Sunday, April 27, 2008

Stomach Liner

The Artswipe
Fluff, 2008
Endurance performance
Courtesy Coles

The Artswipe discovered a new nutritious product this week. It's called Fluff and it is available at your local Coles for approx $3.29. I've used it to line my stomach before drinking cask wine served at Firstdraft last Wednesday night. For those of you who haven't seen the Firstdraft show, don't worry about it, you'll get over it, we always do in the end.

Fluff came in handy that night (I didn't spew once!) and it's bound to come in handy this week as another circuit party of art openings are almost upon us (Roslyn Oxley9, James Dorahy, MOP, Chalkhorse and probably more). The Artswipe plans on being present at all of them, with Fluff in hand.

The one that has really piqued my interest is
Oblivion Pavilion, a group show at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery featuring several emerging type artists, most of whom make art with a "naive" sensibility - something particularly in vogue at present. Oblivion Pavilion includes Marley Dawson, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Matthew Hopkins, Emily Hunt, Tim Schultz, Raquel Welch and is curated by Amanda Rowell. In case you've misplaced your dream dictionary (I left mine on a bus last week) don't fret, the exhibition statement for Oblivion Pavilion makes a handy proxy:

Gonadal inclination is on the decline in the original amusement zone. The slumbering brainchild is concussed and abandons all pre-programmed language to riddles. We are left to process life’s rich pageant with dumbed-down neuronal and emotional apparatus and tinker with schizophrenic tools in order to assemble meaning. Memorials -- flashbacks in the story department -- are witnesses to system’s upheaval. Imagination compensates across the memory gap.

Amidst the ruin, the thought factory, a mechanical and apparently risk-laden contraption processes incessantly. It conveys discrepancies between work and play, a nuts-and-bolts-type scenario constructed via the difference between effort and effortlessness, alternating between building an empire against and giving in to sometimes agreeable, sometimes disagreeable forces.

The subject is adrift in a world not firmly located. Substance and the limits and comparative scales of things are fully negotiable. Fluids emanate from the medium. Eggs, classical architecture etc. are equally fragile forms. The structure of the eye is part of the structure of the brain. In a fit of decoration, architecture gives birth to furniture.

Language is architecture. The variable product of the combinative function. Mottos are props, signposts by which to navigate personal inclinations and flag sympathies within the heart of things. A face – an edifice – answers a question. It adorns the gates of exalted memories. It rearranges things to find new meaning. Living has been only due to the kindness of others.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know, I wish I had lined my stomach with that Fluff stuff before reading that exhibition statement. This pseudo-intellectual, post-hippie lit is even more nauseating than the current trend of naive art which it props up. I challenge ANYONE to translate, in simple terms, what that statement is about.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if Grace Slick is undercutting their prices.






E.S. Hair

Skanky Jane said...

I liked this bit:

'Mottos are props, signposts by which to navigate personal inclinations and flag sympathies'

I think that's what it is about, (something for everyone) - about nothing in particular and everything in general.

What a product find though! Talk about gold!

SJ xx

Anonymous said...

i saw this dreadful show at gertrude street gallery in melbourne a month back -- horrible -- one artist bangs himself in the head with a hammer and that's what the show is like in general -- a badly installed dogs breakfast - horrid, loud, clanking, annoying, gouche, filled with monumental self importance -- i didn't even bother reading the press release then now i wish i hadn't -- thanks artswipe - i want some complimentary fluff for suffering through that ..... aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

Anonymous said...

I love the word 'spew'.

Anonymous said...

Hi My name is FLUFFY, but you can call me Fleerrrrfff.
I'm a fluffer for artists, how's that for irony?