Terrible Twos

The Artswipe

BRB 2008

la-bamba print, ed: limited

Courtesy Google Images

The Artswipe turns two next week (on the 21st June). I am a Biennale baby - born amid culture two years ago. A difficult birth - shat out completely. To celebrate, I'm thinking of just getting away - you know, getting in the car and just driving, far far away. I might even get as far as Kellyville or Kogarah. I'm sure there are Biennale satellite shows happening in such places and I plan on reviewing the shit out of them.

What I'm trying to say, loyal reader, is I am taking leave for a week or two, and will come back with some Biennale of Sydney coverage. From what I've heard, it's a real sense fest. Like the thematic premise goes: it's a revolution that turns. I'm not sure what it "turns into". Perhaps you can tell me, by posting a comment. Go on, "turn me on". Just don't "turn on me". I couldn't bare it.

Issue 3: The School Zone

Art World issue 3

version 1 & version 2

The Artswipe promised not to mention Bill Henson again. I only said that because I expected the whole kiddie-art c-type photo-scandal to have blown over by now. And also because I am so fickle - remember I write these blogs drunk. 

Has anyone read the magazine Art World? I subscribe and so should you. Approximately three days after the Henson scandal erupted, I received issue 3 of Art World in the mail and - God Forbid! - it featured Bill Henson artworks. A detail of the image used on the "offending" invite from Roslyn Oxley69 Gallery that caused the furore in the first place actually made the cover of the magazine. That's it, I'm calling Miranda Devine. Miiiirrraaannnnddddaaaa! Miiiirrraaannnnddddaaaa!

Big thumbs up as they say in critic circles to Art World for being so intuitive and having the insight to be so timely. They have their finger so up the pulsating arsehole of culture, I can barely breathe. Asphyxiation fantasies are popular again - they were a bit ho-hum for awhile there thank you Michael Hutchence. The Artswipe is having a sexual revolution and you're all all invited. I'd send glossly fold out DL invite cards but my budget was given over to rubber life vests.

Back to Art Word magazine and how it contained several of the naughty Henson pictures. Ooh ah. What's this? Today I get Art World in the mail again. This time the cover features spent paint tins. Intriguing to say the least. At first I thought a whole month had passed me by and I had not noticed (such is being in your early-late-mid thirties). But wait, this is issue 3 of Art World "repackagaed" without the "offensive" Hensons. Fuck me gently with a chainsaw! How did this happen? Why has Art World re-issued issue 3? Did the police seize the magazine? I'm shocked. We do live in a Police State.

I have a copy of issue 3 v1 and issue 3 v2 and will be displaying both in vitrines at my place during 40km per hour School Zone afternoon hours (I think its 3-4:30pm? Who knows what the morning hours are?) My Henson appreciation courses will be creative creche pow-wows for the critically finetuned. I may even take to eBay trading. I have several Henson books that are now out of print, and a casual glance in the realm of online auctions reveals that such fodder is very lucrative indeed. I may sell my Art World issue 3 v1 on eBay. That's where I sold my virginity after all.

I was 13 at the time. The first cut is the deepest, as Rod Stewart once said.