Long neck in a paper bag - Look - Melbourne Art Galleries
People who say that there is no such thing as bad art are lying. LOOK takes an objective view of the subjective world and, with a free drink in our hand, guides you through Melbourne's best galleries and art exhibitions. From institutions to artist-run initiatives, installation to illustration, photography to painting, LOOK is an ongoing document of Melbourne's ever engaging and growing arts culture.
Jon Campbell, 'Folk Songs'
Artist and musician Jon Campbell has a delicate constitution and a nose for the important things in life. First felony: prima facie and to wit, commenting on his new painting Cheap Perfume and Fried Dim Sims Mr Campbell says, "At Flinders Street Station you can buy take-away food from a little kiosk on the platform.
Sweet Ride, the BFF art show
I'm sure the gym has its benefits, what with the treadmills and the headbands and the towels, but it's always been puzzling to me why you'd fork out to go to such a place when there are these wonderful inventions called bicycles which keep you fit and get you places, all the while forcing you to interact with the rest of the world and have crazy adventures.
*Tastes Self*
Goin' up the country - still don't give a fuck. *Tastes Self* is psychocowpunkhorseshitmentaldrama dredged from the childhoods of the sprite-sized Kate Smith and the benign sorcerer Alex Vivian. Introduced at Kate's first show at Utopian Slumps, Whoops Kibbutz, the pair got chatting - just like the yokels they aren't - about growing up in lower NSW's bucolic Riverina and all that pastoral goodness.
Room Service exhibition launch
A show by Melbourne artists who, at some point, have all found themselves isolated in hotel rooms. So who are they? Witnesses against the mob? Ivana trump's spare hair? No! They're a merry band of Serps and friends, including the magical Martin Bell, in a multi-room show curated by Johann Rashid.
This, of course, is not the Waverley Inn.
CROSS COLOURING
Sir Clement Freud went to New Zealand in 1978. When I asked the old sauce what he thought, he replied, "I find it hard to say, because when I was there it seemed to be shut."
I went to Joint Hassles this year and when my editor asked me for my art review, I replied, "I will find it hard to write that Michelle, because when I was there it seemed to have closed due to Northcote rent hikes.
'TS2' by Slow Art Collective
Eighties kids TV series Fraggle Rock always was ripe for Marxist analysis. The Doozers are obviously the proletariat, and the Fraggles represent an apolgetic for first world capitalism (Doozers LIKE being exploited). Gorgs are a stupid (inbred) Old World aristocracy. The wise, all-knowing Trash Heap is none other than Mother Earth, representing historical inevitability - the environment and the in-built obsolescence of an unsustainable capitalist economy.
Flippin Heck! Jess Johnson & Jordy Marani
Art openings can be incredibly awkward affairs. You bumble in all enthusiastic and laughy, only to be met by a sea of quickly averted eyes and icy silence, prompting a diary check to make sure you haven't stumbled across a meeting of the Uptight Pricks Alliance.
Hell Gallery openings are more relaxed affairs, with lots of pleasant distractions such as music, dancing, movies and barbecued snags, all of which are generally frowned upon in the art world.
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