Monday, December 31, 2007

May the force be with you



wishing you all a Katzadelic 2008

grab a buttered toast and rest peacefully in your inner balance

click, click

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Sleevefaces




SSleeveface is the art of one or more persons obscurings or augmenting any part of the body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion.
















































more Sleevefaces here and here


via log_070329

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Julie Rrap: Body Double

Julie Rrap Boat Tail (BT) (2004)
from the series Soft Targets
pure pigment prints on acid-free rag paper
image size 142.5 x 173cm paper size 152 x 173cm




Julie Rrap: Body Double
For over twenty-five years, the Sydney-based
artist Julie Rrap has sought to disclose and
unravel the ways in which the human body has
been defined throughout western history and
culture. She does so with a seductive wit, an
outward display of pleasure, and a determination
to match the gaze of her audiences.
Deeply based in the story of the body, Rrap’s art
is always a surprise, resulting from an individual
ingenuity that aligns with a feminist strategy to
continuously seek and present the unpredictable and
unanticipated.



Julie Rrap Overstepping (2001)
digital print 120 x 120 cm







Julie Rrap Yaw 2004
from the series Soft Targets
digital print 120 x 120 cm


This exhibition surveys Rrap’s work over three
decades and focuses on three key themes in
her work: the trickster, the body double and the
ways in which her work represents the body as
a fragmented entity.
Often playing the role of thief, vixen or
mischievous impostor, Rrap has worked as a
kind of ‘trickster’, literally ‘occupying’ the work
of some of western art’s most famous paintings
or pop-cultural images. During the 1980s,
artists such as Edvard Munch provided
vehicles for Rrap’s exploration of the ways in
which the female nude had been represented
through the history of art, as in her 1984 series
Persona and Shadow. ‘The historical paintings’,
she explains, ‘were really stepping-off points for
me to do a performance’. By mobilising these
well-known images, Rrap unravels the
condition of woman as ‘other’ and this strategy
has persisted in her work through to the
A-R-MOUR series (2000).

Making the plaster casts for the series Monument
Location: Crawford Castings. Photograph: Jacky Redgate
Julie Rrap Monument (1995 - 1996)
fibreglass and bronze dust, camera and monitor
148 x 80 x 20cms


Throughout the 1990s until the present day,
Rrap has used her own body in various
postures through shadow play, masquerade,
mirror and mime. She performs as a ‘body
double’ for the still and moving camera.
Drawing on the notion that gender is in itself a
performance, Rrap has forged the theme of the
stand-in, a prosthetic body double, and her
works often invite viewers to imagine themselves in
such a role.
This is evident in sculptural installations such as
Vital Statistics(1997) and Hard Core/Soft Core (2006)
through to the most recent work in this exhibition,
Body Double (2007).

Julie Rrap Puberty 1984
from the series Persona and Shadow
cibachrome print approx. 194 x 105cm


Increasingly, Rrap represents a body in pieces,
inevitably raising ethical and aesthetic issues in
relation to how we depict, interpret and
understand the human form. Such issues have
been discussed both in broad social terms (for
example in relation to the Abu Ghraib
photographs or in connection with genetic
engineering), as well as in the field of art. For
Rrap, the body and its representation is porous,
excessive and oozing with a sense of tease
and trickery. In works such as Hairline Crack
(1992), Porous Bodies (1999) and
Overstepping (2001), this body oversteps the
margins of comfort, taking us into the zone of
transgression. It is, however, always in the
company of a foil that more often than not,
allows us to laugh out loud with the artist.

Victoria Lynn, Guest Curator

Julie Rrap Conception 1984
from the series Persona and Shadow
cibachrome print approx. 194 x 105cm




Julie Rrap Body Rub 2 (2006)
archival print on watercolour paper
image size: 199 x 100 cm paper size: 210 x 110cm



all photographs Courtesy the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and Arc One Gallery, Melbourne
© the artist



further reading: Julie Rrap: Body Double Education Kit (pdf)


Julie Rrap: Body Double at MCA Sydney till 28 January 2008

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Santa´s Ghetto

Sam3


Santa's Ghetto is probably the world's most low-concept art event.

Every year we assemble a loose collection of the great unwashed to hawk their artistic wares on the high street amongst the mindless sham and drudgery of the christmas season. This year we've moved out of Oxford Street into a former chicken shop on Manger Square in Bethlehem opposite the Church of the Nativity (where Santa Claus was actually born).

This puts us one mile behind the security wall in a part of the world ravaged by conflict, poverty and dust. Just the place, you'd think, that's desperate to check out the latest five-colour deckled edge screen prints coming out of East London.

You can watch the whole sorry thing unravel on-line but you're particularly welcome to come out and visit in person (you're probably far less likely to get randomly stabbed on the way home than you were last year).
The Show



Eva


Bethlehem is one of the most contentious places on earth.

Perched at the edge of the Judaen desert at the intersection of Europe, Asia and Africa in the state of Palestine it was governed by the British following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. After World War II the United Nations voted to partition the region into two states - one Jewish, one Arab and there’s been fighting ever since.

It’s obviously not the job of a loose collection of idiot doodlers to tell you what’s right or wrong about this situation, so you’re advised to do further reading yourself (this month’s National Geographic has an excellent article all about Bethlehem).

We would like to make it very clear Santa’s Ghetto is not allied to ANY race, creed, religion, political organization or lobby group. As an organisation the only thing we’ll say on behalf of our artists is that we don’t speak on behalf of our artists. This show simply offers the ink-stained hand of friendship to ordinary people in an extraordinary situation.

Every shekel made in the store will be used on local projects for children and young people. Not one cent will go to any political groups, governmental institutions or, in fact, any grown-ups at all.

Salaam.

The Point



Bansky






Paul Insect


Bansky


Erica il Cane and Sam3


Bansky

This wall marks the spot where over 40 people were killed during the first Intafada (the little holes along the top are from bullets).
While Banksy was painting it a lot of people came over, some to shake his hand and others telling him to go away. Eventually the local MP was called out to diffuse the eighty-strong crowd that had built up (by which time Banksy had left and the piece was completed by the local kids).



Faile


Sam3



viamore