Megsie joined Dr Deborah Hart (National Gallery of Australia) and Clare Williamson (State Library of Victoria) on the discussion panel for Ned Kelly in Art at CMAG on Saturday.
And what a thoroughly enjoyable session it turned out to be!
More at the Prisoners of the Crown website, here.
Ooh, lovely – focus on our favourite bloke! On this Saturday arvo, at CMAG.
(Click image to enlarge text)
The Gang was in seventh heaven Friday week ago at the opening of Something in the Air at CMAG. Everything about it was right up our alley – all our fave (Canberra) artists under one roof, all our fave (Canberra) folk at the launch, and the opening honours given to our fave Divo Director and Debonaire Man-About-Town, David Broker.
How much better does it get, we asks ya?
It’s not even vaguely hyperbolic to rave about this show – this is seminal Canberra Arts Biz. All power to curator Deb Clarke and Mark Van Veen for putting together an exciting and incredibly significant survey of assemblage and collage practice in the ACT – from the longest list of stellar artists imaginable, including Rosalie Gascoigne…
Ingo Kleinert…
Andrew Townsend…
Waratah Lahy…
Mariana Del Castillo…
Vivienne Binns…
Amanda Stuart…
and…and…sooooo much more…too many artists, too many to-die-for works to mention…
If you don’t bother to pull your finger out for any other show, you categorically MUST catch this one. Treats like this are way too far and few between.
For additional, enticing snaps and a sweep of all the bewdiful people, go here.
It’s on for 4 months. Great show, great catalogue, great EVERYTHING.
Liz Kelly in CMAG’s Gallery 4…
Choice.
Something like this woulda been spiffo for the smokestack…particularly in one of Liz’s signature, custom made colours…
Just in: snaps of Mariana del Castillo’s show in CMAG’s Gallery 4 glass space…
LIMBO MANIA
1. the state of being disregarded or forgotten 2. an imaginary place for lost or neglected things 3. (theology) in Roman Catholicism, the place of unbaptized but innocent or righteous souls (such as infants and virtuous individuals)
As a child growing up in Ecuador the nuns would show us Hieronymus Bosch’s (1450–1516) painting of ‘The garden of earthly delights’, pointing to the right hand panel of hell and proclaiming loudly that the consequences of insolence would land you in this ghoulish place. Staring at the panel of hell it appeared to me more like a circus. I was drawn to the central panel depicting purgatory or limbo it was a joyous free for all without inhibition or reason. Heaven or the Garden of Eden depicted in the right hand panel although full of animals appeared subdued and sombre and without mischief.
In my art practice I have always preferred the well worn found object, items that bare the presence of human existence so it felt strange when I was drawn to the yellow caution tape and started sewing the strips in to workable pieces. It holds a certain contemporary currency we have all seen it wrapped around scenes of disaster. In this instillation I have combined elements of realism and absurdity with mystical qualities that arouse and reveal past and present memories and emotions.
Word is that the show’s lit for night viewing – so it’s at its optimum after dark.
For more info go here.
The Gang’s hitting the ‘Berra this coming weekend – looks like we’ll be making a bee-line straight to Civic …
(above) Neil Roberts, Cryonic Quintet, 1994, found object assemblage.
It was great to see a Neil Roberts piece given an airing during the Ausglass conference. CMAG has it out in their ‘entrance gallery’. It’s just gorgeous…
The Gang spent most of the day Friday burning around town organising the grog and food and setting up for the spunky Hunks opening and after-party. Lotsa love and thanks go to Danno and Brucie from All Bar Nun (the spunkiest bar in town) for both the donation and delivery of the keg of Coopers – it goes without saying that it went down a treat! And thumbs up to good old Megsie who’d been up ’til 1am the night before whipping up the paté. A swing through the cheese room at that beaut grocer’s in Manuka, a cartload of bread and a huge sieve of blood plums from Jas’s backyard (thanks Jas!!) took care of the rest of the tucker, and after a late arvo dash to Gungahlin Local Liquor for bubbles/vino/ice (thanks for the discount Justin!) the Gang was finally sufficiently abreast of things to…
… join the throng in downtown Civic for the start of the evening’s progressive exhibition launch/marathon. It started at CMAG with the opening of Stephen Procter: Lines Through Light, worked its way upstairs to Craft ACT for the double-whammy Gather and Mamana Mamanta and then wended its way across to ANCA in Dickson for the Hunks of Glass show and fall-about. (For the purposes of this post, we’ll only cover the social aspect of the night – we’ll bring you a recce proper of the CMAG and ANCA shows a little further down the track. See previous posts for the Craft ACT offering.)
We did a quick flick’n’flash around the first two happenings before high-tailing it back to ANCA to meet our favourite sound engineer/arts entrepreneur, the spunky Nigel McCrae, who was setting up the PA for those drop-dead-gorgeous O’Hooligan boys, our spunky band for the night. And then of course the crowd soon caught up, and the exhibition was formally opened by the original Hunk of Glass, our favourite old spunk Klaus (okay, okay enough of the spunks already – but you get the picture, right?)…
Anyway, all said and done it was a really fabulous evening, and the after-party finished it off with plenty of bang. We should at this juncture point out that the Hunks party had not been organised by Ausglass; it was an entirely indie/fringe affair – to which all and sundry were of course sincerely welcome. We figured the poor buggers at the conference could probably do with one evening, at least, where they could have a good time without being obliged to keep digging into their pockets…(a little resurrection of the old spirit of hospitality and generosity wouldn’t go astray in future, we reckon.)
Many thanks to the willing hands on the night – most specifically Amos, Netty and Annie M – who manned the bar and kept the good cheer flowing.
Happy snaps at…(though, having our hands a little full, we missed many of you, sorry)…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasscentralcanberra/sets/72157603823233398/
glass central canberra 
