Louis Reith

Louis Reith is a Dutch artist and graphic designer currently living and working in Amsterdam, NL.

How great are these? mmm well I like them stacks.

Don't you just love that

I just love it when you are researching and you come across tangents that end up being more important than the original research topic? This is how I came across Mary Bauermiester a German artist with links to Fluxus. In fact the wiki on her is pretty good LINK. This is a great fairly resent interview with her LINK

Lynch

I just read about this novel idea called crowdfunding via So Much to Tell You some independant film makers need some cash to finish their David Lynch Documentary. They are asking fans to donate and will give you cool stuff in return - like a print, t-shirt or tote bag with an abstract self-portrait by Lynch plus other stuff. Go look Here

Quite Moments of Wasting Time

I was thinking about wasting time today, as I had to fill in four hours due to the massive turn out for the morning life drawing class. I was thinking about pleasant places that I have spent time in, waiting. I used to spend much more time waiting outside when I lived in Melbourne; usually waiting for friends, waiting for trams, waiting for my shift to start, waiting for whatever. I don't really do that much waiting at the moment and I think that is perhaps not such a good thing. So life drawing was great, I left the class with a sore arm and a smile. When I arrived home I found a clipping from Realtime in amongst a bunch of papers I had emptied out of my art folder, the clipping was for a performance entiled Bench by the UK artist Jenna Watt (pictured above). The performance sounded rather lovely: basically Watt on a bench sitting, waiting, talking, taking the odd Polariod, recording a thought onto it and pegging it on a string line.

It made me think of all the sweet little places I used to go and take time out. It also made me think of that lovely little church's courtyard that I have'nt been to in a long time. I think it is time to go, seek out, sit and wait and record my own experience of the inbetween moments that I am so interested in.

Relief Paintings

Gregory Euclide has a big installation in the Biennale of the Americas which is pretty much an extension of these rather lovely relief paintings inspired by the rocky mountains.

Saint Fabiola

Ever since I heard about Francis Alys's collection of Fabiola paintings I have wanted my own. This project interests me as the project was such a simple idea which has grown to the point where it seems to have taken on a life of its own. So today while donating the left overs of my garage sale to an op-shop I noticed a her on the wall, unfortunately its a print of the original Henner painting unlike the Alys collection which is all hand rendered recreations. This is a great little article by Lynne Cooke which is about Fabiola and Alys LINK. I really enjoy this interview with Francis Alys about his art and practise LINK.

Smoking self-portriat's

These images feel beautiful, strong and effortless.

I like how their flow as a threesome: pink, blue and orange LINK

More Biennale

The 17th Sydney Biennale is entitled ‘The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age’.

Liu Jianhua’s Container Series (2009), intrigued me from a distance, I saw vessels filled to the brim with blood I excitedly walked over and imagined my foot steps creating ripples in the pools, but as I drew closer I was struck calm by their stillness.

Yamaguchi Akira’s work combines the techniques and imagery of classical Japanese painting with contemporary urban realism. At first it is difficult to distinguish these works from the traditional paintings they draw on, by investing interest reveals the contemporary icons within the landscape.

Wang Qingsong’s photographic work Debacle (2009) has the characteristics of a modernist painting. The hand painted advertising posters cover an entire wall. The posters are faded pastels colours and the corrugated iron ripples add an extra texture.

Raqib Shaw’s painting The mild-eyed melancholy of the lotus eaters III (2009-10) draws in the viewer with its intense decoration and textile influences. So much, so that in fact this initially distracts the viewer from the actual imagery, the viewer is already invested within the painting when it reveals the imagery of highly erotised anthropomorphised animals and mythical creatures.

Louise Bourgeois ECHO (2007) is a suite of seven bronze sculptures which stand like tall desert birds, like many of the works seen in the biennale the encounter with these works tricks and transforms your perception several times. Once you realise they are cleverly considered and constructed items of clothing stretched and sewn together, you see the phallic and maternal themes the sculptures reveal their material and there literal strength can be admired.

Angela Ellsworth amazing sculptural creations represent pioneers women’s bonnets. The outer side of the bonnets display the decorative patterns made with pearls, closer examination exposes the other side of the bonnets reveal hundred’s and thousands of shape pins, transforming the bonnets into strangely beautiful but disturbing fetish-like objects.

Shirazeh Houshiary’s works oscillate and metamorphose. Her paintings are constructed by webbing words over the painted surface, resulting in kinetic, luminous surfaces. These undulating surfaces create optical illusions that capture the viewers gaze and reveal an illusiveness which I find extremely engaging.

Rachel Kneebone’s porcelain sculptures erupt like massive pavlova volcanos of contorted bodies, limbs and slumped phallic tendrils that emerge from amorphous properties of the material. Inspired by Ovid’s great poem ‘Metamorphosis’ where humans migrate into a myriad of forms, Kneebone depicts an erotic state of flux, suspended mid-transition, divulging part figurative and fragmentary motifs.

Gunnel Wåhlstrand paints on paper measuring more than 200 x 150 cm. Time-consuming, and with great precision. She paints mostly from photographs of her fathers early childhood. Through this process she is able to access a peaceful family time before her fathers suicide. The photographs where all taken by her grandfather, included interiors of the family home, the garden, and importantly her family members at ages she could never have know them. She herself has compared her method with the photographic development process, saying that her work is a way of creating memories.

Broadly speaking, what I get from these artists is a sense of enchantment; for me their works resonate an intelligent simplicity, laboured and controlled beyond any notion of function to engender a state of wonderment. These artists are each able to provoke a beauty through repetition, creating an engaging encounter that feels almost like a trick: each moment your perception of the work is corrected.

Exhibition: When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade!

So cos holly & I don't play extreme sports we decided to be more extreme and create an exhibition held the week before end of semester, it was a bit much but the gin and lemonade helped.

RAREKIEK

I have a new obsession Boite D'optique all images from and for the opportunity of further dripping of saliva uncontrollably from the mouth go look here

and look at the sweetness of this little contraption

Biennale

Here are some of the works I found myself admiring at the Biennale

Yamaguchi Akira

Gunnel Wåhlstrand

Raqib Shaw

Hiraki Sawa

Miguel Angel Rios

Liu Jianhua

Yayoi Kusama

Rachel Kneebone

Isaac Julien

Shirazeh Houshiary

Gonkar Gyatso

Angela Ellsworth

Louise Bourgeios

Roger Ballen

There are many more I could add but this shall do for the minute.

I've added links to all available websites in the side bar for future reference.

Winter School Biennale

So Winter School meant that my good friend Holly and I could go visit Sydney and eat as much art as was possible. I wish I had of taken more photos, but at the same time it means that these ones will remain particularly special. I had a great time and met some and met up with some really lovely folk and will definitely be visiting again.

So I now have a mega list of new artists to look and think about.

The works in these pics are Kate McMillian's Islands of incarceration, 2010
and the final room of Rosslynd Piggott series of installations.

Nathan Gray

Nathan Gray is exhibiting at Cast at the moment with a group of other great artists, including the exhibit is called Dreamweavers if your in Hobart go have a look. Sean Bailey, Dyan Martorell are in the show too which makes it even more rad.