Manumunah

Adam Cullen's controversial Blake Prize entry

The Artswipe presents a guest blog by Deborah Browne from Sydney:

Mr Cullen, the Enfant Terrible of the upper Blue Mountains managed to get many tongues wagging last week by inadvertently causing a stir with his Blake Prize entry, Only Women Bleed. Being such a stranger to publicity and the press, Cullen made the terrible error of exclaiming there shouldnt be a fuss about the picture as it was "It's just a Jew on the cross".

The controversy didn't seem to be so much to do with the religious iconography as much as about pannelist Dr Christopher Allen having a major chewy spit and resigning after being over-ridden by fellow panellists.

What the press didn't report on though, was the REAL reason for Allen's disgusting resignation. Apparently Allen couldn't work out why a picture of Jim Henson's 'Animal', from the Muppets, could possibly be regarded as fine art, especially given the other Henson's recent drama at Oxley's. "No more celebration of paedophilia" he cried as angry students swamped his modest NAS office.

Meanwhile, Cullen sat in his icy mountain hideaway feeling smugly warm from a vodka and press-induced euphoria, wrapped in the front page of the SMH and claiming "now that's Art, that is".

Work Experience

Something for Kate

Um hey, firstly let me just say I'm not actually The Artswipe... I'm just here on work experience. My name's Memphys, I am in Year 11. I haven't really got long to write as The Artswipe has just gone down the road to get us some battered savs for lunch - extra chicken salt. Anyway, my careers advisor said that I was suited for working in the public arena so here I am. I was really excited at first because I thought I could go down to Channel Nine and work with my Uncle Gavan; he's the audience warm-up guy for Mornings With Kerrie-Ann. But Uncle Gavan said that I was a bit too emo for Kerrie Ann's audience. I guess he would know.

So now I'm alone at The Artswipe nerve centre. Some of the the stuff lying around in here is a bit random. There is a lot of really bad posters on the walls. One says "Welcome to my Wonderworld" and has a picture of some guy kissing a dog. On The Artswipe's fridge is a picture of a monkey eating a banana and sitting on the toilet. But I've been keeping myself busy playing with the velcro dart-board (velcro balls instead of actual darts). There is a scoreboard next to it. That disturbs me a bit. Isn't this site a solo operation? Whatever.

But I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing here. The Artswipe hasn't really left me anything to do. I just came back from boiling the jug before and there was a ball of Blu-Tack about the size of a mango on the table. I have been going around the walls and using it to clean off old crusty Blu-Tack bits. I think that's what it's for.

But this place has something to do with art (apparently), so I thought I'd turn my hand to something creative. I've been working on a Blu-Tack relief sculpture around the door frame. I'm not really sure how it's going to turn out but at the moment it's a sculpture of two dresses fighting. One is Kate Ritchie's Logies dress (Gold Logie, 2008) and the other looks a bit like my cousin's winter school uniform...just not brown.

Anyway, because of some of the el-cheapo 'Yello-Tak' (?!) that has infected my media, Kate Ritchie looks a bit like she has either pissed herself or is giving birth to giant yellow tapeworms. Perhaps I will call it Piss Kate. As it happens we studied Andres Serrano at school last semester. I don't know what the fuss was all about. My mum got locked in the laundry for a whole weekend once when dad took us kids to Movieworld; she filled a whole Brita water filter with wee.

So I think The Artswipe will be back soon, the shops are just up the road. I'd better go, I think I can smell battered savs. Plus it's mufti day next Monday and I have to start thinking of something to wear.