/ CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES dead ringer 14 NOV – 27 DEC
SPARK_LAB EDUCATION RESOURCE PACK
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ARTISTS
Brook Andrew Megan Cope Churchill Cann Rachael Dease Keg de Souza Mikala Dwyer Tim Gregory Brent Harris Glenn Ligon Leo Maguire Steve McQueen Angelica Mesiti Lena Nyadbi Ron Nyisztor Fiona Pardington Peter Porkalari Lisa Reihana Stuart Ringholt Paddy Henry (Teeami) Ripijingimpi Kynan Tan Curtis Taylor Unnamed Tiwi Artists
Curated By Leigh Robb
DEAD RINGER Education Notes 2 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
DEAD RINGER EDUCATION NOTES
Featuring work by Australian and international artists, Dead Ringer seeks to draw forth the doppelgangers, ghosts and bad copies that haunt us. The exhibition unites an original group of artists whose works negotiate the extremes of portraiture through film, painting, photography, installation, 3D printing, hypnosis and transcendental meditation to identify the apparitions, simulations and doubles that have surfaced in recent dialogues about contemporary culture.
Drawing on theories of quantum entanglement, parallel worlds, stolen identities and exact duplicates, Dead Ringer is about identity crisis in the post-internet age. This group show connects artists across artforms, cultures and time zones —an ideal exhibition for secondary visual arts students, as well as students across other subject areas.
The notes are provided online so that you may distribute the notes to other teachers and students with ease. You may photocopy sections of notes or ask students to print them out themselves. The notes are aimed at senior secondary students, however you can modify these notes, the questions and activities for students as you see fit for your particular students, to best suit their needs.
PLEASE NOTE: Dead Ringer contains certain art pieces that may offend certain viewers and are therefore not appropriate for school aged children. The four artists’ (Mikala Dwyer, Tim Gregory, Leo Maguire and Curtis Taylor) works have been identified, labeled as such and placed in a separate section in the exhibition/gallery. These artists have not been included in these Education Notes.
We are always looking for outstanding examples of student work that has been sparked by our exhibition content. If any of your students submit written answers and/or art work of a high standard in response to the artwork or the suggested questions and activities, please forward a copy to:
Minaxi May Education Programs Curator PICA GPO Box P1221 Perth, WA, 6844 or [email protected]
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PLEASE NOTE: All images used in the Education Notes are reproduced with the artists’ permission.
DEAD RINGER Education Notes 3 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
CONTENTS
5 Curatorial Overview — Leigh Robb
6 What is Dead Ringer?
7 Themes in Dead Ringer
8 Artists’ Q & A and Research
40 Arts Projects inspired by Dead Ringer
47 Curriculum Links
48 Glossary
52 References
54 Image Credits
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CURATORIAL OVERVIEW - LEIGH ROBB
Curated by PICA’s Leigh Robb, Dead Ringer unites an original group of over 20 artists whose works negotiate the extremes of portraiture through film, painting, photography, installation, 3D printing, hypnosis and transcendental meditation. This major group show connects artists across artforms, cultures and time zones. Drawing on theories of quantum entanglement, stolen identity and exact duplicates, Dead Ringer is about identity crisis in the post-internet age.
A dead ringer manifests itself as a doppelgänger, an identical duplicate, a clone. It is a recurring formal motif in art history. It dominates Gothic literature and appears frequently in science fiction, magical realism and horror cinema.
This obsession with the double is just as relevant and ubiquitous in the post-internet age, in which an encounter with one’s double can induce the same disconcerting sensation of displacement or alienation from oneself. The anxiety that the double engenders lies in its inherent refutation of individuality, the disturbing denial of uniqueness, and the consequent subversion of identity.
As an entity that is simultaneously ‘I’ and ‘other’, the double performs the role of disrupting a unified sense of self. The doppelgänger effect can be the result of a mere physical likeness, or manifest as supernatural or phantasmal. Such resemblances can, of course, be simulated, and a sense of doubling can also be created through impersonation. The motif of the double is superbly malleable, and has been subject to myriad permutations throughout history. It has been embraced by the artists in this exhibition to eery and in some cases comic effect.
The etymology of the dead ringer goes back to the 18th century and the fear of being buried alive. The general fear of premature burial led to the invention of peculiar but noisy safety devices that could be fitted into coffins. Most consisted of some type of mechanism for communication to the outside world, such as a cord attached to a bell that the interred person could ring should they revive after the burial – the dead ringer.
Dead Ringer is an exhibition that invites in ghosts and creates spaces for doppelgangers to meet, mingle and negotiate. In it, we see how artists have the power to disturbingly double the world, reproducing reality through painting, photography, cast objects, and 3D virtual worlds. Perhaps our persistent fears of death and duplication can (temporarily) be assuaged through our encounters with art.
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WHAT IS DEAD RINGER?
Dead: In this phrase “dead” means exact, accurate or for certain.
Ringer: A term used to describe when a horse is used in place of another horse to deceive bookies. The horse may be under a fake name or pedigree.1
Dead Ringer: Used to describe something/someone that is the same/similar.
Popular culture examples: − Dead Ringers (1988) Canadian–American film starring Jeremy Irons. This was inspired by the lives of identical twin gynecologists Cyril and Stewart Marcus.
− BBC Radio show/TV comedy, created by Bill Dare.
− Fine art jewellry immortalising the skulls of four music rock legends: Keith Richards; Jim Morrison; Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix in the form of rings.
− Forrest, Jennifer and Leonard R. Koos, 2012. Dead Ringers: The Remake in Theory and Practice, SUNY Press. A book that takes a critical look at movie remakes as a long-standing constituent of filmmaking.
1 Gary Martin. “Dead Ringer”, The Phrase Finder. 2015. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/dead-ring- er.html 6 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
THEMES IN DEAD RINGER FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
Alienation Clone Death Displacement Doppelgänger Double Duplication Etymology Ghosts Gothic literature Horror cinema Identical Identity Identity crisis Impersonation Individuality Magical realism Permutations Phantasmal Post-internet age. Quantum entanglement Refutation Science fiction Simulated Stolen identity Subversion Supernatural
DEAD RINGER Education Notes 7 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES Artists’ Q & A and Research
BROOK ANDREW
BIO APPROACH Brook Andrew is a Melbourne based artist who Andrew is a keen collector of objects and artifacts works with neon, installation, photomedia, mixed- including ‘newspaper cuttings, early postcards, media, performance and video. Andrew challenges photographs, glass negatives, books, maps, textiles, cultural and historical perception, using text and films, and cultural objects of historical significance’.2 image to comment on local and global issues He uses his material collections to make installations regarding race, consumerism and history. displayed as cabinets of curiosity or sculptures re- appropriated from the Dadaists and Surrealists.3
Andrew creates ‘interdisciplinary works and immersive installations’ presenting audiences with ‘alternative choices for interpreting the world’.4 He does this by visioning a different perspective on history and traditions. His research and his Celtic and Wiradjuri, Ngunnawal heritage and life in Sydney, Australia, influence his interpretations.5
Brook Andrew Posessed II, 2015 Image courtesy the artist and Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne
2 Gracia Gunn. Brook Andrew: Possessed. 2015. http://archive.brookandrew.com/post/130992145106/brook-andrew-possessed. 3 Ibid. 8 4 Brook Andrew. Brook Andrew. 2015. http://www.brookandrew.com/bibliogaphy/. 5 Ibid. / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
ARTWORK INFLUENCES Possessed includes: The Dadaists and Man Ray’s photography and surreal objects, as well as their central ideas have eight large-scale photographic montages of influenced Andrew since art school when he studied images from nineteenth-century colonial glass 13 slide negatives of landscape vistas. Some of photography. these negatives are the work of the Tasmanians TAKE-AWAY Stephen Spurling, and Charles Beattie, who were the Government’s official nineteenth- Brook Andrew removes the horizon line in his century photographers.6 montages. By doing this he believes he is taking away the Western dominant view of landscape and Andrew regards these early works to be a replacing this with images that can be read from representation of a Western dominant view of any perspective, perspectives that embrace varied 7 landscape as in ‘early colonial art’. The presence of political and cultural standpoints.14 the horizon line epitomizes: I see the role of the artist is to expose the a patriarchy, dominance in the way of looking mechanisms of how images and events trick us, at other possibilities, diverse cultural readings, to manipulate us – beware the ventriloquist... 15 at women, at men, at the body, at human evolution, animal evolution … The horizon line as an aspect of male conquest and dominance is DISCUSSION QUESTIONS problematic 8 − When looking at Andrew’s works what perpetuating the “dominant” view. He states that feelings do these conjure in you about the the term “possessed” is a signifier of how dominant Australian landscape? cultures control history and power through the materiality and distribution of photography.9 − Since Andrew has removed the horizon line, how are his depictions of landscape Curator of Dead Ringer, Leigh Robb states that different? Think about composition, rhythm, Removing the horizon line, a traditional western repetition etc. pictorial device for perspective and depicting − Are his photographs a “real” depiction of the landscape is… ruptured in Brook Andrew’s landscape or an interpretation? photographic Rorschachs in his vast Possessed series. Compositing two images from 19th − How does using black and white change century glass plates? Andrew deliberately what you are looking at? employs Surrealist and Dada strategies to − How does the Possession series relate to the 10 displace and collapse the horizon line. idea of “dead ringers”? Andrew’s Possessed series reacted to the − There is a great history of photography or government’s documentation of the colonial painting and landscape. Think about another Australia. These photographs taken to promote artist who uses landscape e.g. tourism were 19th century Eurocentric Derek Kreckler. How do their interpretations interpretations of landscape. In Andrew’s works he of landscape differ? What is similar? reinterprets the picturesque by creating panoramas Describe the colours, composition, themes, that encourage new perspectives. Andrew wants perspective etc. his re-staged unromantic works to open up multiple and at times turbulent perspectives on history, KEYWORDS culture and the environment… both shocking as it is · Colonialism · Eurocentric beautiful’. 11 So too the title “Possessed” is · Horizon · Landscape a grammatical double entendre – to be possessed is to be inhabited by a controlling · Panorama · Picturesque spirit or force, which is also an apt description of colonialism. Andrew offers a warning – “beware the ventriloquist” – of speaking through another, FURTHER RESEARCH or another speaking through you.12 · Celtic · Dadaism · Surrealism · Wiradjuri, Ngunnawal
6 Gunn, Possessed. 11 Gunn, Possessed. 7 Ibid. 12 Robb, Body Doubles 8 Brook Andrews quoted in Gracia Gunn. 2015. Brook Andrew: Possessed. 13 Gunn, Possessed. 9 9 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 10 Leigh Robb, ‘Body Doubles’, Dead Ringer Catalogue, 2015, PICA (Perth 15 Ibid. Institute of Contemporary Art) / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
CHURCHILL CANN
BIO APPROACH I am a Gija artist living at Warmun, Turkey Creek I know my country so well I walk in and feel the in the East Kimberley, Kirriwirri, Western Australia. country when I paint. I’m thinking about what the I know about my country by learning from Gija hills really look like, I just follow the hills where I am elders. I had to work hard as a stockman when I was walking and the painting grows. I leave my ochre young moving around and this is how I was able to thin so you can see how the rocks are round and stay on and be part of my own country. I have a lot how the ground moves and I use the colours of the of knowledge about traditional healing practices, earth of my country. I paint history too — the sad which I inherited from my father. stories of massacres and how we survived those hard times, even today.
Churchill is deliberate in his mark making. He spends considerable time contemplating and reflecting on what facets of “country” he wants to present and connect the viewer with.16 Cann has a distinctive visual language within the Warmun vernacular… his material finesse conjures images of a sentient land, one that is primeval yet still in the process of creation… In his purposeful documentations of country, he Churchill Cann seems to strip back the surface of the land to Snake Dreaming Country, 2014 17 Image courtesy of the artist and The reveal its (almost corporeal) structure. Wesfarmers Collection, Perth
16 Short Street Gallery. “Details of Churchill Cann”. 2015. http://shortstgallery.com.au/artists/778807/churchill-cann 17 Art Gallery of Western Australia. “Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards”. 2005. http://www.artgallery.wa.gov. 10 au/WAIAA_2013/wa-winner-churchill-cann.asp / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
ARTWORK you feel? What is your relationship to country?
Churchill’s work encompasses stories that are re- KEYWORDS sung and retold for generations. He retells the story Generations of Garnkiny Ngarrangkarni. Land Moon Dreaming stories from the Warmun area of the Kimberley. Churchill Cann’s Ochre paintings in sweeping ochres and charcoal are Stories topographical, aerial but earthy, and trace the land from above and below. 18
INFLUENCES FURTHER RESEARCH I watched and learnt from the old Gija artists, Paddy Aboriginal Bedford, Butcher Cherel, Ngarra and Rammey Butcher Cherel Ramsey. I found my liyan’— that good feeling you get in the guts when I paint thinking of the old ways, Corporeal old people were always telling me to paint. Also Country from old stories of when white men came to our country and the sadness that happened comes out Gija in my paintings. Ngarra and Rammey Ramsey Cann worked ‘alongside Rover Thomas and Paddy Bedford Queenie McKenzie in the early stages of the Queenie McKenzie Warmun art movement’. 19 Rover Thomas Warmun, Turkey Creek, East Kimberley TAKE-AWAY I hope people see my country when they look at my paintings and see how important it is for us artists to paint our country over and over, for future generations. I like them to think of what us Aboriginal people went through when they kicked us off our land and we had to work for nothing. I paint because its part of me, of who I am as a Gija man. It’s important to me to respect my culture and paint what I know and have experienced because time is changing fast and soon us old people will be gone.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS − Can you see the earth in Cann’s work, not just colours but the real thing from his country? − Can you understand why he paints this country over and over? − How has he depicted stories in his pieces? − Look closely at the paintings. What techniques and colours has Cann used? What kind of effect do they create? − What does Cann’s work suggest about his relationship to country? How does this make
18 Robb, Body Doubles 19 Art Gallery of Western Australia, ‘Indigenous Art Awards” 11 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
MEGAN COPE
BIO APPROACH Megan Cope is an artist who chooses mostly to Maps feature prominently in Cope’s work; she work in painting, video work, sculptural installations draws on toponymy (the study of place names) and and site-specific commissions. Geomorphology (study of the characteristics, origin, and development of landforms) and Language to probe myths and methodologies around She is a Quandamooka woman, descendant from colonisation. the Noonuccal, Ngugi and Geopul people from North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah), Queensland. Her work often explores the intricate relationship As an artist sometimes I like to use humour in my between environment, geography, history and work, like my family uses humour to overcome the identity. adversity that our communities have had to endure.
Megan Cope Boo!, 2015 Image courtesy the artist
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ARTWORK TAKE-AWAY The work DIS EASE is about Governor Arthur’s I hope the students will learn something about Proclamation from 1830 to the Aboriginal People in history. Tasmania. The two words can also be read as one DISCUSSION QUESTIONS word, when I made this work I wanted people to think about what happens when the Government − Is there more than one meaning to this forces people off their lands, take people away from work? their families or decide their culture is not valued in − Have things changed? society. − Am I afraid of Aboriginal people?
− What do you feel when seeing Cope’s In 1830, the small ‘proclamation boards’ containing artworks? pictograms began appearing on trees in Van Diemen’s Land. They were designed to show that − What do her works reveal to you about Aboriginal people and Europeans were equal Aboriginal and Australian settlers? before the law. Lieutenant Governor George Arthur − What does the word “boo” make you (1784–1854) had declared martial law and banned think of? Aboriginal people from entering settled areas. 20 − Have you seen the word “boo” used anywhere in particular? Boo! For maybe 100 years we’ve said that ghosts say − What materials has Cope used to “boo”! But what do ghosts really say and is the word create her works? really more about onomatopoeia, many people fear ghosts and many people fear Aboriginal people. KEYWORDS
In this context the word “boo” connects with the Culture Painting painting DIS EASE and suggests that when the Pictograms Proclamation settler colony arrived in Tasmania many people were Sculptural installation Site-specific very afraid of the new land they had entered. They were afraid of the animals and you could imagine, Society Video art even more afraid of the Palawa Peoples of Tasmania.
FURTHER RESEARCH Cope’s piece for Dead Ringer is site-specific. This “Boo” piece is a Colonisation text work in black light that meditates on fear and clichéd ghost encounters. Flickering and Fiona Foley only visible by ascending the creaky stairs to the Frida Kahlo second floor, her hand-written piece catches us unaware. A comic antidote but also perhaps a Geomorphology warning that echoes upon our retina in a neon Geopul people after-image… BOO! 21 Governor Arthur Ngugi people INFLUENCES Noonuccal people My hero’s are the artists in the Aboriginal collective Palawa people proppaNOW, Fiona Foley, Frida Kahlo & Keg de Souza. Quandamooka people Toponymy Van Diemen’s Land
20 National Library of Australia. “Governor Arthur’s proclamation”, National Treasures. 2015. http://nationaltreasures. nla.gov.au/index/Treasures/item/nla.int-ex6-s52 13 21 Robb, Body Doubles / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
RACHAEL DEASE
BIO APPROACH Dease’s artistic practice encompasses the realms of With a unique and powerful voice, and a gift for pop culture and art music. She is known primarily writing for string ensembles, Dease often weaves for creating a new type of music theatre that both these qualities throughout her work. 23 derives much of its narrative structure from music and photography/film. Dease is frontwoman and songwriter for the band Schvendes. 22
Rachael Dease Blackmass, 2015 Image courtesy the artist
22 Rachel Dease. “About”, 2015 http://www.rachaeldease.com/about/ 23 Rachel Dease, ‘Give Us Rest’, Aphids Projects, 2015 http://forevernow.me/artists/artwork/give-us-rest/ 14 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
ARTWORK KEYWORDS Using a virtual photoelectronic microtonal/spectral Binary musical instrument created by Russian engineer Ensemble Evgeny Murzin, unique Russian synthesizer ANS – sounds produced by the organ and sounds collected Film by the hubble telescope have been continually Narrative converted from sound to image (sonogram). This growing loop forms the main sonic structure Photography and serves as a small tribute to William Basinski’s Twin Disintegration Loops. Where the dead ringer makes it’s physical and spectral appearance in the form of FURTHER RESEARCH doppelgängers, twins and ghosts - it also finds Black Mass its acoustic manifestation in the tolling of church bells in Western traditions. In Rachael Dease’s Evgeny Murzin Black Mass, a levitating organ emits sounds Hubble telescope collected by the hubble telescope that have been Latin continually converted from sound to image and back again, becoming a sonogram which loops Pop culture and expands. 24 Requiem Mass The voices and text embedded within this evolving Schvendes loop are taken from a traditional Latin Requiem Mass, also known as a Black Mass due to the colour of the William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops robes worn by the clergy. Satanic cultures also refer to the Black Mass, a ceremony whereby the traditional form and text of the Requiem is inverted.25
INFLUENCES Black Mass looks at the ideas of “the Other”. Recently it was discovered that there are Twin (Binary) black holes — our galactic neighbour. These binaries cause much energy overpowering other stars. 26
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS − What do you experience with seeing and hearing the sounds emitting from Dease’s work? Does this piece make you feel a certain way? − Does this piece connect you with the melodies and rhythms of music or more to experimental sound? Describe the sounds. − How has Dease connected the idea of “The Other” through the techniques and materials she has used? − Does the looping of the sound challenge you? How? How does it add/take from the overall work?
24 Robb, Body Doubles 25 Dease, Give Us Rest 15 26 Dease, Give Us Rest / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
KEG DE SOUZA
BIO APPROACH Keg de Souza is an Australian artist working with This project was first presented in Kampung mediums and motifs such as: inflatable architecture, Ratmakan in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in October 2014 food, film, mapping and dialogical projects to as an inflatable ghost house. This artwork included explore the politics of space. This investigation of an embroidered interior that was created from social and spatial environments is influenced by her drawings by the local kids of their ghost stories. Also formal training in architecture and experiences of included was the film If There’s Something Strange radical spaces through squatting and organising. In Your Neighbourhood… She often creates site and situation specific projects with people, with an emphasis on participation and reciprocity. I had previously made projects in the area, so I had already formed relationships. I made this work during a 3 month Asialink residency. I interviewed various local residents in Ratmakan about their ghost stories and eviction stories. At the same time, I interviewed the local ‘ghost mover’ whose role in the community is to move the ghosts out of the houses and into the river.
Keg de Souza Is There’s Something Strange In Your Neighbourhood, (still), 2014 Image courtesy the artist
DEAD RINGER Education Notes 16 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
ARTWORK DISCUSSION QUESTIONS If There’s Something Strange In Your − What is the relationship between the idea of Neighbourhood… (2014) explores the gentrification “ghosts” on the people living/moving from of a squatter settlement built in the 70s on a their homes? graveyard alongside Yogyakarta’s main river, Kali − De Souza has included kids who have done Code. In 2013 the local mayor announced he the drawings that are represented by the wanted to develop this area and local residents have embroideries within the tent and in the already started being pushed out. Due to the history interviews. Why include children, how does of this place, tombstones are still visible in the walls this change how you “read” the overall of the kampung (neighbourhood) and ghost activity artwork? is abundant. For years people in the area have relied − What does this work make you feel in relation heavily on the local ghost mover to relocate the to your own lifestyle and the world? ghosts out of their houses, but these paranormal evictions are now becoming an uncanny parallel for − What makes this video ‘art’ rather than a their own evictions in the living world. 27 “documentary”? Keg de Souza’s film reflects on the current practice of ghost busting in Yogyakarta, Indonesia – and the individuals tasked with KEYWORDS relocating ghosts through skillful negotiation… Architecture Embroidery threatened by rapid gentrification. Built upon Environment Eviction two former graveyards, one Javanese and one Chinese… Ghosts are a part of the everyday Evictions Gentrification built environment and embedded culturally. Mapping Paranormal Filmed through a myriad of domestic and automotive mirrors, de Souza interviews the Participation Reciprocity community about ghost busting and how to Spatial Squatting/squatter mediate with traumatised spirits and their memories of eviction. 28 FURTHER RESEARCH
INFLUENCES “Ghost mover” Keg is a member of various collaborative groups, All Thumbs Press such as SquatSpace Artist Collective, NUCA: The Dialogical projects Network of Un-Collectable Artists, and The Rizzeria Inflatable architecture printmaking collective and has been self-publishing her own artist’s books and zines for over 15 years NUCA: The Network of Un-Collectable Artists, under the name All Thumbs Press. Politics of space Ratmakan, Indonesia SquatSpace Artist Collective, The Rizzeria
27 Keg de Souza. “If There’s Something Strange in Your Neighbourhood…”, Vimeo. 2014. https://vimeo.com/128242660 28 Robb, Body Doubles 17 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
BRENT HARRIS
BIO APPROACH Brent Harris is known for his prints and paintings. 29 Harris mostly works with several pieces to create He was introduced to modern art in his birthplace one work as a series. His pieces are emotional, New Zealand, where he later worked with artist haunting, unsettling, personal and painstakingly Colin McCahon. He did further art studies in executed in a style that is graphic and abstract. 31 Australia with tutors including painter John Walker and drawing Peter Booth. He first became known for his The Stations series (1989), a kind of homage He often includes ‘Stark planes, often black and to minimalists such as Barnett Newman. In the white, [which] belie the swooping organic gestures 1990s he changed from abstraction and the use and expressionist shapes’. 32 His works are layered of geometrics, more towards the inclusion of the with ‘reading, reflection, looking and travelling.33 figurative with a sense of the whimsical using ‘Many of his forms vibrate, rise and fall, and cause ‘curved lines, organic shapes and flat colour… as the viewers eye much exercise in following them’. 34 30 well as positive and negative space’. But what surprises most is the sensuality of the work; as though the sharp lines and immaculate surfaces can barely contain the emotions brooding beneath. This is the unconscious meshed with a taut, graphic sensibility. 35
Brent Harris Study for Grotesquerie No. 15, 2007 Image courtesy the artist
29 Sarah Thomas. “The Passion of Brent Harris”, ”, Just a Feeling: Selected Works 32 Tolarno Galleries. “Brent Harris”. 2015. http://tolarnogalleries.com/ 1987 – 2005. Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne, 2006, 11. artists/brent-harris/ http://brentharris.com.au/cms/p/just-a-feeling-brent-harris-catalogue.pdf. 33 Dr Chris McAuliffe, Just a Feeling: Selected Works 1987 – 2005. Ian Potter 18 30 The British Museum. “Brent Harris (Biographical details)”, 2015. http://www. Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne, 2006, 5. http://brentharris.com. britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details. au/cms/p/just-a-feeling-brent-harris-catalogue.pdf aspx?bioId=3659 34 James Mollison, ‘Brent Harris: “Bubbles”, “Just a feeling”, “Sleep”’, Art & 31 Palmerston North City Council. “Brent Harris”, Creative Giants of Palmerston Australia, vol. 42, no. 1, 2004 North, 2015. http://www.creativegiants.co.nz/view/artist-index/h/brent-harris. 35 Tolarno Galleries, Brent Harris. php / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
ARTWORK DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Brent Harris’ ghoulish, melting figures repeat − What design decisions has Harris used that across mediums and scales, accruing power, make his artworks relate to or make you think as if each new iteration of a scene is an of Dead Ringer e.g. colour, composition etc.? invocation.36 What aspects of the theme do these works hint at e.g. Ghosts? These complex works address what lies beneath the immaculate surfaces of Harris’s work —and − What is your interpretation of the two figures in illustrate that often the perfect surfaces better Grotesquerie? How does this make you feel? allow us to see the tougher shapes. 37 Much of the − What signs, symbols and appropriations has he power in Harris’s works is that of ambiguity, hinting used, if any? at something greater than first seen, demonstrated − Harris creates his pieces in series. How does in his series Grotesquerie. 38 These works are dark, this affect how you “read” and relate to his created in two groups, with figurative elements work? including ‘a threatening, masked man whose shrouded body appears to envelope the torso of a blonde woman (Grotesquerie no. 1, 2001)’. 39 Harris sees this figures as Mother and Father, an archetypal KEYWORDS relationship which sees the female dominated by Ambiguity the male. There are liquefied textures mimicking Archetypal body fluids such as blood as well as other vague characterisations of humans. 40 Figurative Harris enjoys the energised play between Grotesque foreground and background, presence and absence, in which silhouetted profiles can emerge unexpectedly from shadows, and FURTHER RESEARCH tangible forms can magically dissolve into Abstraction Ad Reinhardt vapour. 41 Automatic drawing Barnett Newman Colin McCahon Ellsworth Kelly INFLUENCES Figurative Geometrics Colin McCahon Ghoulish Graphic Barnett Newman Homage John Walker Ellsworth Kelly Mimicking Minimalists/minimalism Ad Reinhardt Modern art Nicolas Poussin Nicolas Poussin Peter Booth Planes Positive/negative space Religion Harris is interested in psychological states. He sometimes uses the automatic drawing technique, Silhouetted Surrealists which the Surrealists devised and employed. He is Unconscious Whimsical engaged in art history, contemporary art and the themes of ‘death, sex, love and religion’. 42
36 Robb, Body Doubles 38 Sarah Thomas. The Passion, 11. 37 Bala Starr. “Just a feeling: Brent Harris, selected works 1987–2005”, Just a 40 Ibid. Feeling: Selected Works 1987 – 2005. Ian Potter Museum of Art, the 41 Ibid. 19 University of Melbourne, 2006, 7. http://brentharris.com.au/cms/p/just-a-feel- 42 Sarah Thomas. The Passion, 11. ing-brent-harris-catalogue.pdf. / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
GLENN LIGON
BIO ARTWORK Born in the Bronx, New York in 1960, Glenn Ligon The Death of Tom (2008), is based on the Edwin attended Rhode Island School of Design, followed S. Porter’s 1903 silent movie Uncle Tom’s Cabin. by a BA from Wesleyan University. He has also Ligon has recreated an abstractionist final scene.45 participated in the Whitney Museum of American In the original film, the principal roles were played Art’s Independent Study Program (1985). 43 by ‘white actors in blackface[s]’ (minstrels). 46 ‘Tom, the film’s protagonist and a slave, dies in the final APPROACH scene, and images of the future — including the Ligon has a conceptual practice, which combines end of the American Civil War and the emancipation photography and painting. He focuses on themes of slaves — materialize behind him’. 47 Once Ligon’s and issues including sexual and racial identity. reenactment was processed it was discovered that He is recognised for paintings such as Untitled (I some imagery had disappeared or was blurred, Feel Most Colored When I Am Thrown Against a which accidently linked to Ligon’s earlier art, which Sharp White Background) (1990–91). Since 2005 was about ‘visibility and legibility being a metaphor he has also created works using neon writing from for certain kinds of historical disappearance’. 48 famous quotes including those of Gloria Steinem and Sojourner Truth. These pieces were made of glass painted black and light tubes ‘facing the walls… to create a luminous haze of light behind the inscriptions’. 44
Glenn Ligon The Death of Tom (Installation), 2008 Image courtesy the artist
43 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). “Collection Online: Glenn 46 Ibid. Ligon”, SRGF, 2015 http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collec- 47 Whitney Museum of American Art, Death Of Tom tion-online/artists/bios/3806 48 Ibid. 20 44 Ibid 45 Whitney Museum of American Art, “On The Death Of Tom, With Glenn Ligon, Jason Moran, And Terrance Mcknight”, 2011, March 23 http://whitney.org/ Events/OnTheDeathOfTom / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
Ligon’s final video ‘focuses on the mechanics of the − Watch Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903) by writer (re)making of the original production and the failure Harriet Beecher Stowe and director Edwin S. of representation’. 49 This footage includes actors Porter on Youtube. How does this film make rehearsing, the set and crew with Tom rehearsing you feel? Consider the genre of film, silence, black and white, context and the time it was his death over and over again, becoming a made. Why have they used white people figure poised between the past and the present, covered in black paint? What does this say between the representation of fiction and the about race? What does this film fiction of representation. In its repetition and make you think about current affairs today? moments of disjunction, Ligon’s The Death of Are some of the issues in the film still relevant Tom suggests a narrative that – like the larger today? historical narratives it refers to – remains unfinished business.50 − After watching the silent film compare and contrast Ligon’s “re-enactment” The Death of INFLUENCES Tom to the original film’s final scenes? May This film was influenced by the silent film and from want to consider the mis-en-scene? the 500 page book Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet KEYWORDS Beecher Stowe. This book from the 19th century was a best selling novel, selling 300,000 copies in the Emancipation Narrative first year. So popular was this book that it generated Protagonist Slave many ‘“Tom Shows” – traveling stage adaptations and musicals with white actors in blackface – that FURTHER RESEARCH were seen by millions. 51 Adaptations American Civil War DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Fiction Gloria Steinem − What is Ligon suggesting by showing the Historical Luminous actors rehearsing? Why focus on this? Materialize Mechanics − What do you see in the artwork related to the theme of Dead Ringer? Metaphor Minstrels − What elements of “unfinished business” are Musicals Neon presented in the work? Racial identity Reenactment − How does using no colour make your read Representation Sojourner Truth the work? Are there any particular meanings you experience from viewing this piece? Edwin S. Porter/Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903) Edwin S. Porter Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Film Still), 1903
49 Wayne Baerwaldt, “Glenn Ligon: The Death of Tom”, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, 2008 http://mocca.ca/exhibi- 21 tion/glenn-ligon-the-death-of-tom/ 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
STEVE MCQUEEN
BIO APPROACH Steve McQueen is a leading British artist and award His work is distinctively recognised winning film director known best for his films Hunger by the highly controlled environment in which (2008), Shame (2011), and Twelve Years a Slave they are projected. This minimalist and anti- (2013). He came to recognition after his 1994 narrative approach has been seen as an presentation at the Royal College of Art of his debut alienation technique, underlining McQueen’s film Bear (1993). 52 exploration of formal film language as well as popular cinematic convention... 53 By under accentuating the presence of himself in his films, McQueen is purposefully negating questions of race and identity, which are usually associated with his works. He is thus typically creating an “open” interpretation of his films.54
Steve McQueen Exodus, (Video Still) 1992-97 Image courtesy the artist
52 John-Paul Stonard, ‘Steve McQueen born 1969’, TATE, 200, 10 December, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/steve-mcqueen-2387 53 Stonard, Steve McQueen 22 54 Stonard, Steve McQueen / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
ARTWORK − Compare and contrast the similarities and differences between the two men. Look at their The power of the twin or the human double act to movements, attire, and their environment. confound us is revealed in one of Steve McQueen’s earliest film works, Exodus. His camera follows − Does this work challenge ideas about two men, in similar hats and each carrying a palm duplicates or is it more of a narrative? Explain through the crowded streets of East London. We with examples from the work. presume they are twins and make assumptions − Exodus means emigration or a ‘mass of their similarity, difference and otherness. We departure’ of people from a place all at the eventually come to realise that they are false twins, same time. It can also relate to a description and what unfolds is a beautiful urban duet, two men of Exodus, in the second Bible scripture weaving through a market and disappearing into recognised by the Christians and Jews. 65 The the distance on a red double decker bus. 55 exodus mentioned concerns the movement INFLUENCES of the people from Israel to Egypt under the guidance of Moses. 66 In your opinion, what Whilst at Goldsmiths College of Art, McQueen is McQueen relating to by titling this work was influenced by ‘filmmakers Jean Vigo, Jean-Luc “exodus”? Godard, François Truffaut and Ingmar Bergman’. 56 He has been influenced by and seeks to create the humour present in John Ford‘s The Searchers. KEYWORDS 57 Other film influences include Andy Warhol, Jean Vigo, Buster Keaton, Billy Wilder. 58 His ten favourite Alienation films can be found on IMDb. But McQueen is not Anti-narrative only influenced by film: Director My influences come from real life. I’m not interested in cinema for cinema’s sake. I’m Minimalist interested in life—what one does and how one interacts. 59 FURTHER RESEARCH McQueen revealed that his best ideas often come when he’s at home, doing chores or cooking. Unlike Academy Award 60 most artists he does not have an art studio. Andy Warhol TAKE-AWAY Billy Wilder He was the winner of the 1999 Turner Prize (art). Buster Keaton 61 Steve McQueen is not to be confused with his Cinematic convention name “twin” Steve McQueen, famous actor of films such as The Great Escape. In 2014 his leap into the François Truffaut world of movie making was recognised when he Hollywood won the Academy Award for Best Film for his film Ten Years a Slave (2013). 62 For the 86th Awards, Ingmar Bergman he also made headlines as it was ‘the first time Jean Vigo Hollywood conferred its top honor to the work of a black director’. 63 After his win, McQueen is now Jean-Luc Godard developing new TV series for the BBC and HBO John Ford networks. 64 Steve McQueen Turner Prize DISCUSSION QUESTIONS − What aspects of Minimalism and restraint are visible in this piece by McQueen? − What aspects of “twin” has McQueen emphasised? What does his ideas of twins make you think of or feel?
55 Robb, Body Doubles 60 Biography, Steve McQueen 61 56 Biography, ‘Steve McQueen: Biography’, Bio, 2015, November 6, http://www.biography.com/ Stonard, Steve McQueen 62 Vanessa Thorpe, ‘Steve McQueen paves way for artists to break the boundaries’, Guardian News23 people/steve-mcqueen-21341661 and Media Limited, 2014, March 9, http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/mar/08/steve-mc- 57 Zade Constantine, ‘Watch: Steve McQueen Discusses His Career and Influences In Recent Two- queen-artist-big-screen-oscar-12-years-a-slave Hour Conversation’, The Film Stage, 2014, February 3, http://thefilmstage.com/news/watch-steve- 63 Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes ‘A Landmark Oscar Win for ‘12 Years a Slave’: Oscars 2014: mcqueen-discusses-his-career-and-influences-in-recent-two-hour-conversation/ Winners and Losers’, New York Times, 2014, March 2, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/movies/ 58 Margy Rochlin, ‘The Grim Truth’, Director’s Guild of America, 2013 Summer, https://www.dga.org/awardsseason/oscars-2014-winners-and-losers.html?hpw&rref=arts&_r=0 64 Thorpe, Paves Way Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1303-Summer-2013/Independent-Voice-Steve-McQueen.aspx 65 59 Merriam-Webster, “Exodus”, 2015, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exodus David Coggins, ‘Steve McQueen’, Interview Magazine, 2009, February 26, http://www.interview- 66 magazine.com/art/steve-mcqueen/ Dictionary.com, “Exodus”, 2015, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exodus / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
ANGELICA MESITI
BIO APPROACH Based in Paris and Sydney, Angelica Mesiti is ‘a Mesiti is known for her ‘anthropological approach, video, performance and installation artist’. She using cinema to explore language, voice, and uses ‘cinematic conventions and performance culture’. 69 languages’ in her videos. 67 These aspects are utilised to respond to the characteristics of place, history and societies. Her projects have included ‘traditional music, dance performance, narrative, the ballad, and oral story telling traditions’. 68
Steve McQueen Exodus, (Video Still) 1992-97 Image courtesy the artist
67 Scanlines, ‘Angelica Mesiti’, Scanlines, 2015, http://scanlines.net/person/angelica-mesiti 68 Ibid. 24 69 Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore, ‘Angelica Mesiti: the artist who records a choir in song without a single sound’, The Guardian, 2015, Friday 8, http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/may/08/angelica-mesiti-artist-interview-sydney / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
ARTWORK − This is a highly auditory work. How do the sounds make you feel? Are they pleasant Angelica Mesiti’s In The Ear of the Tyrant delves sounds or are they disturbing? into the power and mythology of the echo, re-enacting a traditional grieving ritual, the − What is Mesiti saying about the ideas of history moroloja. This Greek lament was repeated by and rituals by reenacting a “lost” tradition? the prefiche, who hired wailing women at funeral − What kind of materials has Mesiti used to processions in Sicily until the 1950s. It was create the scenes in her film? filmed (and recorded?) in the Ear of Dionysus cave, renowned for its acoustic properties. − The scenes are quite darkly lit. How does this Reverberating throughout the ear-shaped add to the ideas in the film? cavernous limestone cave and synchronised − How is grieving represented and felt? across mirrored screens, Mesiti’s mourner grieves the passing of a ritual as well as lives lost. 70 This piece was originally created for the 19th KEYWORDS Biennale of Sydney: You Imagine What You Desire. Ballad In the Ear of the Tyrant (2013-14), was inspired by lamenting songs from Southern Italy. On behalf of Installation art the community, women mourned the death of a Lamenting citizen by singing these songs. In this piece Mesiti called on her Italain heritage. Working with vocalist Performance Enza Pagliara, the ritual of grieving is recreated. 71 Reverberate
INFLUENCES Traditions In the 2000s Mesiti was influenced by ‘documentary in approach and style’. 72 In 2008, whilst working as a FURTHER RESEARCH film assistant she became influences by the films of Warwick Thornton who produced Nana, the short Cavernous for his feature film Samson and Delilah. Mesiti states: Cinematic conventions I think I was really inspired by his approach to Dionysus image-making, and his very visual non-verbal style… [this] made me more interested in Douglas Gordon perhaps returning to something that was more Enza Pagliara cinematic in its approach. 73 Lisa Elisa Attila Mesiti has also used public intervention and conventional cinematic approaches. 74 She has been Mathew Barney influenced by artists who bridge the art/cinema gap Moroloja through video such as Douglas Gordon, Lisa Elisa Pierre Huyghe Attila, Pierre Huyghe and art films that questioned ‘structures within cinema, performance or narrative Prefiche systems’. 75 Also, artists like Mathew Barney and his Warwick Thornton The Cremaster Cycle and ‘TV around ’99, 2000’. 76
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
70 Robb, Body Doubles 73 Ibid., 13 71 Biennale of Sydney, ‘Angelica Mesiti’, Biennale of Sydney, 2015, http://www. 74 Ibid., 9 &17 25 biennaleofsydney.com.au/19bos/artists/mesiti/ 75 Ibid., 2 72 John Gillies, ‘Angelica Mesiti Interview’, 2011, 1-22, p1, http://scanlines.net/ 76 Ibid., 2 sites/default/files/angelica_mesiti_interview_2011_2.pdf / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
LENA NYADBI
BIO − Does this work remind you of any other art you Lena Nyadbi spent many early years watching the have seen? well-known first generation Turkey Creek, Warmun artists. In particular, Paddy Jaminji taught her the techniques of grinding ochre and charcoal, and of KEYWORDS rubbing the charcoal into the canvas with her hands. Aesthetic She then began full-time painting at the Warmun Centre when it opened in 1998. 77 ‘Known for her Charcoal rich, spare aesthetic’. 78 Ochre
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
− What materials have been used in this piece? FURTHER RESEARCH How have they been used? Paddy Jaminji − What kind of symbols, shapes patterns and repetition can be seen? Describe. Warmun − How do the colours chosen relate to the topic and overall theme/ideas of the work? − What sense of Dead Ringer do you experience from this work?
Lena Nyadbi Jimbirla and Dayiwul Lirlmim, 2014 Image courtesy the artist
77 Seva Frangos Art, ‘Lena Nyadbi ‘, Seva Frangos Art Gallery, 2015, http://sevafrangosart.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ Lena-Nyadbi.pdf 78 ABC/AFP, ‘Paris rooftop display shows Indigenous artist Lena Nyadbi’s work to the world’, ABC, 2013, June 6, http://www. 26 abc.net.au/news/2013-06-07/paris-rooftop-display-shows-lena-nyadbi-work/4738990 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
RON NYISZTOR
BIO I usually work in series, not solo works. I create a Ron Nyisztor is a mid-career Western Australian artist setting with objects I find, most often objects with working with a wide range of materials and subjects; which you can see/experience the elements such as he has been exhibiting regularly since 1989. His metal and wood, objects including bricks and glass. consistent practice involves discarded building The turning point for me came when I realised I did materials being used as part of the actual work and not have to or want to create an expressive quality also as support grounds for paintings. 79 to my artwork. My style is “deadpan”. I set up the objects and light them so I can capture the lighting APPROACH and tonal qualities in the photos I then take. I use 3-4 I usually start with a title or concept, which have photos to study and draw from per work to create a several or underlying meanings. These are most tonal range that includes more than the eye can see. often influenced by music. I am not musical but I listen to music while I am in the studio. I create the titles in a musical way. It is more the thoughts and sentiments I am concerned with rather than the music itself. Some titles come from conversations with friends, from a joke that I then make ‘serious’. For example I Just Dark Matter to You came from a conversation. This idea was about artists as the “dark matter” of the art world. — dark matter being the artists who are never seen , known or chosen.
Ron Nyisztor Tooth & Nail, 2014 Image courtesy the artist
79 Art Collective WA, ‘Ron Nyisztor’, 2015 http://www.artcollectivewa.com.au/artists/ron-nyisztor/ 27 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
ARTWORK − What aspects of Dead Ringer do these works deal with? How? The pieces in Dead Ringer are self-portraits — abstracted self-portraits using objects. Most of these objects are from my studio or collected from KEYWORDS roadside verges and stored to use for art making, and this case installations. The self-portraiture aspect Abstracted in Entanglement is about the being an artist — an Banal/mundane isolated pursuit and the often mental anguish of being in the studio alone. Tooth and Nail looks at the Composition ideas of paranoia and self-doubt and to keep going Concept no matter what. Elements Expressive INFLUENCES Installation Nyisztor creates vibrant compositions using found objects as ‘still life subjects’. 80 He uses the everyday Self-portrait and banal as material for ‘compelling intrigue, Tonal [communicating] a sense of the metaphysical expressed through familiar and extra-ordinary means’. 81 FURTHER RESEARCH Ron Nyzistor’s Entanglement installation is an ‘Deadpan’ exploded room turned inside. He strategically Giorgio Morandi situates pairs of found objects at a distance from each other. They become false twins Isolated parading their difference but also their potent Mark Rothko and material bond that persists across time and space. 82 Metaphysical I am interested in the elemental qualities of paint Paranoia and things — things that are so mundane, that are Self-doubt uninteresting or overlooked. Self-portraits Sentiments I enjoy the art of Mark Rothko and Giorgio Morandi. Their work is distinctively dissimilar — Morandi’s Still life work is small and detailed and Rothko’s is large and bold. I am interested in blending these poles I see in their work.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS − Nyisztor has created a self-portrait. What do the objects and elements in these works reveal about the artist? − What aspects of still life and installation can you see in these works? List the objects you see. − What design principles can you see e.g. composition? − What is your reaction to the use of everyday objects? How has Nyisztor made these into “art”?
80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 28 82 Robb, Body Doubles / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
FIONA PARDINGTON
BIO ‘Fiona Pardington was born in Auckland. She APPROACH is of Maori (Ngai Tahu, Kati Mamoe and Ngati Pardington’s practice has developed into still-life Kahungunu) and Scottish (Clan Cameron of Erracht) recordings including chronicling ‘Museum Taonga 83 descent’. Her early pieces explored photographic (Maori ancestral treasures) and other historic objects techniques. By the late 1980s she was amongst such as hei tiki (greenstone pendants) and the a group of women artists who challenged the now extinct huia bird’. 85 These works make visible photographic techniques of the previous decade objects from other eras, customs as well as the 84 — a ‘social documentary’ style. She created forgotten to new audiences. 86 photographic constructions that incorporated photography with other materials in elaborately encrusted frames.
Fiona Pardington Portrait of a life-cast of Takatahara, Aotearoa/New Zealand, 2010 Image courtesy the artist
83 Stark White, ‘Fiona Pardington’ Stark White, 2015, http://www.starkwhite.co.nz/fiona-pardington-overview-1 84 Ibid. 29 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid. / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
ARTWORK KEYWORDS Fiona Pardington’s Portrait of a life-cast of Complexity Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville, is a Customs photographic reproduction of life-casts made by Frenchman Pierre-Marie Alexandre Dumoutier Descent of people living in the Pacific region in the Distorted nineteenth century. These facial and cranial replicas are held in museums in France and Still-life New Zealand. This work is an early test piece, Warped using the explorer Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville, the explorer who commissioned these 87 casts. FURTHER RESEARCH Hei tiki INFLUENCES Huia bird In the 1980s whilst in Elam, Pardington became Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville interested in photography and by New Zealand Maori (Ngai Tahu, Kati Mamoe and Ngati photographer Patrick Reynolds. 88 Pardington, Kahungunu) is ‘fascinated by the way time can be warped and distorted’. 89 These aspects attracted her Museum Taonga to photography as it questioned/showed the Patrick Reynolds complexity of time. Photography is like ‘like looking through somebody else’s eyes. In a sense, you’re Pierre-Marie Alexandre Dumoutier standing in the past, in somebody else’s body. It Scottish (Clan Cameron of Erracht) gives you a privilege that shouldn’t exist’. 90
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS − How has Pardington set up the composition of these still lives, before photographic them? − What sense of and connection is experienced between the old and the new. − Why focus on cats and skulls? What is she saying about Dead Ringer, death, history, remembering and time? − Through her photography how has Pardington created a mood e.g. lighting? What kind of mood has she created? − If photography is “looking through someone else’s eyes”, then what are you seeing/ experiencing?
87 Robb, Body Doubles 88 Jeremy Olds, ‘The dark art of Fiona Pardington’, Stuff - Fairfax Media, 2015, August 2, 30 http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/70711497/The-dark-art-of-Fiona-Pardington 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid. / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
PETER PORKALARI & UNKNOWN TIWI ARTISTS
APPROACH/INFLUENCES − What is the significance of having these Included in the show are eight Pukumani vertically tall do you think? Choose one and burial poles by Tiwi Island artists including describe the sections starting from the bottom Peter Porkalari and Paddy Henry (Teeami) to the top. Ripijingimpi. For the Tiwi people, Pukumani − How do these burial poles make you feel? means taboo and connects to the funeral ceremonies to honour the dead and help in their − What symbols, shapes, patterns and colours safe passage into the spirit world. The Pukumani have been used? How do you think these ceremony takes place two to six months after the represent Tiwi culture? burial and can last for a few days. Dancers circle around and through the formation of the burial poles, which are gifts made to please the spirits KEYWORDS of the dead. 91 Ceremony Funeral Honour Spirits DISCUSSION QUESTIONS − How do these objects represent the dead? FURTHER RESEARCH − How have they been created? Consider the materials and techniques. Pukumani
Unknown Tiwi Artists Pukamani Pole, Circa 1970s
91 Robb, Body Doubles 31 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
LISA REIHANA
BIO APPROACH Based in Aotearoa, New Zealand, Lisa Reihana is a Reihana’s practice encompasses and ‘pays homage Maori multi media artist. She uses ‘contemporary to mythology, folklore, and the colorful tales and culture [to] interpret Maori mythology’. 92 By doing indigenous sensibilities that have come to shape this, Reihana is showing the universality of cultures culture and community in present-day New such as Maori that are indigenous but also showing Zealand’. 94 Including friends and family as models and giving respect. 93 continues kinship. 95
Lisa Reihana Tai Whetuki - House of Death, (video still), 2014 Image courtesy the artist
92 Fehily Contemporary, ‘Lisa Reihana’, Rehiy Contemporary, 2015, http://www.fehilycontemporary.com.au/artists/lisa-reihana/lisa-reihana-artist.html 93 Ibid. 32 94 Conceptio, ‘Lisa Reihana’, Conceptio, 2012, https://www.conceptioart.com/artists/lisa-reihana.html 95 Ibid. / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
ARTWORK KEYWORDS The karanga in Maori culture is a welcome ritual Community that seeks to acknowledge and remember the Cultures dead and can only be sung by women. In Lisa Reihana’s Tai Whetuki - House of Death, she Folklore conflates the history of Pacific lamentations, Indigenous where mourning is felt physically and has created a soundtrack which carries across Kinship centuries. These lamentation rituals are not only Multi-media to announce the departed but to accompany them. 96 Mythology Universality
INFLUENCES Reihana’s video installations and photographs and FURTHER RESEARCH the prominent figures they contain are ‘informed Aotearoa, New Zealand by her inspiration from fantasy, advertising and Maori computer games’, familiar as aspects from popular culture. 97 Her work also contains ideas related to gender identity — ‘the masculine, the feminine and the androgynous’. 98
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS − Just like Mesiti’s piece, this is an auditory/visual work. How do the sounds make you feel? Are they pleasant sounds or are they disturbing? − What is Reihana saying about the ideas of death, mourning and rituals by this reenactment? − What aspects of Maori/Pacific culture do you experience when watching this video? What have you learnt about other cultures? − What kind of materials has Reihana used to create the scenes in her film? − How has the filming contributed to the story? Why is this “art” and not “documentary”? − How is grieving represented and felt?
96 Robb, Body Doubles 97 Fehily Contemporary, Lisa Reihana 33 98 Ibid. / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
STUART RINGHOLT
BIO APPROACH Stuart Ringholt is considered to be one of Australia’s His art practice is mostly process-orientated, most fearless and renowned contemporary artists. performance-based and includes audience He seeks to enable “education through feeling” participation. These performances are documented and does this by interrogating social norms, fears and exhibited as ‘books, sculpture, photography and and embarrassment. An example is his 2012 painting’. 100 Ringholt combines eastern philosophy, performance ‘where he gave tours of the Australian celebrity culture, self-help therapies and art history’, Centre of Contemporary Art and MONA to a naked together with personal narratives, creating a unique audience’. 99 body of works that lean towards a ‘psycho-social utilitarian and experimental bent’. 101 Stuart Ringholt’s Untitled mirror, domestic, portrait, features a dark brown spot. His work also frames us as the viewers and whilst we can see everything, we are also in danger of losing ourselves. 102
Stuart Ringholt Untitled (Brown), 2012 Image courtesy the artist
99 Van Nguyen. ‘Getting Naked with Stuart Ringholt’, Aphra Magazine, 2014, April 9. http://www.aphramag.com/getting-naked-with-stuart-ringholt/ 100 Sarah Tutton. ‘Conceptual Artist Meets Girl: Stuart Ringholt and the Art of Self-Improvement’, Art and Australia, 2008, Winter. P626. http://www.milanigal- 34 lery.com.au/artist/stuart-ringholt?do=text 101 Ibid., p626. 102 Robb, Body Doubles / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
INFLUENCES He is driven to create art that focuses on ‘the practical aspects of living… work that usefully helps to develop consciousness and one’s life. 103
TAKE-AWAY Ringholt believes that art can create impact through ‘personal and social change’, which h seeks to test through his art. 104
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS − Ringholt creates ‘various pieces from sketches to sculptures aimed to confront and promote thought’. 105 What is your experience of the piece he has created for Dead Ringer? How does it relate to the theme? − What does this work make you think and confront you with? What is it like seeing your reflection in a mirror in a public space? − How is this work made and what materials and techniques have been used? − Are you the dead ringer in this piece?
KEYWORDS Art history Experimental Interrogate Narratives Process-orientated Social norms Utilitarian
FURTHER RESEARCH Australian Centre of Contemporary Art Celebrity culture Eastern philosophy MONA Psycho-social Self-help therapies
103 Ibid., p626. 104 Ibid., p626. 35 105 Nguyen, ‘Getting Naked’ / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
PADDY HENRY (TEEAMI) RIPIJINGIMPI
BIO APPROACH Paddy Henry (Teeami) Ripijingimpi (1926-2009) was His bark paintings were replications of body a renowned Tiwi artist. He made bark paintings and painting designs that were used during the wood carvings. Pukumani ceremony by his people. His sculptures are recognised by their ‘chunky and crude blocky appearance’ with carved features, specifically of the mouth and eyes, together with detailed surface painting. 106
Paddy Henry (Teeami) Ripijingimpi Pukumani Pole, Circa 1970s
106 Richard Aldridge, ‘Teeampi Paddy Henry Ripijingimpi’, Aboriginal Bark Painintg 2014. http://www.aboriginal-bark-painting.com/wp/index. php/2014/01/05/teeampi/. 36 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
INFLUENCES His works were inspired by the Tiwi creation story. The wife of Purukapali, Birma makes love to her brother in law whilst Jinani, her son is placed under a tree. As the day progresses, the baby is exposed to the sun’s rays and dies of heat stroke. Purukapali’s anger causes Birma to mutate into a bird. An elaborate remembrance and grieving ceremony for his son follows. This ‘was the first Pukumani (mortuary) ceremony, and tells how death first came to the Tiwi Islands’. 107
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS − Like Peter Porkalari & Tiwi Artists this piece is totemic. How does this object represent the story and the death of the son in the story? − What materials and techniques have been used? − What symbols, shapes, patterns and colours have been used? What does this pole tell you about Tiwi culture and Ripijingimpi’s approach to making?
KEYWORDS Ceremony Mutate Remembrance Replications
FURTHER RESEARCH Bark painting Grieving ceremony Mortuary Pukumani Tiwi Tiwi creation story Wood carving
107 Richard Aldridge, ‘Teeampi Paddy Henry Ripijingimpi’, Aboriginal Bark Painintg 2014. http://www.aboriginal-bark-painting.com/wp/index. php/2014/01/05/teeampi/. 37 / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
KYNAN TAN
BIO APPROACH I am an artist and researcher working with I have been investigating the use of data in works of computers and digital processes to investigate visualisation and sonification for some time. For this our relationship with technology. I am particularly work, I started to think about the ecological impact interested in networks, data transference and of worldwide data networks. This led to thinking relational structures, often using computer code about data centres — large facilities of computers, as a type of material that acts to translate data into servers, data archives and telecommunications sound, light and sculpture. These works take the equipment. These facilities are often enormous, form of multi-screen audio-visual performances, housing thousands of computers and using as much installations, 3D-printed sculptures, sound, and electricity as a small city in order to constantly power kinetic artworks involving electronic circuits, the machines and keep the devices running at an speakers and lights. I am interested in creating optimal temperature. I also became fascinated evocative, aesthetic interpretations that help with the idea of these physical spaces as a kind of to physicalise and materialise our increasingly split between the physical location and the way mediated and data-driven world. I see significance we use them, how they are thought about and the in revealing and making sensible elements of implications for society. our existence that are outside of normal human perception.
Kynan Tan Polymorphism, (Data Centre Simulation), 2015 Image courtesy the artist
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ARTWORK TAKE-AWAY We currently have a divide between the ways we The work elicits thoughts about the world of data, use technology and how we separate their actions computers and technology in a way that makes and benefits from their physical reality. Data centres me reconsider what is happening when I use my are also highly restricted, secure spaces that the smartphone, send an email or use social media. I general public are simply not able to visit or see in think more closely about the volume and complexity day to day life. In thinking about this, I wanted to of these actions and the links they have to the mirror this division between virtual and physical physical world and our environment. by making a virtual environment, which attempts DISCUSSION QUESTIONS to generate the tension-filled environment of that space. I want to highlight this split between what − How has Tan created the space between the we consider to be the real, material world and virtual and the real? What materials and how we think of the ephemeral actions of data and techniques has he used? algorithms on society. − What does this piece make you consider in Where echoes are acoustic doppelgangers, relation to your own experience with the the motif of the double expresses itself Internet and its peripheries including security? formally through mirrors, rorschachs, dyptichs, − How does this work represent a portrait simulations and through re-enactment. Kynan of ourselves, our relationship/dependence on Tan has constructed a computer simulation technology and what is “real”? of a data centre using 3D modeling software drawn from photographs of large organisations − What happens to data when it is sent over the such as Google, Facebook and CERN. He has Internet? reconstructed the shape and sound of these − How are things connected in our world? digital engine rooms – the modern day storage centres of our identities. Ironically through − Do we make technology or does technology virtual technology, Tan renders these invisible make us? and highly secure spaces visible, creating a KEYWORDS portrait of our collective selves that we don’t yet recognise. 108 Algorithms Collaborative
INFLUENCES Digital processes Mediated A large inspiration for this work came from a Networks Reality project called Deep Lab, which is a ‘collaborative Society Technology group of cyberfeminist researchers, artists, writers, Virtual engineers, and cultural producers’. 109 This group of women have done some amazing research into FURTHER RESEARCH code, computation, surveillance and technology; particularly in relation to gender, class, race and 3D-printed sculpture Audio-visual capitalism. This work drew my attention to the social Capitalism Computation and material implications of digital activity. One Cultural producers Cyberfeminist example work from this is Data and Dragons by Addie Wagenknecht which (re-)manifests the cloud Data networks Data-driven 110 as physical sculptures. Ecological Electronic circuits Recently I have been reading a number of theorists Ephemeral Kinetic such as Mark RN Hansen and Luciana Parisi. Hansen’s research focuses on how computational Luciana Parisi Mark RN Hansen activity isn’t something that is sensed by humans Multi-screen Performances except through another computational activity (e.g. visualisation on a screen), while Parisi talks about Relational structures Sonification the ways that digital technologies have inherent Surveillance Telecommunications capacities for incomputability and randomness that Installations Data transference are not matched with human thought.
108 Robb, Body Doubles 109 Deep Lab, ‘What is Deep Lab’, 2015. http://www.deeplab.net/aboutus/ 39 110 Addie Wagenknecht, ‘Data and Dragons, Level 1-3’, Places I’ve Never Been, 2015. http://placesiveneverbeen.com/index.php/data-and-dragons/ / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
ARTS PROJECTS INSPIRED BY DEAD RINGER
1. Landscape inspired by Brooke Andrew
AIM MATERIALS Create a finished landscape work(s) based on your − Card/paper own experience of landscape and through the − Magazines, newspapers (preferably old or technique of montage — using several images photocopied into black and white) together as one. − Photos you have taken of landscape and copied Using Brook Andrews’s work as a starting point, − Glue create a series of collage/montages looking at your ideas/views in regards to landscape. You may want − Scissors to research the history of landscape depiction too. − Computer and an image editing program Particular pay attention to these aspects in Andrew’s like Adobe Photoshop (optional) works: − The lack of or diminishing of the horizon line − The use of black and white imagery only − Layering and montage – taking different images and placing them together − Western perspectives of landscape and if they are the same as your own ideas
Megan Cope Boo!, 2015 Image courtesy the artist
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METHOD 1. Look at, take and collect a series of 8. If you want to develop this exercise even landscape images. further, once you have completed the above process, rescale the piece you 2. Photocopy the images so they are all black have created by blowing up on the and white (you can play with the settings on computer. You should have many A4 or the photocopier to make darker or lighter). A3 sheets. Lay them out to create the Lay them all out. picture. Choose a shape or randomly cut 3. Think about what you want to say and sections and re-montage together. If you choose out the sections of the images that cut in squares you can place each section you want to use. in the back and front of a clear CD case, lay out flat, fully open and pixelate your 4. Carefully cut around the images. You may imagery together. Or you may want to have a scanner/cutter to do this. Photocopy mirror the image like Andrew’s image the images to make larger/smaller. Or above. alternatively scan into your computer, edit out the background and scale in 9. To completely give a “finished” look (if not Photoshop. using the CDs), take the final image(s) to a printer or somewhere like Officeworks 5. Now you have all your pieces, play around and get them to do a copy/print of the with arranging them on paper (without piece on one sheet of paper to whatever gluing). So you remember your trials, take scale you choose. Frame too if you want. a photo of each new change you make. Alternatively try out different arrangements 10. Title the pieces, write what they are about, in your computer program. Remember to display and have a group gallery showing save each edition you do. with the rest of your class. What have you learnt from Andrew’s work/process? From 6. Once you are happy with the one you want your own process? What is the outcome to do, paste or arrange. Create this to a like? What does it say about your reasonable scale like A4 or A3. You may interpretation of landscape and Australia? want to consider the shape of your paper and how this frames your landscape e.g. square or round/oval. Suitable for secondary school students 7. Do this process again or work on several pieces at the same time so you can create a series.
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2. Ghostly image inspired by Glenn Ligon
AIM METHOD Create a finished “ghostly” drawing based on your 1. Cover the entire piece of card with your viewing of Ligon’s Death of Tom and/or Edwin charcoal or lead pencil. Make sure you S. Porter’s 1903 silent movie Uncle Tom’s Cabin. cover the page solidly, leaving no white Look at one or both of these films. Choose a scene areas, but not pressing too hard. and create a duplicate as a dark, moody, greyscale 2. Select an image still to copy from Ligon limage. Look at these aspects in Ligon and/or and/or Porter’s works. Porter’s works: 3. Use the white pencil to roughly draw areas − The use of black and white imagery only of the image on top of the black coloured − The darkness and lightness in the imagery, card. where the light falls and highlights or 4. Now use your eraser(s) to rub out areas. shadows the nature Use pressure to create white and grey − The mood create by haziness areas. Think about perspective and use this technique to create a ghostly, ethereal MATERIALS duplicate. − Card, postcard size (long or regular scale) 5. Place the classes images together and see or A5 size if you can weave together a storyline. Do − Inspiring photos you have taken of the images look ghostly and dark? landscape or images from a magazine/ newspaper or online. (Maybe choose some old images) Suitable for primary & secondary school students − Graphite or charcoal − White pencil − Erasers (different sizes)
Glenn Ligon The Death of Tom, 2008 Image courtesy the artist
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3. Landscape inspired by Churchill Cann and Lena Nyadbi
AIM MATERIALS Create a finished landscape work(s) based 1. Look at, take and collect a series of on Aboriginal technique of using an aerial landscape images. perspective. 2. Looking at your source image, do some quick drawings using lead pencil or felt Using Churchill Cann and Lena Nyadbi’s works markers. Draw shapes for areas, do patterns as inspiration look at landscapes or imagine them and marks for details. Do some colour from above. Use shapes, pattern, mark making samples using your drawing media. and limited or natural colours to create a visual 3. Once you have planned, do a few sketches map. Pay attention to: of the overall image. − The shapes you see from above 4. Redraw the outline of your image lightly on the paper, board or card. − The colours in nature that you see or 1-2 colours you can limit your palette to 5. Colour in the areas. Add details and finish. − The feeling and connection to landscape you want to share Suitable for primary school students
MATERIALS − Watercolour or other good quality paper, board/wood or a canvas (any size) − Photos/images you have taken or collected of landscape or where you live − Drawing media including: lead pencils, erasers, sharpeners, coloured pencils, paint etc. depending on the age you are working with
Churchill Cann Snake Dreaming Country, 2014 Image courtesy the artist
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4. Totems inspired by Paddy Henry (Teeami) Ripijingimpi, Peter Porkalari and the Tiwi artists
AIM MATERIALS Create a finished totem/pole(s) sculptures − Wood poles e.g. broomsticks, wooden inspired by Tiwi burial poles. blocks/offcuts e.g. from a furniture factory, bought plywood lengths, Balsar wood or Look at the Tiwi art in the exhibition paying a material like plaster. For younger children attention to: you could use clay or play dough to make from scratch. − The shapes, patterns and colours − Paper for sketches and ideas − The lengths of the poles − Drawing media including: lead pencils, − The faces, libs or body if any erasers, sharpeners, coloured pencils, paint etc. depending on the age you are working − The representation of these as with. remembrance for someone who has died − Paint, paintbrushes, water, rags, containers for paint, water and brushes − Stanley knife, saw and carving tools depending on the size of your totem material
Unknown Tiwi Artists Pukumani Pole, Circa 1970s
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METHOD 1. Choose a material to work with and make 6. Once complete, use a slightly damp cloth sure it is clean and ready for building or to wipe away any dust off your sculpture. carving into. 7. Plan the patterns and colours on your 2. Think about who you would like to make a sketches sheet. Stick to 1-2 colours and totem for e.g. a pet or someone shades of these colours. Use the wood as you miss or care about. Do some sketches one of your colours/textures. about what you think of when you think 8. Once ready carefully paint your totem. Let about them. dry once complete. 3. Once you have done some sketches about 9. You may want to put a coating of varnish or them start planning some long totemic gloss on this at the very end. designs. Keep them as simple shapes, the details can be added with paint. Do at least 10. Think about what/who the totem 4 ideas. Thing about the thickness and represents. Maybe write this down. height of the material you are using. Give it a title. Place all the classes together in an arrangement and display them. 4. Drawing lightly with a pencil, you plan on your wood or building up with clay. 5. Use appropriate media and techniques to Suitable for primary and secondary school students carve into the medium. Be very careful if using sharp implements.
Paddy Hanry Ripijingimpi Pukumani Pole, Circa 1970s Peter Porkalari Pukumani Pole, Circa 1970s
Photo: Alessandro Bianchetti
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Additional Suggested Activities
1. Brent Harris – look up and do an automatic objects you have from home that drawing, which Harris sometimes uses represent you. Arrange these objects as a starting off point for his paintings. in an installation. Use your title to help Also called “Surrealist Automatism”, your decide on the placement of the this is a technique started and used objects. Once finished document your by the Surrealist art movement. Use your work with a drawing or photograph. automatic drawings as a starting off point Write about how this represents you. for a painting or drawing about the themes Consider the relationship of the objects in Dead Ringer. to each other. You may want to add some pieces you have made too. Think about how this installation is a representation 2. Steve McQueen – Study McQueen’s in object form of who you are, your likes, film that is in the Dead Ringer exhibition. your ideas etc.? What do the objects Split up in pairs/partners. Study how each say about you emotionally, beyond their other moves. Now mimic/charade/copy physical appearance? each other. Practice these movements. Take turns. Find a place in your school grounds to perform this piece to your class. 4. Ghostly Rorschach Face – Fold an A4 Get someone to take a video and the class sheet of white or grey card in half vertically can then study and analyse the idea of so you have 2 long sections. Use black ink twin, copying and how it felt to be a (not too much) to quickly paint a random, doppelganger. weird face up to the shoulders on one side of the paper only. Fold the blank side onto the painted side and press with your 3. Ron Nyisztor – Think about and research hands. Open up to see a doppelganger/ the topic of contemporary self-portraits. twin. You may also want to research installation art. Brainstorm your ideas about objects, titles and your own self-portrait. Collect
Andre Masson Automatic Drawing, 1924
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CURRICULUM LINKS SCASA K-10 WACE 11-12 ENGLISH Building & Construction / Construction
Language Design
Literature Indonesian: First language
HEALTH & PHYSICAL EDUCATION Literature Personal, social and community health Media Production & Analysis HISTORY Psychology Historical knowledge and understanding Aboriginal & Intercultural Studies HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCES Music Geograph: knowledge and understanding Geography SCIENCE Engineering Studies / Engineering Science understanding Philosophy & Ethics TECHNOLOGIES Physics Design and technology Visual Arts Digital technologies
THE ARTS Music
Media Arts
Visual Arts
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GLOSSARY111 Abstracted - Extract or remove (something). style crystallized in Europe in the late Middle Ages Relating to or denoting art that does not attempt and persists to the present day in communities to represent external reality, but rather seeks where literacy, urban contacts, and mass media to achieve its effect using shapes, colours, and have little affect on the habit of folk singing. textures. (art) Abstract art is art that does not attempt The term ballad is also applied to any narrative to represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality composition suitable for singing but instead use shapes, colours, forms and gestural Banal/mundane - Lacking force or originality; trite; marks to achieve its effect commonplace. Everyday, ordinary… relating to the Aesthetic - beauty and taste. Questioning world or worldly matters ‘what is beauty’, German philosopher Alexander Binary - Composed of, relating to, or involving two; Baumgarten in 1735 used the word ‘aesthetics’ to dual. Consisting of two components or phases describe his process of understanding what makes something beautiful or ugly and how we make these Ceremony - A formal act or ritual, often set by judgments. Later, the philosopher Immanuel Kant custom or tradition, performed in observation of an sought to clarify what aesthetics meant by writing event or anniversary. A religious rite or series of rites. Critique of Judgment, in which he tried to work Charcoal – (Art) drawing use of charred sticks of out how to analyse beauty, as well as taste and the wood to make finished drawings and preliminary Sublime. studies. Algorithms - Mathematics systematic procedure Collaborative - To work with another or others on a that produces—in a finite number of steps—the joint project answer to a question or the solution of a problem. Colonialism - Western politics a political-economic In computer science the study of computers, phenomenon whereby various European nations including their design (architecture) and their uses explored, conquered, settled, and exploited large for computations, data processing, and systems areas of the world. control. Community - The people living in one locality, the Alienation - Society in social sciences, the state of locality in which they live, a group of people having feeling estranged or separated from one’s milieu, cultural, religious, ethnic, or other characteristics in work, products of work, or self. common, a group of nations having certain interests Ambiguity - The possibility of interpreting an in common, the public in general; society common expression in two or more distinct ways. Vagueness ownership or participation. or uncertainty of meaning Complexity - The state or quality of being intricate Anti-narrative - A narrative which does not adhere or complex. Something intricate or complex; to the usual conventions of narrative complication Archetypal - In literary criticism, a primordial image, Composition - Composition is the arrangement of character, or pattern of circumstances that recurs elements within a work of art throughout literature and thought consistently Concept - An idea, esp. an abstract idea. (Art) a enough to be considered a universal concept or theoretical construct within some theory (related to situation the idea behind the artwork) Architecture - The art and technique of designing Culture - The total of the inherited ideas, beliefs, and building, as distinguished from the skills values, and knowledge, which constitute the associated with construction. shared bases of social action. the total range of Art history - Also called art historiography, historical activities and ideas of a group of people with shared study of the visual arts, being concerned with traditions, which are transmitted and reinforced identifying, classifying, describing, evaluating, by members of the group. the attitudes, feelings, interpreting, and understanding the art products values, and behaviour that characterize and inform and historic development of the fields of painting, society as a whole or any social group within it“ ” sculpture, architecture, the decorative arts, drawing, printmaking, photography, interior design, etc. Ballad - short narrative folk song, whose distinctive
111 All glossary references are from TATE, Artnet, Oxford Online Dictionary, Encyclopedia Britannica or the Collins Dictionary unless otherwise stated. TATE. “Glossary of Art Terms”, 2015. http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary. Artnet Worldwide Corporation. 2015. http://www.artnet.com/. 48 Oxford University Press. 2015. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/. Encyclopedia Britannica. 2015. http://www.britannica.com/. Collins. 2015. http://www. collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ / CONSUELO CAVANIGLIA EDUCATION NOTES
Customs - The long-established habits or traditions Eurocentric - Focus on Western perspectives. of a society collectively; convention. A practice chiefly concerned with or concentrating on Europe which by long-established usage has come to have and European culture. the force of law. Eviction - The action of expelling someone from a Descent - (Kinship) the system of acknowledged property social parentage, which varies from society to Experimental - (Of art or an artistic technique) society, whereby a person may claim kinship ties involving a radically new and innovative style. (Of a with another. new invention or product) based on untested ideas Digital processes - A series of interdependent or techniques and not yet established or finalized. operations carried out or a series of actions or Expressive - Conveying a specified quality or idea. steps taken in order to achieve a particular end (Art) Expressionism refers to art in which the image that involves or relates to the use of computer of reality is distorted in order to make it expressive of technology. the artist’s inner feelings or ideas. Director - (Art) the craft of controlling the evolution Figurative - (Of an artist or work of art) representing of a performance out of material composed or forms that are recognizably derived from life. (art) assembled by an author. The performance may be Figurative art describes any form of modern art live, as in a theatre and in some broadcasts, or it may that retains strong references to the real world and be recorded, as in motion pictures and the majority particularly to the human figure of broadcast material. The term is also used in film, television, video, and radio to describe the shaping Film - Motion picture also called film or movie of material that may not involve actors and may be series of still photographs on film, projected in rapid no more than a collection of visual or aural images. succession onto a screen by means of light. an admixture of elements that do not match. Distorted - To twist or pull out of shape; make bent or misshapen; contort; deform to alter or Folklore - The traditional beliefs, customs, and misrepresent (facts, motives, etc.). (Electronics) stories of a community, passed through the to reproduce or amplify (a signal) inaccurately, generations by word of mouth changing the shape of the waveform Funeral - A ceremony or service held shortly after a Elements - Any of the 118 known substances (of person’s death, usually including the person’s burial which 93 occur naturally) that consist of atoms with or cremation. the same number of protons in their nuclei. one of Generations - A set of members of a family the fundamental or irreducible components making regarded as a single step or stage in descent. All of up a whole. a cause that contributes to a result; the people born and living at about the same time, factor any group that is part of a larger unit regarded collectively. Emancipation - The act of freeing or state of being Gentrification - The process of renovating and freed; liberation, freedom from inhibition and improving a house or district so that it conforms to convention middle-class taste. The process of making a person Embroidery - Art of decorating material, primarily or activity more refined or polite textile fabric, by means of a needle and thread (and Grotesque - Ornamentation in architecture sometimes fine wire). and decorative art, fanciful mural or sculptural Ensemble - All the parts of something considered decoration involving mixed animal, human, and together and in relation to the whole. a group of plant forms. soloists singing or playing together. (Music) the Honour - High respect; great esteem degree of precision and unity exhibited by a group of instrumentalists or singers performing together Horizon - The line at which the earth’s surface and the sky appear to meet. The circular boundary of the Environment - External conditions or surroundings, part of the earth’s surface visible from a particular esp those in which people live or work. (ecology) point, ignoring irregularities and obstructions the external surroundings in which a plant or animal lives, which tend to influence its development and Indigenous - Originating or occurring naturally in a behaviour particular place; native. Innate, inherent
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Installation – (Art) a form of modern sculpture Painting - The practice of applying paint or other where the artist uses sound, movement, or space as media to a surface, usually with a brush well as objects in order to make an often temporary Panorama - An unbroken view of the whole region work of art. surrounding an observer. Interrogate - Ask questions of someone closely, Paranormal - Denoting events or phenomena such aggressively, or formally: as telekinesis or clairvoyance that are beyond the Kinship - The fact of being related in a family OR a scope of normal scientific understanding feeling of being close to somebody because you Participation - The action of taking part in have similar origins or attitudes something Lament - A passionate expression of grief or sorrow. Performance - The action of entertaining other A song, piece of music, or poem expressing grief or people by dancing, singing, acting, or playing sorrow: music. Land - An area of ground, especially in terms of its Photography – Image created from light on a light- ownership or use sensitive substance (a photograph). Landscape - All the visible features of an area of Pictogram - A pictorial symbol for a word or phrase. land, often considered in terms of their aesthetic A pictorial representation of statistics on a chart, appeal. (Art) The genre of landscape painting graph, or computer screen. Mapping - The process of making a map of an area. Picturesque - (of a place, building, scene, etc.) The process of discovering or giving information pretty, especially in a way that looks old-fashioned about something, especially the way it is arranged or organized Process-orientated – (Art) where the process of its making art is not hidden but remains a prominent Mediate - Intervene in a dispute in order to bring aspect of the completed work, so that a part or even about an agreement or reconciliation. Form a link the whole of its subject is the making of the work between. Connected indirectly through another person or thing; involving an intermediate agency: Proclamation - A public or official announcement dealing with a matter of great importance. A clear Minimalist – A person who practices Minimalism declaration of something — an extreme form of abstract art developed in the USA in the 1960s and typified by artworks Protagonist - The leading character or one of the composed of simple geometric shapes based on major characters in a play, film, novel, etc. The main the square and the rectangle. figure or one of the most prominent figures in a situation Multi-media - Artworks made from a range of materials and include an electronic element such as Reality - The state of things as they actually exist, as audio or video. opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them Mutate - Change in form or nature: Reciprocity - The practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit, especially privileges Mythology - A collection of myths, especially granted by one country or organization to another one belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition. A set of stories or beliefs about a particular Remembrance - The action of remembering person, institution, or situation, especially when something or the dead. exaggerated or fictitious Replications - The action of copying or reproducing Narrative – A story, events that are associated something through speaking and writing. Reverberate - (Of a loud noise) be repeated several Networks – (computers) A number of times as an echo. (Of a place) appear to vibrate interconnected computers, machines, or because of a loud noise operations. A system of connected electrical Sculptural installation - Mixed-media constructions conductors or assemblages usually designed for a specific Ochre - An earthy pigment containing ferric oxide, place and for a temporary period of time specifically typically with clay, varying from light yellow to made from three-dimensional art made by one of brown or red four basic processes: carving, modeling, casting, constructing
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Self-portrait - A portrait of the artist by the artist Twin - A person or thing that is exactly like another. One of two children or animals born at the same Site-specific - A work of art designed specifically for birth. Something containing or consisting of two a particular location and that has an interrelationship matching or corresponding parts with the location Universality - Relating to or done by all people Slave - (Especially in the past) a person who is the or things in the world or in a particular group; legal property of another and is forced to obey applicable to all cases. A term or concept of general them. A person who works very hard without proper application remuneration or appreciation Utilitarian - Designed to be useful or practical rather Social norms - Something that is usual, typical, or than attractive. standard in a society or its organization Video – Footage of moving images that may also be Society - The aggregate of people living together in broadcast and/or replicated a more or less ordered community. The community of people living in a particular country or region and Virtual - Not physically existing as such but made by having shared customs, laws, and organizations software to appear to do so Spatial - Relating to space Warped - Make abnormal or strange; distort Spirits - The non-physical part of a person manifested as an apparition after their death; a ghost. The non-physical part of a person regarded as their true self and as capable of surviving physical death or separation. The non-physical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; the soul Squatting/squatter - Unlawfully occupy an uninhabited building or settle on a piece of land. Person who squats Still-life - One of the principal genres (subject types) of Western art – essentially, the subject matter of a still life painting or sculpture is anything that does not move or is dead Stories - An account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment. An account of past events in someone’s life or in the development of something. A particular person’s representation of the facts of a matter Technology - The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry. Machinery and devices developed from scientific knowledge Tonal – The lightness or darkness of something. Made up of shades, or how dark or light a colour appears Traditions - A long-established custom or belief that has been passed on from one generation to another. The transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.
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REFERENCES ABC/AFP, 2013. ‘Paris rooftop display shows Indigenous artist Lena Nyadbi’s work to the world’, ABC, June 6, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-07/paris-rooftop-display-shows-lena-nyadbi-work/4738990 Aldridge, Richard. 2014. ‘Teeampi Paddy Henry Ripijingimpi’, Aboriginal Bark Paining, http://www.aboriginal- bark-painting.com/wp/index.php/2014/01/05/teeampi/. Andrew, Brook. 2015. Brook Andrew. http://www.brookandrew.com/bibliogaphy/. Andrew, Brook. 2015. quoted in Gracia Gunn. Brook Andrew: Possessed. http://archive.brookandrew.com/ post/130992145106/brook-andrew- Art Collective WA, 2015. ‘Ron Nyisztor’, http://www.artcollectivewa.com.au/artists/ron-nyisztor/ Art Gallery of Western Australia. 2005. “Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards”. http://www.artgallery. wa.gov.au/WAIAA_2013/wa-winner-churchill-cann.asp Artnet Worldwide Corporation. 2015. http://www.artnet.com/. Baerwaldt, Wayne, “Glenn Ligon: The Death of Tom”, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, 2008 http:// mocca.ca/exhibition/glenn-ligon-the-death-of-tom/ Biennale of Sydney, 2015. ‘Angelica Mesiti’, Biennale of Sydney, http://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/19bos/ artists/mesiti/ Biography, 2015. ‘Steve McQueen: Biography’, Bio, November 6, http://www.biography.com/people/steve- mcqueen-21341661 Cieply, Michael and Brooks Barnes, 2014. ‘A Landmark Oscar Win for ‘12 Years a Slave’: Oscars 2014: Winners and Losers’, New York Times, March 2, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/movies/awardsseason/ oscars-2014-winners-and-losers.html?hpw&rref=arts&_r=0 Coggins, David. 2009. ‘Steve McQueen’, Interview Magazine, February 26, http://www.interviewmagazine.com/ art/steve-mcqueen/ Collins. 2015. http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ Conceptio, 2014. ‘Lisa Reihana’, Conceptio, 2012, https://www.conceptioart.com/artists/lisa-reihana.html Constantine, Zade. 2014. ‘Watch: Steve McQueen Discusses His Career and Influences In Recent Two-Hour Conversation’, The Film Stage, February 3, http://thefilmstage.com/news/watch-steve-mcqueen- discusses-his-career-and-influences-in-recent-two-hour-conversation/ De Souza, Keg. 2014. “If There’s Something Strange in Your Neighbourhood…”, Vimeo. https://vimeo. com/128242660 Dease, Rachel. 2015. ‘Give Us Rest’, Aphids Projects, http://forevernow.me/artists/artwork/give-us-rest/ Dease, Rachel. 2015. “About”, http://www.rachaeldease.com/about/ Deep Lab, 2015. ‘What is Deep Lab’, http://www.deeplab.net/aboutus/ Encyclopedia Britannica. 2015. http://www.britannica.com/. Fehily Contemporary, 2015. ‘Lisa Reihana’, Rehiy Contemporary, http://www.fehilycontemporary.com.au/ artists/lisa-reihana/lisa-reihana-artist.html Gillies, John. 2011. ‘Angelica Mesiti Interview’, 1-22, 1, http://scanlines.net/sites/default/files/angelica_mesiti_ interview_2011_2.pdf Gunn, Gracia. 2015. Brook Andrew: Possessed. http://archive.brookandrew.com/post/130992145106/brook- andrew- http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/70711497/The-dark-art-of-Fiona-Pardington Martin, Gary. 2015. “Dead Ringer”, The Phrase Finder. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/dead-ringer.html McAuliffe, Dr Chris. 2006. “Just a Feeling: Selected Works 1987 – 2005”. Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne, 5. http://brentharris.com.au/cms/p/just-a-feeling-brent-harris-catalogue.pdf
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Mollison, James, ‘Brent Harris: “Bubbles”, “Just a feeling”, “Sleep”’, Art & Australia, vol. 42, no. 1, 2004 National Library of Australia. 2015. “Governor Arthur’s proclamation”, National Treasures. http://nationaltreasures. nla.gov.au/index/Treasures/item/nla.int-ex6-s52 Nguyen, Van. ‘Getting Naked with Stuart Ringholt’, Aphra Magazine, April 9. http://www.aphramag.com/getting- naked-with-stuart-ringholt/ Olds, Jeremy. 2015. ‘The Dark Art of Fiona Pardington’, Stuff - Fairfax Media, August 2, Oxford University Press. 2015. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/. Palmerston North City Council. 2015. “Brent Harris”, Creative Giants of Palmerston North, http://www. creativegiants.co.nz/view/artist-index/h/brent-harris.php Robb, Leigh. 2015. ‘Dead Ringer’, Dead Ringer Catalogue, PICA (Perth Institute of Contemporary Art) Rochlin, Margy. 2013. ‘The Grim Truth’, Director’s Guild of America, Summer, https://www.dga.org/Craft/ DGAQ/All-Articles/1303-Summer-2013/Independent-Voice-Steve-McQueen.aspx Scanlines, 2015. ‘Angelica Mesiti’, Scanlines, http://scanlines.net/person/angelica-mesiti Sebag-Montefiore, Clarissa. 2015. ‘Angelica Mesiti: the artist who records a choir in song without a single sound’, The Guardian, Friday 8, http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/may/08/angelica- mesiti-artist-interview-sydney Seva Frangos Art, 2015, ‘Lena Nyadbi ‘, Seva Frangos Art Gallery, http://sevafrangosart.com/wp-content/ uploads/2014/03/Lena-Nyadbi.pdf Short Street Gallery. 2015. “Details of Churchill Cann”. http://shortstgallery.com.au/artists/778807/churchill-cann Stark White, 2015. ‘Fiona Pardington’ Stark White, http://www.starkwhite.co.nz/fiona-pardington-overview-1 Starr, Bala. 2006. “Just a feeling: Brent Harris, selected works 1987–2005”, Just a Feeling: Selected Works 1987 – 2005. Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne, 7. http://brentharris.com.au/cms/p/just- a-feeling-brent-harris-catalogue.pdf. Stonard, John-Paul. 2001. ‘Steve McQueen born 1969’, TATE, 10 December, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/ steve-mcqueen-2387 TATE. “Glossary of Art Terms”, 2015. http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary. The British Museum. 2015. “Brent Harris (Biographical details)”, http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/ search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=3659 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). “Collection Online: Glenn Ligon”, SRGF, 2015 http://www. guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/3806 The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (SRGF). 2015. “Collection Online: Glenn Ligon”, SRGF, http://www. guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artists/bios/3806 Thomas, Sarah. 2006. “The Passion of Brent Harris”, ”, Just a Feeling: Selected Works 1987 – 2005. Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne, 11. http://brentharris.com.au/cms/p/just-a-feeling-brent- harris-catalogue.pdf. Thorpe, Vanessa. 2014. ‘Steve McQueen paves way for artists to break the boundaries’, Guardian News and Media Limited, March 9, http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/mar/08/steve-mcqueen-artist-big- screen-oscar-12-years-a-slave Tolarno Galleries. 2015. “Brent Harris”. http://tolarnogalleries.com/artists/brent-harris/ Tutton, Sarah. 2008. ‘Conceptual Artist Meets Girl: Stuart Ringholt and the Art of Self-Improvement’, Art and Australia, Winter, 626. http://www.milanigallery.com.au/artist/stuart-ringholt?do=text Wagenknecht, Addie. 2015. ‘Data and Dragons, Level 1-3’, Places I’ve Never Been,. http://placesiveneverbeen. com/index.php/data-and-dragons/ Whitney Museum of American Art, “On The Death Of Tom, With Glenn Ligon, Jason Moran, And Terrance Mcknight”, 2011, March 23 http://whitney.org/Events/OnTheDeathOfTom
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IMAGE CREDITS
BROOK ANDREW LISA REIHANA All works courtesy the artist Courtesy The Wesfarmers Collection, Perth STUART RINGHOLT CHURCHILL CANN Courtesy the artist & Milani Gallery, Brisbane Courtesy the artist, Warmun Art Centre, Warmun & Seva PADDY HENRY (TEEAMI) RIPIJINGIMPI Courtesy the Murdoch University Art Collection, Frangos Art, Perth Perth Courtesy the artist and Private Collection KYNAN TAN MEGAN COPE Courtesy the artist Courtesy the artist UNKNOWN TIWI ARTISTS RACHAEL DEASE Courtesy the Murdoch University Art collection, Courtesy the artist Perth WA KEG DE SOUZA Courtesy the artist WEBSITE LINKS BRENT HARRIS All works courtesy the Murdoch University Art Collection, Perth PAGE 21
GLENN LIGON Change Before Going Productions, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903) - Harriet Beecher Stowe - Edwin S. Courtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery, Porter | Thomas Edison - Slavery Days”, YouTube, London 2012, July 31, https://youtu.be/uDyZcJIv8Tg STEVE MCQUEEN PAGE 41 Courtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery, London Jill Fehrenbacher, ‘READYMADE: How To Make {Almost} Everything’, Inhabit, 2006, March 1, http:// ANGELICA MESITI inhabitat.com/readymade-how-to-make-almost- Courtesy the artist everything/ Facebook Pin Tweet+
LENA NYADBI PAGE 46 Courtesy the Murdoch University Art Collection, Savannah Phelan, “Andre Masson and the Perth Automatic Drawing”, Surrealism Fall 2012, 2012, Courtesy the artist and Seva Frangos November 16, https://surrealismfall2012.wordpress. com/2012/11/16/andre-masson-and-the- Courtesy The Wesfarmers Collection, Perth automatic-drawing/ RON NYISZTOR All works courtesy the artist
FIONA PARDINGTON Courtesy of the Musée de l’Homme (Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle), Paris
Courtesy the artist and STARKWHITE, Auckland
PETER PORKALARI Courtesy the Murdoch University Art Collection, Perth
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