Anh Do - The Happiest Refugee

The Happiest Refugee is one of those unique unputdownable stories which forces its way to the top of your already long list of priorities and engulfs your time and imagination until you have reached its conclusion. In the midst of one very busy week, I found myself relegating many of my other more important, yet far less interesting, tasks to the side and losing myself in the beautiful tale of Australian comedian Anh Do’s life.

Do’s story is that of thousands of migrant Australian families, including my own. Trapped in a life of poverty and hopelessness, under a merciless Communist regime, young Mama and Papa Do had no choice but to risk their lives and that of their extended family’s, to escape to a better country. So 40 men, women and children snuck out onto the open sea before dawn, into a dingy nine-metre long boat, to make the harrowing journey away from Vietnam. They eventually make it to Australia where they are confronted (yes, confronted, as it’s all too much to take in) by a world of hope, opportunity, generosity and small pleasures that they never imagined. Most amusing is the lucky discovery of St. Vinnies, where you can get a bag full of clothes for almost nothing, even jeans for your toddler. “What a great country!” is a phrase often repeated throughout the narrative, as the family revel in their new life.

Of course, life for a migrant family in Australia is anything but easy, particularly when education and English are key requirements of many good jobs. So, like many of our own migrant parents, Anh’s were forced to take whatever money-making opportunities they could find in order to create a better future for their children. But while such tales of hardship, displacement and loneliness could be told with self-pity and exasperation, Anh recounts his family’s day-to-day struggles with humorous anecdotes that reveal lessons learned the tough way, and how most things invariably work out. Interwoven with these stories are heart-warming and humbling tales about the tiny pleasures we take for granted, what Anh calls “little windfalls of luck”. Like when, as a teenager, Anh discovers a voucher in the mail for 50-cent Big Macs at Yagoona McDonald’s, with a limit of four per voucher. Having not had Maccas for years, due to his family’s financial situation, the Dos had hit the jackpot and went around to the neighbours to gather more vouchers. Armed with six, the family drove to McDonald’s, purchased the 24 Big Macs and Anh and his two younger siblings shared a banquet which they still reminisce about today. Or even more touching is the time when Anh found a green chip in his packet of crisps, sent it back for a refund on the off chance that he might redeem his couple of bucks, and got sent a humungous box of chips as compensation. For the next week, he had the same chips as everybody else at school, and as he recounts, “For a week I was normal.”

However, there are some stories that are too painful, too humiliating in their desperation for even a comedian to sugar coat. Like the time his mother was sick in bed, but insisted on getting up to finish sewing the garments for delivery the next day. As he helped his mother to her sewing table, Anh describes the horrible shame of “secretly hoping she would go on, keep sewing, even at the risk of her becoming seriously ill. The fear of having no money was so merciless and so overwhelming.”

Overall, and as we know, this tale has a happy ending. Anh goes on to achieve the dream of many migrant parents – for their child to be offered a high-paying job, in this case it is as a lawyer for a top firm – only to turn his back on it to pursue a career as a comedian. The idea of a Vietnamese migrant comedian is so funny that it can only be true. And Anh does achieve the fame and fortune he needs to give his mother family a better life.

Do’s storytelling is simple but captivating – like talking to a mate over beers. His story isn’t remarkable in any kind of splendid way; it is the story of so many young Australians from a migrant family who witness the cultural, social and financial struggles of their parents and commit to forging a different future for themselves. But it is in this ordinariness that Do captures the collective experience of an entire generation of people. The ordinariness is only made incredible (to Do and his siblings at the time, and to us now) through the stark juxtaposition between Anh and his North Sydney private school peers. His is a relatable tale that, as the daughter of migrants who came to this country when I was five, took me back to the ‘poor stories’ (as one of my Eastern suburbs friends calls them) of my own childhood, but cast them in the humour, warmth and simplicity in which they occurred. We didn’t have much, but at least we had fun and were creative with what we had. I think that’s the experience of most migrant children, and Do captures that naivety and innocence, while being honest about the hardships his family endured. It truly is a great read, and a part of Australian social history that is rarely acknowledged in literature or art, but completely indelible in the character of our country. [Image from http://www.thereadingroom.com/]

Arts Interview - Bridget Smyth

Another artsinterview piece with Bridget Smyth, Director of Design at the City of Sydney. The topic was Diversity. http://artsinterview.com/2011/11/28/arts-interview-bridget-smyth/

Two Highlights from the 12th Istanbul Biennial

Nicolas Bacal, The Geometry of Space-Time After You, 2010
This work directly references Gonzalez-Torres’ iconic Untitled (Perfect Lovers) (1991) with two clocks in separate parts of the biennial and just a minute hand signifying the endless passing of time. The word ‘vos’ (Spanish for ‘you’) is repeated around the edges of the clocks’ faces. Bacal describes the work as “ridiculously romantic”; whether in its representation of love, frozen or eternal time, or simply the obsession with one person. The class presentation by Anna and Jess also examined this work from a similarly positive, quixotic perspective. What is worth considering, however, is the possibility of cynicism contained in this work. Gonzalez-Torres’ clocks were side-by-side, touching, but eventually fell out of sync as one ‘died away’ before the other, suggesting a physical end to their love. Bacal’s clocks are placed outside the white (and grey) cube, are separated, and do not show any passing of time, just an obsessive preoccupation with an ambiguous ‘vos’. Even though Bacal’s is hopelessly romantic, the love that is signified here perhaps never exists outside the boundaries of the clock faces. After all, they are not in sync, and the artist initially intended for numerous clocks to be displayed in disparate locations throughout the biennial, something that would undermine the ‘couple’ metaphor. Furthermore, the minute hands futilely run around in circles, chasing after the elusive ‘vos’, but sadly never finding each other. [Image from http://12b.iksv.org/en/sololar.asp?id=11&show=gorsel]

Ahmet Ogut, Perfect Lovers, 2008
A work which wholly and beautifully captures the entire spirit and conceptual credo of the biennial is Perfect Lovers, another powerful appropriation of Gonzalez-Torres’ clocks. It presents a one Euro and two Turkish Lira coin (the same size), side-by-side and encased in a black velvet-lined vitrine. The work captures the desire to fuse minimalist aesthetics with political concerns, which here holds more substance than the combined worth of the coins, but is lighter, more poetic than their combined weight. This is a work which is grounded in the political and completely dependent on an imbalanced and constantly shifting geo-political context for its continually-renewed interpretation. Created in 2008, the two coins are, of course, never ‘perfect lovers’. Instead, the fluctuating struggles within their turbulent relationship are entirely dependent on the oscillating power relations between the European Union and Turkey. Ironically, this kind of tempestuous chemistry could make them the perfect lovers, depending on the audience’s understanding of love and relationships. The endless interpretative possibilities, along with the layers of meaning encased within this small vitrine, between these two unassuming coins, make this artwork the most powerful and effective in the 12th Istanbul Biennial. [Image from http://www.ahmetogut.com/ahmetwebperfect.html]

Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial)

The 12th Istanbul Biennial is a quiet and contained exhibition which rejects the seduction of the spectacle characteristic of most biennials. In line with its institutional departure, the show’s grounding in the work and practice of artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres establishes a solid and unique conceptual framework. Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial) is divided into five sections, each also ‘Untitled’ followed by a description in parentheses. This emulates Gonzalez-Torres’ naming practices in order to instil a sense of timelessness and never-ending possibilities for meaning-making. The underpinning premise of the biennial is to invest life and politics into a minimalist aesthetic in the spirit of Gonzlaez-Torres’ understated creations; deceptively sparse, yet teeming with political potency. Curators Jens Hoffman and Adriano Pedrosa have revived this method of art making in a concentrated and tightly-curated exhibition thematically linked to specific works of Gonzalez-Torres’.

Untitled (Abstraction) contains works which complicate the sterile environments of Minimalism and the Modernist grid with elements of the social, political, personal, historical and, quite simply, the everyday. The works in this section appear to unravel abstraction, inject it with subjectivity, and then reconstitute it as a strange and provocative hybrid. Works such as Geta Bratescu’s Vistigli from 1978 and Lygia Clark’s Bicho sculptures from the 1960s retrace a history of art which effectively infused elements of the everyday into essentially abstract forms, thus blurring the divisions between the two.
Themes of love, loss, homosexuality and the AIDS epidemic are explored in Untitled (Ross), the section named after Gonzalez-Torres’ candy spill work. This section abounds with quite literal and anthropomorphic interpretations of gay love, along with works which directly reference Gonzalez-Torres’ presentations of this idea, including Kutlug Ataman’s Forever. However, there are also some noteworthy pieces, including ceramics from the Ardmour Ceramic Studio in rural South Africa which depart from the more self-indulgent pieces. Made by locals, these depict didactic narratives, presented in a series of confronting literal and symbolic images, to educate locals about HIV and AIDS awareness.

Untitled (Passport) envisages new ways of looking at the world and understanding its physical, political and psychological boarders. Works such as Ataman’s Su and Kirsten Pieroth’s Weltkarte (Map of the World) completely subvert the imagined boarders of identity and political geography in order to reinterpret these constructs. Meanwhile, solo presentations like Simon Evans’ deal with the quest (and inability) to locate identity within an increasingly globalised and disjointed world through playful panderings to obsessive idiosyncrasies.

The writing, rewriting and non-writing of history are played out in Untitled (History) which explores the tasks of recording, censoring and interpreting the past. This section presents contemporary artists who reflect on history and its constructions. Works like Julieta Aranda’s plexiglass cube containing pulverised 20th century history books, as well as Claire Fontaine’s replacement of Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle with a brick are anarchic acts which undermine Western practices of empirical recording of knowledge and events. Furthermore, Taysir Batniji’s Suspended Time is a metonymic freezing of history by presenting an hourglass on its side – static and unchanged.

Finally, Untitled (Death by Gun) concludes the biennial on a sombre and disconcerting note. Many of the works in this section were made before Gonzalez-Torres’ time, and thus trace a timeline of gun violence and its portrayal through visual media as far back as the American Civil War. The proliferation of gun violence and the social apathy which now accompanies it is reflected through the plethora of gory, gruesome and graphic images. The fact that much of the audience are merely ‘unsettled’ by these images attests to our engrained societal desensitisation, and hence inaction, to such violent subject matter. It is a fitting conclusion to an overall thoughtful, stirring and dramatically understated exhibition.

In a rapidly expanding art world that is being invaded by biennials, art fairs and overblown international events, it is easy to lose (or never even gain) the thrill of an exhibition in the attitude of ‘yet another biennial’. Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial) has snapped art world inhabitants out of their biennial sugar coma with a heavy dose of thoughtful, unassuming and compelling contemporary art. Its grounding in the works and philosophies of Felix Gonzalez-Torres offers a fresh and effective way of conceptualising biennials. It steps away from the acutely political, and embraces the artist’s whimsical spirit, injecting the biennial model with what Pedrosa calls, “a sort of poetic angle that maybe enchants and enlightens you, maybe makes you think differently about the world.” This ambition has been achieved with integrity and humility in what many are referring to as an ‘intellectual biennial’; an exhibition which effectively stimulates the interaction between abstraction and politics, formalism and subjectivity, high art and the everyday. Above that, the exhibition has reintroduced an important artist and a provocative, and enduring, concept of art making to a new generation, a new century, of arts practitioners. That is the gift of Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial).

There are way too many artworks for me to share all the images. So check out the Biennial website for artwork images http://12b.iksv.org/en/sololar.asp

Jay Z - Decoded

Jay Z’s Decoded is part autobiography, part ode to hip-hop and all heart. Unlike most autobiographies, which continue chronologically in an almost obsessive attempt to get all the stories in, Jay Z shares the pages of his life with the history of hip-hop, insights into the impoverished world of his youth, and a deep-seated respect for the artform which makes this world liveable. The goal here is not just to tell the story of his life, but to properly contextualise it in the binary worlds of poverty and desperation, followed by unimaginable riches and fame.

Jay Z recounts his life in the projects with a system that not only didn’t care about his situation, but preferred to pretend that that sector of society simply did not exist. It was within this neglected environment that hip-hop found relevance and Jay Z discovered his talent at the tender age of 12. However talent means nothing when you’re struggling to get by in life. So rather than fully committing himself to rhyming (and hence allowing the impossible dream of becoming a rapper), at 15 little Shawn Carter hit the streets of Brooklyn to hustle and eke out a living. He continued along this path well into his 20s with significant success. But the love of hip hop and rap kept their hold on him as he allowed himself intermittent forays into that game. When Jay Z finally decided to leave the hustler life for the rap game, he pursues that passion with the same hustler spirit and determination that got him the cars and the bling in his previous life.

Parallel to this captivating story is a careful and thorough dissection of hip-hop; its history, misunderstood public perception, status as a political scape-goat, and most importantly, its effects on all types of audiences. Jay Z successfully imparts a deep, respectful understanding of hip-hop. He unpacks the myriad of (uninformed) criticisms towards it and recasts it in the light that its creators and supporters see. In a discussion on some of the original MCs and hip-hop artists like KRS-One, Poor Righteous Teachers, Queen Latifah and much more, Jay Z outlines the way their music – through its brutally honest, visceral nature – changed some of the negative mentality of the hood. He writes:

The hip-hop generation never gets credit for it, but those songs changed things in the hood. They were political commentary, but they weren’t based on theory or books. They were based on reality, on close observation of the world we grew up in. The songs weren’t moralistic, but they created a stigma around certain kinds of behaviour, just by describing them truthfully and with clarity.

Such powerful defences and explanations were only strengthened by the ‘decoding’ of many of the rappers own songs. Indeed, a unique feature of this autobiography is the intense breakdown of many of Jay Z’s songs (both the popular and obscure ones); the poetic techniques that went into them, the stories behind them, and the messages they impart onto the world.

Thrown in with the biography and intense discussions of hip hop is an overall contextualisation of the political and cultural reality of American society. Jay Z is unabashed and candid about the political and cultural roots of much of the social neglect that is imposed on underprivileged groups in America. And he is not shy to point the finger at the specific individuals who either encouraged the deterioration of his world, or simply turned a blind eye, pointing to governmental policies that were “genocidally hostile” by aiding or tolerating the unleashing of guns and drugs onto poor communities while simultaneously cutting back on schools, housing and assistance programs.

What Jay Z has effectively done is paint a holistic picture of the nature of America in his lifetime, placing hip-hop at the climax of this story. But rather than glorifying or hyping it up with colourful hyperbole, Jay Z simply re-establishes hip-hop’s rightful place in music, society and politics. It’s a noble endeavour which he achieves with integrity and honesty, delving into every crevice and niche of hip-hop, not only unearthing its gems but also exposing its many flaws. The book is underscored by an exceptional writing ability – which is unsurprising given the complexity and technical sophistication of his raps – passion and conviction which are contagious and heartfelt. One walks away with a profound respect for the hip-hop form materially and for its ability (when done correctly) to incite social change and revolution. Above all, I walked away with a deep admiration of Jay Z; his compelling story, uncompromised social consciousness, and amazing ability to manipulate language and storytelling. [Image from: http://thatsenuff.com]

Arts Interview - Nicky McWilliam

An interview I did for Arts Interview with Nicky McWilliam, director of Eva Breuer Art Dealer. The topic was Stress and Wellbeing, something that many arts workers are familiar with.

http://artsinterview.com/2011/09/05/arts-interview-nicky-mcwilliam/

John Kaldor Family Collection, AGNSW

This one is more of a reflection than a review, because while the works are spectacular, there are more interesting forces at play behind the scenes that I would like to explore.

The AGNSW’s shiny new 3000 square metre marble basement level has, as its inaugural exhibition, a vast display of works from John Kaldor’s donated collection. Worth a cool $35 million, the works are exhibited in the new contemporary gallery baring the Kaldor family name.

The exhibit is indeed impressive, including works from many of the most important art movements of the late twentieth century and the new millennium. Kaldor is one of the world’s foremost collectors of Sol LeWitt’s works, and the artist is generously represented in the gallery – note the LeWitt row. Along with LeWitt, his Conceptualist counterparts adorn the walls and floor of the gallery, including Carl Andre, Frank Stella, Donald Judd, and Bernd and Hilla Becher. Pop Art icons Jeff Koons and Robert Rauschenberg are present, as are video and photographic big-names like Gilbert & George, Andreas Gursky, Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, and Australia’s golden boy of the moment, Shawn Gladwell. Of course, Christo’s wrapped gems are also on display. Unsurprisingly, artists who have been brought out (or will be shortly) through Kaldor Public Art Projects are also represented, including Barry McGee, Urs Fischer, Ugo Rondinone and Michael Landy. 

Along with the works from his private collection, Kaldor had also commissioned three new works by artists already in the collection; Rondinone, Richard Long and a very cool reproduction of a room in the collector’s own home created by those from LeWitt’s studio.

Something of note however; the very generous donation of this collection cost the gallery (ie. NSW government) about $30 million in itself – money spent to refurbish the basement floor, which was originally the storage room, and hence moving storage of artworks off site. While I am obviously a fan of government spending on the arts (I know which hand it is that will most likely feed me), it is interesting that Kaldor has found a cheeky loop-hole that many of his wealthy collector peers from around the world have not discovered (or at the very least, not pursued). Usually, when an art collector has a substantial amount of works in his (yes, mainly his) possession, he will most likely fork out his own money to build a fancy facility to match the fancy art that it will show – Charles Saatchi and Francois Pinault (whose museum ostentatiously sits almost adjacent to Venice’s Biennale venues) are notable examples, as is Australia’s own eccentric iconoclast David Walsh with the opening of MONA at the beginning of this year. This way, the collector gets to share his work with the public, and also bask in the glory of his collection, which is first and foremost a portrait of him as a collector, and by extension a person, and only secondly a presentation of whatever eras of art from which he has collected. And of course, the running and maintenance of these private galleries has ongoing costs, for the life of the venue – Walsh’s, for instance, will cost about $10 million per year to run. So it seems then, by comparison, that Kaldor may have side-stepped a costly project through the relatively small donation of $35 million worth of art; the AGNSW and NSW government carry the costs of building the venue, and of course the costs of maintaining it and staff in perpetuity, while Kaldor gets to share his collection with the world and have his name on the gallery wall anyway. It’s a win-win for the business-savvy art lover.

Last, but certainly not least: going back to my point about any private collection being primarily a portrait of its collector. Notice the names that are listed here: there is one woman, who appears in partnership with her husband. In fact, out of the vast collection of works donated by Kaldor, 194 are by male artists, six works are collaborations, and two works are by female artists. These statistics prove a far cry from claims of this being the most ‘comprehensive’ collection of contemporary art, as Mr Capon would have you believe in various pieces of press. It has occurred to me that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this – Kaldor simply chose to keep the works made by women and donate the men’s ones. But I doubt it. So beware when you go to see this admittedly impressive display of works – there are women Conceptual, video, photographic, Pop, etc, etc, etc, artists, even if Mr Kaldor did not deem it necessary to collect them equally. [Image (C) 2011 Alan Miller]

Barack Obama - Dreams From My Father

Published in 1995, when only a small handful of people knew him as the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review, Barack Obama’s Dreams from my Father is a beautifully-composed memoir about the events, discoveries – things in general – that had shaped the future president’s understanding of the world and his place in it. In a (large) nutshell, the book traces Obama’s unorthodox origins, as the son of a white Kansas girl and a Kenyan man who left the young boy and his mother when he was just two; through to his carefree childhood roaming the backstreets of Jakarta with boys the same skin colour as himself; back to living with his maternal grandparents in Hawaii during his adolescence, where he discovers the politics of race and its inequalities; then to his troubled, drug-taking, conflict-ridden years in college; to his work as a community organiser in the worse-hit areas of Chicago; and finally to his home-coming in Kenya where Obama unearths the secrets and untold stories of his identity.

Obama’s introduction sets the tone for the entire book – it is honest, modest and realises the vanities of recounting one’s ‘life’ mid-way through. He genuinely acknowledges his untrustworthy, almost falsified, memories (backed up predominantly only by verbal histories), and concedes that they are tainted by the 20/20 vision of hindsight and the wisdom and retrospective understanding that time allows. And yet, Obama pushes on with tales of his childhood with a loving, yet ambitious mother and her Indonesian husband, and the day he began to realise that his skin was different and somehow undesirable. He recounts the one time that he met his father, at age ten, the awkwardness and tension that washed over them both, and the fact that he would carry the man’s impossibly high-standards as a benchmark for all successes and failures in his life. Even when the mythologised image of his father would be shattered, in a single chapter which compounds the man’s life story as told to Obama by his half-sister, the man’s image, his absence and contradictory life, would continue to shape Obama’s own troubled grapplings with the world around him. Such troubles are exacerbated in a large portion of the book simply titled ‘Chicago’. Here Obama discovers for himself, and subsequently reveals to his reader, the now debunked international image of the USA as land of freedom and prosperity. Interwoven with Obama’s own story are those of the people whom he meets during his years as an organiser, and of course the lessons – political, social and personal – that he learned from these years. What he witnessed in the most racially, and hence economically, divisive areas of Chicago was not unlike the poverty, deficiencies and overall sense of hopelessness that he would come to see during his first trip to Kenya. And one of the gems in Obama’s book is the way in which he reflects on such encounters with humbling, insightful and deeply honest empathy for society’s Others, neither excusing or blaming them, but rather seeing a possible version of what could so easily have become himself.

The story’s third and final section is ‘Kenya’ when, in the summer before beginning Harvard Law School, Obama journeys to his father’s land to meet the family he never knew and to discover the truths about his father. Obama first recalls the beautiful, sobering feelings of ‘returning’ to an unfamiliar home, where his name is first recognised as a relation to Dr. Obama, his late father. ‘No one here in Kenya would ask how to spell my name, or mangle it with an unfamiliar tone,’ he writes. ‘My name belonged and so I belonged, drawn into a web of relationships, alliances and grudges that I did not yet understand.’ What transpires from this web is something I can only describe as both mind-blowingly complex in their inter-familial conflicts, yet strangely familiar and universal for the same reason. Due to the ongoing practice of polygamy in Kenyan society, Obama has a myriad of half-siblings, countless aunts and uncles, and even a paternal grandmother who is not biologically his. But while Obama may come from a stranger-than-usual mixed family, the dynamics, conflicts, fleeting moments of familial love and loyalty, have an uncanny familiarity, even for those of us from the most ‘normal’ of family situations. His encounters with family and the obligations, expectations and allegiances expected from people you’ve never even met, but with whom you share an unbroken bond, resonates with a universal familiarity, particularly for those of us who have families in economically unstable countries like Kenya. Obama writes with brutal honesty about the mess and confusion that is his inheritance, which he initially begrudgingly accepts, but comes to fully embrace as an indelible part of who he is. And towards the end, Obama is told the story from the beginning, starting with his father’s father, in the remote deserts of Kenya, when white people did not exist, to when they eventually came with their irreversible changes, to Barrack Obama senior meeting a young girl at Hawaii University, through to his final demise. I devoured these pages of family history, paralleled by that now-ubiquitous tale of colonialism that has made its way to the far corners of the Earth, seeing again its effects in yet another part of the world. When the story ended I felt with Obama an overwhelming catharsis; a sense that his long and harrowing journey to manhood had finally come to a sufficient conclusion.

Obama’s story, while extraordinary and extremely peculiar, resonates with a sense of commonness that we can all empathise with. That search for your identity, the wrestling between your inherited culture and the (white) one you grew up in, the fact that you never quite fit into either world whole-heartedly or without reservation. His is the universal story of difference, of living in and through disparate cultural identities that are all supposed to be your own, but that you can’t completely claim. Obama’s captivating and eloquent prose captures the heart, honesty and humility of this story. It speaks to our own insecurities about self and place with neither dogmatism nor false optimism. The story’s simple, yet powerful, conclusion leaves us with a sense of peace, contentment, and the knowledge that, at short intervals in time, everything is alright with the world. [Image from http://www.mylib.in/]

John Legend & The Roots - Wake Up!

‘Wake Up!’ a collaboration between John Legend and underground hip hop band, The Roots, is a unique, refreshing and poignant album. Best known for their jazzy, neo-soul/rnb sounds, here the eclectic rhythms of the band’s instrumentals are perfectly partnered with Legend’s soulful vocals and some timely (and timeless) subject matter. 

Inspired by the almost-revolutionary zeal of the Obama Presidential campaign in 2008, Legend, who was heavily involved in the crusade, hooked up with The Roots to commemorate that moment of change. The result is a studio recording of just covers – soul music from the radical era of the 1960s and 70s, when inequality and mass social change co-existed. The artists’ twenty-first century interpretations of some of the most obscure songs of that period is so seamless and contemporary that it requires real concentration to actually realise that these are covers.

‘Wake Up!’ the title track, with two different versions bookending the record, is an uplifting anthem which calls for greater accountability from those in positions of social responsibility; doctors, teachers, builders to ‘change together’. Tracks such as ‘Wholy Holy’ by Marvin Gaye, ‘Little Ghetto Boy’ by Donna Hathaway, and ‘Hang on in There’ by Mike James Kirkland cast light on the collective ills that still exist, carry messages about social awareness, engagement, and consequently incite the kind of social action that was relevant then, and continues to be today. The album reaches its climax with ‘I Can’t Write Left Handed’, originally performed by Bill Withers, an eleven-minute saga about a single Vietnam War soldier, which has telling parallels to today’s war-torn situations. The lyrics tell the story from the perspective of a young man who got shot. Legend’s jarring vocals are underscored by some simple piano chords, drum beats and a gospel backing, which reach their crescendo in a three-minute culmination of guitar riffs, cymbals and the sax. And finally, ‘Shine’ is the only original track, written and performed by Legend, and is a beautiful ballad proclaiming the potential of every individual to ‘shine’, if given the appropriate human opportunities to which we’re all entitled.

Within the increasing apathy of today’s popular culture, this album shines as a timely reminder of the interconnectedness of human beings and the responsibilities we have to each other and our world. From its socially-conscious themes to its grass-roots undertones, the album offers a sense of hope and encouragement for the progressively desolate and disparate state of humanity. That, and it just sounds really good! [Image from www.rap-up.com]

Ken + Julia Yonetani - Still Life: The Food Bowl

Ken and Julia Yonetani’s latest exhibition, ‘Still life: the food bowl’ is just as exquisite and ecologically pressing as their previous works. The result of a nine month residency in Mildura, the sculptures in this exhibition are made entirely of salt from the Murray River. The exhibition comprises of three Greco-Romanesque plinths (made of salt) on which small salt sculptures of fruit, vegies and lobster rest; a large table displaying a salt-sculpted feast of much of the same produce, five empty frames which represent the five senses, and a large salt and metal chandelier suspended just inside the front display window. Currently showing at the Artereal in Rozelle, the website describes the exhibition as such:

Along the Murray-Darling basin, known as Australia's 'food bowl' because it produces up to ninety per cent of Australia's fresh food, 550,000 tonnes of salt is pumped out of the ground every year to try and stem the increasing rise of highly saline ground-water.

Still Life: The Food Bowl is made from this groundwater salt. It draws on the still life genre as an artistic tradition that emerged as current agricultural practices were being developed, bringing new food produe to the tables of a rising European bourgeois class. (http://www.artereal.com.au)

Much like the sugar of Yonetani’s monumental ‘Barrier reef’, here the salt is a metaphor for the excess and gluttony that has come to characterise human consumption throughout history, through to the present day. As Artereal’s website states, salt acts as ‘a powerful, sacred substance that maintains life by enabling food preservation, but also induces the death of ecosystems and the collapse of empires.’ Indeed, the way in which the salt sets to become sculptures, hard like stone, is demonstrative of what happens to an environment largely neglected and sacrificed to fulfil the wants of human desire. It was this environment that the Yonetanis witnessed first-hand at Mildura, and it is the one they now urge us to consider.

Within the installation is a dialectic of abundance and scarcity indicative of the human condition. While there is a lavish array of food, moulded from the produce of the ‘food bowl’, it is unmalleable and bland – lacking colour, material variety, and flavour. The empty frames which adorn the gallery walls – adjacent to the still life which sits virtually still, solid on a table in the middle – emphasizes the ironic beauty of this installation. The frames contain nothing, but are supposed to represent the five senses, while the subject matter of still life sits before them, drained of their visual vibrancy, uncontained within the frames and unable to stimulate the senses. The imposing chandelier, illuminated by both artificial and natural light, intricately composed yet hollow in the middle, reinforces this tension and accentuates the theme of excess.

The exhibition is brilliant, permeated by the quiet, reflective message that has come to characterise the Yonetanis’ works; eerie in its silence, yet persistent in its call to action. It is on show until 2 July. [Image from http://arterealgalleryblog.blogspot.com]

Global warming CAN be over: the art of Ken Yonetani

This is an essay I wrote for a university magazine last year. It gives context about environmental art in general, as well as Yonetani's work and is the prequel to what I am posting about his current exhibtion, 'Still Life'. It is long (you've been warned)



As much of the art industry thrives on the neo-liberalist spirit of consumerism, making luxury goods of art; many artists also crusade for social, political or environmental causes. Ken Yonetani is one of the latter. While many of his ephemeral works escape the commercial quality of being sold, they are poignant and powerful vehicles for raising awareness of some of the ecological, and hence social, problems which plague our modern world. Yonetani is part of a growing breed of artists who are ‘Getting to grips with the idea of ecological systems as art...as the substance of art practice itself.’ (Editorial, 2005, p.14) But the tireless efforts of artists like Yonetani, who so passionately create works in the hope of informing and educating audiences, beg a very important question: Can art really affect change?

An increasingly unnatural world.
In a disturbingly prophetic essay titled ‘Art and Ecological Consciousness’, first published in 1970, Gyorgy Kepes warned that:

Disregard for nature’s richness leads to the destruction of living forms and eventually to the degradation and destruction of man himself...we are all carried along by the uncontrolled dynamics of our situation and continue to develop ever more powerful tools without a code of values to guide us in their use. (Kepes, 1972, p.2)

Indeed, since the dawn of industrialisation, the natural environment has always been a faint afterthought in the pursuit of technological greatness that boosts both profits and mankind’s insatiable need to tame and control nature. And while Kepes recounts fleeting moments of poetic caution over the centuries – more than a hundred years ago, John Ruskin proclaimed, ‘Ah, masters of modern science...you have divided the elements, and united them; enslaved them upon the earth and discerned them in the stars.’ (Kepes, 1972, p.1) – the narrowly-focused task of advancement at any cost has proceeded relatively unobstructed. It is only in the final decades of the twentieth century that the environmental consequences of a hitherto uncapped project of technological progression have been acknowledged by citizens that form the privileged minority. We came to realise, as Kepes so eloquently reflected, that ‘Shaped with the blighted spirit of cornered man, our cities are our collective self-portraits, images of our own hollowness and chaos.’ (Kepes, 1972, pp.3-4) And though it may not be too late, much of the damage is certainly irrevocable, causing great anxiety and uncertainty for the future.

At the same time, art’s relationship with nature became precarious as industrialisation gained more steam, and ecological apathy became the norm. Both, as Felicity Fenner writes, drifted apart and ‘each suffered at the hands of social and political indifference.’ (Fenner, 2007, p.422) While artistic expressions of nature and the natural order still existed, such forays were intermittent and became more sporadic as humanity and nature became more disparate. ‘While oblique reference to the natural world is found in geometric abstraction of the modernist era,’ Fenner claims, ‘it wasn’t until the 1960s, when a renewed socio-political interest in the environment inspired a young generation of revolutionary artists, that nature again became valid subject matter in contemporary art.’ (Fenner, 2007, p.422) Land art, and works addressing ecological issues came to the fore as artists began to register society’s discomfort with their increasingly concrete and artificial surroundings. Pioneering artists such as Richard Long, Dennis Oppenheim, and iconic, ground-breaking (literally) works such as Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty brought art and artists back to nature, albeit a permanently altered nature. Now at the dawn of the 21st century, the need to preserve the natural world has become an imperative, and artists are at the forefront of a movement that seeks more accountability from humans for their ecological footprint.

While they were once polarities, art and science are now, more than ever, joining forces for a greater cause. Given the increasingly destabilized state of today’s natural environment, artists and scientists are collaborating to raise awareness of the issues and to offer solutions. In the last decade, international art collectives such as Ecoarttech, super/collider and Cape Farewell, have emerged to fuse the pragmatism of science with the creative processes of art to, as Cape Farewell’s mission states, ‘stimulate the production of art founded in scientific research.’ (Cape Farewell, n.d.) Such developments highlight the recognition of the universal need to make concerted efforts towards ecological revival and sustainability. The partnership between art and science therefore represents the holistic actions that need to be taken; art to present the environmental damage caused by human activity and to further re-imagine a better, more ecologically-viable world, and science to impress upon us the disastrous consequences of not striving to attain this world. Simon Torok, CSIRO scientist and Artlink contributor, offers an uplifting and hopeful illustration of how collaboration can affect change: ‘Together, art and science can inspire an emotional response, inspiring changes in our attitudes and behaviour that ensure our landscapes survive in more than photographs, paintings and memories.’ (Torok, 2005, p.17)

An artist on a quiet mission.
Ken Yonetani started his working life in one career and has ended up at the other end of the spectrum. Originally a finance broker in Tokyo, he was immersed in the narrow, pragmatic, ecologically disinterested world of profit and economics. After three years Yonetani quit his job and spent several more years searching for his calling, which he found in art, as an apprentice to the master potter Kinjo Toshio in Okinawa. From there, a natural progression to conceptual and environmentally-focused art occurred, as the artist recounts:

I am from the concrete jungle of Tokyo. I felt an urge to draw on my own experiences, and from this moved into the realm of conceptual art. For me environmental loss caused a sense of anxiety: working with my hands, I was able to regain a sense of calm. It was only natural to link the calming action of art-making back to something with an environmental message. (Yonetani, 2005, p.33)

A large part of his environmental message is to bring to light the destructive desire of humanity. Yonetani believes it is important for people to ‘see and feel actual works rather than virtual things.’ Many of his artworks, especially the earlier ones such as the fumie tiles, physically recreate this propensity for destruction. These tiles were destroyed shortly after their unveiling on both occasions of their showing at the CSIRO’s Discovery Centre in 2003 and the Asian Traffic project at Gallery 4A in 2004. In both instances, the tiles, which contained models of endangered Australian butterflies that Yonetani himself had individually handcrafted, were placed at the entrance of the exhibition and crushed under the feet of opening night guests, effectively destroying months’ of work with disturbing voracity. Julia Humphrey offers a detailed recollection of how the installation unfolded at the CSIRO exhibition, drawing parallels between the human condition and the act of destroying another person’s work:

Some people...stepped across the tiles below with a sense of dread. Others stomped across the breaking floor with a kind of pained glee...titillating and yet excruciating... desperately trying to save some of the tiles...Several children also picked up some unbroken tiles, only to place them down once again and smash them with a loud and forceful stomp. After they had been smashed, the children then carefully began trying to place the pieces back together again...Several people began putting tiles into their handbag or under their arms, laying claim to them with a sense of triumphant defiance. Yonetani smiled. This too was another display of human desire – the desire to possess and stake a claim of one’s own. (Humphrey, 2004, p.23)

The reactions and emotions by visitors are a telling portrayal of the human desire to both inflict wanton destruction on their surroundings, and then realise the futility of trying to recreate such a fragile environment. ‘I cried a lot with those ephemeral works,’ Yonetani recalls, perhaps lamenting not only the destruction of his hard work, but what such destruction reflects about the human condition. Many of these broken fumie tiles were subsequently put together to create a new installation of a butterfly mandala. The butterfly pictures of this new work, Yonetani explains, ‘form the ghosts of the destroyed tiles, sacrificed by human’s impact on nature, and a gateway to the spiritual world.’(Yonetani, Westspace, 2005)

Sweet barrier reef, Yonetani’s most celebrated work, is a quiet, subtle comment on the state of ocean floor habitats. In its monumental scarcity, the large sculptural installation, modelled after a Zen garden form and made entirely of sugar, represents the coral wastelands that much of our oceans’ underwater ecosystems have become. The sugar is at once metaphorical and literal; it directly points to the sugar industry’s chemical run-offs as the primary cause for the bleached coral, and also stands as a metaphor for the Western world’s increasing gastric gluttony and desire, manifested through excessive consumption, at any (environmental) cost. At the opening night of Once Removed, the group exhibition in which this work represented Australia at the 2009 Venice Biennale, models in coral-inspired bridal dresses meandered through the throngs of guests, holding delectable, intricately designed wedding cakes, sculpted by the artist. The bright colours of these dessert sculptures were a stark contrast to the deathly white of the installation they accompanied. The performance, entitled Sweet barrier reef for the 21st century – play Strauss’s waltz grandly, included a choreographed dance followed by the models serving up the cakes to guests, creating a relational space which facilitated an interaction and dialogue between artwork and audience. In this case, as well as indulging in one of life’s great culinary pleasures – a wedding cake! – the audience became complicit in the physical destruction of Yonetani’s exquisite sugary sculptures, but metaphorically too in the destruction of the ecosystem that these sculptures represented.

Yonetani’s most vocal, assertive and political attempt to create environmental awareness in the general population is a performance piece he delivered in collaboration with his wife, Julia Yonetani. Global Warming is Over! (if you want it) was a bed-in staged in the middle of Melbourne’s Federation Square on a hot, 35ish°, February weekend in 2010. Emulating John and Yoko’s famous 1969 Amsterdam ‘War is Over!’ bed-in, the performance, which received Yoko Ono’s blessing, was staged to draw attention to climate change and the need for action. ‘The message is the same as the message that John and Yoko had’, Julia explains, ‘if you want something you can actually make it happen...Both of them (war and global warming) we should be able to stop by human action, because they’re caused by human action.’ (J. Yonetani quoted in Pardi, 2010, pp.31-32) The public element of their performance, in which the couple stayed in their Fed Square bed all weekend in John and Yoko wigs, also helped the Yonetanis to take their work and message to a wider audience. ‘People we had chats with in our performance are quite ordinary and do not go to gallery openings often’, Yonetani explains. ‘We discussed about global warming with various opinions. It was very interesting to talk with different people.’ Furthermore, the performance can be considered a direct call to action, informing the public that global warming can be over, if they want it, if they are willing to work for it. The sweltering heat only served to re-enforce the urgency of the message.

Given the conceptual strength of Yonetani’s artistic practice, and the social importance of its message, the artist does not fall into the trappings of ‘crusader’. Rather, his works act as quiet, reflective protests; they impress upon the audience the necessity for change, yet leave the onus for action on the individual. In fact, the only violence in Yonetani’s practice is that which is inflicted on his intensely-laboured creations.

The artist’s next step will be an intense foray into interdisciplinary practices, as the Yonetanis begin their three-month artist residency in Mildura, on the border of the Murray River in Victoria. Long established as a hub for experimental projects where art and science join forces in the quest for ecological revival, Mildura seems the perfect place for Yonetani to begin his next artistic journey. Here, the couple will be collaborating with local scientists to explore the nature of salt, water and salinity as such issues are pertinent to this dry continent, and important to the artist. No doubt what the Yonetanis create will be a telling reflection on humanity’s (mis)use of that most precious of resources – water.

Is art enough...?
In 1972 Kepes introduced the notion of consigning the artist to the task of creating an ecological consciousness. Kepes expounds on ‘the role of the artist in educating the public to understand our ecological situation, and how he can serve to renew the sense of happy equilibrium between man and his environment.’ (Kepes, 1972, p.170) While many artists like Yonetani have enthusiastically stepped into this role, one wonders if art really is enough to change the world. What is the real, practical reach that artists can have on a largely uninterested first world which continues to burn through natural resources faster than they can be replenished? What’s more, should it be the social expectation, or burden even, of artists to take on such a monumental task as changing the mindset and careless living patterns of a population based on rampant consumerism and immediate self-gratification? In other words, is it really the responsibility of artists to change the world? While one’s immediate response would be a resounding ‘No!’ when asked this very question, Yonetani humbly, yet resolutely, replies, ‘I think it is not only given to the artists. All the people have a responsibility to try to change the world.’ From here, it appears that there’s nothing left to say, only do.

List of references
Fenner, F., ‘The nature of art’ in Art and Australia, v. 44, no. 3, Autumn 2007, pp.420-27
Humphrey, J., ‘Ken Yonetani’s Fumie tiles – the art of destruction’ in Ceramics: Art and Perception, no.57, 2004, pp.21-23
Kepes, G., ‘The artist’s role in environmental self-regulation’ in Arts of the Environment, G. Kepes [ed.], New York: George Braziller, 1972, pp.1-12
Kepes, G., ‘Art and ecological consciousness’ in Arts of the Environment, G. Kepes [ed.], New York: George Braziller, 1972, pp.167-197
Pardi, L., ‘GLOBAL WARMING IS OVER! (If you want it)’ in Beat Magazine, Wed 17 Feb 2010, pp.31-32
Torok, S., ‘Picturing climate change’ in Artlink, v.25, no.4, 2005, pp.16-17
Yonetani, J., ‘Sweet revenge: interview with Ken Yonetani’ in Artlink, v.25, no.4, 2005, pp.32-35
Yonetani, K., ‘Exhibition invite text’ at Westspace Gallery, 27 May – 11 June 2005, [Accessed 1 Sept. 2010] http://www.westspace.org.au/program/ken-yonetani.html
Yonetani, K., 2010, email 10 Sept., < ken@kenyonetani.com> 
‘Editorial’ in Artlink, v.25, no.4, 2005, p.14
‘About Cape Farewell’ n.d. in Cape Farewell, [Accessed 3 Sept. 2010] www.capefarewell.com/about.html


[Images from http://kenyonetani.com]

The Wire

I've never blogged about a TV show before. Of course I have my favourites; Modern Family, Entourage, Sex & the City, Seinfeld, Law & Order, and a few others. But I never found the need to blog about any of the shows I enjoy. Until now.

Created by actor, director, producer and former policeman Edward Burns, ‘The Wire’ is a cop show unlike any other. Unflinching in its realistic portrayal of crime – those who commit it, and those who fight it – this show goes further into the systems of law (from both sides) than anything I’ve ever seen. And I love watching detective/cop shows.

Season One consists of thirteen one-hour long episodes delving into one case against relatively new, but rapidly powerful Avon Barksdale, a drug dealer who has control of Baltimore’s poorest and most drug-affected areas. Jimmy McNulty is the detective who pursues the case, despite the entire police department’s apathy towards catching Barksdale. With the help of a judge who empathises with his cause, a small team is assigned to quickly work the case and bring in some results. Sending a clear message about their feelings towards this case, and its unorthodox impetus, the superiors resign the team to a small dungeon somewhere in the cellars of a decrepit police building. From here, the team, with a cautious and initially-reluctant Lieutenant Daniels, work the case with civilian informants, bits and pieces of the puzzle, and gradually building up to wire taps. Wearily overworked and painfully under-resourced (no CSI gadgets here, in fact, they’re still using type writers, and it’s 2002!), the detectives must deal with constant calls for swift results and cessation from the top, and an increasingly cautious and intelligent pool of suspects from the bottom. Meanwhile, Barksdale and his crew are on their game, making an estimated $20-something million a year in drug money. Stringer Bell, Barksdale’s right hand man, goes to community college to improve his business skills. But within this tightly-run hierarchy, some underlings can’t handle the pressure, and start to question their dismal place in the world. In a legitimate organisation, this would be inconsequential, but in the game, no one can flip, and there can’t be any rats.

The events which unfold throughout this season are too much and too complex to try to summarise in one short blog. One of the best scenes, however, is a three and a half minute sequence of McNulty and his partner Bunk piecing together what happened at a murder scene that’s long-since been cleaned up. With nothing but a tape measure, pliers and crime scene photographs, the two engage in a highly-choreographed dance of sorts, trying to figure out how the murder took place. The best part is the dialogue; nothing but the F-word, and its various permutations, repeated to farcical extremes as the pieces fall into place. YouTube it! Indeed, the entire series is punctuated by the authentic Baltimore dialect in which the characters speak, so subtitles are a must.

What really does deserve close attention and praise is the way in which the story is told. Disturbingly real parallels are drawn between those working on both sides of the law, and also between their efficiencies and ineptitudes. On the one side is a ridiculously dense bureaucracy and system of accountability which slows down effective police work. On the other side is the mean environment of the streets, hardening some but leaving a depressing path of destruction for all who inhabit it. Career advancements and rank are the only lines that both sides follow, with those who step out receiving the harshest consequences and condemnations. And of course, there is the ubiquitous stench of corruption and backstabbing which permeates both the world of the law and the underworld.

As such, there is no real winner in this game, only pursuits which are accomplished or failed. Yet there is a sense of defeat on both sides (despite apparent victories), which paints a disconcerting picture of the nature of this kind of ‘game.’ In this, there are good guys and bad guys on both sides, with distinctions so blurred that the characters, and viewer by extension, lose track of what they’re fighting for or against. The anti-climactic finale, disturbingly beautiful and believable in its cyclicality, attests to the reality of such drug cases all over the world. I can't wait to see what the rest of the series has to offer! [Image from http://thewire.wikia.com]

Due Date

Now I love a good stupid-guy movie. ‘The Hangover’ was awesome, I lol’ed all through ‘Superbad’ and still randomly shout out ‘McLovin!’, and you all know how I raved about ‘The Other Guys.’ So I thought that the formula had been mastered by now. Obviously the two Alans (Cohan and Freedland, screenwriters) have not been hanging out with the cool kids, because they have no idea how it’s done!

Starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis, ‘Due Date’ is about hot-tempered father-to-be Peter (RDJ) being put on a ‘No-Fly’ list along with weirdo aspiring actor Ethan (Galifianakis). With no wallet, ID or cash, Peter is forced to endure a cross-country drive with Ethan and his masturbating dog. And to make things more pressing, Peter must get back to his pregnant wife who is due to have the baby any day now. The predicaments they find themselves in, mainly caused by the idiocy of Ethan, are what then transpire throughout this over-the-top road trip film.

That’s the best way to describe this movie; too much, without achieving anything. It’s like the creators sat down one night with a bong, some booze, and a scrappy piece of paper and said to each other, “What’s the stupidest, most craziest stunts/scenarios that we can come up with?” With the hard part out of the way, they then proceeded to wrap it all up in a sloppy storyline, some random and unnecessary cameo appearances (another cheap trick), and call it a comedy. While the lead actors do appear to be working with what they’ve got, the lack of any substance in this movie means that both performances virtually fall flat. Particularly Galifianakis, whose character Ethan is supposed to be a dopey, but lovable, simpleton, but really just comes off as annoying and overly idiotic to the point that you just want RDJ to whack him over the head and end the whole thing!

The film has given up comedic integrity for brainless stunts, lame punch-lines, shallow sentiment and the most implausible scenarios. Inadvertently crossing the Mexican border with weed, a car wreck caused by a sleep-deprived Ethan, an accidental shooting, mistakenly drinking the ashes of Ethan’s dead father and possible infidelity are just some of the unoriginal, half-witted gems that are doled out in this 1 hour and 40 minutes of nothing. Even the mateship that predictably forms between the mismatched leads is a confusing progression. And when it manifests, it’s abrupt, weak and unconvincing.

Finally, there is no saving grace, no moment of redemption as the movie concludes. Instead, the cheap comedic stunts persist until the end; and like the rest of the movie, they disappoint. Overall, eye rolling and cringing were frequent, but laughs came few and far between, and even then they were the small pity laughs that you give yourself to maintain your mental state and convince yourself that it’s kind of funny in order to just to get through the movie. And of course, ‘WTF’ was uttered so many times that it lost all meaning. [Image from http://www.filmofilia.com/]

Gran Torino

Clint Eastwood is the coolest old guy ever! Well, that’s the impression I got after seeing him in ‘Gran Torino’, a movie which I believe will introduce him to a new generation. Here Eastwood produces, directs and stars as the crankiest of cranky old men Walt Kowalski; ex Korean War veteran whose wife has just died and who’s estranged from his two sons and their families. Around him, Walt experiences a very familiar phenomenon of suburbia – the encroaching of a different cultural group of people, as the current group become increasingly displaced. In this case, it is the Hmong people who are moving into Walt’s formerly white neighbourhood, and finally right next door to him.

The first hour of the movie is a strange concoction of awkward, cringe-inducing, jaw dropping, politically incorrect humour, as Walt doles out racially inappropriate gems on his neighbours – of all colours. The unapologetically racist, gun toting old man has no qualms about telling everyone he meets exactly what he thinks of them, perpetuating every negative racial stereotype under the sun.

When one night a Hmong gang comes to force Thao, the teen next door who was peer-pressured into trying to steal his prized Gran Torino, to join them Walt comes to the rescue, so to speak. Wielding a shot gun, Walt demands that they all get off his lawn. So begins the old crone’s slow and hesitant bonding with his neighbours, as they make their way into his life and he develops a begrudging acceptance, realising that he has more in common with these ‘zipper heads’ than with his own family. And of course he is eventually won over by the rich culinary delicacies of the Hmong culture, or what he calls ‘good gook food.’

Before long Walt finds himself developing friendships with Thao and his sister Sue, as well as a fatherly protectiveness as they are continually harassed, and eventually attacked, by the neighbourhood gang. This is where ‘bad ass’ Eastwood shines as Walt steps into the role of the hero, intent on bringing peace to the children. He takes on guys young enough to be his grandchildren with a fearless disregard for consequences and the skilful fists of a hardened soldier.

From grumpy, cantankerous, unabashed racist to reluctant, but indisputable, hero, Eastwood is magnificent as Walt. With a shamelessly acidic tongue and the raspy croak of age and bitterness, Eastwood delivers racial slurs that would make even Mel Gibson blush – without batting an eyelid, and with the most intimidating of snarls. Even when he eventually warms to Sue and Thao, Walt remains his cranky, offensive self. And when it comes time to step up and save a neighbourhood that is no longer his, Walt undertakes his mission with conviction, culminating in an intense and shocking final showdown.

Apart from the brilliance of Eastwood, the rest of the movie is fantastic! From the dreary, dilapidated sets which present a community in distress, to the duel innocence and resistance (against the gang) of Thao and Sue (played by Hmong actors Bee Vang and Ahney Her), to the insistent young priest, determined to keep peace in the neighbourhood, the film tells a compelling and all-too familiar story of gang violence, crumble-down communities, and racial prejudices with originality and integrity. Far from the didacticism that movies of this subject matter can easily slip into, ‘Gran Torino’ simply presents one individual’s very unique way of dealing with the changing world around him and his indoctrinated bigotry. It is a must watch! [Image from http://thecinemaguy.comn/]

Rihanna - Loud

Thanks to Rihanna’s new offering, I now know what a substance-less album sounds like. Titled ‘Loud’, THAT is all the album has going for it – volume. Listen to it at the right decibel and the noise will distract you from the lack of substance, meaning, and any real reason for existence other than as a filler for a dj’s set list. You know, that section where they need anything inane and brainless, but with a good enough beat, to keep the half-drunken twenty-somethings jiving non-rhythmically until closing time.

Where do I start with this mess? While the beats can be generously considered catchy and appealing, after five albums Rihanna’s singing, which at one time could have been considered fresh and exotic, now grates the tortured eardrums like the pained yelps of a cat under a fat man. Such quasi-singing would be excusable if the lyrics were anything but anodyne, unsophisticated and superficial. I wonder what the thinking process was to get to rhyming ‘realise’ with ‘eyes’. Or to declare, like so many who have come before Rihanna, that her money is on her mind. Good songs should read like poetry – with its nuances, subtlety, hidden messages and layered meanings. ‘Why are you standing there with your clothes on?/ Go on baby strip down and take them off’ leaves nothing to the imagination and seriously undermines the intelligence of semi-literate music listeners. (Admittedly, such basic lyrics do cater to a certain type of unrefined audience.) The only good lyrics in the entire album were Eminem’s, in a cameo appearance of Part II of ‘Love the Way You Lie’. Of course, he wrote that part.

On top of that, the actual contents of the songs do nothing more than shamelessly perpetuate the much love-to-hate misconception of hip hop and rnb as little more than hedonistic, overly-sexualised music. There’s nothing wrong with singing about sex and depravity; hey, they’re what make the world go round. But at least put some effort and creative energy into it, instead of resorting to the lowest common denominator with a song titled ‘S&M’ and lyrics like ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me.’

That said, the album could be interpreted as some kind of emancipation. Two records ago, with ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’, and the skilled and seasoned producing hand of Jay Z, this was appropriate, innovative and executed with sass and style. Now, two albums and a whole lot of courted controversy later, the concept is dated and laughable. What else does she need emancipating from? The result, then, is something that sounds like Rihanna has simply taken the woes of her disastrous personal life out on this album, which is a mess, much like her divisive public profile.

Big words, and punchy sartorial jibes aside, this album simply sucks! After two bad records, whatever appeal or talent Rihanna once had is now officially gone; replaced by the superficial facade of fiery-haired, sultry vixen. But keep in mind that, much like her music, that red weave is also fake. [Image from http://www.muumuse.com/]

Through Young Eyes - Jacquelyn Ngo

 ‘Through Young Eyes’ is an exhibition of over 30 paintings now showing at the Casula Powerhouse Museum. Their painter is Jacquelyn Ngo, a six-year-old Australian-Vietnamese girl who goes to school in Cabramatta West.

Once you get over the initial shock of Jacquelyn’s age, and that intimidating feeling of deep inadequacy makes its way back into the dark crevices of your mind, you can then begin to immerse yourself in the energy and vibrancy of these magnificent canvases. Hung in succession along the two walls of a narrow hallway on the old Powerhouse’s second floor, the van Gogh-esque works reveal the unhindered imaginative world of a carefree and vivacious child who, beyond painting what she sees, paints the way in which she sees her surroundings. By the end of my journey down the short corridor I was almost in tears by the honesty and unabashed sincerity of the paintings. The innocence, pure creativity and lack of agenda of this body of work is not only refreshing, but also allows one to experience the genuine joy of looking and being immersed in Jacquelyn’s enchanting world.

Her subjects are the everyday people and places which inhabit her life; friends, school, her apartment block, the beach, her family, herself. Yet they are bathed in a delightful pallet of intense colour and bold brushstrokes; never in any ‘realistically-painted’ setting, but rather in an imagined swirl of colours, and light, and koalas sitting on a Christmas-trees-filled beach. In a nostalgically familiar self-portrait, Jacquelyn lies daydreaming on a grassy hill, against a sky of pink and purple hues, while her Maths homework lies, neglected, by her side.

But more than being an indulgent and overblown colouring book, Jacquelyn’s body of work also express how the young artist is proud of her hybrid heritage. Many of the paintings reveal a beautifully innocent and organic fusion of Vietnamese and Australian culture. In ‘Flowering’, Jacquelyn and her mother are wearing the traditional Vietnamese ao dai as they stand in a garden which contains an Australian flag on a pole, the iconic Australian sun, and a koala in a tree.

This exhibition is heart-warming and promising in so many ways, and the Casula Powerhouse must be commended for giving such credibility and regard to the work of a young artist from the area. Jacquelyn’s paintings are not solely the product of a young girl with skills and perceptions exceeding her years. Beyond that, they represent the wealth of unfounded talent that exists in all sections of society, and which can be discovered when the surfaces of the unlikeliest of places are scratched. [Images from http://www.smh.com.au/]

Black Swan

Who would have thought that a movie about ballet could be so scary? Forget about the fact that I’m naturally a jittery person, ‘Black Swan’ had me squirming in my seat and watching through the slits of the fingers that covered my eyes. The story is about meek and mild-mannered Nina, a back-up dancer in a large ballet company who suffers from a dangerous combination of shyness, ambition and psychotic delusions. Nina’s big break comes when she is cast as the Queen Swan in the company’s production of ‘Swan Lake’; and while she is well-suited to the role of the white swan, she must overcome her timidity to play the sensuous and aggressive black swan.

The production’s rehearsals, and the small cast of characters who surround the heroine are the backdrops for Nina’s escalating psychosis. Thomas Leroy is the stereotypically misogynist company director, who seduces Nina and takes advantage of her apprehension in order to get her to ‘loosen up’; Erica Sayers is the overbearing, controlling, jealous mother whose attitude oscillates between joy for her daughter’s success and resentment that it came at such a price to her own burgeoning dance career; Lily is the free-spirited new recruit whose confidence and precarious nature both entice and threaten Nina; and finally there is Beth, the veteran dancer whose position Nina has unwittingly usurped, and who the young dancer desperately wishes to become. These characters, and the protagonist’s increasingly unstable mindset, push Nina further into an abyss of fatigue-inducing training, paranoia, and finally self-destructive psychosis as she struggles to become the ‘perfect’ ballerina.

Nina’s snowballing descent into insanity is underscored by a bleak, yet crisp, palette of grey and monochrome tutus and dance studios, a beautifully dramatic orchestral soundtrack, some very creepy and spine-tingling special effects, and camera work which spins with the dizzying swiftness and grace of the passionate dancer and her confused, ambitious psyche. The film reaches its crescendo at the opening night of the production, where Nina’s shyness, ambition, fatigue and hallucinations all dramatically collide in a tragic conclusion.

In this film, director Darren Aronofsky captures, with chilling realism, Nina’s psychotic unravelling. As does Natalie Portman, whose performance just this week earned her the Golden Globe for best actress. Separately, the individual elements of this film – music, special effects, acting, cinematography – were excellent, and really added to the texture, tension and thrill of watching it. But together, they did not quite mesh completely. While it was visually and musically stunning, there was something slightly off about the story that I can’t quite articulate. Perhaps it was Nina’s unexplained delusions, the two-dimensionality of characters like the company director, or the haphazardly-developed (non)relationship between Nina and Lily. Either way, I’m not entirely sure that I like the movie. I certainly don’t hate it, but it was missing a crucial something that would have made me like it. But still it is worth a viewing, not for its realistic insight into the cut-throat world of ballerinas, but for its disturbing depiction of the deterioration of an already-weak mind. [Image from http://www.washingtontimes.com/]

Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life 1990 - 2005

The MCA’s exhibition of works by world-renowned American photographer Annie Leibovitz is spectacular! Covering 15 years of the photographer’s career and personal life, the exhibition offers fleeting glimpses into the convoluted world of celebrities and intimate snapshots of Leibovitz’s life and that of her family and friends.

The list of celebrities photographed reads like the guest list for Oscars night. Johnny Depp and Kate Moss in a lazy embrace on a hotel bed; Brad Pitt engulfed by a backdrop and questionable wardrobe of warm hues; Nicole Kidman, polished and regal, amongst the spotlights of a concert hall; THAT photograph of Demi Moore, and next to it, a lesser known one of the bare-breasted actress with then-husband Bruce Willis’ lovingly-protective hands secured around her pregnant belly. The rapport and comfort between the photographer and her celebrity subjects is apparent, with many of the photographs capturing that essence of humanness that is often lost in the two-dimensionality of the celebrity world and the multitudes of images that capture this world. Leibovitz’s photographs show us that these are merely people, with their own complexities and intricacies, which only her lens can capture. Most haunting, but beautiful, is a monochromatic photograph of a lone Mic Jagger, sitting on a simple white bed, looking forlorn yet stoic. Here, the legendary rock star is just a man, no different to the men of Leibovitz’s family, whose photographs line the same walls as that of the celebrities.

Indeed, amongst the famous faces are those of Leibovitz’s family, in black and white photographs that chronicle the everyday-ness of their lives; at the beach, in the kitchen, in bed, the backyard. Author and literary theorist Susan Sontag is also heavily represented, as the exhibition includes photographs of Leibovitz’s ailing friend. Sontag’s fatal experience with cancer is recorded in detail; from her promising, yet frail, recovery, to her unfortunate relapse and deterioration, and finally to her final moments on an ambulance stretcher, Leibovitz shows her dedication to her friend as she is there every step of the way, capturing the moments that are dear to them both.

My favourite photograph in the exhibition is of dancer Bill T. Jones at Sun Studios in 1993. Here, Leibovitz shows why she is the master of the monochrome in a beautifully double-framed image of the back of the naked dancer in a delicate mid-jump. His dark skin is a crisp contrast to the backdrop of the white studio wall, which in turn is backgrounded by the grounds and buildings of a dilapidated industrial site. So many elements of dance, grace, texture, colour and contradictions are at work in this stunning, liberating, almost cathartic image.

The exhibition ends with two walls of chronologically-ordered prints, one personal, the other professional, which have been transplanted from Leibovitz’s home studio. Containing everyone from the Obamas and the Clintons (who appear on the ‘personal’ wall), to the photographer’s three young daughters, these walls are a fitting conclusion to the immensity and overwhelming density of the body of work one has just journeyed through (I didn’t even get to mention the large-scale landscape photographs which dwarf the very room they hang in). They capture the spirit, professionalism, longevity, and innovativeness of Leibovitz’s still-strong career. And with the birth of the photographer’s first child in 2001, the death of her dear friend Susan Sontag in 2004, and the arrival of her twins in 2005, this exhibition perhaps marks the end of one stellar phase of her life and the beginning of a new, but no less epic, journey. I am anticipating the photographic results of that in another 15 years. [Image from http://www.dailygloss.com/]

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye West’s much anticipated and now celebrated new album actually lives up to the hype. ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ is an extremely well-written and well-produced body of work. Each song has its own individual ‘oomph’ and uniqueness, with distinctly original beats, clever and beautifully-composed lyrics and most importantly, each song tells a powerful story about Kanye’s life, career, controversies, dreams, nightmares, fantasies, and views on the world. Whereas other artists’ albums contain a handful of good songs and a whole bunch of fillers, making it easy to pick out the good ones, Kanye’s entire record is exceptional, making it almost impossible to ‘choose’ a favourite. This is due in part to the very meticulous production, care, and obvious, and no doubt obsessive, detail that is apparent in each individual song. This album really is a purely creative product of Kanye’s rich and ‘beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy’ world.

Of course the artist’s trademark, and notorious, narcissism pervades the entire record. After a one-year hiatus, the lead track from the album ‘Power’ explains that “I just needed time alone, with my own thoughts/Got treasures in my mind but couldn’t open up my own vault”, and then confidently and aggressively announces that “I was the obamanation of Obama’s nation.”

The record’s zenith is ‘Runaway’, a nine-minute peice which begins with a few simple notes on the piano. Here, Kanye delves into his complex and contradictory relationships and attitudes towards women, and then raises a toast to the ‘douchebags, scumbags, assholes, and jerkoffs’, all labels which he has been given at one time or another. The song ends in an epic guitar riff and then abruptly cuts to ‘Hell of a Life’ which begins with, ‘I think I just fell in love with a porn star.’

Indeed, nothing in this record is subtle or half-hearted. From its controversial original cover (pictured here), to the belligerently poetic honesty of the lyrics, to the tribal undertones of the drums, and finally to the intensely vibrant short film which accompanies the album. All these elements combine to declare to the world that Kanye West is back and better than ever. The film, which Kanye directed, features ex-Victoria’s Secret model Selita E. Banks as an otherworldly phoenix who must die in order to rise and return to her planet, a shallow metaphor for the artist’s fleetingly-stalled career. Nevertheless, and despite Kanye’s terrible acting (he should stick to his day job), it is a visual masterpiece. The most memorable scene contains a group of black-tutued ballerinas performing a beautifully-choreographed dance to the climactic riff of the ‘Runaway’ song against the backdrop of vibrantly green wooden doors. Artistically directed by Italian artist Vanessa Beecroft, the whole film, with its beautiful natural scenery, is shot in ultra colour to accentuate every hue to an artificial and epically-photoshopped palette, thus creating that ‘dark, twisted fantasy’ aura.

Having given an extremely positive review, I am now going to take the unpopular stance and declare that this album is not as good as ‘Heartbreak and 808s’, Kanye West’s previous album. To me, this album lacked the emotional intensity of the last, which was so fraught with pain, passion, angst and outright grittiness. However, both records are, without a doubt, great in their own right, with this latest one further cementing Kanye West’s position as one of the great musicians of this era. [Image from http://kanyewest.com/]