Cloud, spreading up and down the nation like a patch work plague
(bad meaning good!)
Throwing a host of crazy-sexy-cool craft-parties these canny
enthusiasts just love their crafts- baking, mixtapes, live bands and zines
(and a little tipple too) and are jubilantly poised to bring their DIY ethos
to a town near you. Touring nationally this month, 5 cities, North and
South, 10 vendors and 4 bands, they¹ll converge on Auckland to create a
super gigantic September 13th happening in St Kevins Arcade. Get involved
people, geek-chic is now!
‘Paper/Scissors/Rock’ presents a delightfully disparate investigation into the childhood game. Drawing together an array of interpretations from the playful to the political, West Space has selected several of Melbourne’s most prominent emerging artists to instigate a diverse dialogue that either borrows from or relates to the well-known pastime, whether it be the scissor and paper usage of Damiano Bertoli and Tony Garifalakis, or simple refernce like Ash Keating’s ‘Toxic Rocks (Beats both scissors and paper)’. Indeed a refreshing collection of quality contemporary artworks, ‘Paper/Scissors/Rock’ presents a fascinating range of subjective and unique ideas, all-the-while remaining true to its unifying theme. JD
