Vivien Racault -
Between Plant and Ghost
A POETIC AND CRITICAL FANTASY ABOUT THE NOTION OF EVOLUTION
AND THE RADICAL TRANSFORMATION OF OUR CONSCIOUSNESS.
Past Exhibitions
Alliance Française de Melbourne invites you to Jumbi’s Gendook: ‘Brother in Laws Canoe’ East Gippsland Aboriginal Arts Corporation Visual Arts Launch
on Tuesday 09 February 2010, 6.30pm to 8.30pm
at Eildon Gallery, 51 Grey Street, St Kilda
Exhibition current till 05 March 2010.
Alliance Française de Melbourne | Eildon Gallery
51 Grey Street ST KILDA VIC 3182 | t: 9525 3463
info@afmelbourne.asn.au | www.afmelbourne.asn.au
Mon-Thu: 9.00am to 8.30pm - Fri: 9.00am to 6.00pm - Sat: 9.00am to 4.30pm
East Gippsland Koorie Artists
Lennie Hayes and
Frances Harrison
have crafted with artist mentor,
Gary
Yellen an inspirational canoe of
family memories
and
a series of lino prints
depicting its construction.
Foreign Fields
Richard Wallace
12 Nov to 10 Dec 09
Opening Thu 12 Nov 09, 6.30pm to 8.00pm
AT EILDON GALLERY
51 Grey St, St Kilda
Richard Wallace is a graduate of the Australian National University where he received a scholarship and completed an Honours degree in Fine Arts. His work has been exhibited at various group exhibitions in Australia and also resides in private collections in the United States, Australia and Singapore.
Richard has spent the past four years studying and exhibiting in France and in 2008 became the first Australian artist to be granted a solo exhibition at the prestigious Chateau Villandry in the Loire Valley. The exhibition, which runs from March through to May 2010 will be seen by over a million visitors and is themed as a celebration of the Chateau’s famous renaissance gardens.
***
(RE)mark
11 September – 9 October, 2009
Opening: Thursday 10 september
6.00pm – 8.00pm
AT EILDON GALLERY /
51 GREY STREET, ST KILDA
A GROUP EXHIBITION BY MONASH UNIVERSITY STUDENTS:
REBECCA ROWE
ILKA WHITE
FRANCES VINYCOMB
RENEE COSGRAVE
DEVON ATKINS
RIKI-METISSE MARLOW
VINEGAR TOM
LUCY ROLEFF
TAMZIN KNIGHT
Recipients of the 2008 Alliance Française Prize for Monash University Graduates.
This is the inaugural year that Alliance Française has collaborated with the Faculty of Art & Design at Monash University in selecting students for this graduate show. This exhibition reflects the wide range of approaches to concepts and materials that is encouraged within the Department of Fine Art - from sculpture to painting, from photography to video, from sound to installation. What is evident in these works in that the students have had a strong personal vision and that they have been able to resolve this vision through process and critique.
(re)mark celebrates for these student a re-showing of their graduate works, an opportunity for peer review, an opportunity to leave a trace on our cultural memory.
Enclosure 04 June to 03 July 2009 RACHEL JOY, LEAH MURPHY, LINDA TEGG, and KRISTEN STEEGSTRA Recipients of the 2008 Alliance Française Prize for VCA Graduates
The Exhibtion
This year the Alliance Française de Melbourne renews, once again, its collaboration with the VCA. For several years now, the Alliance Française de Melbourne has been offering selected VCA graduates the possibility to show their work at the Alliance Française de Melbourne Gallery. This year, 4 graduates from the VCA will present “Enclosure”, a group exhibition centered on photography.
The Artists
RACHEL JOY
Biography
Rachel Joy is a Graduate of the Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts. Her work is concerned with the constructed nature of space, place and history in the collective consciousness. As well as conducting her own practice Rachel has received artists’ residencies and commissions. She has curated exhibitions and been a guest critic, conducted artist talks and technical workshops. She is published in books and journals and her work has been exhibited at the Counihan, George Paton, and Margaret Lawrence Galleries. Her work ‘A Hard Day at the Office’ is held in the Acacia Art Collection.
Artist Statement
Colonial Architecture, 2008.
Cardboard packaging, dimensions variable.
Colonial Architecture is a work about the Australian colonial project of occupying space with sheep. Sheep are ubiquitous in the Australian colonial landscape, both real and imagined and our vernacular abounds with references such as “on the sheep's back.” Sheep have been the building blocks of our modern nation, the colonial architecture of our country. The modular nature of the sheep in this work allows for them to be easily configured (somewhat like bricks) to interact with the architecture of a particular space. Their bar-codes and clearly visible brands allude to the commodification of animals and their manipulation for human ends. Although the work examines serious issues it does so in a light-hearted way. This is especially evident in their current installation in the basement of Eildon Mansion, built for sheep breeder and pastoralist John Lang Currie in the 1870's.
LEAH MURPHY
Biography
Leah Murphy completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts - Photography in 2008. Leah mainly uses a combination of photography and video in her practice. She has participated and curated in a number of group shows. Leah is also a member of underground riot grrl band ‘Passionfist’. She currently resides and works in Melbourne.
Artist Statement
My work has generated from personal feelings of tension based on my own insecurities with existing in the everyday. I’m curious about that feeling of it all being too complicated and wanting to sit down for just a minute... a day... a year... a lifetime. As humans we are often weighed down by the urge to not succeed, the want to shoot ourselves in the foot.
In this instance I have explored these themes by using myself as the subject within the mediums of photography and video. This show and my extended practice explore my continual struggle to understand the de-motivational forces involved with success.
KRISTEN STEEGSTRA
Biography
Kristen Steegstra completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts [Honours] in Photography at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2008. She has exhibited in various group exhibitions, which include shows at Brunswick Street Galleries, Off the Kerb and the Centre for Contemporary Photography, and had her first solo exhibition at Trocadero Art space earlier this year. She has received several awards, including the NGV Trustees award, Friends of the VCA award and the Stella Dilger Encouragement award. She currently works and lives in Melbourne.
Artist Statement
My practice explores the photographic medium and how colour can be manipulated to create sensations within the viewer. I am interested in the links between the eyes and the brain and how these can be stimulated and exploited by the use of intense hues.
I work primarily with a large-format camera to create 2-D works. The body of the camera becomes a laboratory to experiment with the transformative powers of photography and colour. Using long exposure times, I capture colour in a way that the human eye cannot, more saturated, stickier and intense. Dioramas become wildly coloured landscapes, expanding beyond the table-top to become otherworldly places no longer bound by the edges of the frame, the viewer explores places within the imagination.
I am interested in pushing the photographic medium to the extreme of how much colour it can hold. Within the darkroom I push the tones to brighter possibilities, creating hallucinatory hues that dance from the paper. Although it appears as if there has been digital manipulation, the images are created solely from analogue methods – the final print is personally handcrafted.
LINDA TEGG
Biography
Linda Tegg is interested in artworks that have been transformed by a history of fetishization, linking them through her art practice to the female figure and rise of exhibitionism in contemporary society.
Born in Melbourne in 1979 Tegg completed a Bachelor of Arts (Photography) at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2002, participating in the Parsons School of Design Program, New York from 2001-02. She completed a Master of Visual Arts in 2008 and is current Master of Fine Art candidate at the Victorian College of the Arts. Tegg has exhibited across Australia, Japan, New York and The Netherlands. Recent solo exhibitions include Heart Rate Project, Kings ARI, Melbourne, 2007; Heart Rate Project, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia Project Space, South Australia, 2007; and Body World, Area Contemporary Art Space, Melbourne, 2004. Selected group exhibitions include Something I Said, Helen Gory Galerie, Melbourne, 2009; Sunstroked, HetWildeWeten, Rotterdam, 2007; Bus & Phatspace Project, Designfesta, Tokyo, 2005; Through a Stranger’s Eyes, Arts-Apporia, Osaka, 2005; Six Young Artists, Mary Place Gallery, Sydney, 2004; Moments of Clarity, Sotheby’s, New York, 2003; Graduate Show, Parsons School of Design, New York, 2003; and Life of the City, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2002.
Tegg was recently awarded the 2009 Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship and is planning to travel to Venice, London, Paris and New York in August. Through observing the art and audience of major artistic institutions in these locations including the Venice Biennale, Louvre, Tate and MOMA, she hopes to further her understanding of the spectacle and its implications for the viewer.
The artist was recipient of the National Gallery Women’s Association Postgraduate Encouragement Award, Alliance Francaise Award, Fiona Myer Award, ANZ Art Award People’s Choice in 2008. Tegg received an RMIT Travel Grant and John Storey Junior Memorial Scholarship in 2001 and was named Australian Student Photographer of the Year, AIPP in 2000.
Artist Statement
Horse 2009, made on location at Alliance Francaise, is a photographic exploration into the relationships between artists, art objects and audiences. I am interested in how our community is enamored with watching, and how this changes us. Central to the investigation is the act of viewing, and the way in which power, visibility and sight are intertwined.
The work is inspired by the architecture of Eildon Mansion and the spectacle of show-horses. Horses are of particular interest to me for their magnificence and beauty. They have been specifically bred and trained to be so. Like many of my previous subjects, including pedigree dogs, male fashion models, and female body builders, show-horses rigorously train to conform to a visual perfection.
A photographic exhibition by Claire Ropartz
Opening on
Thursday 02 April 2009, 6:30pm to 8:00pm
French photographer Claire Ropartz brings you
her visual experience of nine months spent travelling
in Central & South America, capturing images from
unique man-made artifacts, native environment right
through to everyday life.
Exhibition current till 01 May 2009
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Claire Ropartz was born in Paris to a French père & a Spanish mama. She has lived in Paris and London before recently making the transition to Melbourne, where she now permanently resides.
It was through Claire’s extensive travel through Europe, Oceania and the Americas that she developed a love and passion for photography. Her style is strongly influenced by her cultural mix and she draws inspiration predominantly from the interest of the unknown. Claire often feels the necessity to be detached from her environment in order to be able to capture her best work.
Spain was the subject matter of Claire’s earliest artwork, being the country of her maternal heritage. She found the country fascinating at the junction of tradition and modernism. Her work strongly reflects this aspect of Spanish culture. When organising photo exhibitions in Paris promoting her art work from Spain, one of her exhibitions showed a huge wind farm with an old farmer herding his sheep.
Later on, while studying literature and languages, Claire developed a particular interest for Central & South American writers like: Pablo Neruda, José Martí, Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez etc. From her early twenties she yearned to travel through this part of the world.
Years later she moved to England in order to improve her language skills and to have a better understanding and exposure to the Anglo-Saxon world. Once again she was exposed to a new environment which motivated her desire to take more photographs. Her works were exhibited in London in various galleries and most of those exhibitions presented photographs from her trips in Spain, Italy, United States, and Australia. All the photos taken in England were well kept for a future exhibition.
During this time, she also had several opportunities to exhibit her art in commercial offices like Air France in London. From those exhibitions the idea of decorating offices was born and quietly kept in mind for future ventures.
A short return home, Paris, became indispensable. While living there she then showcased her art work from England. This was compellingly influenced by British street art. Many photos of stencils were taken in the streets of London, notably some from Banksy, a famous British graffiti artist.
Recently, after years of planning ‘LE VOYAGE’ to Latino America, Claire finally got over there & spent 9 months travelling throughout the continent on her way to coming to Melbourne. The trip started in Mexico city and continued all the way to Southern Patagonia…from deserts to the Amazon, to the serenity of the Andes at 5000m, from the intensity of Rio de Janeiro, to the enormity of the glaciers in Patagonia…this trip just couldn’t offer more to a budding photographer!
The exposure to all this diversity of cultures, music, languages, dialects, politics, nature and beauty deepened Claire’s fascination towards Central & South America. Even before the start of the trip Claire envisioned organising an exhibition in Melbourne but couldn’t find a specific theme. Whilst travelling she took an abundance of photos and continued contemplating a theme beyond the general ‘Latino America’. The truth was however, that with so much beauty everywhere, in her eyes, there could be no other theme..
Le voyage. El viaje..The trip…represents a specific and extremely important time in Claire’s life: when she decided to say au revoir to France (LE VOYAGE) to finally experience Latino America (EL VIAJE) with the intention of then settling in Melbourne (THE TRIP).
While travelling in Central & South America, she met a few French people through the Alliance Française and thought of exhibiting her photos at Alliance Française in Melbourne on her arrival. She thought it would be an interesting place to present her work: she could exhibit clichés of Central & South America to the Melbourne public, taken through the eyes of a French artist.
Once in Melbourne, the project was submitted to & accepted by Alliance Française.
Her particular interest in macro photography brought her to develop a style that you could define as “decorative” photography and she is now dedicating her time to decorating homes, offices and hotels with bright and colorful pictures from her various travels (www.lespace.net.au).
At the exhibition at Alliance Française, you will discover a variety of colourful macros (from nature, markets, etc) showing the authenticity of this part of the world, but also images with a subtle photojournalistic point of view: images like a Mayan indigenous asleep on the steps of a church in Guatemala, stencils on the walls of Santiago de Chile reminding people what happened behind those wall during Pinochet’s regime…
During all those years Claire kept taking the opportunity to combine photography and travelling with the intention of sharing those images with people from different cultures, horizons and environments. There are no complex interpretations of her photographs. The intention is simple: just like a photojournalist brings you news from a place that was completely foreign to you, Claire brings you images to simply brighten-up your walls with colours from the outside world.
Le voyage. El viaje.. The trip…will hopefully take you away on Claire’s trip and maybe inspire you to travel through the same enchanting horizons.
***
Un, deux, trois 26 February till 27 March 2009
TRINH VU, IZABELA PLUTA and MATTHEW PERKINS Un, deux, trois is an exhibition featuring three Australian
artists working with digital technologies who investigate a
lyrical fusion of form and content. Their interdisciplinary
approach to artistic practice leads to unexpected forms
that investigate the relationship between both the
two-dimensional and three-dimensional plains.
***
Granabunnkit Kinaway 29 January till 19 February 2009
A visual art exhibition by the artists of the
EAST
GIPPSLAND ABORIGINAL ARTS CO-OPERATIVE,
a collaboration between the Alliance Française de Melbourne and
the City of Port Phillip as part of the Yalukit Wilam Ngargee People Place Gathering.
an exhibition of landscapes of France and Australia by Felicity Marshall
16 December 2008 - 16 January 2009
Felicity Marshall, Late Summer View to Les Rosiers-sur-Loire, oil on canvas, 60cmx92cm
“The Cultivated Landscape” Series
For the last six years, I have been living six months
of each year in Gennes, a small village in the Loire
Valley, France and the other six months have been
spent in Australia.
.
The Loire Valley is a very rural area, with rolling
fields of crops - wheat, barley, corn, flowers and
vines. Although its weather is something of a unique
micro-climate, and hence its extraordinary
agricultural productivity, it is very similar to the
weather in Victoria. I could not help but compare
them on the one hand, and feel strangely at home
on the other.
I had started a series of paintings based on “the
cultivated landscape” over the last few years in
my studio in Melbourne. This developed into a
theme of parallel drawings and paintings of the
two countrysides - the two cultivated landscapes
in Australia and in France.
I particularly loved the flower and onion fields in
the Loire Valley. In the shimmering summer heat,
the neat cream stone villages with their grey-blue
slate roofs surrounded by endless patchworks of
fields, often seemed like mirages. Chateaux,
churches and farm buildings loomed handsomely
in the distance, reminding one of the feudal system
of farming that once dominated the countryside, and gave the region much of its rich architectural
beauty.
In Victoria, I was fascinated by the vegetable
gardens in Werribee, the vineyards in the Yarra
Valley and Nagambie, the rich colour and pattern
of the ploughed earth and the clear light.
In both places I noted the symmetry of cultivation
imposed on the gentle land, the signs of life outside
or above, detritus and debris of farming,
scarecrows, and abandoned projects. I am always
looking for another element present outside that
of just the landscape – such as the threatening
shadows of the Mirage jets flying over the tender
young wheat fields along the Loire Valley or
discarded plastic fertilizer bags flying through the
air or snagged on fences between Werribee and
Geelong.
I grew up in the country in Western Australia, where
life was hard; colours were both extremely harsh
and surprisingly soft. In France, I found much that
was familiar, much that was strange, and much
that reminded me of our shared connection to the
earth.
Felicity Marshall
Melbourne, 2008
About Felicity Marshall
Born in Western Australia Felicity
Marshall spent her early years
with her sister and brother on a
small rural property outside Perth.
Her father was a renowned
journalist and her mother was an
English woman with a passion for
horses and riding.
She obtained an Honours Degree
in Fine Art, majoring in painting from
Curtin University of Technology
and several years later after
moving to Melbourne, a Diploma
of Education. She has also
completed studies in Writing for
Children (Holmesglen TAFE) and
photography (Photography
Studies College, Melbourne).
For the next 17 years Felicity
worked in film production and
post-production while she
continued to paint and exhibit
whenever possible.
In 1983, Felicity lost her paintings
created over six years in
readiness for a major exhibition,
plus all records of earlier works in
the Ash Wednesday bushfires.
A few years later, she commenced
her studies in children’s literature
and began writing and illustrating
children’s books and book covers.
During this time she completed
several large portrait commissions
and held exhibitions of her original
book illustrations. She had two
books published - “You and Me,
Murrawee” (illustrator) and
“Sage’s Ark” (author and
illustrator).
For the last six and a half years,
Felicity has been living half the year
in the Loire Valley in France. It has
been a period of great personal
enrichment and an opportunity to
become more involved in her art.
During this time she has benefited
from the friendship of renowned
French artist Mireille Ipeau, who
lived very close by and became a
friend and mentor.
Felicity is currently working on the
illustrations for her next book “The
Star”, and working on various
painting and illustration
commissions.
***
Les Petites Morts Clea Stapleton
Opening 20 November, 6.30pm to 8.00pm
Clea Stapleton is a self-taught Melbourne artist whose highly
detailed and colourful
paintings
meld the animate and inanimate to
create vivid chimaeras in
watercolour.
Drawing on sources
from the tradition
of French miniature
paintings to the aesthetic
of the Art
Nouveau period, Stapleton’s
whimsical works invite careful
scrutiny
to appreciate all of their
elements.
The exhibition Les
Petites Morts follows
the wax and
wane of love in a series of
fantastical vignettes.
Showing 20 November to 06 December
***
12
Year 12 Students
St Michael Grammar School
an exhibition of art and design
work created by St Michael’s
Grammar School Year 12 students
as part of their VCE Art, Studio
Arts, Visual Communication and
Design studies in 2008.
Showing 13 – 15 November
***
Luminist
an exhibition byValerie Sparks
officially opened by Cr Judith Klepner, City of Port Phillip
on Thursday 16 October 2008, 6.30pm to 8.00pm
Exhibition dates: 16 October to 6 November 2008
This project has been assisted by the
City of Port Phillip through the
Rupert Bunny Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship
About the Artist and the Exhibition
Throughout 2008 Alliance Française has hosted it’s first on site artist residency. Valerie Sparks, the second recipient of the City of Port Phillip Rupert Bunny Fellowship, has been based in the stables at 51 Grey Street where she has created a new work specifically for the ballroom and gallery of the main building. Over the last few years the Alliance has provided support to Valerie in a variety of ways. This has included nominating her for a residency at Cité des Arts in Paris. We are happy to have joined with her in support of this project which has allowed her to explore the potential for a large scale installation, toward the full expression of her work.
Alliance Française first became aware of Valerie’s interpretation of French wallpapers through the Victorian College of the Arts graduate exhibition in 2003. Since that time she has conducted research in Paris, Rixhiem and other locations in France into the exclusively French genre of 18th century scenic panoramic wallpapers. Sitting between large scale photographic pieces and wallpapers her work involves activating the interior surfaces of buildings, reconfiguring architectural spaces and constructing fake decorative histories. Sparks’ large scale works on paper utilize digital technology to create landscapes that are visually seductive and familiar, yet disturbing and difficult to fix. The philosophical questions raised by these reconfigurations of the utopian landscapes of an earlier colonialist era are many. Through shifts in perspective and pictorial space and use of new media Sparks engages with, and problematizes these representations of exotic locations. At the same time her emphasis on the seductive quality of light picks up on the 18th century strategies for visual delight. According to Sparks:
“The new media interpretation resonates with early forms of immersive virtual reality such as dioramas, stereoscopic photography, and the creation of contained exotic environments in European glass houses and exhibition halls. As examples of early virtual reality, the wallpapers explored fantasies of travel, colonial expansion and a fascination with the exotic. They often collapsed geographical space and time through incorporating a variety of locations into a seamless continuous image of a European garden. The lush, seductive beauty of these decorative features is compelling. In my interpretations I aim to engage with traditions of landscape painting and photography and to maintain the aesthetic of the picturesque but include an inherent sense of danger and discomfort. You know it is some kind of paradise but somehow you are not sure you want to be in it. Architectural features and walls seem to appear and
disappear as they are engulfed in images of an elsewhere. In the impossibility of these disturbing hyper-real environments, people are immersed in imaginary spaces between different forms of visual logic. I am interested in how susceptible we are to allowing our eyes to be fooled”.
The new work created through the support of the Rupert Bunny Fellowship focuses Valerie’s lens on the natural and built environment of the City of Port Phillip, in particular the waterfront and surrounds. She has collected countless photographs of the changes in weather and light over the course of a year and included these elements in the work to create a multi layered exploration of the changeability, juxtapositions and ruptures present in this diverse and complex urban setting. As with previous work the elements included in the spaces she has created have been taken from different locations and times of the day creating visual ambiguity and uncertainty. This work in particular reflects the betwixt and between characteristic of the time between night and day, for Valerie, one of the most haunting and beautiful times to be on the foreshore.
For those of you familiar with the building the Alliance Française gallery space had very strong architectural features. The architecture and views through the large windows play a large part in how any exhibition presents in the space. Valerie is committed to creating a site specific installation and has spent time working through how the work will respond to and incorporate these elements. At point of writing the work is yet to be installed so we can only look forward to experiencing the environment she will create. We do know that the room will be shut down of all external light allowing Valerie to control the illumination of the work as it wraps around the entire room. Each section will be punctuated with architectural features from the CoPP. Large-scale trees will create the effect of curtains framing each section as a series of connected vignettes.
We look forward to the opening night and encourage Alliance Française members to visit the building and view the installation. We also would like to express our ongoing commitment to creating strong cultural links between French and Australian artists, cultural institutions and future partnerships with the City of Port Phillip. We are pleased to have supported this project and to support Valerie at this time in the development of her practice. The fellowship has provided an opportunity for us to enjoy a new work in response to the building that is so central to the work of the Alliance in Melbourne.
***
Do It VCA Center for Ideas' students translate language into art in "Do It" Exhibition,
4 September-3 October, 2008
This semester, 35 students from the Victorian College of the Arts' Centre for Ideas, the Central Academy of Fine Art Beijing and Goldsmiths College, London, will develop work for the latest "Do It" exhibition at the Alliance Francaise de Melbourne, on view from 4 September to 3 October, 2008.
"Do It" began as a discussion between artists Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier, and writer Hans Ulrich Obrist, in 1993 at the Café Select in Paris. Their discussion focused on the use of written instructions to make works of art in an effort to observe the effects of translation. The three were interested in how written instructions for artists could function like musical scores, which, like music, go though countless variations and interpretations each time they are performed.
Since 1993, "Do It" has grown in stages, springing up around the world in 45 museums and cultural centres around Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia. Artists and thinkers from Louise Bourgeois, Yoko Ono and Thomas Hirschorn have written or drawn instructions for artists to follow, which have been collected in a book that is part manual, part cookbook, part do-it-yourself kit.
The "Do It" project in Melbourne is being developed in a special seminar at VCA's Centre for Ideas called "The World in the Artist," coordinated by Elizabeth Presa, Head of the Centre. This year, the emphasis will be on instructions given by French artist and philosophers featured in the "Do It" book. Adding another layer to the international flavor of the project and its exploration the accumulation of translations, VCA students will work collaboratively via the internet with students from Central Academy of Fine Art Bejiing, China's premiere art school, and Goldmiths College, one of the leading arts institutions in London.
"We began the seminar by focusing on the idea of translation," Presa explains. "We looked at what it means to translate from your native language into another language such as French, or from Mandarin into French or English, as well as what it means to translate language into an art form or across media and across cultures." To assist with the development of a conceptual basis, the seminar explored Walter Benjamin's seminal text "The Task of the Translator" and Jacques Derrida's "Les tours de Babel", Presa says.
Students will respond to instructions by a range of French artists and philosophers, including:
Christian Boltanski
Instruction:
1) Get your neighbor's photo album.
2) Give the neighbor yours in exchange.
3) Enlarge all the pictures to 8 x 10.
4) Frame them in some simple fashion and hang them on the walls of your apartment.
5) Your neighbor should do the same with your album.
Louise Bourgeois
Instruction:
When you are walking, stop and smile at a stranger.
Bertrand Lavier
Instruction:
It involves making two boxes: one for food, the other for emoluments. Two rectilinear forms, the surfaces of which touch and almost completely overlap. Two time blocks—totally self-enclosed and perfectly sealed off from the outside world and its corruption and consumption—which within their cold interiors attempt to curb the insults of time.
Annette Messager
Instruction:
When we are born, we receive a last name and a first name that will characterize us from the beginning to the end of our life. Our signature is thus important, as it reveals and asserts our personality. It is a sign, it can show a strong-willed personality (be strong or illegible)…Moreover, in the history of art, the artist's signature always represented the completion of his work.
Try to write all of your possible signatures on several sheets of paper. Frame then. You will be surprised by the results and by the comments of your friends.
I would like to know how women feel who have changes their names when they remarried.
***
Loose Connections
an exhibition by
Rosi Griffin
12 - 29 August 2008
ARTIST STATEMENT
My goal is to create subtle and moving works that explore a universal human response to transition and displacement. The motif has evolved from the migration between countries, trying to re-connect and to find a foothold in a new environment.
The figure in my works stands alone against a vast and weathered landscape, lost, contemplating the next move, or just looking. A man standing with his back to us suggests that we see the landscape through his eyes. What we see is not the real world, but an inner world, an ideal place for contemplation and reflection.
My painting process involves the use of oil, acrylic and mixed media. I build up many layers and develop calligraphic structures by drawing lines with oil sticks and thin brushes. The lines can become quite detailed but then I enjoy the process of destroying the familiar again so I paint over it and discover something new. I also scratch back into the wet surface to expose the underlying surface of the painting.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Education
2007 New York Art Trip
2005-2006 Latrobe College of Art and Media
2002-2004 Atelier Project, Munich Germany
? Life Drawing
? Abstract Oil Painting
? Pigments
Solo Exhibitions
2008 Jackman Gallery, St. Kilda
2006 Yering Station Gallery, Yarra Glen
2004 Yering Station Gallery, Yarra Glen
2003 Markthotel, Marktschwaben, Germany
Schlossgut, Oberambach, Germany
2002 Galerie Meiwald, Munich
2001 orange room 17, Munich
2000 Reflections on Mailing, Melbourne
Group Exhibitions
2008 Alliance Française – “ On the Bowery”
Linden Postcard Show
2007 Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn
Galerie Meiwald, Munich
Latrobe College Gallery
2006 Linden Post Card Show
Walker St. Gallery Dandenong Art Centre
Latrobe College Gallery
Beechworth Fine Art
Bundoora Homestead Art Gallery
2005 Canterbury Primary School Art Show
Galerie Meiwald, Munich
2004 Mohr Villa, Freimann, Munich
2001-2004 Galerie Meiwald, Munich
1999 Meat Market, Melbourne
On the Bowery
New body of works by
Emmanuelle Boursin, Katrina Carter and Rosi Griffin
02 JULY - 01 AUGUST 2008
A new exhibition initiated during an art trip in New York in October 2007.
Three artists are collaborating for this exhibition called – On the Bowery – a New York Experience.
Emmanuelle Boursin, Katrina Carter and Rosi Griffin first met in 2005 at the Latrobe College of Art and Design. In October 2007, they travelled to New York as part of an art study tour and they stayed together in a loft on the Bowery. Each of them worked on separate projects consumed by the experience of this colourful street. The exhibition is the final result of their work that was originated on site in New York and completed in their studios in Melbourne. Read More...
LES TROTTOIRS DE PARIS THE PAVEMENTS OF PARIS
PHOTOGRAPHS OF PAVEMENTS IN PARIS
L'ÊTRE EN VOL TO BE IN FLIGHT
CHOREOGRAPHIC SCORES FOR PHILIPPE GENTY AND MARY UNDERWOOD AT THE VCA
EXTRACTS FROM PHD ARCHITECTURE BY PROJECT WORK IN PROGRESS
BY CHELLE MACNAUGHTAN
TO BE OPENED BY DR HÉLÈNE FRICHOT
SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
RMIT UNIVERSITY MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA
OPENING: THURSDAY 03 APRIL 2008, 6.30PM TO 8.00PM
ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE DE MELBOURNE
51 GREY STREET ST KILDA VIC 3182
T: 9525 3463 - E: INFO@AFMELBOURNE.ASN.AU
HOURS: MON-THU: 9.30AM TO 8.30PM / FRI: 9.30AM TO 6.00PM / SAT: 9.00AM TO 4.30PM
EXHIBITION CURRENT TILL: FRIDAY 02 MAY 2008
LES TROTTOIRS DE PARIS AND L'ÊTRE EN VOL FORM PART OF A COLLECTION OF SEVEN
PROJECTS IN CHELLE'S RESEARCH THAT WERE COMPLETED PRIOR OR ALONGSIDE THE
PHD'S MAJOR SPECULATIVE ARCHITECTURAL PROJECT LES SAISONS FROM FRENCH COMPANIE
PHILIPPE GENTY. OUT OF THESE PROJECTS, SIX ORIGINATED DURING VARIOUS INTERNATIONAL
FIELDWORKS CHELLE UNDERTOOK IN PARIS OR OTHER PARTS OF FRANCE BETWEEN 2003 AND 2006,
AND ALL HAVE BEEN EXHIBITED, PUBLISHED AND/OR PRESENTED INTERNATIONALLY.
The exhibitions of Les trottoirs de Paris [The Pavements
of Paris] and L’être en vol [To be in Flight] at Alliance Française de Melbourne are extracts from the PhD in Architecture
by Project work of Chelle Macnaughtan, who is due to complete her research at the
Spatial Architecture Information Laboratory at RMIT University this year.
“Les trottoirs de Paris” and “L’être en vol”
form part of a collection of seven projects in Chelle’s research that were
completed prior or alongside the PhD’s major speculative architectural project
“Les Saisons” for French Compagnie Philippe Genty, which Chelle first
began working on after staying with both Philippe Genty and Mary Underwood in France,
and which continued after working with them at the VCA. Out of these seven projects,
six originated during various international fieldwork Chelle undertook in Paris
or other parts of France between 2003 and 2006, and all have been exhibited, published
and/or presented internationally.
Who is Chelle Macnaughtan?
Chelle first studied at the Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adelaide before going
onto complete degrees in Interior Design (Uni SA) and later Architecture with First
Class Honours (Melb). In 2003 Chelle was invited to commence a PhD in Architecture
by Project with a cross disciplinary topic in architecture and music, specifi cally
addressing indeterminacy as understood through the work of American composer John
Cage, and is due to complete her research at the Spatial Information Architecture
Laboratory at RMIT University in 2008. Chelle has been the recipient of numerous
awards and scholarships, including the inaugural Royal Australian Institute of Architects
Lysaght Research Scholarship in 2005, an Australian Postgraduate Award and the Bailleu
Research Scholarship. During the course of Chelle’s PhD, a program of local
and international exhibitions, conferences, presentations within architecture, music
and fi ne arts institutions has been undertaken, and in 2006, this program extended
to include an invited residency at the Queen’s University Sonic Arts Research
Centre in Belfast, chair, present and exhibit at the ‘Architecture, Music,
Acoustics’ Conference in Toronto, and conclude certain international fi eldwork
in France. Chelle is currently completing her PhD project work with a speculative
architectural proposal of multi-confi gurable transportable performance spaces for
French theatre Compagnie Philippe Genty, for whom she was invited to prepare a collection
of architectural chance-based choreographic scores for performance in 2006. She
recently completed a collection of performance scores for American choreographer
Merce Cunningham, and performed in the John Cage ‘Musicircus’ work as
part of the October 2007 Melbourne International Arts Festival.
Les trottoirs de Paris (2003 – 2006)
Inaugurated in 2003 whilst undertaking fi eldwork for my PhD, these photographs
began within the legacy of following my father’s footsteps through Paris.
Initially a private meditation and not part of the PhD, the engraved dates in the
pavements related to those seasons past. However, in soon discovering the dates
spread over various arrondissements of Paris, the privacy of the work began to suggest
larger, more public interaction, and ask different questions. This shift of thinking
to include relationships between the marking of the dates in the pavements, their
location and who had made them, to broader social and cultural contexts of space
and experience, is when I began to understand Les trottoirs de Paris as a map of
the city as much as a map of my shared family history. Over four years taking the
photographs during various months of different years, the cycle of seasons becomes
not only apparent in their content, or information that they capture, but in understanding
that these photographs belong to, and are therefore part of, everyone who has spent
time in their life walking the pavements in Paris.
L’être en vol (2006)
Invited by renowned French theatre master Philippe Genty and Mary Underwood for
their international master class work at the Victorian College of the Arts in late
2006, L’être en vol is a collection of ten indeterminately
created architectural based choreographic scores, five of which have been made available
for public exhibition. L’être en vol was created after staying
with Philippe and Mary in France, where they viewed my earlier project of etchings
74’56” (Space in the Sound of Architecture). Their brief required I
use the same notations from 74’56” (Space in the Sound of Architecture),
but simplified for interpretation and human movement. Intended for their induction
method use at the VCA, the scores became a working tool for collectively choreographic
and individual performance. Genty and Underwood are now using L’être
en vol for their own work with Compagnie Philippe Genty worldwide. Exhibited
alongside L’être en vol are rehearsal photographs from the
master class’ initial work with the scores, photographs of final choreography
for public performances at the Grant Street Theatre, VCA in December 2006, (photography:
Jeff Busby), and a DVD of Compagnie Philippe Genty during performance work of ‘Stowaways’
in Adelaide during the 1990s, (courtesy Aanya Whitehead: Music Arts Dance Films).
Eildon Gallery Opening - For its first show at Eildon Gallery,
the Alliance Française de Melbourne will
present EILDON PREMIERE, a retrospective of artists that have exhibited at Alliance
Gallery in the
past four years: Michael Bullock, Lance de France, James Kenyon, Laith McGregor,
Phanom Phikhroh, Lani Seligman, Ben Sheppard, Valerie
Sparks, and Camila Tadich, an impressive panel of young talents for
an
eclectic exhibition that promises to be very interesting! Opening at 5.30pm.
SATURDAY 14TH JULY FROM 5.30 PM, EILDON MANSION, 51 GREY STREET, ST KILDA
Brodie
Ellis,
Mira Gojak,
Katherine Huang,
Helen Johnson
Kiron Robinson & Lani Seligman
An exhibition by the artists of Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces
7 to 31 March 2007
The Alliance Française has invited Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, one
of Australia’s leading centres for experimental visual arts practice, to curate
an exhibition of work by current and recent Gertrude studio artists. GCAS is unique
in Melbourne for its combination of gallery and studio spaces, and for over 20 years
has presented an innovative program of exhibitions and studio residencies, alongside
cultural exchange, professional development and public programs. Building a bridge
between two of Melbourne’s premier cultural institutions, artists Brodie Ellis,
Mira Gojak, Katherine Huang, Helen Johnson and Kiron Robinson & Lani Seligman
will present work at the Alliance Française Gallery which speaks of the connections,
dialogue and exchange upon which both organisations are founded.
Jacqueline Doughty, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces
En bientôt 4 ans à Melbourne j’ai toujours pu constater la scission
entre les quartiers nord et sud de Melbourne, comme deux hémisphères
bien distincts, deux petits mondes à part, séparés par la Yarra
River. Seule, une petite zone neutre, au centre, et peuplée de galeries,
permet le plus souvent de se retrouver lors de vernissages : Flinders Lane.
Au-delà de cette ‘zone de contact’ (cf la dernière biennale
d’art contemporain de Sydney), peu d’artistes semblent passer les ponts
et enjamber la Yarra, idem pour les responsables de galeries ou d’institutions
culturelles. « Chacun chez soi et les moutons seront bien gardés »
dit le proverbe…nous avons décidé de ne pas faire comme Panurge
et d’établir des ponts entre nos institutions en invitant les artistes
résidant à Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces à venir exposer
dans la galerie de l’Alliance française de Melbourne.
Gertrude Contemporary Art Space est un espace assez unique et excitant puisqu’en
plus d’une galerie d’art réputée depuis une plus de 20
ans, ce lieu accueille de jeunes artistes dans 16 studios afin qu’ils puissent,
sur une période de 2 ans, développer leur pratique artistique. Gertrude
et l’AF de Melbourne, bien que géographiquement opposés, sont
tout à fait complémentaires : l’un accueille des artistes et
l’autre leur offre une plateforme pour exposer et faire connaître leurs
travaux.
Cette exposition est donc née d’une volonté de rapprochement
et d’échanges entre les artistes du ‘grand nord’ et notre
galerie ‘du grand sud’ dans le monde de l’art de Melbourne ! Qu’il
me soit permis de remercier les artistes qui participent au projet ainsi qu’Alexie
Glass, directrice et Jacqueline Doughty, directrice des programmes qui ont toutes
deux immédiatement adhéré au projet avec enthousiasme. Edouard Mornaud, Alliance Française de Melbourne
***
Oeil de verre
***
na madraì
***
Interior Design
***
Amid: Matter, Light and Place
Carol Batchelor, Carrie Chisholm, Evan Demas & Andy Tezlaff
Exhibition by current candidates from Master of Fine Arts, School of Fine Arts,
RMIT university
out of bounds an exhibition by
Nicole Andrijevic and Samuel Overington
Recipients of the 2005 Alliance Française
Prize for VCA graduates.
20 July - 31 August
An exhibition by Kiron Robinson, a recipient of the 2004 Alliance
Française Prize for VCA students.
Opening Thursday 1 September, 6.30 pm
Artist's Statement
The English language is an unstable landscape upon which I sit my work. My need
to use it in communication within at least this country often amuses and bewilders
me. The authority that is given to the word despite knowing our own misuse or twisting
of meaning relays a desire to establish and maintain a framework, above all.
Maps and photographs work in a similar way. They define or establish a false framework.
They allow for a meaning from which we can feel safe in our understanding.
Sometimes I feel confused but then I forget.
This show and my extended practice celebrate this. A continual failure.
Opening on Thursday 1st September 6.30 2005 at 6.30 pm
Exhibition current till 30 September 2005
***
CONTEMPORARY ANCESTORS or
BELIEVING IS SEEING
Alliance française de Melbourne invites you to an exhibition by Lance
de France
The germ of the idea for the exhibition comes from the reverence by the Chinese
for Ancestral portraits, which are unfurled once a year for family members to pay
homage to them.
I have related this anniversary activity to a personal observation of the speed
and the intensity of contemporary society. As we rush and pass each other en route
to our cubicle/terminal, our attention to others is minimal.
Frighteningly, when women take self-defence classes they are trained to yell FIRE
and not HELP in the event of them being attacked. The reason for this being that
the latter exclamatory does not bring salvation, but fear.
The phenomenon of Eyewitness Testimony is an example of this.
A situation occurs; moments later, the witnesses are interviewed. Often, the eyewitness
accounts are inaccurate and varied, even though participants were in the same room
and witnessed the same event. We only see people as fragments, never the whole.
Bits and Pieces. She looked Like! He Looked Like!
Using the tools of professional identification, I am trying to illustrate these
flaws in human perception, whilst attempting to create art through the serious application
of technology.
The portraits created for this exhibition are delivered through the most current
incarnation of the IdentKIT format. These images are created with the program called
FACE ID, which is a visual identification platform devised by a Melbourne company
called Vision Control International. This particular platform is considered the
most precise on the market and at present it is used by law enforcement and crime
fighting agencies around the world.
It is used extensively by the Victoria Police, the Australian Federal Police and
the FBI. International law enforcement and crime fighting agencies worldwide are
jostling for position, in order to participate in the program.
Technology is the main variable in the increasing velocity of everyday life. Technology
possesses the cruel gift of giving with one hand and taking with the other.
Being judged on fragmented appearances and under constant pressure to perform, it
is no wonder that it is every man for himself.
LANCE DE FRANCE
Opening on Thursday 4 August 2005 at 6.30 pm
Exhibition current till 26 August 2005
***
Satire
An exhibition by Laith McGregor
Opening on Thursday 7 July 2005 at 6.30pm
Artist’s Statement:
The fundamental nature of my work contemplates the mundane aspects of daily life,
through painterly investigations that highlight the absurdities of character and
class systems. I intend to poke fun at the way we communicate as a society and draw
attention to the transitions made between differing cultures, by manipulating slight
differences whereby altering the way we view a seemingly customary point of view.
A strong sense of bravado filters mainstream popular culture; I seek to debunk this
notion through a humour noir aspect that transcends visually by depicting generations
of appropriated historical figures and analogous references to political individuals
of contemporary society. All in all my body of work attempts to find the essence
of society’s sincere or perhaps repressed approach to daily life, through
the use of comical explorations.
The current body of work has concentrated on popular French imagery, which came
about after an extended stay on a boat from Paris to Marseille. My fascination with
French culture and its strong sense of patriotism intrigues me. I have focused my
inspired response with satirical French and European references and hope audiences
explore the work and its genre in their own interpretive way.
About the Artist:
Twenty-seven years old Australian born, Laith McGregor lives and works in Melbourne.
Following a Diploma of Visual Arts at CSIT, Qld and a Bachelor of Screen Production
at the Queensland College of Art in Brisbane, Laith is currently doing a Bachelor
of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Art in Melbourne. He exhibited at the
Loft Gallery in Brisbane in 2002 and for a group show at the Metropolis Gallery
in Melbourne in 2003.
Exhibition current till 30 July 2005
***
SCAFFOLD
an
exhibition by James Kenyon
a recipient of the 2004 Alliance Française Prize for VCA graduates.
Opening on Thursday 2 June 2005 at 6.30 pm
Surrounded by religious cultural mores as a child, James Kenyon’s work examines
the ways in which architecture and script both conceal and reveal latent cultural
and religious meaning. Archetypal religious symbols, such as the mosque and the
Christian cathedral, are loaded with historical, political, social and religious
significance in the world’s collective memory. In Kenyon’s works, both
operate as scaffolds upon which meaning is ‘hung’. In this sense, they
remain inherently abstract spaces; their significance is invoked only via religious
dogma and the conviction of the individual believer. Ultimately, the continued relevance
of religious architecture and script is predicated upon faith: they are monuments
to the limits of human understanding.
Kenyon’s use of laser-cut steel is the result of an enduring fascination with
the material’s contradictions. It’s beauty lies in both its strength
and durability, and similarly its ultimate malleability: it is strong until tested.
In a similar vein, the use of digital imaging represents art in both its most basic
and technologically advanced manifestations. In their formative stages, Kenyon’s
pieces begin with a scribble, which is then modelled in a virtual space. His works
occupy a tenuous place in the tangible world until rendered in steel, a material
with a dominating physical presence. In this sense, his works never find absolute
resolution, but instead lurk between the virtual and the actual, 2D and 3D; the
real and the imagined.
After studying animation at Southbank Institute of TAFE, Queensland, James Kenyon
joined the VCA in 2002 and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art (drawing) in 2004.
James Kenyon has participated in a number of exhibitions since 2002, and was also
the recipient of a number of awards during that time.
His works has been acquired by John Wardle Architects as well as other private collections.
Exhibition current till 30 June 2005.
***
The Salvation Army (Synchrony)
Watercolor and ink on paper, 29x47cm
The Sangha exhibition takes its inspiration from primitive Buddhism, a form of rational
knowledge leading to the supreme wisdom, enabled by a personal exertion of mind
control. The Sangha exhibition is witness to the action of time on the original
doctrine of Buddha and underlines the existing paradox between the intimate Buddhist
quest and the need for ecclesiastical conformity.
Sangha (Polychrony),
Watercolour on paper, 18x29cm
“Created by men inspired by the same passions, these events necessarily have
the same results.”
N. Machiavelli
Sangha (Polychrony),
Watercolour on paper, 21x68cm
The Salvation Army (Synchrony)
Watercolor and ink on paper, 68x21cm
“All our pain comes from not being able to be alone.”
Jean de la Bruyère
Impermanence (Diachrony)
Watercolor and acrylic on paper, 16x26cm
“Like snow upon the Desert's dusty Face Lighting a little hour or two, is
gone!”
R.K. Duncan “The New Knowledge”
The body is image
Words are imposture
The soul condemns the Me
M. Toemsombat
The United Colors ofBuddhism (Chromochrony)
Watercolor on paper, 27x27cm
Duality (Bichrony)
Watercolor on paper, 45x45cm
“An ocean of vacuity…”
“If you meet a buddha on your way,
Kill him.”
Chiensieou
Passion (Monochrony)
Watercolor on paper, 22x71cm
Vexations (Anachrony)
Water color and acrylic on paper, 33x33cm
“From he who raised high the standard of human reason they have made an idol,
a divinity similar to the Brahman gods, and incense burns and flowers accumulate
in front of the statues of the Master who condemned the foolishness of religious
ritual!...”
Alexandra David-Néel
“Thirty spokes join together in a single hub
This empty space in the wheel enables”
Tao Te King
Vacuity (Achrony)
Watercolor and ink on paper, 54x54cm
“While scholars we might well be from other’s knowledge, at least wise
we can only be from our own wisdom.”
Montaigne
Jacques-Léon Charrier was born in France in 1959. After an eclectic professional
background enriched by numerous stays in Asia, he started a career as a painter
in 1995. Using personal techniques based o watercolor, acrylic and ink, this self-taught
artist treats various themes inspired by the human panorama. His work is an exploration
of the human destiny as exemplified by the individual as a member of society.
Moved by his awareness of society’s global insanity, conformity and irreverence,
Jacques-Léon Charrier focuses on how the Buddhist’s quest for individual
wisdom represents a noble path to collective salvation.
The exhibition Sangha reflects the calling into question of the evolution of Buddhism’s
original message through centuries of community traditions.
The Salvation Army (Synchrony)
Watercolor and ink on paper
above 40x43cm, on the left 38x47cm
Exhibition dates: 4 to 30 April 2005
Opening on Thursday 7 April, 2005 at 6.30 pm
A special thank to the L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival.
Alliance Française Gallery
17 Robe Street ST KILDA VIC 3182
t: (03) 9525 3463
Melways Ref: 58 A10
Opening Hours:
Mon -Thu: 9.30 am to 8.30 pm
Fri: 9.30 am to 6.00 pm
Sat: 9.00 am to 4.30 pm
To be opened on Thursday 10 March, 2005 at 6.30 pm
featuring Salon Music curated by Shabanuie & Live Video by
MASA
Alliance Française Gallery, 17 Robe Street ST KILDA.
Victorian College of the Arts Postgraduate Seminar Series presents Sabine Barthélémy - Screening of the film
Cercle/moi
Monday, March 7 12.30pm-2pm
Cinema 2, School of Film & TV, VCA
234 St Kilda Road, Southbank Vic 3006
Artist’s statement
Throughout the era of Jules Verne, people travelled around the world in order to
find themselves.
To journey around the world while drawing a line means to reach a circle and maybe
understand where we are in relation to it.
« If I start drawing a line, there is no reason to stop unless I draw it all
the way around the world and it becomes a circle. »
These are the obsessional elements of my work, the research without end, my gentle
relentlessness to dissect the ‘undissectable’, reaffirming the project’s
validity and continuum.
At the beginning, there is Point A (Marseille), at the end, there is still Point
A and, in between, there is the radical experience of the line reaching toward the
circle. (« L’absence de cercle est maladive pudeur du trait »
Edmond Jabès)
(From A to A, a film is born)
A man draws a line everywhere he goes without ever stopping. A continuity –
this is an idea tackled before in my work:
• « 220 », work in progress
video movie started in June 2002. Today 25 minutes of pictures often edited with
slow or quick motions: play with the image’s time, play with time, time’s
player, time’s game. Images talk about the internal private travel of myself
(the collected soul of my friends, my house and my obsessions) and also outside
travel (a meeting of Marseille, London, San Francisco, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam,
Lille, Florence, New York…);
• « Nous y Sommes » #1
(« Here we are » #1), video loop shown on several large screens. This
installation shows my feet in thongs walking around the top floor of the San Francisco
MOMA/in parallel with a video loop of a car moving through a no end tunnel in London/in
parallel with a video loop of my feet in sport shoes walking on a field of grass
in Dordogne, at sunrise.
« Life is a continuum without a beginning or an end. It doesn’t try
to reach an ultimate goal. It is merely a stroll, a pilgrimage with its own raison
d’être, a dance without any other justification but the pleasure of
the dance itself.» O.R.
Space-time experience is fed daily with what we are (a person filming and a person
being filmed), what we discover and what modifies us, what we will become.
The metamorphosis of two human beings filmed in real time and linked by the desire
to construct this circle.
« The line is desire, from one point to another one (…). The legibility
of the line is the legibility of desire. » E.J.
At each stage of my travel, I meet people who are interested in the project and
decide to show my movie in progress, as a snapshot. This immediacy further reflects
the instinctive nature of my work. I want to re-member the savage aspect of the
human being in order to understand better the agitated trip of my mind and its creative
process.
This project is about Painting, deciding to draw a line with chalk or another material,
which will eventually fade. It is about not resisting; fixing for an instant and
then disappearing. To Paint not in order to stay: draw the ephemeral.
The video camera observes the action of drawing the line. As the researcher’s
tool, the video studies the evolution of the subject in his action and his environment.
To film, already means to select, to choose.
Don’t fall into the frame’s trap, rather play with it. When I film,
I always try to stay away from the « respectable » and expected field
of the frame, in order to liberate myself from it (running, moving, falling with
the camera).
To film means to appropriate, to trap, and to frame a part of the whole.
To film means to keep a mark; in this project, that means having a trace of something,
which is destined to disappear.
To film means to give an audience, images and sounds of my reality.
In filming you, I tell you who I am.
The video camera is an extension of my eyes and its choices. It is also an extension
of my body and its movement.
To form one body with matter: the man who draws the line is Sculptor, the world
is matter and the chalk is the tool, which links them together.
A kind of graffiti tag on the world. To take the painting from the canvas and paint
on the wall, then into the street, then further on into and onto the world.
This meeting between the medium (the world), the actor (who draws the line), the
tool (the chalk) and the witness (video camera) is an area of communication.
I am used to speaking about restraint and I ignore frustration. In the creation’s
process, the constraints are often responsible for the richness of the work.
To draw a line is an open proposition to work with speech, movement, writing and
silence. That is the reason why I work with an actor (he plays the action like a
scratch man plays with his turntables).
The line I draw is at once numerous as well as one of the kind.
The line is the sensitive touch of the tightrope walker on his string, of the cocaine
user with his straw, of bodies in touch, of the wise man in meditation, of a disequilibrium
making equilibrium see reason…
MY FRENCH CONNECTIONS
an exhibition of photographs by Sami Sadek
18 – 28 February 2005
Sami Sadek was born in Cairo and emigrated to Australia in 1968. These photographs
were taken during a trip to Paris and Lourdes with his mother, Odette in 1994.
‘I was taken in by the beauty of the countryside, the old buildings, and the
people and had many delightful moments. I hope these photos will convey to you some
of the feelings I felt while in France. I was totally enthralled’.
Lacrimal Secretions
an
exhibition by
Amanda Schlesinger-Goss
a recipient of the 2003 Alliance Française Prize for VCA
graduates.
To be opened on Thursday 16 September, 2004 at 6.30 pm
by Su Baker, Head of School of Art, Victorian College of the Arts
Exhibition current till 30 October, 2004.
Artist Statement
Lacrimal Secretions explores and portrays a gestalt or pattern of understanding
using narrative and text fragments. The personal and the universal intersect. Latitudes
and longitudes of paradoxical relationship meet and misalign. Spatial relationships
are formed are are mapped of blocked. A state
of the human consition is examined through language, word and lines.
A primary preoccupation of recent art practise is to convoy a corporal sensation
such as breathing or falling. Lacrimal Secretions deals with an emotion state and
the production of tears.
The use of the materials, timber and fragile veneer have a relationship to the possibilities
exposed by the text.
Conversation:
Heather
Clugston is a graduate of Fine Art, VCA, and shares a studio space in St Kilda with
Amanda Schlesinger Goss.
HC:
I'm interested in the source of your text works. They seem to have a literature
base and common conversational basis. Why are the particular elements remarkable
to you ?
ASG:
The text I work with resonates on both a personal and , I think, a more universal
level as well. I don't however see the work as autobiographical. The narrative fragments
and phrases are sourced from conversations, lines of songs, newspapers or literature.
I also write some of the text. I'm interested in unpacking an idea or phrase. The
use of wooden blocks is part of this unpacking process. Sometimes I
think of them as representing the unspoken or the other part of the conversation.
They form part of an internal and external landscape.
I have noticed in previous work that some text and spelling is linguistically incorrect
ASG:
I'm interested in playing with words and using a natural language response in text.
I often think about the
process of viewing the written word and the fact that the human eye sees everything
upside down, but the brain turns this information the right side up. Sometimes there
are imperfections in this process.
HC:
The colours you use are very neutral and do not seem to impose a reading on the
work. Word and block placement often mimic the action of the words.
ASG:
Natural wood and veneers offer a tonal range of coulour. The grain of the wood is
an important component of the work. I see a relationship between fine wood grain
and skin, or the body. I'm interested in a micro examination or unpacking of a body
experience or sensation. The challenge I have set myself as an artsit is how to
represent a corporal sensation.
HC:
Until now you have worked in English. In recent work you have also used texts in
French. How do you view this work ?
ASG:
The opportunity to work in tranlation is quite interesting. Not being a French speaker
it's like working in another visual language. It is both comprehensible and incomprehensible
at the same time. It open other linguistic possibilities.
White
Light
witnessing whiteness
An exhibition presented in relation
to the
conference Blanchot, the Obscure by
The Centre for Ideas, Victorian College of the Arts, coordinated
by Dr Elizabeth Presa, featuring works from:
ELIZABETH PRESA - FRANCOIS MARTIN
ADAM ARKAPAW - ALEX BADHAM - MATT BAILEY - SIMON BALDWIN - ERICA BARCLAY - PALOMA
BICA - TOM CLAY - TERRIE FRASER - NAOMI HOSKING - ELLA JAKINS - JESSICA LESKI -
SUNG MIN LIM - ANDREW MADDEN - NICOLETTE MCNAMARA - FIONA MINTO - YOUNG MIN PARK
- THEA RECHNER - DAVID ROCCHI - JANITA RYAN - PHILIPPA RYAN - UTAKO SHINDO - OLAN
SMIBERT - JESSYE
WDOWIN-MCGREGOR - ALEX WHITEHOUSE
Alliance Française Gallery August 12 to September 6, 2004
Official Opening on August 19, 6.30 pm Séance Maurice, Where Are You?: 20 August
The work for the exhibition ‘White Light’ is made by students in response
to an interdisciplinary seminar series entitled ‘Poetics of the Body’
presented at the Centre for Ideas at the Victorian College
of the Arts.
Ben Sheppard, Waste, 2004, black pen on trace paper
Elizabeth Presa, Death Mask (detail), 2004 - plaster, gauze, salt water
Cast of Thomas The Obscure
Elizabeth Presa, Death Mask (detail), 2004 - plaster, gauze, salt water
Cast of Thomas The Obscure
François Martin, M.B, 2004
The aim of this course is to examine some of the conceptual concerns of embodiment,
and to encourage students to develop an awareness of the complex dialect that develops
between observation, memory and touch. Utilising a set of critical readings by writers
and artists, students are encouraged to give consideration to the body as the locus
of sensory and psychic experience and to consider the ways in which these experiences
can find expression art.
This semester the seminars paid particular attention to the intersecting themes
of death and dying through examining some of the writings of the enigmatic French
writer and critic, Maurice Blanchot. For Blanchot, images, writing and reading are
characterised as metaphors of the human body. His evocation of corporeality is achieved
not only by reference to writing as an activity of the body where the image of the
physical presence of the writer is recalled, but also by reference to the text as
a body constructed in terms of human anatomy. Reading then becomes the space in
which the text is resuscitated and death is postponed.
Thea Rechner, Untitled, pencil on paper
Janita Ryan, Untitled (detail) - lightbox
Fiona Minto, 12 x C type prints
Jessye Wdowin-McGregor, Untitled, 2004
25x33cm mixed media collage on paper
Seminars focused on a variety of culturally diverse attitudes to corporeality, death
and dying. During semester students visited the University of Melbourne’s
Anatomy and Pathology museum, and the NGV’s display of Egyptian funerary artefacts;
as well as participated in a death-mask casting class, and a corporeal mapping session
using the Feldenkrais method. They attended film screenings of Frida Kahlo and the
Mexican cult of the Dead, Christian Boltanski’s ‘Dead Swiss’ and
‘Children of Dijon’ art installations, and a recently completed experimental
film by the UK post-punk writer Stewart Home, ‘The Eclipse and Re- Emergence
of the Oedipus Complex’.Students also participated in seminars on Zen Buddhist
Death Poems, and on psychoanalytical interpretations of death.
The exhibition will include works on paper, photographs, video, sculpture and performances.
The French Embassy in Australia is to generously sponsor the visit of the eminent
French artist François Martin at the Centre for Ideas in August. His work
will be represented in the Blanchot Exhibition.
Special film screening of “The Ister” a film by David Barison and Daniel
Ross Federation Hall, The Victorian College of the Arts, Grant Street, Southbank
(date to be confirmed) The film The Ister takes up some of the most challenging
paths in Heidegger’s thought, as we journey from the mouth of the Danube river
in Romania to its source in the Black Forest. However controversial Heidegger continues
to be, his thought remains alive in the work of some of the most remarkable thinkers
and artists working today. Four of these conduct our voyage upstream along the Danube:
Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy, Bernard Stiegler, and, finally, the filmmaker
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg.
Dr Elizabeth Presa
Head and Academic coordinator of The Centre for Ideas
The Victorian College of the Arts
The University of Melbourne
With special thanks to the French Embassy for sponsoring the visit of French artist
François Martin to Australia.
An exhibition of photographs by Franco Zecchin
Curated by Pierre Chevalier
Alliance Française Gallery July 12 to 31, 2004
With the support of Australian Centre for Photography
Franco Zecchin’s photographs of the Sicilian Mafia are a powerful example
of the best kind of photojournalism, a real-life art that requires one to address
the world in a committed and at times confronting manner.
Franco
Zecchin was one of the first photographers to methodically document the activities
of the Mafia in Sicily. Now an internationally celebrated photographer, this exhibition
brings together the work of the seventies and eighties that made him famous.
”We told ourselves that we could no longer go on being passive witnesses to
these massacres: we had in our hands a tool that could be used to inform people
and to combat the phenomenon by helping to forge a new awareness.” Franco
Zecchin
Today, Franco lives in Paris. His work is published in a number of respected newspapers
and magazines including Le Monde, Liberation, L’Express and Nouvel Observateur.
His pictures are included in the collections of the Rochester International Museum
of Photography, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Maison Européenne
de la Photographie in Paris, and in many private collections.
An Australian Centre for Photography touring exhibition
A ustralian Centre for Photography
Presented with the support of
QUATRAIN
A exhibition by the recipients of the 2003 Alliance Française prize for
VCA graduates
May 13 to June 26, 2004
Monday to Thursday: 9.30 am to 9.30 pm
Friday: 9.30 am to 5.30 pm
Saturday: 9.00 am to 4.00 pm
During the last week of November, the Victorian College of the Arts, School of Art
campus is transformed from the ‘laboratory’ of studio practice that
it is throughout the year, into one of the largest exhibitions of contemporary art
in the city. This is always an exciting and unpredictable occasion and the public
is invited to explore and experience this new work at the very genesis of its life.
For the first time last year we had the pleasure to show this work to Edouard Mornaud,
Directeur of Alliance Française, Melbourne. The enthusiasm shown for the
work of the students was confirmed by the offer of a new award, one that will give
students a wonderful start in their emerging careers. Alliance Française
has offered a number of students the opportunity to show their work in the exhibition
space at the Alliance Française Melbourne home in St Kilda.
The judgement was made that the following students should be the first to benefit
from this excellent opportunity. Alliance Française Award- solo exhibition:
Amanda Schlesinger-Goss (16 Sept – 30 Oct).
Alliance Française Award - group exhibition: Gabrielle Baker, Michael Bullock,
David MacLeod, Lani Seligman (13 May – 26 June).
The Graduation Exhibition at the School of Art is always a highlight of the VCA
artistic calendar. Last year is no exception and we saw in this exhibition the outcome
of the year’s mix of hard work and inspiration. The completion of this work
involves many personal sacrifices and struggles, brings many highs and lows, successes
and failures. The Art School is a hothouse of critical judgement where staff and
students engage in lively debate around aesthetic judgements of what is good and
what is not, and how to build a studio practice that is innovative and challenging.
Amongst many other attributes that are developed during this time at art school
it is the important development of critical judgement that students take with
them into their professional futures. It is this that will help them maintain the
high standards that they set for themselves at the VCA. It will also assist them
in the many professional contexts that the uncertain life of an artist will take
them.
The opportunity provided by support as that given here is invaluable to their future
development and we at the VCA extend our warmest thanks to the Alliance Française
de Melbourne for this new initiative, and look forward to our ongoing good relations.
Associate Professor Su Baker
Head of School, Art Victorian College of the Arts
About the artists
Gabrielle Bakerworks in mixed media employing video, painting,
installation and digital photography. She was awarded The Colour Square Award in
2002 and graduated with honours from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2003.
As well as receiving the Alliance Française Prize she was awarded an Australian
Postgraduate Award. She is currently studying for her Masters Degree in the School
of Creative Arts at the University of Melbourne.
In this series of digital prints Gabrielle draws on iconic and historical pictorial
references to highlight the past and the present in the ways we ‘see’.
A big man finds himself embedded in a female world, a ‘flintstone’ like
backyard and on the beach with his fluffy dog. Gazing in to the beyond he seeks
adventure where there is none, meanwhile, the artist presents a slice of compressed
domestic history.
Michael
Bullock was born in Perth, and since 1991 has lived in Melbourne. He
studied Fine Arts at Curtin University and completed a post-graduate diploma at
the VCA in 2003. His most recent solo exhibition was at Gertrude Contemporary Art
Spaces in 2003. In 1999 he was awarded an Asialink studio residency in Hanoi, Vietnam.
In 2002 he participated in the Third International Sculpture Symposium in Hue, Vietnam.
He also recently participated in the Fourth International Sculpture Symposium in
Chau Doc, Vietnam.
Michael writes: "I am trying to make a sense of a visual language, different
to what I was born into, it is not my ‘mother tongue’, that I know too
well. These artistic influences are temples of Asia, originating in India, stretching,
changing all through those continents over many centuries and layered histories.
These sacred places and the images they hold is a place to confirm the past and
the future, from the beginning to beyond an end."
David
MacLeod is a Melbourne artist who graduated from the VCA in 2003. His
art is characterized by an interest in ‘dead’ or wasted time, disused
spaces, temporary architecture. His work is primarily photographic but is known
to engage in video, installation and performance work. In 2003 and early 2004 He
exhibited in group shows at Bus, Connical and a site specific show at 191 Gore Street
which he co-curated. He is also the recipient of numerous awards including The Alliance
Française Prize, the VCA Head of School award for 2003, The George Hicks
Award, and most recently the Bond Imaging Award for Best Urban Landscape, awarded
at the 2004 CCP Summer Salon.
Solitary Silverland is a site specific installation commandeering one of the attic
spaces above the Alliance Française Gallery. The work is viewed by ascending
a ladder propped against the wall in a lonely corner of the gallery space. Viewers
will discover attic wrapped entirely in aluminum and inhabited by a chair, table
and desk lamp which lights the space.
Lani
Seligman graduated from the photography school at the VCA in 2003.
During this year her photograph titled Human Movement won the Lucato Peace Prize
and work from the series ‘Contain’ was awarded the Theodore Urbach Encouragement
Award. Lani has now returned to the VCA and is currently completing her Honours
year.
In a world of constant mobility there are processes of bracketing-in and bracketing-off.
Here exists the possibility for lived experience to be both contained and dissolved.
Within these liquid passages we hold immutable objects like they are made of tin,
silver and gold.
LUMINESCENCE
An exhibition of light sculptures by Thierry Pellat,
featuring guest artist Karl Gordon.
April 15 to May 6, 2004
Monday to Thursday: 9.30 am to 9.30 pm
Friday: 9.30 am to 5.30 pm
Saturday: 9.00 am to 4.00 pm
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
My grandfather was a cabinet-maker. Working with wood would have seemed a natural
choice of material for my sculpture and furniture.
To me plastic is a novelty!
The word plastic reeks of politics, economics and unnaturalness, but when I first
came across these industrial rejects collected from manufacturers, I found their
shapes interesting and beautiful, organic, sensual, oozing with life and movement,
and I fell in love with the enemy.
It was a Lumi-naissance (light-birth), taking the recycling movement at its source.
In a world of scarce natural resources, these excretions of technology, this anti-nature
pleads for global consciousness.
In our culture, the functionality of an object does not always defuse its artistic
potency. However, in my art, it is the act of transforming this industrial waste
into useful products that is the artistic statement, looking for functionality in
materials. Art is not limited to “natural medium”; any sort of material
can be used without restriction.
. These industrial rejects that produce cloned perfection, discarded by society
as useless waste here become an aesthetic presence in our lives. Lumi-essence questions
the preconceived idea of the use of each material:
- questioning what is waste?
- questioning what is beauty?
- questioning what is perfection?
Walking around these sculptures, one is confronted by their random forms; suggesting
natural forces at play - the “natural” speaking through the “unnatural”.
In order to innovate one need to look for a new style of movement. The sense of
mobility comes from the object itself as it draws the spectator to move around it.
Illuminating the objects breathes life into the plastic. The light penetrates the
material from all directions; encouraging the viewer to appreciate the uniqueness
of these organic forms. I work the plastic as I would the wood. The hand movements
and the tools are identical, drilling and carving into the material. What differentiates
the two is the feel of the material. Wood is warm and friendly contrasting with
plastic which is cold and cruel. The latter two properties were ideal to the introduction
of light, changing the feel of coldness of this man-made matter into one of richness
Above all, my art brings me great pleasure.
I sincerely hope the same is true for you
Enjoy the show!
Brodie
Ellis,
an
exhibition by James Kenyon
an
exhibition by
Heather
Clugston is a graduate of Fine Art, VCA, and shares a studio space in St Kilda with
Amanda Schlesinger Goss.
HC:
White
Light
Franco
Zecchin was one of the first photographers to methodically document the activities
of the Mafia in Sicily. Now an internationally celebrated photographer, this exhibition
brings together the work of the seventies and eighties that made him famous.
Michael
Bullock was born in Perth, and since 1991 has lived in Melbourne. He
studied Fine Arts at Curtin University and completed a post-graduate diploma at
the VCA in 2003. His most recent solo exhibition was at Gertrude Contemporary Art
Spaces in 2003. In 1999 he was awarded an Asialink studio residency in Hanoi, Vietnam.
In 2002 he participated in the Third International Sculpture Symposium in Hue, Vietnam.
He also recently participated in the Fourth International Sculpture Symposium in
Chau Doc, Vietnam.
David
MacLeod is a Melbourne artist who graduated from the VCA in 2003. His
art is characterized by an interest in ‘dead’ or wasted time, disused
spaces, temporary architecture. His work is primarily photographic but is known
to engage in video, installation and performance work. In 2003 and early 2004 He
exhibited in group shows at Bus, Connical and a site specific show at 191 Gore Street
which he co-curated. He is also the recipient of numerous awards including The Alliance
Française Prize, the VCA Head of School award for 2003, The George Hicks
Award, and most recently the Bond Imaging Award for Best Urban Landscape, awarded
at the 2004 CCP Summer Salon.
Lani
Seligman graduated from the photography school at the VCA in 2003.
During this year her photograph titled Human Movement won the Lucato Peace Prize
and work from the series ‘Contain’ was awarded the Theodore Urbach Encouragement
Award. Lani has now returned to the VCA and is currently completing her Honours
year.
