Death Snub

Phew, just as well the Hollywood writer's strike is over. I was finding it really hard to write for fear of being called a "strikebreaker!" I hate upsetting my peers from the Academy, they're a delicate breed. Celebrating with a quiet flute of bubbly, I watched the Oscars last night and realised that every year I watch mainly because I love the bit where they dim the lights and fire up that good old PowerPoint presentation of dead Hollywood people. If the Oscars are all about your measure of worth in the entertainment industry, then the annual three minute Oscar clip-fest memorialising dead stars is the ultimate test for who we love best. (And if your footage gets slow motion treatment you've really tugged at our heartstrings). In November 2006 Artswipe wrote a tribute for Adrienne Shelley who achieved arthouse cinema fame for acting and directing in her brief lifetime. On Oscar night last year Shelley was not honoured in the death montage. What a crime against cinema.

With this in mind, I was looking forward to the Oscars this year to see how big Heath Ledger's applause would be and whether young actor Brad Renfro (Apt Pupil, Bully, The Client), who died of a heroin overdose a week before Ledger, would get his moment of Oscar hagiography. Much like I anticipated, Renfro was excluded. Since the Oscars were televised the global press has been buzzing with news of Renfro's "Oscar snub". Once you would have expected such a headline to be reserved for that illustrious actor who was cheated out of a much deserved nomination (say Matthew McConaughey for his performance in Fools Gold or Mandy Moore for Because I Said So).

As for Ledger, he was honoured last in the presentation and the applause was deafening. If they had cut back to the audience you would have seen a pre-ad break standing ovation that after a few heartfelt minutes would subside for the bit in the night where an animated character presents an award.

Notes on a Vandal

The Artswipe

I Can Eat Cake with Ellen, 2007

Mixed media installation

Unfortunately, the 79th Oscars did not prove Artswipe's psychic ability. With only nine categories correct in my Oscar party predictions, I had no other choice but to eat cake with Ellen. As she was so desperately unfunny in her hosting ability I later threw it in her face. Damn it, if I had remembered Melissa Etheridge sang the song for An Inconvenient Truth, I'd have surely guessed that one because lesbian is so hot this year along with Oscar's ridiculously racist ode to all cultures great and small. This year's focus on nominations over winners just demonstrated how despite our differences, we're all winners. Bless.

Anyway kids, see you next year at Oscar's 80th. Meanwhile you can see me at the local community hall practicing my contemporary shapeshifting shadow dancing. This week we're taking the Twin Towers as our inspiration. I might wear my Crash Parties, Not Buildings outfit.

Postscript: after publishing this post, I commissioned Skanky Jane to produce an animated GIF image of Artswipe's Oscar predictions merging ever so psychedelically with the actual outcome. It can be seen below in the Prize Queen post as I replaced the old image of the Oscar predictions with a kind of Before and After extravaganza. Thanks SJ!

Prize Queen

The Artswipe

"In addition to God and the studio, I'd like to thank Skanky Jane for making

this animated GIF of Artswipe's Oscar predictions vs the actual outcome", 2007

New New Media

"Artswipe also hopes to do a quick run around town and take in some art shows in their last days, to stave off that bitter feeling of neglect art experiences during the Christmas shut down. Maybe even shed some Oscar tips."

So were the concluding remarks of Artswipe's first blog post for the year. Some art shows were viewed but I just didn't see anything worth the words that hadn't already been uttered somewhere else. That prize show The Anne Landa Award exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW was quite festive, and certainly more interesting than it was the year before. But while Monika Tichacek deserved her win for the (now rather old) video work The Shadowers (2004), the hype and scandal publicly aroused by her lesbo-sadomasochistic work made me less responsive to it on second viewing (I first saw it at Artspace in 2005 and became an instant fan).

What interested me, seeing it in the hallowed context of an art prize at the AGNSW, was how The Shadowers - perhaps to its detriment - stood out because Tichacek was the only female artist represented among a group of seven video and new media artists. But maybe the gender inequity was abated by the surplus of female energy contextualising Tichacek's work. After all, The Shadowers was a piece about female desire and queer sexuality produced by a woman (Monika Tichacek, with some help from performers Aña Wojak and Rosanna Mastroianni). Then it is curated by a woman (Natasha Bullock) into an art prize exhibition named in honour of a woman (Anne Landa).

Usually I tire of the very gender stocktaking I've just outlined because politically correct divisionism is, like, so 1995, but it seems a suited observation in retrospect because the boys represented are such boys. Really, the encircling gangbang of male artists at the Anne Landa Award was so pungent with the whiff of blueballs, soccer practice and dickcheese that it was a relief to be in Tichacek's black curtained safe place... No wonder she sews her legs together. Any self-respecting woman would.

There it is, Artswipe promised an art review. The Anne Landa Award closed on the 11 February. Hope you got to see it. I'm certainly a better person after seeing Tony Schwensen's nipples in yet another absurd performance video situation. If you're now pissed you missed it, let me know and I'll lend you my copy of the $25 catalogue.

If the Anne Landa Award stoked your inner prize queen, then hop along to my favourite opening night of the year. It's The Academy Awards aka Oscars (just in case you didn't know). It's not curated by anyone that I know of. Artswipe did promise some Oscar tips, and this year Artswipe's done some homework and seen a lot of the films. After the last few posts I've indeed realised what a celebrity-themed February it has been. So much so that Aquarians and Pisceans are so fucking cool in that Britney-esque way right now, wading the complex depths of a glittering hirsute ocean. Bid or Buy it Now.

If you can't get tickets to the Oscars, it's best you don't ask because they don't offer freebies to volunteers like the organisers of The Biennale of Sydney. My recommendation is you make your own little gift bag and watch on TV. It's very democratic that way and TV is the people's medium. My video artist friends may want to watch it as a 3 channel dvd installation, that's up to you.

Why did I pick my picks? Leonardo DiCaprio as best actor because he's as cute as a button. Starring in Blood Diamond and The Departed, he really did work hard. Leo's made like at least five movies now since What's Eating Gilbert Grape. What a working class man. Maybe Alan Arkin as Supporting Actor because he's old. Definitely Helen Mirren because everyone says so - indeed, she's the ultimate Prize Queen. I suppose Jennifer Hudson as Supporting Diva because we need to think for a minute we're at The Grammys instead of perhaps the abortion clinic they call American Idol.

Scorsese will win for The Departed because I don't think he's ever won before. Babel has to get something - it does critique American gun cultures and terror-inspired politics in an ever-so-ambiguously-even-handed manner that it might just be this year's Crash (Best Picture Oscar 2005). Does that mean Babel could be Best Picture? I hope so. If not it will get one of the throwaway awards from the two Screenplay categories.

Notes on a Scandal should get the other Screenplay award, simply because it was so nasty. The Philip Glass score may win for Notes on a Scandal, because Academy voters may cast an intertextual vote this year. Meaning, Philip Glass scored The Hours. The Hours was about Virginia Woolf. Notes on a Scandal makes numerous smartypants references to Woolf throughout. Notes on a Scandal is really in such Room of One's Own that it is Artswipe's personal pick for the Best Picture - even if it's not nominated in that category. But then again, it's all about women's business and like Monika Tichacek's The Shadowers, it's got enough deliciously amoral lesbian ingredients to warrant a major Australian art prize. An Oscar, perhaps not.