29 June 2009
2010 APPLICATIONS CLOSING SOON
Deadline for 2010 Artistic Program applications: 5pm Friday 17 July 2009.
Click here to download the application form
25 June 2009
NEW DIRECTOR
Platform is putting the call out for a new director to join the Platform team!
This is a paid, part-time, position helping to manage the organisation and working very closely with the artistic team and board, as well as managing a large network of relationships with artists, art organisations, government and funding bodies, landlords, media and the public.
Click here to download a Position Description
Please note that applications will be closing 10 July 2009.
This is a paid, part-time, position helping to manage the organisation and working very closely with the artistic team and board, as well as managing a large network of relationships with artists, art organisations, government and funding bodies, landlords, media and the public.
Click here to download a Position Description
Please note that applications will be closing 10 July 2009.
THE JULY SHOWS
Opening Friday 3 July 2009 from 6-8pm
Degraves Street Subway Melbourne Australia
Featuring:
TOM O'HERN at Platform
SARAH BUNTING at Vitrine
JESSIE SCOTT at Frame
JON OLDMEADOW at Sample
BRIDGET RADOMSKI at Majorca
23 June 2009
NICOLE BREEDON, ACE WAGSTAFF, RACHEL ANG
Nicole Breedon
Apocalypticism
oil painting on canvas
(detail)
© 2009
The term ‘apocalypse’ is one that has been used extensively in the media and arts of late – the coming to an end of the human species, and the monumental grief and suffering involved. Apocalypse literally translates to ‘lifting of the veil’ and traditionally refers to a disclosure to certain people, something hidden from the majority of humankind. Today, however, the term is often used to refer to the end of the world.
Apocalypticism is a multi-disciplinary work investigating the concepts and themes of secrets, and their relation to ideas such as: truth, government secrecy, conspiracy, mysticism, illusion, magic,reality, revelation, and the metaphysical.
Shifting the normal viewing position of Platform’s glass display cases, the small-scale installations are instead hidden behind various façades, reminiscent of doors or chests. Emerging from the darkness, these installations are made visible via peepholes, manipulating the viewer into the uncomfortable position of voyeur, violating a mysterious and unexplained privacy.
On display in the main Platform cases throughout June.
Nicole Breedon
Sham Orb
plywood cover over clay sculptures
(detail installation view)
Photo courtesy of the artist © 2009
Nicole Breedon employs painting, woodwork, video and installation to explore the esoteric nature of our cosmos and the human psyche – such as the mind, the origins of the universe and creation, the future, time and space. Her work examines mankind's infinitesimal position within the orders of magnitude, in contrast to the richness and depth of the human experience. Aside from various collaborative ventures, duo shows and group exhibitions such as Lateral Investigations at George Paton Gallery, Nicole is currently completing her Bachelor of Fine Art at the VCA. Visit Nicole's website here.
Rachel Ang
Untitled Apocalypticism
medical masks, lamps, beaker, soil, plant
(detail installation view)
© 2009
Rachel Ang's work is concerned with experience, curiosity, discovery – a logic of the senses, which lends itself to the pursuit of freedom and romanticism. Her work is made by bringing seemingly incongruous elements together to explore relations and restraint – a material-based practice resulting in objects that embody the discourse which is their orbit, a kind of play which is both ebullient and scientific in scope. Her creations are constantly being broken down and reconstructed; physical inversions catalyse conceptual ones. Rachel completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) at the VCA in 2008. Rachel has shown work at Platform, Mailbox 141, and the Sydney College of the Arts and more recently showed in Blindside’s To Boldly Go Where Everyone Has Gone Before.
Ace Wagstaff
Untitled Apocalypticism
Rubik's Cube pieces, wires
(detail installation view)
© 2009
Ace Wagstaff is interested in the unknown and theoretical: space, time and love. His practice involves the creation of tributes or homages to these ideals, like three-dimensional sonnets of representation to certain scientific and philosophical theories and concepts. These loving tributes are often realised in a variety of forms including photography, installation, social or relational acts, painting and sculpture. Ace graduated from the VCA with a Bachelor of Fine Art in 2007. He has been included in group exhibitions, social interventions, collaborative projects with other artists, residencies at various schools and solo exhibitions including Aesthetic Laboratory, at George Paton Gallery in 2008.
ANDY HUTSON
Andy Hutson
Unnatural History
timber, paper, plastic & electronic sculptural installation
(upper: installation view)
(lower: installation details)
© 2009
Unnatural History utilises Vitrine as a site for a miniature diorama, as one would encounter in a museum of natural history – at least, a museum based on the empirical classification of 'historical’ or ‘natural’ artefacts. In this case, the papier-mâché and cardboard artefacts presented highlight the increasing difficulty with which we differentiate between the constructed and natural worlds. Although these objects are archaic in both their construction and content, they represent the shape of things to come – an entirely fabricated nature. Unnatural History critically questions the cultural apparatus through which our perception of ‘the natural’ is formed, and simultaneously alludes to humankind’s own willful and inevitable destruction of the environment.
On display in the Vitrine case throughout June.
Andy Hutson is a Melbourne based artist, working primarily in sculpture and installation. He has exhibited both locally and interstate, and recently completed his Master of Fine Art at VCA. In 2008 he was the recipient of the ANZ Visual Arts Award. Andy is also an active member of Seventh Gallery, an artist run space in Fitzroy, Melbourne.
CHLOE VALLANCE
Chloe Vallance
Fables of the familiar, the forgotten and the found
pencil drawings on timber, bottles, canvas, paper, paint swatches and pencil shavings
(upper: detail view)
(lower: installation view)
© 2009
The idea of sequencing imagery to suggest an underlying notion of a narration is a recurring theme in my art making. I have become increasingly interested in familiar and forgotten moments of intimate human interaction, as well as the notion of scale – very small drawings allow the imagery to become more personal. I am also fascinated by the simplicity of intimacy experienced by a solitary figure a moment at a time. My current art practice deals with intimate imagery of figures, both together and solitary. When sequenced together, these images allude to the concept of a narration in the form of a storyboard, family album or a film still. The ideas for my drawings stem from my observation of people, close friends and family, and are developed from photographs and life. Fables… will consist of a series of small-scale drawings, paintings, objects and artist books. I am working predominately in coloured pencil on paper, colour swatches, and timber, (pine and MDF board), to create my drawings and objects, while using oils to produce my paintings. The artist books consist of traditional book making materials, such as card, fabric and paper. A lot of my materials, especially the colour swatches and timber, are found objects that relate in terms of scale.
Chloe Vallance is currently studying Fine Art (Honours) Drawing at RMIT. Vallance has held solo shows including: Human Interaction at RMIT First Site Gallery, Narratives of the Personal the Playful and the Peaceful at Seventh Gallery, and Chapter 12 at Brunswick Street Gallery. Chloe has appeared in group exhibitions such as Made in Italy, Phillips House of Fine Art Drawing Prize, and she was one of five winners of the Siemens RMIT Fine Art Undergraduate travel scholarships for 2007.
On display in the Sample case throughout June.
22 June 2009
TANJA MILBOURNE
Tanja Milbourne
Degraves Street Subway
photographic collage
© 2009
This project, specifically designed for the Frame Residency at Platform, takes the existing site as the subject for enquiry. Investigating the conceptual and formal properties of photographic documentation, Degraves Street Subway extends into the temporal realm. The transitory nature of the passageway is evidenced by the fragments and traces of people moving through the subway. The surrounding space is unfolded both architecturally and temporally, implicating the viewer in the act of seeing and inviting questions about the nature of perception.
On display in the Frame case throughout June.
This is the sixth installation from Tape Projects' Frame Residency at Platform.
Tanja Milbourne is a photographer and media artist. Her work incorporates an ongoing investigation into photographic documentation, informed through critical examination of the inherent qualities of representation and perception.
05 June 2009
AARON MOODIE
Aaron Moodie
non particular
pencil drawing on paper
Aaron Moodie
© 2009
non particular consists of a series of large works in ink, pen and pencil on paper, which explore social and mental space, the modern world and the interaction between them. I spend a lot of time inside my head, and use my work as a way to document and express the thoughts and feelings that are generated as a result.
On display in the Majorca cases on Centre Place Melbourne throughout June.
Aaron Moodie is a Melbourne based graphic designer. He likes making things and trying to comprehend infinity. This is his first ever exhibition.
03 June 2009
THE JUNE SHOWS
THE JUNE SHOWS
Opening 6-8pm Friday 5 June 2009
Degraves Street Subway Melbourne
Featuring:
Nicole Breedon, Rachel Ang & Ace Wagstaff (Platform)
Andy Hutson (Vitrine)
Tanja Milbourne (Frame)
Choe Vallance (Sample)
Aaron Moddie (Majorca)
13 May 2009
KATE McINTYRE
Kate McIntyre
Growth
drawing, paper, chrome vinyl
(installation detail)
© 2009
Kate McIntyre is rendering an improbable growth down beneath Flinders Street, toying with a contested underground space and unravelling an argument of territory between urban and natural development.
McIntyre is a New Zealand artist recently relocated to Melbourne. She creates installations that draw forth a potential hidden history, future or present from the banalities of a space, allowing the viewer to rethink the situations in which we are surrounded. In the cabinets of Platform , McIntyre is documenting a creeping expansion that seems to be breaking through the structures of its environment, questioning the usual patterns of construction and growth. McIntyre works with man-made and artificial materials to construct her scenarios, using surfaces and motifs to emulate space and form, suggestively fabricating architectural creations, inversions and destructions. Her work is driven by a fascination with suggested potential, and the improbability of seeing both things at the same time.
Kate McIntyre is a New Zealand artist recently relocated to Melbourne. Along with graduating from the University of Canterbury’s Sculpture Studio in 2005, McIntyre has exhibited her work extensively in Christchurch, as well as in Auckland, and Kurashiki, Japan as part of a sculptural exchange. She has also acted on the Board of Trustees for Christchurch’s HSP Gallery, and adapted ideas from her practice into the production design for several short films. Recently McIntyre has shown in the Physics Room Gallery’s public art site in Christchurch, The Kiosk, and held a solo show, Lost in Space, at HSP Gallery.
SUE-CHING LASCELLES
Sue-Ching Lascelles
I'm Lichen You a Lot
felt, cotton, polysheets
(installation detail)
© 2009
Our rapidly developing society continues to blur the distinction between Science and Nature. In petri dishes all over the world, nature is being ‘re-designed’ for both beneficial and destructive ends. I’m Lichen You a Lot will be the most beautiful felt fungal disease to infect the city of Melbourne. Thousands of tiny felt lichen spanning many species, both real and invented, will create a saturating composition of ‘artificial nature’. Painstakingly categorised according to colour and form, these curious objects will be overwhelming in mass yet fascinating in detail. Intricately crafted from felt, this soft sculpture installation will appeal to the distant onlooker as a whimsical explosion of colour and composition whilst rewarding the observant viewer with a deeper understanding of the forces at play in the work. I’m Lichen You a Lot is an attempt to challenge our increasingly confused notion of natural beauty, changing the city’s landscape with an injection of beautiful and fragile synthesised nature within the subway.
Sue-Ching Lascelles is a Brisbane-based textile artist specialising in the creation of everyday objects from felt. Her collections of soft sculptures are based on the perception and memory of childhood. Inspired by a playful, childlike vision of the world around us, she rejects so-called ‘grown-up’ forms of aesthetic naturalism. There is a keen sense of novelty that resonates in her desire to transform the banal into the fantastical. Sue-Ching is presently artist-in-residence at Juggler’s Art Space in Fortitude Valley, Queensland.
GEORGIA GILLARD
Georgia Gillard
Paint Job
c-type photograph
(detail)
© 2009
"To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt."
Susan Sontag, On Photography, 1977
These photographs directly explore rural and urban landscapes and architecture, which promise much but await change. Mortality, truth and the fragment are themes which reappear in my work and which share a vital relationship with photography. There is an interesting relationship between photographer and subject; the power of the photographer and the vulnerability and mutability of the subject and furthermore, what becomes of the subject once it has become an object or commodity.
Georgia Gillard completed her Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) in 2008 and is currently completing her Honours year at Monash University. Her photography has appeared in various student exhibitions and will be featured in the upcoming publication Stab Your Brother in 2009.
NESS FLETT
Ness Flett
A Pictorial Essay of Devolution
print on paper
© 2009
A Pictorial Essay of Devolution is an exploration of interference by mankind, and the modern condition of flora and fauna. ‘Devolution’ as a term is widely argued as only appropriate for science fiction, as a species is only able to 'evolve' and does this through natural selection. What then, when humanity interferes so heavily with domestic and captive animals, along with popular garden plants and the effects of introduced species? If it isn't pollinating an orchid to create a completely dependent hybrid that has no means of reproduction, it's inbreeding a domestic pet such that it is almost guaranteed hip dysplasia and physical malfunction. Using medical illustration conventions, these anatomical studies take an investigative, scientific approach, whereas the opposing windows deal with human intervention in a more lyrical manner. The delicate lines and children's story book-style soften the blow of the road kill we interrupted on its daily journey by a bumper bar.
Having trained horses for over a decade, Ness Flett's pursuit of understanding animals and their architecture comes as no surprise. Ness studied painting at RMIT before traveling to Portugal to continue training horses while exhibiting her work on the anatomy and movement of animals. More recently, her work has begun including botanical elements in more detail, and her two separate studies began to collide. Ness has exhibited widely in Melbourne and interstate, and she has been a finalist in the Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery Drawing Award, Churchie National Emerging Art Award, Queensland Darebin Acquisitive Art Award. Ness lives in Melbourne and is a member of Artback, the roaming regional artist group.
LOUISE DIBBEN
Louise A. Dibben
The Hunt
video still
©2009
Regarding cheap special effects and the codex of body language as the most refined communication devices available, Louise Dibben makes video installations that re-position cultural and sexual power struggles through simple actions that are recontextualised.
The Hunt is the fourth Tape Projects Frame Residency work at Platform for 2009. For more information visit the Tape Projects website.
MATT SHAW
Matt Shaw
The Underground Garden III
plants (grevillia), soil, rocks, burnt logs
(installation detail)
©2009
This is the third Underground Garden installation at Platform by horticulturalist and artist Matt Shaw for 2009. This work shifts the setting of the previous installation of Boxed In from the night cityscape that was slowly being taken over by plants, and transplants us into a slice of forest recently burned in the Black Saturday bushfires. Consisting of indigenous plants and burnt logs from his friends’ properties outside of Melbourne, Matt has created a memorial to not only the victims of the bushfires this year but shows us that new life always springs back from destruction.
Matt Shaw is a Melbourne based horticulturalist and artist specialising in creative and sustainable gardens, for more information visit Matthew Shaw Designs.
30 April 2009
THE MAY SHOWS
THE MAY SHOWS
Opening 6-8pm Friday 8 May 2009
Degraves Street Subway Melbourne
Featuring:
Kate McIntyre (Platform)
Sue-Ching Lascelles (Vitrine)
Georgia Gillard (Sample)
Louise Dibben (Frame)
Matt Shaw (Garden)
Ness Flett (Majorca)
Emerging Curator appointed
We are extremely pleased to announce the appointment of Laura Castagnini in the position of Emerging Curator for 2009. Laura is a graduate of Monash University and has curated various group shows in Melbourne for O Projects and worked with Next Wave Festival 2008. As well as being a founding committee member of O Projects, Laura is a practicing artist and has exhibited in Australia, Italy and Japan. We welcome Laura to the Platform Team and look forward to her upcoming shows at Sample and 2010 Projects!
15 April 2009
Making Sense of Censorship
Following on from the recent spate of censorship actions against Platform and other galleries, the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) have announced they will soon be releasing a new book on censorship, law and artists' rights in Australia. Right on!
Read Liza Power's article from The Age here.
Read Liza Power's article from The Age here.
Hamstrung: Creativity Within Constraints
Curated by Anusha Kenny
Stuart Bailey, Kaori Kato, Azlan McLennan, Rosie Miller, Carl Scrase
Sometimes it is so hard to write the first word. There is too much to say and too many ways to say it. If you are a contemporary artist, there are even more problems. You have to decide on a medium, an aesthetic, and before that you have to decide whether to decide on any of these things at all. This can be paralysing, and you might decide that it is easier to become a scientist.
If you are lucky, you will have limits imposed on you. You may only have watercolours available, for example. This constraint will open up a world of opportunities because you now know you will be a contemporary watercolorist. But what if you want to paint photorealist portraits in the style of Chuck Close? Well, then you will have to beat the limits of your medium.
Anusha Kenny is currently completing the Art & Australia and Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces Emerging Writer’s Program. In 2008 she was the inaugural curator-in-residence for Platform’s Sample exhibition space. She has curated exhibitions for TCB and the Melbourne University Arts Festival. Her writing has been published in Australian Art Collector, Art & Australia and UN magazine. Anusha is the gallery manager for Platform Artists Group and this is her second curated group show in the main exhibition space.
Stuart Bailey, Kaori Kato, Azlan McLennan, Rosie Miller, Carl Scrase
Sometimes it is so hard to write the first word. There is too much to say and too many ways to say it. If you are a contemporary artist, there are even more problems. You have to decide on a medium, an aesthetic, and before that you have to decide whether to decide on any of these things at all. This can be paralysing, and you might decide that it is easier to become a scientist.
If you are lucky, you will have limits imposed on you. You may only have watercolours available, for example. This constraint will open up a world of opportunities because you now know you will be a contemporary watercolorist. But what if you want to paint photorealist portraits in the style of Chuck Close? Well, then you will have to beat the limits of your medium.
Anusha Kenny is currently completing the Art & Australia and Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces Emerging Writer’s Program. In 2008 she was the inaugural curator-in-residence for Platform’s Sample exhibition space. She has curated exhibitions for TCB and the Melbourne University Arts Festival. Her writing has been published in Australian Art Collector, Art & Australia and UN magazine. Anusha is the gallery manager for Platform Artists Group and this is her second curated group show in the main exhibition space.
STUART BAILEY
Stuart Bailey
Grass then Beer: You're in the Clear/Beer then Grass: You're on your Arse
Papier-mâché, bottles, string, cloth, paint
(installation detail)
© 2009
Stuart Bailey graduated with First Class Honours in Bachelor of Art (Visual Art) at Canberra School of Art, ANU, and has exhibited widely across Australia, New Zealand, and America. Solo exhibitions include Desert Mouth at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Building Self Esteem at Fremantle Arts Centre and Party H.Q at Enjoy Gallery in Wellington. His work was included in the Bon Scott Project at Fremantle Arts Centre, Old Skool (never lose that feeling) at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. In 2005, he was the recipient of the Australia Council’s Los Angeles Studio Residency.
KAORI KATO
Kaori Kato
Hamstrung: Creativity Within Constraints
folded paper prints
(installation details)
© 2009
Kaori Kato completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Drawing) at VCA in 2008. Her Drawing Machine was included in the 2008 Melbourne Art Fair, and her work has been exhibited at Victoria Park Gallery, Brunswick Street Gallery and Margaret Lawrence Gallery. Kaori was the 2008 Recipient of the Wallara Travelling Scholarship.
AZLAN McLENNAN
Azlan McLennan
It's Coming
composite digital prints
(installation detail)
© 2009
Azlan McLennan is currently completing his Master of Fine Art at the VCA. He has recently returned from a residency in Scotland. Selected solo projects include Proudly unAustralian at Trocadero Art Space and Pay Your Way, funded by Urbanart. His work was included in Flux Capacitor, curated by Pilot at Utopian Slumps in 2008 and Rules of Engagement, curated by Mark Feary at West Space in 2007.
ROSIE MILLER
Rosie Miller
Hamstrung: Creativity Within Constraints
reconstructed books
(installation detail)
© 2009
Rosie Miller graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art (Printmaking) from the VCA in 2007, receiving the National Gallery Women’s Association Encouragement Award. In 2008 her work was included in the curated group shows TYPECAST at Sophie Gannon and Exploration at Flinders Lane Gallery, and was shown in DEBUT IV at Blindside. Miller is represented by Lindberg Contemporary Art.
CARL SCRASE
Carl Scrase
Hamstrung: Creativity Within Contraints
stationary
(installation detail)
© 2009
Carl Scrase is a graduate from Fine Art (Painting) at the VCA. In 2008 his work was included in House Proud, a curated project during the Next Wave Festival that was included in the Melbourne Art Fair. He has exhibited at TCB, Shifted, Seventh Gallery and Bus Gallery, and was also a founding member of Oprojects Gallery. He is represented by John Buckley Gallery and is having his first solo show there in June 2009.
CHRIS ANDREWS
Chris Andrews completed his PhD in French Poetry at the University of Melbourne in 1994, and has since worked as a Lecturer in the Department of French, Italian and Spanish Studies. He has translated several books from Spanish to English, and is the leading translator of the work of Roberto Bolano. He is the author of two books of poetry, Cut Lunch and Septuor. His translations, critical articles and poems have been widely published including The Age, Antipodes and the Australian Literary Review.
Chris Andrew's poetry is on show at Majorca, Centre Place Melbourne throughout April.
Chris Andrew's poetry is on show at Majorca, Centre Place Melbourne throughout April.
10 April 2009
MATCH BOX PROJECTS
Leanne and Naomi Shedlezki
Match Box Projects Portable Gallery
© 2009
Leanne and Naomi Shedlezki (aka Match Box Projects) will work in collaboration with the people of Melbourne to create a portrait of the city during April at Platform. For the last three years, Leanne and Naomi have travelled extensively in Australia and Japan with Match Box Galleries, their portable, handheld cases - filled with small works made by a diverse range of contemporary artists. Leanne and Naomi take photographic portraits of their guests and are inviting them, together with local people they will meet, to create small-scale works for empty matchboxes by responding to the theme "Melbourne – My City". All works will be installed in Vitrine to create an evolving portrait of Melbourne.
As well as the Melbourne launch of Match Box Galleries, the artists will conduct a series of talks and performances to create a multimedia diary of their travels through Australia and Japan that will be presented in Sydney and Osaka. Look out for event dates on their website www.matchboxprojects.com
Artists involved in People Make Places include: Monika Behrens, Mark Brown, Simon Cooper, Benedict Ernst, Adam Hill, Mary-Anne Kyriakou, Helena Leslie, Zoe MacDonell, Luis Martinez, Louis Pratt, and more.
Match Box Projects are a Sydney based artist duo working across performance, installation, multimedia and collaborative exchange. They draw on the dynamics of everyday life and human interactions to explore issues of identity and perception. Leanne and Naomi have been awarded various grants for their projects, including an Arts NSW Project Grant, the Japan Foundation Emerging New Visual Artists Grant, a Federation of Australia Japan Societies Grant, and the National Association of Visual Artists (NAVA) Marketing Grant. Their work will also appear in the upcoming Sydney ARI Guide, spotlighting Sydney's numerous artist run initiatives.
Visit the Match Box Projects website.
09 April 2009
EUGENIA LIM & NIC WHYTE
Eugenia Lim & Nic Whyte
Loose Lips Sink Ships
paper, cardboard, cellophane, wood, net, lights, AV loops, screens
Frame view and installation detail
© 2009
A journey to the ends of the earth collaboration between Nic Whyte and Eugenia Lim. Loose Lips Sink Ships combines weird optics, tricks of light and shade and Whyte and Lim's current obsession with re-imagining geography, science and common sense.
Eugenia Lim is a Melbourne-based artist working across video, photo-media and installation. She works predominantly in video and photo-media to explore notions of identity, race and popular culture. Currently, her work is included in Figuring Landscapes, a touring programme of artist video from Australia and the UK, shown at the Tate Modern in February and travelling to Australia in late 2009. In September she will exhibit a new solo work entitled NOWHERELAND at Blindside ARI. In December 2009 she will travel to New York on an Australia Council for the Arts RUN_WAY grant for a dual residency with the Experimental Television Centre and Share NY. She VJs regularly and is an active member of audio-visual collective Outpost as well as a founding and ongoing member of Tape Projects.
Nic Whyte is good with ones and zeros and is an accomplished designer and artist. Currently, he is collaborating on design and catalogue visualisation for the eagerly-anticipated MONA: Museum of Old and New Art and has exhibited widely throughout Australia with Tape Projects and in various guises. Nic is also a founding and ongoing member of Tape Projects.
12 March 2009
2009 Program out now!
Platform's 2009 Program is now back from the printers! 64 glorious pages in full colour designed by Pandarosa and featuring the upcoming work of more than 100 artists is now available for just 10 bucks! We'll be selling copies of the program at all our events (next opening night is Friday 3 April). The Program includes images, biographies and artist statements from some of the hot new work hitting the underground this year!
The Platform 2009 Program is also available at our favourite Sticky Institute located at Shop 10 in Campbell Arcade (Degraves Street Subway) Melbourne.
Recent controversy....
Read The Age article about the recent controversy around a new work by Van Thanh Rudd, part of Resisting Subversion of Subversive Resistance, a show exploring contemporary arts activists in Australia.
The Platform response to this issue was as follows:
6 March 2009
STATEMENT REGARDING THE CURRENT EXHIBITION
Throughout this year, and for the last 20 years, Platform Artists Group Inc. has actively sought to engage the Melbourne public with a diverse range of artists, practices, techniques and critical thinking. This particular exhibition explores the various ways that arts activists engage the public in debate and discussion around social, political and environmental issues that directly impact our communities.
This week we have received some correspondence and communications about one of the works installed on Monday 2nd March: Economy of Movement - A Piece of Palestine, by Van Thanh Rudd. In response to this, the City of Melbourne invoked the Protocol on Artworks, forming a Review Panel of professional arts and community advisers to assess the work and determine its suitability for public exhibition.
The Protocol on Artworks Review Panel findings have now been made public:
· In context of the Protocol, the Review Panel does not see a valid argument to prohibit the work in the public domain.
· The Review Panel noted Council’s ‘arms length’ funding arrangement with Platform – and that Platform is jointly funded by other government bodies.
· The Review Panel acknowledges potential concerns that might be raised by the artwork but considered them insufficient to override the freedom of expression principle articulated in the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibility.
Following this decision and all relevant advice to Platform Artists Group Inc., we are presenting the work at the opening event to be held tonight, 6-8pm 6th March. The work will remain on show for the remainder of March.
The opinions expressed by artists as part of Platform’s programming do not necessarily reflect those of the Platform Artists Group Inc. board and staff, our sponsors, festival partners or funding bodies. Under the Victorian Charter of Human Rights in regard to freedom of expression, we encourage a diverse range of opinions and ideas from artists and the broader community.
Van's artist statement was also republished for the exhibition:
Van Thanh Rudd
Economy of Movement - A Piece of Palestine
This artwork is intentionally displayed like a museum piece – inspired by artist Hans Haake. The work contains a stone on a glass pedestal with two frames hanging on the rear wall (coloured blue and white with silver framing). Aesthetics has also played an important role in developing the work. The blue and white colours were chosen to represent blue sky and freedom - the sky that covers all countries of the world. It also references the colours of the flag of the state of Israel - a symbol of oppression to many Palestinians. As mentioned above, the artwork as a whole is presented to appear as though it is a museum piece where aesthetics is as important as the text content.
The Platform response to this issue was as follows:
6 March 2009
STATEMENT REGARDING THE CURRENT EXHIBITION
Throughout this year, and for the last 20 years, Platform Artists Group Inc. has actively sought to engage the Melbourne public with a diverse range of artists, practices, techniques and critical thinking. This particular exhibition explores the various ways that arts activists engage the public in debate and discussion around social, political and environmental issues that directly impact our communities.
This week we have received some correspondence and communications about one of the works installed on Monday 2nd March: Economy of Movement - A Piece of Palestine, by Van Thanh Rudd. In response to this, the City of Melbourne invoked the Protocol on Artworks, forming a Review Panel of professional arts and community advisers to assess the work and determine its suitability for public exhibition.
The Protocol on Artworks Review Panel findings have now been made public:
· In context of the Protocol, the Review Panel does not see a valid argument to prohibit the work in the public domain.
· The Review Panel noted Council’s ‘arms length’ funding arrangement with Platform – and that Platform is jointly funded by other government bodies.
· The Review Panel acknowledges potential concerns that might be raised by the artwork but considered them insufficient to override the freedom of expression principle articulated in the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibility.
Following this decision and all relevant advice to Platform Artists Group Inc., we are presenting the work at the opening event to be held tonight, 6-8pm 6th March. The work will remain on show for the remainder of March.
The opinions expressed by artists as part of Platform’s programming do not necessarily reflect those of the Platform Artists Group Inc. board and staff, our sponsors, festival partners or funding bodies. Under the Victorian Charter of Human Rights in regard to freedom of expression, we encourage a diverse range of opinions and ideas from artists and the broader community.
Van's artist statement was also republished for the exhibition:
Van Thanh Rudd
Economy of Movement - A Piece of Palestine
This artwork is intentionally displayed like a museum piece – inspired by artist Hans Haake. The work contains a stone on a glass pedestal with two frames hanging on the rear wall (coloured blue and white with silver framing). Aesthetics has also played an important role in developing the work. The blue and white colours were chosen to represent blue sky and freedom - the sky that covers all countries of the world. It also references the colours of the flag of the state of Israel - a symbol of oppression to many Palestinians. As mentioned above, the artwork as a whole is presented to appear as though it is a museum piece where aesthetics is as important as the text content.
Resisting Subversion of Subversive Resistance
Resisting Subversion of Subversive Resistance
Propositions towards urban (r)evolution
Curated by Paul J. Kalemba
Tom Civil, Marc De Jong, Paul J. Kalemba and Van Thanh Rudd
No, painting is not done to decorate apartments, it is an instrument of war.
Pablo Picasso, 1945
Resisting Subversion of Subversive Resistance features the works and collaborations of four contemporary arts-activists. Romantic illusions of freedom fighters aside, serious business meets tongue-in-cheek as a homegrown r/evolution through urban edibles and the bicycle-peddling critical masses meet conscious consumption and political awareness.
The twentieth century saw exponential advancement in many areas of human activity. The image was by no means excluded from this refinement. The total war of World War II saw not only mechanised militarism devastate European civilization but the Third Reich, and the allies alike, bred the image for a new purpose. The manipulation of desire and fear was refined and exploited through the image, with propaganda aiming for nothing short of changing the opinions, and thus the actions, of entire nations.
Enter the twenty-first century. Commercial advertising carries on this imaging tradition into this decade, promising a veritable Shangri-La of sensual pleasure, luxury and convenience, tied firmly to a treadmill of competitive individualism. Meanwhile, headlines scream climate change, peak oil, environmental collapse, over consumption, finite resources… the new ideas now firmly in the zeitgeist. At face value, it seems society is economy versus a sustainable future.
Resisting Subversion of Subversive Resistance seeks to defy this manipulation of fear and desire, employing a combination of loose, scale model propositions with the graphic image – where WWII-style propaganda meets re-advertising, promoting consumer awareness and sustainable models via DIY culture. The artists create dialogues with the notations of propaganda and resistance though subverting emblematic symbology and imagery of contemporary art, advertising, politics and their concurrent histories.
TOM CIVIL
(upper)
Tom Civil & Marc de Jong
Subversive Resistance
paint, rusted spray cans, metal sheets, stickers, markers
(installation detail)
© 2009
(lower)
Tom Civil
Untitled
paper, paint, marker
(installation detail)
© 2009
Tom Sevil (AKA Civil) is a community graphic designer and artist. Since completing a Bachelor of Environmental Science in 1999, he has gone on to become involved in the independent media and publishing community. Tom has worked as a graphic designer for many political and community organisations including: 3CR, Seeds of Dissent Calendars, The Big Issue, Voiceworks Magazine, The Paper, Melbourne Indymedia, and Stolenwealth Games. His stencil work has been featured in Stencil Graffiti Capital: Melbourne, the film Rash, as a feature artist in Melbourne Stencil Festival, and most recently as part of the London Cans Festival. Tom is one half of Breakdown Press.
MARC DE JONG
(upper)
Marc De Jong
Human Brain
print on cardboard
(installation detail)
© 2009
(lower)
Marc De Jong
She'll be Rite
reflective signage print, metal frame
(installation detail)
© 2009
Marc de Jong (AKA marcsta) is one of Melbourne’s most notable illegal street artists. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at VCA. Prior to that, he studied under Howard Arkley at the Prahran College of TAFE. He has held over 15 solo exhibitions and was a finalist in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and in the 2008 Fleurieu Biennale. He also featured in the April-June issue of Australian Art Collector magazine. His work is held in various collections throughout Australia, including National Gallery of Australia, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, Monash University and Artbank. His work has also featured on the cover of Adbusters.
PAUL J. KALEMBA
(upper)
Paul J. Kalemba
Economic Growth
wooden crates, cardboard, water reticulation system, soil, vegetables
(installation detail)
© 2009
(lower)
Paul J. Kalemba
Beyond Petroleum
cardboard, jars, preverved fruit
(installation detail)
© 2009
Paul J. Kalemba (AKA thinblackline) is an urban edible (r)evolutionary and sustainability activist who takes a renaissance approach to art. Prior to recently completing a Master in Visual Art at the VCA, Kalemba’s career highlights include: The National Print Symposium at the National Gallery of Australia, 2004,; co-directing Alleys Not Telleys pubic space reclamation/multi-arts festivals, 2001-2004; Eyes For Other Skies Travelling Animation Festival, ACMI/South Korea; and creating propaganda and projections for the tree planting/re-veg Tranceplant Festivals 2001-2005. Kalemba’s work also features in many independent publications amongst a prolific CV of community, public and white cube rah rah.
VAN THANH RUDD
Van Thanh Rudd
Economy of Movement - A Piece of Palestine
rock, glass, ink jet prints, frames
(installation view & detail)
© 2009
Van Thanh Rudd has been exhibiting since growing up on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Moving to Melbourne in 1995, his work has increasingly attempted to address issues surrounding social justice. He researched socio-economic systems and the role of art and politics by travelling to countries such as Vietnam, Cuba, Chile and France in 2005. One of his major projects, The Carriers Project (2004-2008), involved carrying his paintings on foot through public and private spaces in Australia’s major cities. He has taken part in major social actions such as the Anti-G20 Rally (2006), The Stolenwealth Games (2006), Industrial Relations Rallies (2005) and Free The Refugees Protests (2004). Current and ongoing works include the Residencies of Thought Project, taking place in The White House, Washington and the Guggenheim Museum, New York.
BRAD HAYLOCK
Brad Haylock
Everything you never wanted to know about fashion
(but were too afraid to ask)
lightboxes, acetate lettering
(installation view)
© 2009
Continuing the artist’s fascination with public communication, Everything you never wanted to know… responds to the spatial qualities and the location of Vitrine, and particularly to its visibility and the passing foot traffic. The work offers to passers-by a commentary on the world of fashion and its underlying logic, whilst adding to the cacophony of signage with which commuters are barraged. The textual content of the work takes inspiration from critical theory and from the most hyperbolic and vacuous of fashion advertising, and from combinations of the two. The resulting commentary spans the incisive and the absurd, the pithy and the banal. The form of the work also takes cues from the world of fashion; this form is a reflection upon the fetishism of the object that is characteristic of the worlds of fashion and art alike.
Brad Haylock is a lecturer in Visual Communication in the Faculty of Art & Design at Monash University. He variously practices as an artist, designer, writer, and curator. Recent projects include the solo exhibitions Crazed and Defused and A Beginner’s Guide to Politics, design for Making Space and Objects in Space, the curation of The Art of the Bicycle and the co-curation with Mark Richardson of Advance/Retreat.
KATE MOSS
Kate Moss
Hey give me a break
digital photograph
© 2009
Hey give me a break is a site-specific installation in the display cases on the Majorca Building. The cases will comprise of a 2D work replicating existing and imagined sites of socially motivated, anti-aesthetic graffiti found within the public domain. The work will adopt the aesthetic of these sites. For example, on a brick wall on a street in Fitzroy someone has spray painted 'hey give me a break'. I will replicate this site using brick veneer and text enclosed within the cases on Centre Place.
I am intrigued by the ambiguity of this statement and wonder at what point an individual is motivated to commit such a statement publicly. I am interested in public space as a vessel for free expression whether social, political or personal. The gallery space is a platform for artists to freely express ideas, beliefs and concepts within a controlled environment. I am interested in replicating these graffiti statements and to see how they can be recontextualised in a gallery space within the public domain.
Kate Moss lives and works in Melbourne. She is currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Art at the VCA. In 2006 she was the recipient of an Excellence Award at The Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne. Her practice utilises a variety of media and stem from her interest in 1960s and 1970s counter culture and the failure or abandonment of structures within society, whether physical or ideological. Her installations involve re-working these abandoned ideals in the context of the now.
CHRISTA JONATHAN
Christa Jonathan
You’re alright, love
photographic collage, ink jet print
(installation detail)
© 2009
You’re alright, love is a social commentary on and about two sides of Melbourne. The lovely side, the one we all take pride in and acknowledge: that laid-back, friendly, multi-cultural and multi-racial city that welcomes everyone regardless their appearances. And the other, often dismissed and ignored side – that drenched in offensive mockeries and insults from racists, which in few occasions are so dumb that they’re borderline hilarious. Inspired by the situations I experienced first hand, I will create a series of illustrations made out of wood, found images, photographs, patterned papers, fabric off-cuts found in op shops, markets and paper recycling bins of the city. These small collages are layered up to create one huge image – transforming the Sample window into a visual manifestation of my observation, exploration, experience and memories of Melbourne for five years and counting.
Christa Jonathan is an Indonesian-born, Melbourne-based emerging graphic designer and artist. She completed her Bachelor of Visual Communication with First Class Honours at Monash University in 2008. When she’s not designing and illustrating she can be found exploring op shops, scouring markets and taking photographs of letterings in Melbourne. This is her first art show in the real world outside of university.
LEE ANANTAWAT & ZOE SCOGLIO
Lee Anantawat & Zoe Scoglio
Ooomong: Building Tunnels and Pondering Infinity
cardboard, paper, kaleidoscopes, AV loops, screens
(installation view & detail)
Photos courtesy of Tanja Milbourne
© 2009
Lee and Zoe's third collaboration is a site-specific installation, which sees the dark, subterranean Frame window below Flinders Street transformed into an intergalactic porthole. Utilizing sounds, structures and video, Ooomong playfully explores the fine lines between the infinite and infinitesimal, the wise and the whimsical, and the eternal and ephemeral. Adapted from the Thai word for 'tunnel', Ooomong creates stepping stones between the physical world and that which is unfathomable.
Lee Anantawat was born in Thailand, and currently lives in Melbourne. She draws pictures of love-lorn robots, science experiments in nature, mermen/women and is trying to live her life as an animator. Lee has completed a Master Degree in Animation and Interactive Media (AIM) from RMIT and has exhibited in group shows with Tape Projects of which she is now a member.
Zoe is a media artist who creates video and sound often for public, live and site-specific contexts. Her current work involves spontaneous collaborations and explorations into transformation and ritual. Some projects in the last year include video work for Gertrude Projection Festival, Electrofringe, Next Wave at Urban Screens, Michael Koro Gallery, PACT Quarterbred residency, Platform Artists Group Inc and The Women's Circus. She is a founding member of Melbourne artist run initiative, Tape Projects.
Visit the Tape Projects website.
05 March 2009
04 March 2009
2010 Next Wave Festival Proposals
Call for Next Wave project proposals closes next Friday 13 March.
You have until the end of next week, Friday 13 March, to propose a project for the 2010 Next Wave Festival, on in May next year.
Proposals must respond in interesting and complex ways to the 2010 Next Wave Festival theme NO RISK TOO GREAT.
Visit Next Wave to download an information pack. Previous artists to show at Platform as part of Next Wave include Hiromi Tango, Cecilia Fogelberg, Trevor Flinn, Objects in Space, Tai Snaith and many others...
You have until the end of next week, Friday 13 March, to propose a project for the 2010 Next Wave Festival, on in May next year.
Proposals must respond in interesting and complex ways to the 2010 Next Wave Festival theme NO RISK TOO GREAT.
Visit Next Wave to download an information pack. Previous artists to show at Platform as part of Next Wave include Hiromi Tango, Cecilia Fogelberg, Trevor Flinn, Objects in Space, Tai Snaith and many others...
26 February 2009
DAVE McDONALD
David McDonald
What We Now Know Resides
wood, paint, latex, rope, vaseline
installation detail
© 2009
The installation What We Now Know Resides sees Platform extend its architecture as a sort of rift through the unconscious, between daily life and things shut out. A sculptural and performance-based work that probes the grease-traps of the mind, a suggestion that a malignant presence now resides in the twenty-first century human psyche. Psychological thriller with carnal, primitive and sexual undercurrents – four and a half stars. (DM)
By ‘removing’ or ‘boarding up’ the Platform space, the artist is manifesting his concerns that Melbourne is becoming a ‘Lifestyle City’, whereby consumption lifestyle grows and cultural and community engagement wanes. Art (amongst other creative areas) becomes a prop for shopping and lifestyle. Platform, with its display cases that contain and constrain most exhibitions, is the perfect gallery and site to present these notions. When the known gallery is blocked out, it is envisaged that questions will be raised on public space, art, lifestyle and the presentation of creative work to the Melbourne community.
Dave McDonald works primarily with sculpture/installation that invites viewer interaction. Over the last five years he has exhibited primarily in public spaces with installations produced for various Melbourne festivals including: L’Oreal Melbourne International Fashion Festival, Melbourne Design Festival, Next Wave Festival and State of Design Festival. In 2007 McDonald opened an experimental art gallery in the CBD, Rise and Fall – a parasite art space on the elevator, stairwell and cinema screen of Curtin House. The project explores human interaction in zones and thoroughfares between public and private space in Melbourne. In addition to his practice, McDonald lectures in Architecture and Design at Swinburne University in Prahran.
ADAM CRUICKSHANK
Adam Cruickshank
Philosopher Kings
digital prints
installation view
© 2009
A comment on the over reliance of critical theory in the justification of much contemporary art was the initial impetus for these prints. Bringing the actual image of the philosopher or theorist to the foreground in preference over their theories and combining that with hip hop lyrics seemed both comical and relevant. Hip Hop is usually a very visual medium; image is often (almost) everything. This is in direct contrast to theorists, whose ideas are paramount, the concepts of which are often hard to describe without the use of convoluted language. Or are they? Can they be summed up and/or directly opposed by a few choice lyrics? Will the image of the thinker combined with the words of the MC still make sense? Does this conjunction somehow debase critical theory or does it conversely point out how universal some philosophies can be? Personally, I just want to see Rene Descartes wear a fat gold rope and Friedrich Nietzsche bust a move.
Adam Cruickshank went to the Queensland College of Art in the early 1990s and, after a period of exhibiting, was lured by a liveable wage into advertising and magazine art direction. Two years ago he began a rededication to full time art practice. He has exhibited extensively in Europe and Australia, has had work published in numerous anthologies and magazines, recently held a solo show at TCB in Melbourne and co-curated the Grow Wild show at Utopian Slumps.
LEON VAN DE GRAAFF
Leon Van de Graaff
OK, Commuter
computers, lights, plastics, industrial components, other various materials
installation detail
© 2009
Decades ago, we were sold the idea of the paperless, portable, work-from-home office. We were seduced by advertising images of happy people using portable computers by the beach, in bed or at cafes; a holiday atmosphere for every working day and no need to waste time going into the city. What we got was more people travelling further and more often for work and the capacity to waste vast amounts of paper and other resources at the click of a button. For most people, portable information technology has become about making tedious travel time more productive or just merely distracting.
In OK Commuter three human-sized robots (with their phones, PDAs, handheld game platforms in hand) occupy Vitrine, now morphed into a train/tram carriage. Each robot is made from found objects and technologies from a specific era indicative of each robot’s fictional age. The public can direct the robot passengers to perform clichéd actions and monologues from commuter life via text messages chosen from a predetermined list on the Vitrine window.
Leon van de Graaff studied science at ACT TAFE and sculpture Canberra School of Art, ANU before fleeing to Brisbane where he exhibited extensively in artist run spaces and festivals. In 2005 and 2006 he was invited to exhibit mixed media sculpture with multimedia/interactive components in the QUT staff and student showcase exhibitions Journey and RE-active. He now lives in Richmond and works at the National Gallery of Victoria as a multimedia technician.
STEPHANIE CHEEK
Stephanie Cheek
Croydon, Victoria
newspaper clippings, photocopies, drawings, photographs,
installation view
© 2009
Croydon, Victoria is a photo-based installation, incorporating quotations, objects, articles and statistics found in, or referring to, the eastern Melbourne suburb of Croydon. These elements are arranged strategically to reveal moments of tension, dysfunction and violence in our suburbs. Visually the work resembles a geographical profile, much like a crime map police use for tracking criminal activity. The work focuses attention on events that are deeply disturbing and close to home.
Stephanie Cheek is an emerging artist, with a Diploma of Visual Arts from RMIT and a Bachelor of Fine Art from the VCA. She lives and works in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
20 February 2009
Call for Proposals: un Magazine
Call for Proposals
un Magazine volume 3 issue 1
un Magazine – Melbourne’s leading independent magazine for writing on contemporary visual art. un Magazine fosters and offers opportunities to promote independent and critical thinking regarding contemporary art in all media. Focused on artists, writers, artist run and independent projects and contemporary art communities, un Magazine is an important platform for the dialogue of ideas extending from the local into national and international contexts.
We welcome proposals for contributions including but not limited to: criticism or review of recent contemporary art projects, exhibitions and publications (taking place in the previous five months); interviews; essays and features on topics of current debate; and experimental contemporary art practice engaged with text, writing or publication modes of display.
For this issue we are particularly interested in: writing that engages with multidisciplinary practice and art outside the gallery (i.e. site-specific work, performative practices, etc.); styles of writing ranging from the critical and analytic to creative and fictional or speculative; interviews; artist pages; art as text and collaborations.
All proposals must be submitted using the attached guidelines and application form (attached) or available at: http://unmagazine.org
Deadline for proposals: 13 March 2009
All submissions and editorial enquiries should be emailed to the Editor, Zara Stanhope: zara@unmagazine.org please do not send extended or finished texts without prior consultation
un Magazine MENTORSHIP PROGRAM
We are able to offer a one-to-one mentorship for a select number of contributors. The mentorship program offers the benefit of working with an experienced art writer in the drafting and development of your writing for publication.
For general magazine enquiries email the Project Manager, Angela Brophy:
projects@unmagazine.org
--
un Magazine volume 3 issue 1
un Magazine – Melbourne’s leading independent magazine for writing on contemporary visual art. un Magazine fosters and offers opportunities to promote independent and critical thinking regarding contemporary art in all media. Focused on artists, writers, artist run and independent projects and contemporary art communities, un Magazine is an important platform for the dialogue of ideas extending from the local into national and international contexts.
We welcome proposals for contributions including but not limited to: criticism or review of recent contemporary art projects, exhibitions and publications (taking place in the previous five months); interviews; essays and features on topics of current debate; and experimental contemporary art practice engaged with text, writing or publication modes of display.
For this issue we are particularly interested in: writing that engages with multidisciplinary practice and art outside the gallery (i.e. site-specific work, performative practices, etc.); styles of writing ranging from the critical and analytic to creative and fictional or speculative; interviews; artist pages; art as text and collaborations.
All proposals must be submitted using the attached guidelines and application form (attached) or available at: http://unmagazine.org
Deadline for proposals: 13 March 2009
All submissions and editorial enquiries should be emailed to the Editor, Zara Stanhope: zara@unmagazine.org please do not send extended or finished texts without prior consultation
un Magazine MENTORSHIP PROGRAM
We are able to offer a one-to-one mentorship for a select number of contributors. The mentorship program offers the benefit of working with an experienced art writer in the drafting and development of your writing for publication.
For general magazine enquiries email the Project Manager, Angela Brophy:
projects@unmagazine.org
--
31 January 2009
JOMBI SUPASTAR
Jombi Supastar
Earthly Delights
pencil, paint, glitter on paper
(detail) © 2009
I’ve been enraptured by painting ever since my father took me to see work by Henri Matisse when I was a boy. Seeing works by Bosch, Blake and Basquiat in museums or galleries is vastly more wonderful for me than seeing them in reproduction. Even work you would think would reproduce well, like Walker’s or Haring’s; I find far more compelling in the original.
My own work is often narrative in nature, exploring the realms of the subconscious, the nether worlds and the sphere of the nature spirits. I think of my art as an expression of the multi-dimensionality of perception, and of the many-layered nature of my spirituality and sexuality. I seek to make my images dense and complicated, like life. I see no reason to limit myself to paint alone. I take a child’s delight in glittery, shiny objects. They excite me. I want my work to communicate that sense of excitement, and to create excitement of its own.
Jombi Supastar has shown his work at galleries in Philadelphia, New York and San Francisco. A radical faery, he was the first African American to serve as a steward of the Short Mountain Sanctuary in middle Tennessee. He now lives in Berkeley, California where he was recently awarded a grant, with Alwyn de Wally, to produce an installation piece for the National Queer Arts Festival in The United States this June.
JASON LINGARD
Jason Lingard
Skin Idols
giclée print on paper
Installation view © 2009
Skin Idols is a series of work that explores the blurred line between pornography and art, absurdity and decency, abhorrence and worship. Jason Lingard’s prints take pornographic imagery out of the privacy of his bedroom, reconfiguring them into fantastical characters and idols, redisplaying them in the public domain, a space usually reserved for the presentation of brash large-scale advertising.
Jason Lingard is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work mainly consists of pop-influenced collage, digital manipulation, video and installation. Graphical, highly stylised, confrontational, and sometimes sexual, Lingard’s work has explored themes of body image, self-perception, sexual identity, celebrity culture and cosmetic surgery. Lingard has studied both graphic art and fashion design. Originally from New Zealand, he has exhibited in Australia, New Zealand and Germany. His worked has also been featured in magazines such as Dazed & Confused, Empty and Carousel.
FREDDIE JACKSON
Freddie Jackson
Disco/nstruction
digital print ©2009
Darkness pervades every part of our lives and minds. Each and every one of us battle with dark forces, inner demons, secret feelings we would never care to admit to anyone, maybe not even ourselves. That darkness is just as much a part of humanity as our other more appealing facades. With a little humour, a little sparkle, we can make that darkness seem less powerful and destructive than it appears to be.
These recent works mess up some of the darker icons of popular culture. Disco Death Star takes the planet destroying weapon from the Star Wars franchise and emasculates it into a sad and broken mirror ball. Like a party queen after too many hard nights, the power and puff has gone but a little pazazz remains, ready to be reconstructed if loved enough, even if for the wrong reasons. Foxy conceals the world's most powerful media baron behind a sequined guise, part wrestling fatigue, part drag fetish, the work masks that which is already masked. This thing is hidden from us all is so devastating that even if we knew the whole truth we could never even say it aloud it. Masks and reconstructions in this way work to prefigure an innate and far greater power that can not be understood, only inferred.
Freddie Jackson is an experimental queer artist who works under various psuedonyms in an attempt to debunk the myth of individualism while planting a tongue firmly in cheek. His work has a high camp queer aesthetic that interupts in the patriarchal monologue with a secondary male, yet queer, voice that combines some fine feminine qualities with a solid dose of darkness to pack a glittery punch to the rather dull status quo. Feddie once studied art at RMIT University and has exhibited under various names in line with his deliberately fluctuating identity.
LINSEY GOSPER
Linsey Gosper
Black Widow
cardboard, velvet, lights, video tape, photographic prints
Vitrine: installation view © 2009
Black Widow is an exhibition of photographic self-portraits of female cinematic personas portraying multiple identities. The conceptual link between my research and studio work is based on one of the most important contributions feminist film theory has made to the larger field of feminist inquiry, that the image of woman is a ‘construction’.
The focus is the femme fatale, as an alternative feminine persona that is contradictory, fluid and liberating. She is the object of desire and a vehicle for feminist empowerment. Her role, particularly in the context of film noir, establishes her as the antithesis to other feminine stereotypes, yet she is an image of ultra femininity. This portrayal of femininity may be a masquerade, veiling her more masculine qualities of explicit sexuality, violence and assertiveness. Her independence and lack of interest in men often present her as a self-absorbed narcissist. Narcissism is linked in the popular imagination with femineity and lesbianism. I propose imagining a female Narcissus: ‘a woman whose belief in her own self-cultivation might result in significant cultural production.’*
The artworks will be super flat, life size, and freestanding cut outs – similar to cinema or video display posters, and reinforced by the shopfront aesthetic of the Vitrine. The audience can visibly see their construction and limited depth.
* Don’t Kiss Me: The Art of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Tate Publishing, London, Jersey heritage Trust, 2006, p. 37.
Linsey Gosper completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) from The University of Newcastle while working as a photographic demonstrator for the School of Fine Art. She exhibited extensively during this time in Newcastle, Sydney, the Gold Coast and Perth. Gosper was the recipient of the Jennie Thomas Travelling Scholarship from The University of Newcastle and winner of the Newcastle Art Space Emerging Artist of the Year. Images from her Honours exhibition Bad Taste were published on the covers of Real Time and Jet, and she was commissioned to produce a body of work for the exhibition Autofetish: Mechanics of Desire, at the Newcastle Region Art Gallery in 2004. Gosper was a recipient of the Australian Postgraduate Award from The University of Melbourne and completed her Master of Fine Art at VCA in 2008. She has recently held shows Trocadero Art Space and Kings ARI.
MATT SHAW
Matt Shaw
The Underground Garden II: Boxed In
metal, welding, plants, stones, paint, diamantés
installation view ©2009
The Underground Garden installation at Platform is a living project that was devised to creatively deal with the leaky cabinet in the rundown subway. Following road works in Degraves Street above the subway, pipe damage led to a water leak problem that destroyed artwork and led to the closure of the end cabinet of Platform’s exhibition space. When artist Bernadette Trench-Thiedeman began experiments for her exhibition with botanical specimens in the leaky cabinet, she discovered that certain plants could survive underground for many months under fluorescent light.
After local designer Matt Shaw worked with Trench-Thiedeman on the living garden wall in Melbourne Central for French horticulturalist Patrick Blanc, the pair devised a plan to create a completely underground garden. Matt created the first experimental garden in mid-2008, which survived through much of year. This year Matt will create Boxed In, a new garden commission for The Underground Garden designed to remind us of nature’s enduring strength, and our opportunity for future sustainability.
Matt Shaw is a garden designer with more than ten years experience working in horticulture and landscaping. He also has an established practice in sculpture, in which he combines reclaimed industrial waste with hardy, drought-resistant plants to create unique and sustainable garden creations for Australia’s harsh climate.
Visit Matt Shaw's website here.
TAPE PROJECTS
Tape Projects
Frame Residency No. 1
flip books, string, tape, video, mini-dvd players, vinyl LPs
Frame: installation view © 2009
A new interdisciplinary case at the dark end of the subway...
Tape Projects seeks to promote the wealth of talented and underrepresented young and emerging artists in Melbourne and throughout Australia, who practice media art and hybrid forms not necessarily suited to the traditional gallery format. As young and emerging artists ourselves, we believe in supporting our highly skilled community by creating new opportunities for the screening and showcasing of accomplished experimental art.
For our Frame Residency at Platform we have several delights up our sleeve: each month we will alternate between shining a light our previous output, as well as creating brand new site specific works to best take advantage of the strange and unique Frame space. Hidden away in the appendix of Campbell Arcade, furtive noises and flickering lights will draw passing pedestrians into an unexpected revolving side show, where they can come across some of Australia’s least recognised, most talented temporal practitioners. Expect to see Flip Books and Locked Grooves, 123TV Preview, Best of Tape Projects, plus lots of new work.
Tape Projects is comprised of the following individuals:
Sunday Ganim has been weaving much, making pop up books and hasn't managed to switch her computer on for about a year.
Tanja Milbourne (Kimme) is a photographer and media artist often working collaboratively. Her work incorporates an ongoing investigation into the conceptual and formal properties of photographic documentation, often employing the existing site as the subject for enquiry.
Eugenia Lim works predominantly in video and photography to explore issues of identity, race, and culture. She is a founding member of Tape Projects, an artist run initiative championing experimental cross-disciplinary art in Melbourne and beyond.
Michael Prior is a media artist interested in creating interactive installation works that attempt to distort time perception via sound and architecture. He also produces publications and performance work with Tape Projects as well as soundtrack work for film and TV
Zoe Scoglio experiments with moving image, sound, torches, triangles & the human body to create works that have been performed both locally & abroad.
Lee Anantawat was born in Thailand, and currently lives in Melbourne, She draws pictures of love-lorn robots, science experiments in nature, mermen/women and is trying to live her life as an animator.
Nic Whyte works in the realm of moving image, video installation & interactive art. Recent years have been spent scaling ladders to install projectors whilst facilitating temporal media through Tape Projects.
Jessie Scott is an artist who works primarily in video. At the moment she is preoccupied with the human tendency to embroider mundane tasks, making them unnecessarily complex and beautiful.
Visit Tape Projects website here.
SAM WALLMAN
Sam Wallman
Tasmanian Fags
drawing on paper
©2009
Sam Wallman is not actually homophobic, racist, or sexist. He just likes making fun of those who are by stealing their humour and pretending to laugh along with them. We know this because Wallman's catalogue of grotesque, wrinkled, characters include people just like him, and he would never really laugh at himself.
New work on show at the Majorca Building, Centre Place Melbourne, during the Midsumma Festival.
Sam Wallman is 23 and currently works as an advocate for young people with disabilities, while living with his partner in Collingwood. At the moment he is producing a collaborative book called Stab Your Brother, a follow up to 2006's Go Home Abos. He draws pictures of the grotesque people in his head, in attempted exorcism.
HANNAH RAISIN
Hannah Raisin
Suggar Mummas Part 2
video, dvd player/screen, photographic prints, rotating frames, breakfast cereal, photocopies, string, glitter, plastic, glue
Sample: installation view ©2009
Milking the symbols of a synthetic femininity.
Is an embarrassment a rejection of oneself? A rejection can be a starting point, a reaction to a negative force. Why is it that if we believe we become somebody else we will be happy? Through the dismissal of our natural bodies, a synthetic and sterile beauty can often become the epitome of what is considered sexy. But who can measure the unnatural?
Every thought has a perfect image encapsulating its essence, binding it to the world. The ideas and key icons we attempt to mimic (the heightened colours and flavours) are as unstable and artificially enhanced as packeted cereal. Unfortunately the highly addictive sugar coated death pill is ultimately unsatisfactory.
Hannah Raisin completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Drawing) at the VCA in 2007. Raisin has exhibited throughout Melbourne in both solo and group shows including: Eat My Spider, TCB (2008); Wallara Travelling Scholarship, Margaret Lawrence Gallery; Somewhere to Run, Loop Bar; Provisional Investigations; George Paton Gallery, Melbourne University; Do It, Margaret Lawrence (2007) and Do you like me? at Kings ARI (2007). Raisin was a finalist for the Wallara Travelling Scholarship and received the Proud second year art award.
17 January 2009
Platform on 774 ABC Melbourne Radio
Hilary Harper from 774 ABC Radio talks to Linsey Gosper about exhibiting at Platform as part of Midsumma. Hear the story online at ABC Melbourne.
30 December 2008
EMERGING CURATOR APPLICATIONS OPEN
Platform is now accepting applications for the Emerging Curator’s residency in the Sample site from June to December 2009.
The Sample site is reserved for artists and curators under 25 years of age, giving them an opportunity to develop their work before a wide audience.
The successful curator will be offered six one-month exhibitions inclusive of rent and public liability insurance. Platform offers full support, advice and assistance with installation and de-installation, publicity, documentation and opening nights. The successful applicant will also be paid a stipend.
We respond favourably to applications from curators who can demonstrate previous exhibition involvement, initiative and an interest in Platform Artists Group and emerging artists.
What you need to provide:
• Completed Application Cover Sheet
• 1 x A4 page Curatorial Statement
• 1 x A4 page CV
• 1 x CD/DVD of support images of previous curated exhibitions (up to 20)
• Printed list of support images (artist, medium, size, date)
Applications are to be sent by post only to:
Platform Artists Group
Selection Committee
PO Box 117 Flinders Lane
Melbourne VIC 8009
Applications close 5pm Friday 27nd February 2009.
Email info@platform.org.au for an Application Cover Sheet.
25 November 2008
UNREALISED ARCHITECTURE
Unrealised Architecture
Digital photograph
© 2008
Featured Artists: HUGH ADAMSON (Architect), JESSE BATES (Photographer), SIMONE BLISS (Landscape Architect), SARAH BOWE (Artist), LISA BRENNAN (Architect), TIM CLAYTON (Architect), GREG DICKSON (Architect), MEGG EVANS (Interior Architect), KYLIE FORBES (Sculptural Installation Artist)
Unrealised Architectural works exist in many guises, modest & grand, sculptural & pragmatic. Many realised architectural works are actually the remnants of an ideal unrealised design. Others are the conceptual seeds that germinate into works found in all areas of the arts.
The value of great architecture, be it in its initial imaginative stages or in the final scheme, lies in the force and power of its possibilities and ability to inspire. The focus in this exhibition is to present a variety of unrealised works which range in both perspective and application. Works from landscape, interior and architectural designers stand amongst that of painters, photographers and sculptors, each of which respond to the architectural possibilities of their own practice.
The projects presented here share the theme “Unrealised Architecture”. The displays include architectural projects that have fallen short of the expectations of the architect and/or client; works that scour the landscape for new forms and practices; models that research lost construction arts; considerations of structures that play with time; concepts for inner-urban space that revitalise community interaction and excursions into the future possibilities of architectural composition and realisation in the contemporary metropolis.
JOHN PARKINSON
John Parkinson
Buildings
Digital photograph
© 2008
John Parkinson lives in Melbourne and recently graduated from Painting at the Victorian College of the Arts. He sings and plays in the art-pop band World’s End Press. Using the camera and the computer, he constructs monumental buildings and spaces. Each building is a pictorial meditation on a state of doing and being.
John Parkinson's MySpace
SAM GEORGE
Sam George
Cheers Silly And You
Mixed media
© 2008
"It's not what I can do for you, it's what you have already done for me.
Thanks for existing, feeling feelings, going to work, walking around, eating, patting dogs, smiling smiles, tripping over, drinking, getting up….Everything that you do, what ever you choose to do, I trust it's for the betterment of you and the world. I like… no, I love that you are simply alive. This is how I want you. I want to say thank you for this. It really does brighten my day." (Sam George)
Sam George recently completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) at the VCA, and has had exhibitions at TCB and various group shows. She often puts things with things with other things, makes things; makes things move on screens (all of which may include words) –and also does things like painting on computers and on occasion dabbles with coloured pencils, textas and paints.
Sam George's NAVA Gallery
28 October 2008
THE CONTEXTUAL VILLAINS
The Contextual Villains
Our Own Particular Truth (detail)
Mixed media
© 2008
Our Own Particular Truth
They came here on boats, with exquisite taste and bad manners they went forth feral and populated. / Their children's children spoke intimate nonsense shyly in shapeshifting playgrounds. / They altered their egos, telling tall tales amid imaginary worlds of others discards. / They peddled their wares, lines and letters to keep themselves fed full and snug in rugs. / Lazy afternoons sending out stories through tangled cords of collective conscious. / And as the days pass her water-table rises, leaking sympathetic wells of water at the world's wonders. / Casting shapes in the expectation of an approaching villain. / They labour in rapture to extract from the under-land a wide eyed monster, fiercely silent and already hunting for truffles. / The path to his lair littered with severed heads and indecipherable marks, left to guide his companions in the lessons of chaos. / In the search for the way of things this fledgling clan seek simplicity regardless of the fears that face them. / Together they prepare for exploration of uncharted territories - in the knowledge that their time together is fleeting and the end is theirs alone.
Following their recent move to Melbourne, The Contextual Villains will return to show at Platform in November for their first solo show with us.
Visit The Contextual Villains.
LUKE WARM
Luke Warm
Nutrimetica II: the sequel (513 VHS)
Video still
© 2008
The information explosion is not a window on the future so much as a mirror of the past catching up with the present. – Gene Youngblood 1970
"Nutrimetica II: spatially reconstructs a memory of Nutrimetica I* and addresses the distortions of memory itself by adding physical ideas and elements of previous works of the artist into the one space. Nutrimetica: the sequel (513 VHS) is a generated physical mapping of a stored memory in celluloid. The invention of video was accessed by an opportuned public to immortalise, playback and passively enjoy their own memories. (513 VHS) considers the necessity of the real to non-recorded memories distorted by factors of time, perception of experience and the timeline of one’s life. The work is a recognition of the way in which media culture performs as a manipulative device to distort our realities."
– Luke Warm, 2008
*Nutrimetica I: Nightclub Project 1: The Men’s Gallery, Next Wave 2008
Luke Warm is a Melbourne based artist who uses the installation interface to orchestrate his atmospheric works that often employ several simultaneous components of practice. Warm mostly utilises video, photography, sculpture, set and costume design to communicate and resolve his ideas. Warm’s work reveals the presence of reality and the way in which fiction is conveyed within media culture. The videoscape of the melodrama and the tabloid are all constructed fantasies which are pre-empted and generated by its audience. Warm surveys how we perceive the ideal and succumb to the seduction of suspended-disbelief. Nutrimetica II on show at Vitrine throughout November.
BONNIE LANE
Bonnie Lane
More
Video still
© 2008
Life as a Projectile Vomit
“When a recent bout of tonsillitis confined me to a house for a week (after being told I couldn't go to work), I became convinced of the things that I need in order to feel satisfied/content. A week of eating, sleeping, talking, f#%king, drinking, painting etc… Referencing the style of advertising, these screens flash at you what we cannot gain with money or achieve through material possession. When we live in a 'Tell me what to do because I can't think for myself' society, this may be the only way into the soul of the viewer.”
– Bonnie Lane, 2008
Bonnie Lane is a 22 year-old emerging artist based in Melbourne. Since completing her Bachelor of Fine Art at Victorian College of the Arts in 2007, Lane has had solo exhibitions in Melbourne at Plateau 589, Seventh Gallery and Bus 117. She was one of the 19 artists chosen to exhibit in the 2008 Moreland Sculpture Show, and was one of the Wallara Traveling Scholarship finalists in 2007.
On show at Sample space throughout November. Visit Bonnie's website.
DYLAN STATHAM
Dylan Statham
Fools Gold (Detail)
148.5mm x 105mm
Digital Print
© 2008
Mistake Machine
“You had best buy gold and silver quickly to protect yourself from the coming catastrophe. While the ancient Israeli's had lamb's blood to put on their door posts to protect them from the Destroyer, you will have to settle for gold and silver. We also note that God is still available as well, and we suggest you call on His services for the ultimate in bailout protection."
Bob Chapman, Gold, Silver, Economy + More, in the International Forecaster Sept 2008 (#8) http://news.goldseek.com/InternationalForecaster/1222668900.php
Mistake Machine will be on show at the Majorca Building cases on the corner of Centre Place and Flinders Lane Melbourne throughout November.
30 September 2008
TAPE PROJECTS
Featured artists: Maggie Scott, Jessie Scott, Eugenia Lim, Michael Prior, Salote Tawale, Saskia Pandji-Sakti, Tanja Milbourne, Lizzy Sampson, Nic Whyte, Zoe Scoglio, Paul Dornau, Sarah Lake, Eliza Hearsum, Tony Holzner and Unchalee Unantawat.
Arab Telephone is French for Chinese Whispers. A children’s game that succinctly condenses ideas of truth, fiction and history into a simple chain reaction. For Tape Projects, it is an artists’ game, an experiment in process and time-delay collaboration. It begins with a story about Campbell Arcade, written by a history student, who is also a writer of fiction. Without knowing on which side of this boundary it lays, the story is passed from artist to artist by word of mouth, accreting or excreting details in the re-telling. The 12 resulting audio visual and sculptural installations will reveal the mechanics of this myth, uncover the themes that resonate between the artists and those that divide them.
Visit Tape Projects here.
DANIEL GREEN
After a long and illustrious career, Spongebob Squarepants lies forgotten and ailing in palliative care. The only person willing to hear the tales of his adventures long gone is a fan who keeps a vigil by his bedside. Through a television, the pair revisit various heroics and escapades from Spongebob’s days on Bikini Bottom. His life-support system depends precariously on battery power and as the batteries fade the video begins to glitch. Despite all efforts to sustain him by his offsider, once the batteries lose power, Spongebob is lost.
Spongebob is dying is a performance-based installation in Vitrine exploring the dialogue between ourselves, the things we use to entertain us, and the unintended plot developments that can result.
Daniel Green is a Sydney based artist, performer, curator and terrible musician. He has Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) from the University of Western Sydney and has shown at Bus in Melbourne and This Is Not Art Festival in Newcastle. Spongebob is dying will be performed on the 10th of October from 3pm, as well as on the 1st, 28th, 29th and 30th of October from 7am.
HAYDEN DANIEL
Hayden Daniel
Splatterdash Cover
Acyrlic on paper
© 2008
Splatterdash is a collection of artworks made by Hayden Daniel in an attempt to portray to the public of Melbourne the random, weird and wonderful ideas, thoughts and dreams that flow through his head. Hayden works across an array of mediums including paint, pens and pencils on all kinds of objects from found wood to used metcards. Hayden Daniel is an aspiring artist and still a high school student. This is his first exhibition and continues Sample’s offering of opportunities to young artists.
ADRIAN CAON
Adrian Caon
Libya 1986
Pastel & watercolour on paper
© 2008
101 Things to do with an American Flag is a multi-series art project Caon initiated in 2004. The project invites the audience to question the rhetoric of peace, freedom and democracy, as espoused by Australia’s ‘moral leader’, the USA, and look beyond it. Caon disrupts this rhetoric by presenting works that reveal the USA’s substantial history of using violence, or the threat of violence, to settle disputes with other states for its own interests.
This series subtitled No.11: assign each star to one of its wars consists of drawings, and several installations, depicting each of the 50 stars of the American flag positioned within a war or a military intervention during the 230-year history of the USA. The work invites the viewer to focus on one or two salient aspects of a specific U.S. military intervention by evoking the issues around war and human rights, and is a provocation rather than a didactic offensive.
On display at Majorca Building on Centre Place Melbourne throughout October.
05 September 2008
02 September 2008
CATHERINE SEWELL
Catherine Sewell
Landscape
Digital Photograph
© 2008
The next installment of The Playground Project, this exhibition takes a look at moments of adult play through design: textiles; space; object; image. How do you play? Is it sensation or scenario? Solitary or surrounded? The silver lining or the lining of a jacket? Play up. Play on. Play ball.
"Over the past few years I’ve been keeping a record of moments of play in my life, in everyday situations I see and from stories I hear from others. The more I’ve thought about the ways that adults play, the more infinite these ways seem. Childhood, games, sport, sex, laughter, fantasy, ingenuity, creativity, risk, syncopation, repetition, rehearsal…the list goes on. My aim then, has become more about igniting the imagination of individual play. For this exhibition I chose a number of images that symbolise the different ways I have observed adults play. An experiment in how clothing, textiles, image and object can sit playfully. It is not just a public display of playfulness, it is a reminder to notice and hold on to playful moments in life." – Catherine Sewell
KATY BOWMAN
Katy Bowman
Mending
© 2008
Mending is a makeshift shrine to healing, reconciliation and sustainability. The word and act of mending conjure up a bygone age when things were repaired, darned, fixed, reused, worked on, put right. On the mend… mending fences… mending one’s ways… mending worn out clothes… mending a broken heart. The images are derived from old first aid books combine with found and fabricated surgical items to the effect that the piece evokes a window display from a different era. Katy is currently Master of Fine Art candidate at RMIT.
MARITA DYSON + KUBOTA FUMIKAZU
Macro-Mirco
Graphite on paper
© 2008
Marita Dyson and Kubota Fumikazu will investigate notions of macro and micro through a display of juxtaposing works on paper in the Majorca cases throughout September. Kubota’s intensely detailed, giant, self-portrait and Marita’s manic-biotic, metropolis installation are filled with unexpected insinuations and uncanny connections. Marita Dyson is a Melbourne artist and musician interested in museum collections, the periodic table of the elements and gardening. Kubota Fumikazu is Melbourne based artist originally from Japan. His work is mostly intricate, hand-drawn forms depicting aspects of the human psyche.
ILIA ROSLI
Ilia Rosli
'I Have a Circular Driveway'
(c) 2008
I Have a Circular Driveway is written, directed and presented by Ilia Rosli as Ilia Rosli. She is a reader, a writer, an observer, a maker, a learner and lots of other things, as well as slightly confused, and this month the Sample space is her playground. After filling Platform windows with sugar and cupcakes last year, Ilia returns to show a video installation filled with colour, kitsch, whimsy, tricks and very little treats. You can also find Ilia at the George Paton Gallery at Melbourne University this September where she has tiptoed into the audio realm.
22 July 2008
SIMON PERICICH
Simon Pericich
"...when they come we will be ready"
Image courtesy of the artist
Mixed media and found objects
(c) 2008
We live in an age where we can't take sunscreen on a plane because of fear that it may be weapon. Artist Simon Pericich comments on these and other recent global paranoias with a display of over 60 hysterical renditions of dangerous looking artworks crudely yet obsessively fashioned out of common house-hold objects. The overwhelming arsenal for an imagined futuristic army keeps us hilariously safe from unknown benevolent forces, reminding viewers 'everything really isn't that bad'.
BRAD HAYLOCK
Brad Haylock
A Beginner’s Guide to Politics
(c) 2008
Playing upon the language of politics and the media of commerce, A Beginner’s Guide to Politics acts as a public service announcement, capitalising upon Vitrine’s prominent location. This work is at once a response and, admittedly, an addition to the cacophony of a public discourse in which the line between political and commercial communication is increasingly indistinguishable.
JESSIE BORRELLE & CAROLINE CLEMENTS
Jessie Borrelle & Caroline Clements
(Spit & Polish)
Tell It To Yourself
(c) 2008
Spit & Polish deliver etiquette lessons to the Majorca House exhibition windows in Centreplace.
Two large-scale profile cameos (those of Spit & Polish), both furnished with speech bubbles, will be the vehicle for the text of the etiquette 'advice'. The lessons provided are extracted from an early 20th century guide, Don't! Directions for Avoiding Improprieties of Conduct & Common Errors in Speech. Don't! was published by E.W. Cole - a respected philanthropist and publisher of the times - on Little Collins Street, a mere block away from Majorca House.
It's likely that many people may have actually followed these suggestions, making both the literary and historical reference of this project pertinent to the location. The purpose of ‘Tell It To Yourself’ is to amuse (and instruct) passers-by, but primarily to illustrate the changes in social behaviours that have occurred over the twentieth century, almost the span of time since the erection of the Majorca Building and Flinders Lane. The quotes reference the hospitality laden precinct, the highly social nature of Centreplace, and its function as a meeting place embedded with behavioural cues, idiocies and expectations.
LUCY BERGLUND
Lucy Berglund
Mother/Lover/Other
Blanket
(c) 2008
In Mother/Lover/Other, Lucy Berglund uses familiar checked blankets to reference safety and warmth, while simultaneously hinting at their flipside, claustrophobia and suffocation. This ambivalence demonstrates an interrogation of the state of desire and yearning.
Lucy Berglund is currently completing a Bachelor of Fine Art at Monash.
15 July 2008
01 July 2008
26 June 2008
25 June 2008
SHARON WEST
Sharon West
Gubbaworld
Mixed media
© 2008
Gubbaworld is derived from the Koori name for white people. The exhibition parodies the notion of the museum diorama cabinet and is inspired by past museum (mis)practices. The work is constructed in both a 2D and 3D format, and offers a pseudo-historical narrative of Victorian settler history. Drawing on references from the Aboriginal dioramas of Melbourne Museum and the Great Colonial Exhibitions of the late 1800s, the work’s themes focus on settler and Indigenous contact, offering parables and inversions that satirise the ideas of the great Southern land, the Noble Savage and white colonisation.
GUBBAWORLD: Colonial Pseudo-Histories and other Follies feature the themes:
Terra Incognita (The Unknown Land) – Scenes of an isle of designer dogs, yowies, big budgies, giant eels and octopuses.
An Indigenous Picturesque – Considering Ruskian notions of paradise, where the noble savage lives in harmony with his landscape – albeit in a long-lost ruined monastic site. "This is what England must either do or perish, she must found colonies as fast and as far as she is able." J. Ruskin 1870.
A New Jerusalem – Parodying notions of the transplantation of British culture onto the Indigenous landscape and the discovery of the holy grail on Flagstaff hill.
Batmania – A surreal re-imagining of early colonial Melbourne with tourists camped out to witness the popular Koori sport of sheep spearing.
Black Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – Mother Nature’s revenge and the land ravaged by bushfires, pestilence and really big sheep.
Sharon will be presenting her work alongside Koori Allsorts.
KOORI ALLSORTS
Charlie O
BTW
Digital Print
© 2008
To accompany Sharon West's Gubbaworld, we are presenting a group show, Koori Allsorts, to help celebrate NAIDOC Week in July. The exhibition will feature recent work from Indigenous (Gunditjamara, Wemba Wemba & Yorta Yorta) artists including Jarrod Atkinson, Mandi Barton-Travis, Andrew Travis, Charlie O and Carol Wright. Held from 6–13 July 2008, NAIDOC presents events across the country to celebrate the historical and cultural achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people. Each year NAIDOC gets bigger and we are very pleased to be part of the celebrations!
Gubbaworld & Koori Allsorts will be opened by guest speaker Aunty Bunta Patten, 6–8pm Friday 4 July.
KUBOTA FUMIKAZU + TANIA SMITH
Continually Genuine is a performance project based on the artists’ process of applying for Australian residency. Kubota Fumikazu and Tania Smith were obligated to prove that their union was “genuine and continuing”. Recollections of tender moments were retold to a stranger in the sterile surrounds of a government office. The absurdity of this situation, and the broader issues in contemporary politics regarding immigration constitute the basis for the project.
Performance will take place once on the opening night – 6-8pm Friday 4 July.
DANIEL DORALL
Daniel Dorall
Life
Type C print 120 x 80 cm (Edition of 5)
© 2007
Daniel Dorall has worked in Melbourne since arriving from Malaysia in 2003 and has quickly made a name on the local scene with his intricate and maze-like spatial sculptures. This set of 'Life + Death' are based on a diptych of mazes of the same name. It represents a major shift in his work, from the earlier, more rigid grid formations, to a more organic construction. The works explore notions of space and claustrophobia via narrative tableaux of good and evil. On view at Majorca Building (corner Flinders Lane and Centre Place Melbourne). Daniel is represented by Dianne Tanzer Gallery and will be holding a solo show there in September.
VICTORIA STAMOS
Victoria Stamos
10 March 1960
Digital Print
© 2008
"The photograph presented is an extract taken from Greek-English Dialogues, a handbook given to my grandma before coming to Australia from Greece in 1960. It shows the inside back cover of the book where my grandma practiced writing the English alphabet. This is one of the few pieces my grandma has kept that mark the length of her living in Australia. I don’t know what she was feeling or thinking as she practiced the letters, but it’s these small details left behind that build the larger picture. I’m not seeking the truth about my grandma’s life, her origins or her history, but instead want to form a relationship with these things through the material object left behind. The object acts as a trace of a life past as I never knew it, therefore reminding me of the passing of time and the trajectory my grandma’s life has taken since migrating to Australia."
03 June 2008
BERNADETTE TRENCH-THIEDEMAN
Bernadette Trench-Thiedeman
Eat the City
Architectural models and various plant species
© 2008
Eat the City is an installation of architectural models planted out with edible and non-edible plants, seeds and seedlings. Eat the City invites the viewer to re-imagine the urban environment transformed by plants in ridiculous, beautiful and sometimes violent ways. Coupled with portraits of revolutionary gardeners, Eat the City suggests possible incursions of the domestic suburban garden on the CBD and its inhabitants.
Watch it grow over a 26 day period in the Platform cases.
PAUL SPENCE
Paul Spence
Vagyro
Prototype for a Nightlight Toy featuring Vertical Axis Gyroscope
(c) 2008
Paul Spence is a 44 year old Melbourne design artist with a passion for furniture, lighting and the decorative arts. A keen enthusiast of early to mid 20th century design/iconography, his current work; showing for the month of June at "Vitrine" entitled; "Streamlined Adventures by Nightlight" is a celebration of light and the streamlined form. It explores the notion that the aesthetic of the streamlined object has the ability to impart on the viewer; a sense of elevated emotional calm.
JODY CLEAVER
Jody Cleaver
Flowered
Animation Still
(c) 2008
In our first animation exhibition for the year, Jody has timed the arrival of the Pope Benedict XVI with Flowered, her "consideration of creed, it’s extravagance; and how faith and systematic beliefs relate to nature and sexuality in Australia."
Surrounding the ornately framed animation is a painted wedding ceremony (see Platform Pages for pic), sculptured puppets and painted animation stills.
EBON BOWTELL
Ebon Bowtell
Horse Stories
Type C photograph
(c) 2007
Majorca's latest installation is a photographic series of self-portraits by Melbourne photographer Ebon Bowtell. Richly moody and intensely personal, these photographs explore the violent implications of stereotypes, and are a fight toward re-gaining power. Ebon uses unconventional techniques such as long exposure and movement to achieve this powerful series.
In her own words:
"FucKEdUp, SHotUp, WACKedUp, bAnGedUp, SpatlTup, CouGhEdup, KNoCKedUp, LoCkeDup, BEAtUp, BasHedUp, ShutUp, GOttaLoveThat, FedUp, WokeUp, HadEnOUGh, cLEAnEDup..............STOP"
20 May 2008
TREVOR FLINN
Trevor Flinn
The Puma, The Stranger and The Mountain
Variable dimensions (plaster, fabric, wire, leaves, branches, road kill.)
(c) 2008
'The Puma, The Stranger & The Mountain' brings to life the myth that has been whispered around the Grampians near Trevor's hometown of Dunkeld in western Victoria.
Media collide as Trevor probes the latent underpinnings of regional life and landscape: identity, isolation, belief, freedom and captivity, desire and sexuality, raised by tales of this wild cat, which is believed to have prowled the local landscape for decades.
In order to trace the myth, Trevor becomes the puma through performance and, with a mash up of medium, the cabinets are transformed into relics of the places it has been. The rise and demise of Trevor's fake rock band, The Meat Eaters, mirrors the intangible fame of this regional bush legend.
13 May 2008
CENSORED!
Following a complaint from a member of the public, sections of Cecilia Fogelberg's exhibition featuring photographs of a male nude came under scrutiny. After some heated debate and a request by the City of Melbourne to cover the offending appendages, Next Wave agreed to cover the works. Neither Platform Artists Group nor the artist agree with this action but it has raised some serious discussion topics, especially in relation to artworks being considered in their broader contexts. Read The Age story that week here.
A public discussion and "unveiling" of the censored works will take place with the artist, Cecilia Fogelberg, the City of Melbourne and Next Wave at 5pm on Friday 30 June 2008 at Platform in Degraves Street Subway.
12 May 2008
CECILIA FOGELBERG
Cecilia Fogelberg
Supermarket
150 x 150mm (acrylic on canvas)
© 2008
Swedish-Australian artist Cecilia Fogelberg has collaborated with Dunkeld artist Trevor Flinn as part of this year's Next Wave Festival Kick Start Program, presenting a dual exhibition for May. Cecilia has created a diverse body of sculptural, painted and photographic work that explores cultural identity and the migrant experience from an artist's perspective. Cecilia's empathy with Hollywood aliens and art icons form the subjects of her paintings, while a handmade collection of balaclavas extract contradictions in identity and anonymity. Cecilia says about The Puma, The Stranger and The Mountain:
"The core of my work is the construction of reality, the construction of the individual identity, the order of nature and the disorder of nature (within and outside the supermarket), the dreams of fame, the dreams of popular culture in the form of a stoned Mickey Mouse who is dreaming about becoming as famous as Damien Hirst (Hirst representing the Art Supermarket), the alienation from culture and surroundings, the familiarity of a stranger meeting a stranger, the culture struggle within one's own culture, the exile, the myth of the stranger, and country town’s ‘Chinese whispers’ history writing. My work isn’t set in the past in a Swedish setting, nor is it talking about Australia today, but it has resemblances of it both."
HIROMI TANGO
Himomi Tango
Absence (detail installation view)
(various materials including wool, cardboard, paper, paint and plastic)
© 2008
As part of 2008 Next Wave Festival, we are fortunate to have Japanese-Australian artist Hiromi Tango in a one-month residency at Vitrine and Sample throughout May. Hiromi creates elaborate artist books from the collected memories, stories, letters and diaries that she is given during her interactive public performances.
During her time in Vitrine, Hiromi's objective is to hand-stitch collected ‘feelings and voices’ and develop a collaborative sculpture with the show title and theme of Absence. Her personal engagement with the site, situation and the community that passes will determine the final outcome of the artwork. Even after the first week, complete strangers have come to visit Hiromi, presenting her with drawings and letters, adding to the work and becoming part of an impressive and complex inhabitation. Hiromi says of her current work:
"Absence will contribute to a more critical understanding of how artist and public engagement is defined, and how the artist can intervene into a particular space, potentially generating unexpected moments of intimacy and tension. How much of the exchange is me and how much of it is you? Is it possible to understand each other? The closer I get to you, the more I feel anxious, uneasy and… absent."
29 April 2008
SURVIVAL AND ADAPTATION
Bernadette Trench-Thiedeman
Stage 1: Survival and Adaptation (detail installation view)
(plants, water, beakers, labels)
© 2008
In preparation for her upcoming solo show at Platform in June, Melbourne artist and amateur botanist Bernadette Trench-Thiedeman created an experiment in the infamous leaky cabinet. The second last cabinet in the subway leaks after every big rain pretty much making in unusable for artists but a few brave artists have ventured to use the space. So after applying for a show to create an underground garden, we offered Bernadette the chance to experiment with plant survival in a space without sunlight. Installing a series of plant clippings partly immersed in science beakers and test tubes of water, Bernadette made Stage 1 of her project to test how the plants would survive. Having been set in the cases at the end of February, not only have they survived for two months without sunlight but the plants have even grown under the flouroscent tubes.
'The Age' cover story
Check out the cover story on The Age EG cover-story on artist-run spaces and independent galleries written by threethousand editor extraordinaire Penny Modra. Print version featured KMOSSED HQ artwork with Platform co-director Anita King! Read the online version here.
ART MELBOURNE
We showed (and even sold) some work at Art Melbourne from April 18-20 held at the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings. We were invited by our patrons – the City of Melbourne Arts & Culture (with thanks to Candy Mitchell) – to share a stall with Kings ARI and the newly independent Sticky Institute. We invited some of our favourite Platform artists to show at Art Melbourne including Sylvia Jeffries, Rus Kitchin, Contextual Villains, Anna Nilsson and Daniel Dorall.
10 April 2008
RUS KITCHIN
Rus Kitchin
End of The Beginning (installation view)
(photographic prints, spray paint, texta, gaffa, paper, televisions, laptops, dvds)
© 2008
Rus Kitchin, our special guest artist for April, pulled together a vast body of reconstituted photographic and digital work which he used to wallpaper the large Vitrine space. Rus painted over the surface of the photo-wall in a graf style for which he first earned his rep on the local art scene. Installing two large televisions and four laptop computers, the imagery framing the back wall was then re-presented in digital looping formats while the remnants of the work were left aesthetically randomised across the floorboards. A wildly expressive show from one of Melbourne's hottest young artists, End of the Beginning is one of our favourite Vitrine shows.
08 April 2008
ERICA TARQUINIO + MADELAINE FURRUGIA
Erica Tarquinio & Madelaine Farrugia
The Book of Proverbs (detail)
(pencil on paper)
© 2008
Two young emerging artists, Erica Tarquinio and Madelaine Farrugia, installed a series of drawings in the Sample window during April. The works on paper took their inspiration from sometimes popular (sometimes clichéd) proverbs taken from around the world. Erica and Madelaine then interpreted the proverbs in a literal and playful illustration style, installing the pieces like pages fallen from a children's book.
DOMINIQUE MITCHELSON
Dominique Mitchelson
Fresh Fields (photographic detail)
(dry-point print on paper)
© 2008
Melbourne printmaker Dominique Mitchelson took time out of her busy teaching schedule to install a series of beautifully detailed prints of magical 'anthropomorphs' in the Majorca Building cases for April. Dominique says of her latest installation:
"This current artwork is inspired by old fashioned illustration and a love for fine detail. I have re-created textures and designs of fabric within the imagery. The prints are based on my interest in animals and birds. The fox would have to be one of the most exquisite and common of animals – they are incredibly smart and very dedicated to looking after their families. The swallow is also a common bird, but it is so quick and fleeting in flight which makes it hard to see how truly beautiful these birds really are. With this work, I hope that the viewer can be transported from the city to another environment, where a fox goes exploring with a lantern light or swallows play on a maypole."
Dominique will be showing soon with Outré Gallery on Elizabeth Street Melbourne.
THE DOOR SNAKE PROJECT
Various Artists
The Door Snake Project (installation detail view)
(mixed media incl. fabric, foam, cardboard, paint)
© 2008
The Door Snake Project stemmed from an initiative by Lori Kirk, a Melbourne based artist who developed the April collaborative art installation at Platform with 14 local and international contemporary artists. The artists each created their own unique version of the pop-crafty door snake, traditionally used underneath doorways to block unwanted drafts. The completed door snakes were posted from each artist’s country of residence, arriving in Melbourne to be installed at Platform. Lori then created the accompanying fabric environments within the 15 glass cabinets, creating a surreal underground reptile enclosure.
The Door Snake Project Artists
Altynai Osoeva, Lauren DiCioccio, Julia Adzuki, Ben Griffiths, Lori Kirk, Ruth Fleishman, Massimo Palombo, Cynthia Johnston, Elizabeth Temple, Kellie Lyler, Isabell Walsh, Judy Oakenfull, Rachel Carlisle, Helen Brooker and Becky James.
29 March 2008
NEW LINX
10 March 2008
ROSIE KAVANAVOCH + STEPHANIE NEOH
Rosie Kavanavoch & Stephanie Neoh
KMOSSED HQ (detail)
(photographic print)
© 2008
Rosie Kavanavoch and Stephanie Neoh collaborated in their recent double show at Platform and Vitrine as part of the 2008 L'Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival. KMOSSED HQ was made up of a collection of large format photographs of infamous locals in platform shoes and varying states of style. Not content with the one exhibition, Russia and Steph took over Vitrine on the opening night filling the space with fashion detritus and covering the glass in statements about the blurry but glamorous line between fashion and art.
The artist statement for the double show says the rest: I stumbled in there while running for my life. Melbourne’s underground will be filled with make-believe advertisements of models in platform shoes. These staged scenes explore parodies of high-end fashion, highlighting how accessories, images and shoes are only temporary in their blah blah there goes your rib. The presence of the shoe further unleashes the never-ending criss cross garbo style hello sailor between fashion, art and, well, heels. WaTCH YOuR STep."
05 March 2008
LIA TABRAH
Lia Tabrah
R.S.I. (detail)
(paper on canvas)
© 2008
Lia Tabrah installed her latest collection of paper paintings in the Majorca Building cabinets through March. Lia's work takes on various 3-dimensional qualities with their rolled and scrunched paper balls that are reassembled into large-scale paper paintings. Lia says about this latest series: "R.S.I. (repetitive strain injury) is an obvious description of the laborious evidence splayed across my canvases. The colour, texture and pattern integrated into my work are placed together in a tight mosaic order, which compels my scrunched tissue paper balls to mimic the clean lines of Op Art, the texture and imagery of fashion and the colours and technique as a lingering childhood memory."
JENNIFER ADDISON
Jennifer Addison
Cu.r.io (detail)
(felt, wood, paint)
© 2008
Jen Addison's new work in Sample used historical, drawn sight lines that stretched into her three-dimensional installation surrounded by tiny labeled curiosities. Jen says about her recent spatial play: "A collector at heart, my response to the Sample space at Platform is a collection of curios; found, gathered, re-inserted, re-represented, stripped bare of their original context; they find a new significance within the cabinet. My desire was to take this existing space from the everyday to the fantastical, and create a space of curious nature in a playful manner."
02 March 2008
COLLECTIONS IN THE UNDERGROUND 2
Design by Bird Girl
Collections in the Underground 2
L'Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival 2008
(Photographer Jeana Bajic)
Collections in the Underground returned to Platform on March 1st as part of the cultural events in this year’s L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival. Once again curated by Platform’s (newly mowaked) co-director Anita King, the evening presented six new collections from Melbourne independent fashion designers: a name is a label, Bird Girl and Queen. Hundreds of eager fashionistas squeezed into the subway for the Saturday night event that included fan-dancing introductions and choreographed moves from these classy underground rag-traders.
To see more about these labels and stockists:
a name is a label
Bird Girl
Queen
20 February 2008
SECRETS OF THE PHOTOCOPIER
Paper/Cuts
Secrets of the Photocopier
(drawing, collage, reassembled photocopies)
© 2008
In one of our best group shows in recent times, Secrets of the Photocopier saw some of Australia most prolific zinemakers descend on the subway to take over the cases during February. Organised by Platform lovechild Sticky and the Shop 10 crew (Luke Sinclair and Elle Peace with a host of dedicated volunteers), the Secrets exhibition was part of the first zine festival held in and around the subway throughout the month. Secrets featured some top Aussie talents in cut-and-paste independent publishing including: 7U, Breakdown Press, Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, All Thumbs Press, WEB, Ianto Ware, DNA, YOU, PAPER/CUTS (see image), Erinsborough Exploits, Mavis McKenzie, and Contextual Villains. Altogther a superbly executed group show about zines…still not sure what a zine is? Here’s the closest definition from the Sticky crew:
“Zines are a low-budget, accessible, ‘democracy of the multiple’ form of artistic and written expression, usually centred around photocopier technology as an easy and immediate form of reproduction, the zine then being freely distributed at little or no cost. Zines are often difficult to define and it is this difficulty of defining zines that contributes to its ever-changing dynamics and freedom that encourage experimental and innovative art forms.”
For more information about zines and how to buy, sell and exchange your own work, visit Melbourne’s leading zine shop: Sticky, Shop 10, Degraves Street Subway, Melbourne or check the website.
18 February 2008
DAVID MAHLER
David Mahler
My Head Hurts (installation view)
(charcoal, pencil, acrylics, spray paint, collage, lego)
© 2008
One of our youngest Platform artists to date, 15-year old David Mahler held his first solo show, My Head Hurts, in the Sample space during February. David experiences synesthesia and much of his work is produced to music, exploring a range of techniques that demonstrate an unexpected diversity.
David says about this show: "I decided to call the exhibit "my head hurts" for various reasons. I get stressed pretty easily, and art helps me relax. I enjoy using bright colours and collaging images that have surrealistic and confusing implications. I guess the effect of the brightness can sometimes just dazzle people, which can be exaggerated as to being a headache." We're looking forward to seeing this young hotshot evolve his practice in the coming years!
08 February 2008
PIP STAFFORD
Pip Stafford
Nobody Knows You Better Than I Do (detail)
(video still/screen print)
© 2008
Tasmanian artist Pip Stafford popped up to town to install a new piece in Vitrine for March. Nobody Knows You Better Than I Do explores everyday confessions from anonymous strangers presented in video, audio and screen-printed formats. Pip says about her work: "I am interested in the everyday; the mundane, daily rituals and private life. The length and breadth of lovers’ intimate knowledge, the things a mother no longer sees her grown up children do. The daily intimacies that we keep entirely to ourselves. Nobody Knows You Better Than I Do is an ongoing project which asks the question “What are your habits and rituals?” The video component of the project consists of a series of videos created anonymously: people talking about their personal habits, rituals and fears while videoing something of their choice - which is both a conceptual trope and an attempt to maintain anonymity while providing an interesting backdrop for their stories. The text on the window tells nine anonymous stories in gocco-printed repetition - the quotes were sourced from a Google search about 'weird habits'."
Anyone can participate in the project and videos, audio or text-based confessions can be sent anonymously to: GPO Box 325 Hobart 7001 Tasmania.
08 January 2008
GRACE McQUILTEN
Grace McQuilten
Ilynx (detail)
(photographic details, newspaper print)
© 2008
Ilynx is a simple proposition in a city where everything is for sale. In public space, we are confronted, at every turn, with images designed to make us want something, designed to make us feel lacking somehow. Ilynx is a public art project that explores this problem in the form of a full-scale newspaper that subverts the strategies of free tabloid, MX. The difference is that Ilynx has nothing to sell, and its only purpose is to draw attention to human sensation in a world of synthetic desire. 5,000 copies of the paper were distributed at peak hour on public transport and in major city intersections throughout the City of Melbourne on New Year’s Eve. The exhibition contains extracts from the newspaper along with original photographs and images of details of human intimacy – skin on skin, embraces, hands, lines of text that question the material desires we take for granted along with images that capture the subliminal regulations and controls in our city streets.
— Grace McQuilten
Ilynx will be on display in the main Platform cabinets throughout January 2008. See Unidentified for more.
01 January 2008
JOSEFINE KRISTENSEN
Josefine Kristensen
Lifestyle Choice? The Can Series
(digital render, photographic print, lightbox)
© 2008
These works question consumerism and the concept of homosexuality being a lifestyle choice. Using a well known consumer product that is marketed worldwide brings to light how advertising appeals to the longings of consumers and in turn questions the concept of homosexual love being a "lifestyle choice". The work's conceptual thinking is a comment on society and love. There are three cans that have been labeled with three identities of love and each ask: Do we have a choice on how we feel and who we fall in love with? Do we really have the ability to feel love for any human being? Saying homosexuality is a lifestyle choice implies that love is a choice and is controllable. It implies that both homosexuality and heterosexuality are changeable lifestyles. Wouldn't this mean we could fall in love with whoever we choose? And, wouldn't it imply that we all feel equally homosexual love and heterosexual love? Advertising targets the desires of the consumer and makes products/services desirable by appealing to the sensibilities of the consumer. Wouldn't then advertising use homosexual scenarios just as much as heterosexual scenarios to target consumers if we had a choice and were able to feel equally homosexual and heterosexual love?
— Josefine Kristensen
On display at Vitrine in Degraves Street Subway Melbourne throughout January as part of Queer City in the Midsumma Festival 2008.
16 December 2007
2008 ARTISTS
We are excited to announce the artists and curators selected as part of our 2008 Program.
ADRIAN CAON // BERNADETTE TRENCH // BRAD HAYLOCK // BRIAN McKINNON // CATHERINE SEWELL // CECILIA FOGLEBERG // CEZARY STULGIS // DANIEL DORALL // DANIEL GREEN // DAVID MAHLER // DOMINIQUE MITCHELSON // EBON BOWTELL // ELOISE PEACE // ERICA TARQUINIO // GRACE McQUILTEN // GREG DICKSON // HIROMI TANGO // JEN ADDISON // JESSIE BORRELLE // JODY CLEAVER // JOSEFINE KRISTENSEN // KATE SMITH // KATY BOWMAN // KUBOTA FUMIKAZU // LIA TABRAH // LORI KIRK // LUKE HUTCHINSON // LUKE SINCLAIR // MADELINE FARRUGIA // OBJECTS IN SPACE // PAUL MOSIG // PAUL SPENCE // PIP STAFFORD // QUEER STREET ARTISTS // RACHEL PEACHEY // ROSIE KAVANAVOCH // SHARON WEST // SIMON PERICICH // STEPHANIE NEOH // TANIA SMITH // TAPE PROJECTS // TREVOR FLINN.
Opening Nights for the 2008 Program will be held on the first Friday 6-8pm each month!
ADRIAN CAON // BERNADETTE TRENCH // BRAD HAYLOCK // BRIAN McKINNON // CATHERINE SEWELL // CECILIA FOGLEBERG // CEZARY STULGIS // DANIEL DORALL // DANIEL GREEN // DAVID MAHLER // DOMINIQUE MITCHELSON // EBON BOWTELL // ELOISE PEACE // ERICA TARQUINIO // GRACE McQUILTEN // GREG DICKSON // HIROMI TANGO // JEN ADDISON // JESSIE BORRELLE // JODY CLEAVER // JOSEFINE KRISTENSEN // KATE SMITH // KATY BOWMAN // KUBOTA FUMIKAZU // LIA TABRAH // LORI KIRK // LUKE HUTCHINSON // LUKE SINCLAIR // MADELINE FARRUGIA // OBJECTS IN SPACE // PAUL MOSIG // PAUL SPENCE // PIP STAFFORD // QUEER STREET ARTISTS // RACHEL PEACHEY // ROSIE KAVANAVOCH // SHARON WEST // SIMON PERICICH // STEPHANIE NEOH // TANIA SMITH // TAPE PROJECTS // TREVOR FLINN.
Opening Nights for the 2008 Program will be held on the first Friday 6-8pm each month!
10 December 2007
C.I.A.
C.I.A. (aka Caitlin Muscat, Irene Finkelde and Adrianna Fullerton) have installed their new collaborative photographic installation in the main subway space in Platform's final show for 2007. The C.I.A. crew have created a vast body of underwater photography featuring themselves and models submerged in full dress. Each of the cabinets feature a number of intensely colourful and glossy photographs backed with a composite strips of waves. This exhibition is supported by the City of Melbourne's Arts Grants and is a perfect show to end the year on – keeping the idea of water in people's minds as we face another potentially dry summer.
09 December 2007
KATE MCNEILL
Kate McNeill is our final Vitrine artist for the year, installing an exposé on the thoughts of visitors in a women's bathroom. Having documented the private thoughts of people in this semi-private/public space, Kate assembled a small selection of quotes which she reproduced by stitching mirrored cotton text into sheets of newspaper. These statements have been mounted on metal boards and hung facing opposite the Vitrine mirrors to allow viewers to read the reflections the right way around. Blue lights and the austere style of Kate's installation both provide that public amenity feeling that somehow inspires people to inscribe their deepest fears and desires for strangers to read.
03 December 2007
SELINA HALIM & JAN RYAN
Selina Halim and Janita Ryan have collaborated to produce the final Sample show at Platform for the year. Ain't No Thing as a Sanity Clause is a tongue-in-cheek Christmas installation and appears at first to be a colourful and festive window display, replete with flashing lights, santas and reindeers. On closer inspection, however, the installation contains powerful imagery referencing Australia's position on post-colonialism, indigenous rights and the destructive forces at play in the world that often lie hidden within the commodification of belief.
14 November 2007
ANNA NILSSON
Anna Nilsson's Things I Worry About solo show at Platform saw her aviophobic collection of images and text installed throughout the subway cases. Each work included a story about fear-inducing flight scenarios; everything from the look of the pilots to crashing in the Bermuda Triangle. Accompanying each text work were intricate scenes of real life airline disaster recoveries, each meticulously cut out in black card silhouettes. A brave installation about confronting personal fears, we're now hoping this exhibition has given Anna all the incentive she needs to fly out in the New Year.
03 November 2007
MARIAH KORDZADZE
Mariah Kordzadze's recent collection of urban explorations touches a playful and fantastical side of the city. These colourful photographs in the Majorca windows were taken in the surrounding streets and laneways, demonstrating an ongoing interest many our artists have in locating their practice in the physicality of the inner city locales such as our friends at nearby Citylights Projects.
02 November 2007
IZABELA PLUTA & PAOLO MACCHIA
Izabela Pluta and Paolo Macchia managed to squeeze in a Vitrine show during their recent trip to Melbourne (they ran simultaneous shows at both West Space and Sutton Gallery). The installation work at Vitrine tested the development of blue dyed crystals absorbed up nylon stocking that were suspended from the ceiling. The collaborative duo were interested in the constrasts between the soft textures of the fabric with the artificial colours of the growing crystals and offset this with frottaged pavement plans on the back wall.
04 October 2007
TESS MILNE
Tess Milne's highly detailed solo show at the main Platform space in October consisted of large photographic documentation from a journey though the streets surrounding Platform. Tess first explored the area, taking photos and making sketches of detail views from the subway and underground train station entrance at the southern end of the subway, as well as the cafes, shops, and laneways in the Flinders Lane precinct. The laborious element of A Long Detour was the fact that the exhibited works were actually photographs of the artist's cardboard and plasticine models that even included tiny shopfronts, street signs and the lone visitor on her journey. The sheer detail and precise perspective of these works were a pleasant surprise to many of the people who pass through the subway every day.
03 October 2007
DALE NASON & SARAH BUNTING
Dale Nason and Sarah Bunting's collaborative Vitrine show, Free Meat Economy, set some stomachs turning with their complex installation exploring the sugary surface of an otherwise environmentally destructive Australian economy. Defying the space limitations in Vitrine, the duo managed to install a large-scale butchers block in the small window space with a massive rotating zero dollar coin. The red backdrop was offset with collage style faces and a set of video pieces that examined the results of ongoing road kill. For a special performance piece next to the Vitrine window, Dale and Sarah dressed in pineapple printed gowns and made meat ice-cream to their own accompanying soundtrack.
02 October 2007
JAN RIDDEL
Jan Riddel's Been Nowhere Done Nothin' is one of our more favourite works to appear in the Majorca windows on Centre Place. Presented as part of the International Day of Older Persons, Jan's humorous take on t-shirt fashion culture offered a quick fix to passers by but also contained a slight warning about the absence of older people from contemporary culture. By using humour and appropriating the fashion styles of the surrounding boutiques, Jan offered an easy entry into an issue that is only going to become more relevant as Australia's aging population increases in the coming years.
05 September 2007
MAGDALENA PEREYRA & LYNDAL PEAKE
Platform's main show for September featured Magdalena Pereyra and Lyndal Peake who presented a fantastical side show collection. Magdalena's handmade creatures included a bearded lady, a Hindi illusionist, two-headed skeletons, a bird lady and many others, each handstitched in various fabrics and materials. This subject matter may normally be passed over as part of a circus affair but were here lovingly portrayed with intricate detail almost like a family history (not Maggie's!). Lyndal's hand-drawn backdrops of bold decorative frames stretched to fill each of the back walls and brought each of the works together as a complete, albeit highly unusual, collection.
03 September 2007
LEO GREENFIELD & ELIANA SCHOULAL
Leo Greenfield and Eliana Schoulal presented two shows across Vitrine and Sample during September and October. The first installation at Vitrine, The Demonic Pop Baroque, showed a series of digitally altered photographs exploring the masculine/feminine presentation of the human body. Leo acts as model in these and other works shown at Platform, combining theatrical and bejeweled facial decorations to create characters that could well be from the baroque period were they in a form other than photographic. A follow up show at Sample presented further images from the series, presented within the cabinet that was decorated with patterned hand-drawn wallpaper based on details from the photographs.
02 September 2007
MATTHEW O'SHANNESSY
Matthew O'Shannessy's Majorca show, Systems of Paradise, featured three large-scale photographic studies of destroyed work environments. Offering a harsh contrast with the types of offices associated with everyday business, these photographs explored the destitute and decayed nature of spatial constructions when they are abandoned for greener pastures. Collapsed ceilings, broken windows, and leftover tools allowed a loose narrative to inform these postmodern-aesthetic works.
30 August 2007
MUDFEST
During August, Platform's sites were taken over by Mudfest 10 – The University of Melbourne student union arts festival that somehow has managed to continue it's fine creative tradition across the city despite the debilitating cuts from VSU. Curated by the talented Anusha Kenny, this group show features work exploring this year's theme 'text/pattern'. Artists in this show entitled 'Separately Together' include Bonnie Lane, Ilia Rosli, Fiona Hillary, Kate O’Hara, Ben Landau and Claire Roberts, who have each filled the display cases with sugar, flouro signs, paintings, photography and even a bubble machine! A stand out work at Vitrine by Ebony Hickey has been one of our favourites this year (pictured). You can check out the Visual Arts Program for Mudfest10 here.
30 July 2007
RICHARD HOLT
Richard Holt graced the subway once again with his Words & Pictures solo show in July. Richard created a series of narrative-style works in complementary mediums including digital photography, painting, drawing and text. Richard is a founder of Platform and is now Urban Art Officer for the City of Port Phillip.
ASH KEATING
Ash Keating made a guest reappearance at Platform in July with his latest advertising monster moving into the Vitrine window. Ash hijacked rolls of printed vinyl window dressing to redress the subway cabinet in a reflective ad-jack. Check Ash's profile at Dianne Tanzer Gallery.
06 July 2007
BETHANY J FELLOWS
Bethany J Fellows raised the bar on performance art (or at least shoved it sideways) with her taco-fest at Platform on Thursday 5 July. Bethany presented the event to accompany her drawings at Majorca Building (on show throughout July). Driven to distraction by dreams and images of actress Helen Hunt, Bethany continued her notorious celebrity face off by throwing 97 freshly made tacos at a huge photo of the academy award winner. For more information about this and other pieces by Bethany J Fellows see her blog.
28 June 2007
CHOIR OF HARD KNOCKS
The hugely successful ABC-TV series, The Choir of Hard Knocks, descended on the subway in June in full colour and for a special live public performance. The Choir were singing to mark the opening of Chris Beck's photographic exhibition showing until 6 July, featuring some of the performers as well as choir founder Jonathan Welch (pictured here with his conducting hand disappearing!). Thanks to Alison Kenter and her team from ABC-TV and especially to the Choir members for taking time out of their busy Melbourne Town Hall-Sydney Opera House sellout season to visit our humble underground. When we arranged this last year we had no idea it would be so big!
THÉRÉSE DERRICK
Thérése Derrick's solo painting show, Men We Love, was another bumper opening at Platform. Many of the celeb faces to appear in Thérése's portraits showed up in person on the night including: Danius Kesminas (pictured), Justin Koschitzke, Eddie Perfect, Dave Hughes, Jon Campbell and quite a few others who mingled into the crowd just nicely. The life-size portraits were painted on board in monotones using flat housepaints, creating a warm watercolour effect. As Thérése is currently travelling in Europe, but you can expect to see her at an upcoming Archibald soon... Read The Age article on Thérése: Portrait of the man as a love object.
PHOEBE KALAITZIS
In a return visit to Platform, Phoebe Kalaitzis has installed a new series of tape paintings in the Sample window. Framing the whole suite of works in black tape, Phoebe's latest series is stripped back in colour (red, black, silver and yellow) and they show her increasing control of medium. The works are also notable for their changing three dimensional qualities, something that Phoebe explored in her solo show at Platform back in February.
27 June 2007
BLYTHE TOLL
Blythe Toll's knitted mixed tapes have turned a few heads at Vitrine in the subway during June. Not content with simply throwing away her outdated video and audio cassettes, Blythe removed all the magnetic tape then, using old knitting patterns, reworked it into a set of family outfits. This image shows The Flash Dance, Dirty Dancing and E.T. Jumper. Blythe is the first artist at Platform to literally wear their entire 1980s video collection! Read the Craft Culture article about Blythe's Endless Scarf.
31 May 2007
IN HOUSE
Christina Hayes' ambitious IN HOUSE group show of solo paintings installed in customised interiors was one of our biggest shows to date. Consisting of 15 individually constructed sets, a laborious collaborative process was designed by Christina, a painter and curator, with her sister Esther and a group of talented production design graduates from the VCA. The highly detailed installations created to house Christina's thematic portraits crossed both cultural and temporal boundaries. Read The Program story here and visit the In House website.
RACHEL ANG + MISCHA BAKA
May saw the second appearance by Rachel Ang in the Sample window as a collaboration with fellow artist Mischa Baka. The duo expanded on some of the ideas presented in Rachel's first dollhouse piece in April, devling into notions of feminine and masculine space and the Australian psyche. The mixed media installation presented a darkened landspace of forest, garden and little house, inhabited by a doll with illuminated hands who moved around the space over the course of the month.
30 May 2007
ANJELKA BAZDARIC
Anjelka Bazdaric's wild text-based performance in May saw the lights surrounding our Vitrine site in the subway plunged into darkness while the flashes from cameras outside lit up the scene inside. Anjelka – who works in painting, written and spoken word – covered the four by two metre glass windows in handwritten poetry and protest, industrial sounds pumped out from inside the space where a lifesize box jellyfish thrashed dangerously in the corner. A truly underground performance that drew complaints from shopkeepers and our hearty applause!
29 May 2007
KATE GILBERT
Melbourne painter Kate Gilbert employed an art povera style of presentation for her latest series of studio works. Showing around 50 small sketches and paintings at our Majorca site, Kate decided to tear up her sketchbooks and show the work in the glass cabinets on Centre Place in an organic transition from studio to gallery.
09 May 2007
MAKING SPACE LAUNCH
The launch of Making Space was a massive hit with hundreds of people rocking down to the subway on the evening of Friday 27 April. The night was officially opened with speeches from the Senator George Brandis, federal minister for the arts; Penny Hutchinson, director of Arts Victoria; and Zara Stanhope, senior curator of Heide Museum of Modern Art. There are many people to thank for helping Making Space launch so smoothly: Simon Maidment (director of West Space), Brett Jones (founder of VIA-n), Stuart Koop and Lainie Kluska (from Arts Victoria), Elyjah McLeod (event coordinator), Tim (our guest DJ from Wax Museum), plus our many volunteers who helped the night. Check out the ThreeThousand story and pics of some hot kids from the launch.
05 April 2007
SHRINE ON! YOU CRAZY DIAMOND
A major group show at Platform as part of the Making Space program, Shrine On! is curated by Poloni and Borrelle, and features artists who have an established practice as part of artist-run initiatives in Melbourne. Artists to feature in this show include: Anna-Maria O’Keeffe, Kit Wise, Amanda Schembri, Louise Harper, Matthew Shannon, Lou Hubbard, Warren Fithie, Jacques Soddell, Ruth Johnstone, Spiros Panigirakis, Rachael Hooper, Din Heagney, Anita King, Luke Sinclair and Andrew Seward. On show until the 4 May, Shrine On! will be launching as part of the Making Space event and publication launch at Platform from 6-8pm on Friday 27 April.
SONYA NAGELS
Melbourne photographer Sonya Nagels has installed a new series of portraits at Majorca Building (on the corner of Centre Place and Flinders Lane). The series of six works feature portraits of her friends taken at twilight in the same location. Entitled We're Not That Young Anymore Sonya has brought the series together by wallpapering the three glass cases. On until the end of April.
KATY BOWMAN
Katy Bowman has extended her time with us at Platform, producing an intense colourful installation in the Vitrine space (opposite the barber) in the Degraves subway. Katy's work consists of an orange curtain backdrop with an LED tube sign saying Aha! next to a gold gilt mirror that shows a reverse message. Katy has covered the floor in furry faux grass and highlighted the entire space with stage lights. On until the end of April.
RACHEL ANG
Rachel Ang, an undergraduate fine art student at the VCA, is our second SAMPLE artist for the year. Rachel's installation features a handmade doll's house veiled behind a transparent curtain onto which Rachel has stictched the words My Space as a realtime reference to personal space often defined in cyber terms. On show in the single cabinet space (next to the coffee kiosk) in the Degraves subway until the end of April.
27 March 2007
SYLVIA JEFFRIES
Despite censorship laws about public art works, painter Sylvia Jeffries has managed to flash parts of her latest series, Return to Boulimos, at the Majorca Building cabinets unscathed during March. The works are part of a larger fantasy series that show scenes from Sylvia's personalised world of physical bodies, fluids, excrements and anatomical forms, as well as the strange characters, like the Duchess of Pork, who appear in starring roles. Finely detailed, occasionally disturbing and extremely fresh, Sylvia's work is among our personal favourites to appear at Platform.
KATY BOWMAN
Katy Bowman's Dead Men's Clothes has been a hit show as part of the L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival Cultural Program. Featuring 15 cabinets of deceased estate clothes and objects remade into individual art works, the morbid-sounding work is actually presented as a celebration of life and a reminder that little remains of us once we shuffle off our mortal coils. On until March 30. If you miss this show don't fret, we've convinced Katy to stay with us one more month to produce a new installation at Vitrine for April.
JESSYE WDOWIN-MCGREGOR
Frankston artist Jessye Wdowin-McGregor has appeared in March as our debut Sample artist. The Sample window (formerly one of the main Platform cabinets) has been set aside to showcase younger artists (15-25). Jessye's large photomedia print on canvas presents a split image made up of a large suburban dream home pool offset with shadow play that offers a glimpse into a past childhood or dream. Applications for late 2007 and early 2008 Sample shows are still open.
NAOMI TETTMANN
Naomi Tettmann's latest creation has appeared in Vitrine, the new Platform window space, during March to coincide with the L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival. Naomi's couture dress features hundreds of gold threads that she has hand loop-stitched through the bodice which is backed with a feathered bustle. The piece has been suspended horizontally in Vitrine – breaking the convention of fashion presentation and giving a distinct lightness to the installation.
03 March 2007
COLLECTIONS IN THE UNDERGROUND
Anita King's curated fashion parade and part of the L'Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival, Collections in the Underground launched last Saturday 3 March. It was our biggest audience since we took over Platform last year. Hundreds of fashionistas (and quite a few spunks) crammed into the subway following a humid 36 degree day that, along with the floor parade lights, turned the subway into an underground sauna! Despite the heat and sweat and lack of much-needed fans, our dedicated models flashed off new ranges from local independent fashion labels Queen, a name is a label, and Bird Girl. Big thanks to our tech crew including Dan (lighting), DC (video) and Luke (music). A collection of images by Jeanna Bajic (including the one featured here) will be showcased in a new exhibition currently being planned.
22 February 2007
KELLIE O'DEMPSEY
Flying through town on her way to Cambodia, live action painter Kellie O'Dempsey returned to Melbourne for a one w