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Audio

Tue, 29 May 2012 09:40:40 -0400

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, 1925-2012

Fri, 18 May 2012 16:46:53 -0400

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, 1925-2012

"The very meaninglessness of life forces a man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin..."

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 01:34:17 -0400

“The very meaninglessness of life forces a man to create his own meaning. Children, of...

Soundtrack for Friday …

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:57:00 -0500

Soundtrack for Friday …

RENNIE ELLIS vs THE ANTI-SEX LEAGUE An exhibition of prints...

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 04:09:00 -0500

RENNIE ELLIS vs THE ANTI-SEX LEAGUE

An exhibition of prints by Rennie Ellis at Mossgreen Gallery features photographs taken in the clubs of St Kilda and the Cross. Strippers on stage and off. Drag queens. Exotic acts (think naked dancer, snake). The equally exotic moustaches of the MCs.

The years since Ellis died in 2003 have seen a surprising resurgence of the Anti-Sex League in Australia. Who would have thought? Another of the surprises which the twenty-first century sprang on us. In George Orwell’s 1984, the Anti-Sex League worked to combat ‘sexcrime’ – any sexual activity apart from ‘intercourse between man and wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children, and without physical pleasure on the part of the woman’. These words might have been written in the fourth century by that original killjoy, St Augustine. As we know the spirit of the League lives on in fundamentalist religious cultures today, where a raped girl is stoned to death for ‘adultery’ with her attacker. Even in the United States, the current hot issue in national politics is not employment or the economy, but whether President Obama will allow Americans to receive contraceptive advice under private health policies, if their employers regard it as ‘sinful’.

‘Absolutely revolting . . .’

Remember back in 2008 when the Rosyln Oxley Gallery was raided by police, and works by one of Australia’s most respected artists seized? (Bill Henson also had to endure the Prime Minister of the day, Kevin Rudd, calling his work ‘absolutely revolting’ and of ‘no artistic value’.) No case was found, so the NSW Government changed the law so that ‘Artistic Purpose’ is no longer a defence against a charge of pornography. The Federal Government has been dogged in pursuing an Internet Censorship Filter – sold to the public as blocking child pornography (who could argue?) - but now extended to a growing list of sexual and other material claimed to ‘offend against the standards of morality’. Since then we have also had the hysterical attacks on legalisation of marriage for all people, and the sacking of ministers and political candidates in Queensland and New South Wales for ‘non-regular’ sexual behaviour. OK, you want to know, don’t you? Visiting a gay brothel (NSW) and attending a ‘swingers’ party’ (QLD).

Perhaps evoking Orwell’s Anti-Sex League doesn’t seem so far-fetched. The most terrifying aspect of 1984, after all, is not political, but the State’s attack on the very existence of private life.

Currying favour with evangelical swinging voters (not the QLD kind) is part of the story, but current policies reflect genuine convictions among politicians too, many of whom have strong religious beliefs. Yet what lies behind this belief that the government has a right to judge and control essentially private, personal activities which do no harm? To poke about in its citizens’ pants? (What blogger and sexual commentator, ultra-hedonist, calls the panicked ‘gagging response’ to forms of sexuality which make them feel uncomfortable.) We see here, surely, the conviction – familiar from two thousand years of Christianity – that the body and sex are intrinsically shameful, and the more that sexuality varies from the ‘norm’, the more shameful it is, and in need of control.

How curious and sad it is to view the human form in this way, for we are our bodies – embodied beings – and turning against it in this way is a kind of self-hatred, a hatred sometimes turned against others.

Rennie Ellis’s photographs are a refreshing contrast to these attitudes.

The images in This is the Show (large silver-gelatin or C-type prints) are extraordinary, intimate portraits of people who worked in strip clubs during the 1970s and 1980s. Ellis was a superb photographer, both technically and as an artist. (It’s no surprise that his works hang in overseas collections as well as at the National Gallery of Australia, National Portrait Gallery, and many State collections.) They are wide-eyed, entirely non-judgmental images, delighting in the variety, idiosyncrasy and beauty of people and their behaviour in all its forms.

Some images show the ‘exotic dancers’ backstage, matter-of-factly chatting and smoking as they prepare for the show, entirely comfortable with their nudity. The relaxed grace of their limbs is like that of the ballet dancers in Degas’ backstage paintings. Some show the club entrances with their marquee lights and signage: ‘Action shows!’, ‘A Thrill a minute!’, followed by a bathetic ‘Warm inside’. Other photographs reveal a delicate beauty, as in Lady Medina 1977, a poignant close-up of the naked stripper, her face glistening with make-up beneath which a rash of spots can be made out. Dark eyes stare out at the viewer, as if to say, ‘Yes, I am a person, just like you.’

In contrast to the Anti-Sex League and its real-life followers, Rennie Ellis’ attitude – implicit in these images and all his work – lies in the words of the Roman writer, Terence, which Bruce Chatwin revered and chalked up boldly on his wall:

I am human; nothing human is alien to me.

INTERNET. Cocaine Another excellent track from the...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 02:40:00 -0500

INTERNET. Cocaine

Another excellent track from the new Internet album, Purple Naked Ladies. Says it all.

INTERNET. FASTLANE The rather wonderful Syd tha Kid and Matt...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:52:00 -0500

INTERNET. FASTLANE

The rather wonderful Syd tha Kid and Matt Martians (from the Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All collective) play from their new album, Purple Naked Ladies.

Hello SoundCloud …

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:00:00 -0500

Hello SoundCloud …

The shock of MONA What is the most shocking thing about...

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 07:36:00 -0500

The shock of MONA

What is the most shocking thing about Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art?

David Walsh’s extraordinary new museum has received its fair share of media coverage since being opened a year ago. This often focused on its cost ($75 million of Walsh’s own money) or the ‘scandalous’ nature of some exhibits, such as Greg Taylor’s Cunts: A Conversation pictured above (controversy which the museum seems to delight in). More eruditely, there has been furious debate about whether the collection is simply a rich man’s Cabinet of Curiosities or whether it truly ‘helps us to lead better lives’ (the quaint, almost Stalinist view of the civic function of art argued by philosopher, John Armstrong in Island magazine).

MONA is an exhilarating place to visit. There are any number of reasons for this. The dramatic buildings and site. The eclectic, unblinking nature of the opening exhibition on sex and death: ‘Monanism’. The fact that one can freely take photographs. The irreverent comments by Walsh himself about some of the exhibits. And not forgetting the bar in the basement …

But what shocked me most was the difference made by the absence of any labels or directions whatsoever about how to view the exhibits. Our initial encounter with each artwork is totally unmediated by contextual ‘noise’. Not even the barest detail.

In other galleries, we can ignore the patronising ‘explications’ often displayed next to art works, but cannot help checking the title, the artist, the date. Yet even these interfere with our experience of the work, filtering what the eye sees through everything we may happen to know know about Rothko, about the development of perspective drawing, or Caravaggio’s tempestuous life.

Is that painted carven head from an Egyptian tomb? An anatomical model from the Renaissance? Or a new piece by Damien Hirst? Even the artist’s name or a date mediates how we perceive a work, instead of leaving the individual’s eye to see and sensibility to react.

All you could want to know about any work at MONA is on hand by checking the iPod guide, but this becomes a secondary and optional act to seeing itself. This naked, exhilarating encounter with the artworks at MONA is the museum’s most shocking revelation for the visitor - one which which will long outlast any philistine outrage over the poignant line of pudenda in Taylor’s ‘conversation piece.’

Postcards from MONA

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:29:00 -0500

Postcards from MONA

"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction."

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 01:11:00 -0500

“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.” - Pablo Picasso

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR BOWIE … Sixty-five years young today.

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 23:58:00 -0500

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR BOWIE …

Sixty-five years young today.

MELANCHOLIA Lars von Trier channels Die Götterdämmerung.

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 01:17:00 -0500

MELANCHOLIA

Lars von Trier channels Die Götterdämmerung.

HOME SWEET HOME

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:15:01 -0500

HOME SWEET HOME

OCCUPYING MELBOURNE The mood at Occupy Melbourne yesterday was...

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 01:01:00 -0400

OCCUPYING MELBOURNE

The mood at Occupy Melbourne yesterday was more Woodstock than Wall Street.

Economic conditions and employment rates in Australia are a world away from those in the US, let alone Greece. No Molotov cocktails on Swanston St then. Alongside posters exhorting ‘World revolution today!’ are others urging passers-by to smile, or reminding them that all you need is love.

There is something whimsical, almost bucolic about the Occupy Melbourne site: a waterside tent-village that everyone knows will soon disappear. City workers sip lattés a few metres away from earnest workshops on global peace and biodynamic farming. Children splash and giggle in what is usually a sterile ‘water feature’. It has to be said that the the tent-village, on aesthetic grounds alone, is arguably an improvement on the usual barren, sandy expanse of the City Square.

Will any of this make a difference? The pictures speak for themselves.

R.I.P. Steve Jobs, 1955-2011. Steve narrates this early Apple ad...

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 04:47:00 -0400

R.I.P. Steve Jobs, 1955-2011.

Steve narrates this early Apple ad which captures his spirit.

REVIEW: AFTER ROMULUS The business of growing up starts with...

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:54:00 -0400

REVIEW: AFTER ROMULUS

The business of growing up starts with distancing ourselves from our parents. It ends (as far as it ever ends) with drawing them close again. Instead of disappointing giants, we recognise them at last as fallible, unique humans beings. We recognise them in ourselves, and so they become real to us …

In the October issue of the Australian Book Review, I write about Raimond Gaita’s new collection of essays, After Romulus, which tackles what he calls the ‘unfinished business’ left after the success of his memoir, Romulus, My Father, and the subsequent film version.

The always-fascinating transition of book to movie is discussed by Gaita, along with his continuing relatonship with his mother and father. ‘Biographies often continue after the person whose life is narrated has died,’ writes Gaita - identifying our attitudes to our parents as markers of our own evolving maturity.

For details of After Romulus and to read the review, see the October 2011 issue or subscribe at ABR.

My God, I love a thunderstorm! Shoreham, Victoria, 28 September,...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 04:18:00 -0400

My God, I love a thunderstorm!

Shoreham, Victoria, 28 September, 6.14 pm.

In bed with Simone

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:00:00 -0400

I go to bed a little earlier these days. Sometimes I catch myself looking forward to bedtime during...

AMY WINEHOUSE1983-2011

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 22:18:57 -0400

AMY WINEHOUSE
1983-2011