rude flowers

.....this is the name of a weird show I'm curating at the moment. Its going to be "staged" at a new bar called Rue de Fleurs so the title is my bogan curatorial interpretation of this. This will be the the invite

                           

cute huh? I think this post is going to be mainly pictures.
Anyway my "curatorial premise" is an exhibition and salon of curious things which loosely respond to the title; erotica, botanica, a bit of both , one or the other, grotesqueries, love, sex, death, ephemera. It may also include surrealist ornament, object d'art, paintings, ceramics, macrame, old weird things lying round the house, artifacts, postcards. In their entirety they will make up a intriguing bouquet.  It's almost an anti curating experience but curiously also very controlled and orchestrated. I've been thinking about this a bit too much perhaps....

I've been thinking about macrame too and how i am both genuinely terrified and compelled by it . I think it might make a bit of a comeback, and not just to hold big orangey gourds. This anonymous photo probably most neatly describes my intention....I would love to meet its curator/ artist. It actually reminds me a little of an ex boyfriends family kitchen whose mother was a great gardener and artisan of sorts.

keeping the orangegy theme going... obvious sex motifs and flower /vagina metaphors

Charlotte Rampling, Photographer Unknown

Oh look some faded old photos and postcards when everything was dappled in glamorous lighting...jeez it's so harsh the lighting these days. Beautiful Charlotte flower descending the staircase......

hello rug.. I like you too

we should include backgammon sets as well ....especially ones that look as surreal and ugly and fantastic as this one. Its funny how when you pick a "theme" or strange trajectory it has so many interpretations and segues. Is everything everything? is nothing nothing?  just thought I'd incorporate some hippie philosophy I learnt in my youf.

Rude! Corpse flowers....Lets have a little snack break....but up the road a bit at my favourite

Nam Loong..who were shut down a few times for having cockroaches in the kitchen and stuff. I've remained loyal..they have the best duck and the best pork buns and Chinese sausage.....mmmmmm. 

up here a little..... trot trot

"arty" Chinese restaurant shot....orange theme still continuing

 Ahhhh all the beautiful rude flowers in our days and ones that have passed.... 

From Tim Walker Pictures first published 2008

Favourite flowers: roses, daphne, peonies, violets, magnolia and all the flowers and fruits of of the sea.

"Deep Throat TV" Aurel Schmidt, 2010

I think Aurel Schmidt understands my curatorial premise. Beautiful decay, fecundity, flowers and penises, abjection, decoration, fluids, juices, substances, ripe smells, burnt eyeballs, love, dissolution, donuts and streamers, joy, ecstasy, repulsion, swarming, heaving life...?!#@! Fuck yeah

Also by Aurel Schmidt but can't find date/title...if you know let me know

Photographer Steven Meisal for Italian Vogue, 2010

Oh Wow! See you at the show

fairytelling

in a dark dark wood, was a dark dark path and on that dark dark path was...oh you know, some creepy house with fey little orphans... perhaps a brother and sister who had some incestual thing going on and stumble on some craggy witch/ stepmother/ evil queen who does really neat spells which she always has to be punished for...when in those dark dark times she was probably getting rid of some hulking wood cutters child or making some herbal tincture... but anyway i dont want to do the revisionist feminist thing on fairytales, i just like them...the more magical and greusome the better....

"Round Midnight" Maurizio Anzeri, 2009

Did you know that in a different time and a different place..In a land faraway..Once pona time...I grew up in a circus and my family drove round in a double decker bus and performed magical tricks and did puppet shows?

8 Possible Beginnings or The Creation of African America, a movie picture" (Still) Kara Walker, 2005

Anyway this is one of Kara Walker's shadow puppet "shows". It's uses some fairytale motifs not in the"once upon a time" but in a specific historical era starting in the late 18th century and depicts plantation life of the U.S south when the slave trade was in full swing. In this heady tale, a kinda Gone with the Wind imploded into its ugly core, everything from lynching,gang rape, head jobs, forbidden sex, giant shitting Negresses and hokey distorted "Mammy" sterotypes are played out by these shadowy figures. It's mesmerising and unrelenting. Probably the most interesting aspect of Walker's work is her resistance in presenting a glib expose on racial stereotypes; something far more insidious and terrifying is presented. Everyone is indicted in this landscape of power and cruelty...oppression is the shared currency. But yes, we are still talking about fairytales... 

"Bluebeard" Dir: Catherine Breillat, 2009

This is probably one of my favourites and Breillat doesn't dissapoint in her film adaption. Like Walker, creulty, pain and oppression is a shared condition, so it's not just the (almost pitiful) Bluebeard who is the opressor (although he certainly has few "issues" with (sexualised?) women and he did tell his new wife not to use that key!). This film is very strange in both its pace and mise en scene, some scenes are very beautiful and romantic whilst others feel dull and awkward, but i think this is intentional. The scene where the horror room is discovered is gorgeous...the blood floor, bare feet dangling and when the lovers are on a castle high balcony and he really wants to slit her throat as she lies in his arms. It goes into a lot of almost Freudian terriority of "totem and taboo" and also asserts the compelling romantacism and latent sexiness of this tale.... It's also quite sad. 

Olive tree, Maurizio Cattelan, 1998

I could go down the psychological horror track with this theme and that might be fun and could probably "illuminate" contemporaneous issues about concealed historical pain and allow me to put some more gory pictures in. I did want to put Goya's "Saturn devouring his Sons"in for obvious reasons and also because I just think its cool that Goya had this in his dining room at home...but i don't know its all starting to feel a little morbid and dark and there's always the other side to fairytelling which is about shiney things and dashing princes and shapeshifters and duck shell blue palatial walls where old ancient olive trees grow and if you ingest them the next time you poo it will look like this!....(below) 

"oooooo"

"arrrrrr"

Tales where you go into the woods and meet woodsmen and wolves and mutter terrible incantations which change people into inanimate objects..haha

"look at this crazy thing pretending to be a chair..its actually a big smelly pink ogre who's into cross dressing in victoriana styles"

"No Comment", Idiots: Afke Goldstein & Floris Balcker, 2006

And being friends with all the animal creatures whose blood is actually made from rubies and finding your grandmother in the bellies of beasts.....

"Little Red Riding Hood", Miwi Yanagi, 2004

Detail "Crystal of Resistance" Venice Biennale, Thomas Hirschhorn, (photo Olivier Zahm from Purple Diary) 2011

And collecting smoky quartz cystals to give power and mojo to your quite brilliant and magical art installation which bewitches all who lay there eyes upon it.....

"Devoted to You", Jocksum Nostrum, 2003

wherein you gallop a horse up many a mountain peak in some platform shoes you found at Bendigo op shop to seek counsel from a wizard with a ship attached to his hat....and he offers you a cup of pungent fenugreek tea....

"Mackum Pikeys" Tony Briggs (date unknown but looks fairly contemporary)

And everyone lives happily ever after...well sorta.... 

Keep warm, look at the stars, goodnight little ones

I know its only rock n roll....

 Gee its been a while i know so I hope someones still out there...hi if you are!

     "Michelle, Windsor " Rennie Ellis, 1978

Hope you've been driving around in kingswoods without any knickers on wearing amazing frocks. I think the one pictured here is by Jenny Bannister...nice huh?...which reminds me i still want to do a fashioney post because its a continual source of superficial joy for me. Anyways I've been a bit distracted and busy with little whirring sounds and neurotic infomercials crowding my head. sigh. So this post is going to be a bit short and sweet and musical and with some little snaps from around the house and down the street

here we go... la la la...trot trot..whirrr whirrrr

looking at the autumn colours....

apparitions, abstract art, cryptic codes

whizzzzzzz...birrrrrr

thinking bout things we shouln't still be doing but find intriguing...

And combing piles of junk for hidden treasures. Nothing here I'am afraid. This brain is a restless thing sometimes.. When its really noisy and full maybe all you can really do is listen to some really noisy things! Yeah..thats a good idea huh? Howzabout the Circle Jerks? 

yeah!

or maybe we can fashion some homemade T-shirts in homage to time when there wasn't really alot of music "merch" so it was a bit more DIY if you really liked a band.

 maybe we admire old singles from a getting distancer youth.... bye byeee

If you go back to the beginning of this blog I mentioned that i was in a sort of band but we didn't play much but i made some posters..well this is one of them..it's a linocut thats why it looks scratchy. 

this is our set list and some really cool hairy boots i had once..hehe not really but maybe i'll include the lyrics of one of our songs. Its from Joan Vollmers point of view after she got shot in the head by her husband,William Burroughs whilst playing "William Tell". It goes like this and i think it shall be called "Untitled"

Well its a crazy night in this big ole city

and i'm standing with a blue dress on

and my! your eyes look so wild and pretty

standing there with your shiney gun

if there ever was a lightening storm

you'd seek it out just to keep you warm

but tonight, tonight i think our love has gone

away

I'm now so faraway

didn even wanna play

but theres still one thing i'd like to say 

and thats

"hey its all in the past

coz i kinda knew today 

would be my last"

See i've found all these little doodles and scraps because I've been rearranging the bookshelves which is strangely comforting and a good autumnal pastime too...when you get a bit tired of listening to music that is...which isn't very often i guess

Thinking about a time when maybe the inside of your house and head might look a little like this...kinda worldly and serene and organised and goldeny......mmmm

   

Think i'll end with a nice uplifting track to keep in theme (?! was there one?)...bye for now..my head will be a little more interesting soon. Promise x

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pl5LU9GsKw

blue riders

                                                        "Tree" Ryan McGingley, 2008

Did you see the moon over the weekend? Wasn't it great. Also a little freaky.. so waxy and full and emanating..arrr woooo!  I climbed up a tree nude with all my hipster mates..hehe not really.. it would've been nice though.. Anyway it put me in a peculiar mood and i feel a bit dumb and spacey so lets just look at pictures and pretend we've taken too much acid and we're just going chill and talk about the cosmos and pretend we're on shaman journeys..is that ok?

maybe we live in the woods and live mainly on a diet of river fish and mushrooms and wild honey. We catch the fish with our bare hands cos we've made friends with all the forest creatures..not like in disney films but on our vision quests...remember? you turned into a wombat. i turned into a regal queen

but then you got sick of being a wombat and decided to become a man bear instead... wowee you look quite dashing. You also fashioned a canoe so we could find some ocean fishies too...mmmm ones that have been hanging out with coral friends

"100 Years Ago" , Peter Doig,2001

"Gasthof", Peter Doig, 2004

I like Peter Doig's work very much. He ties into this spacey feeling really well but also conjures up weird nostalgias, displacement and alienation. Dream spells, quasi spritual feelings, faux naivete. He's also an amazing colourist but in a slightly offbeat and uncanny way . He's one of those painters who I probably would like to stand in front of for ages to absorb the colour frequencies...like Matisse and the Fauves and Rothko and all the usual suspects. Not bright geometric fractal contemporary things (which I like also) but moody emotive colour ones. Here are some other ones I fancy when I'm in this mood

 "Wandervogel" Kaya Donachie, 2005

Ohh i know this image is so tiny but I couldn't get it any bigger!?...anyway it's from Kaye Donashie's Mount Verita exhibition which took its name from a mountain in Switzerland where "anarchists, theosophosts, vegetarians and Dadaists poets and bohemians" settled in the early 20th century establishing a colony of free love and communion( I did warn you I was in a slightly hippie mood)

Michelle Ussher, 2010

When I talk about colour, emotive colour, it doesn't even have to be that colourful. I guess it's depth and fragility... mystery.There is nothing more fundamentally dissapointing in looking at a painterly work when it just seems muddy and inert. Colour is a rush, surprising colour makes your eyes open really wide... colour that's off or crude just reminds you of a tsnami debris wash..brown and foul (although this is pretty bad analogy as A) it would probably look pretty interesting B) its in fairly bad bad taste to use a current natural disaster to illustrate good and bad painting techniques)     

"Everglade Cavalier" ,  Ryhs Lee, 2010

Things can get a little funny when you start riffing on spiritual agency within artworks, which is not surprising when you recognise the oppressive control religion once had on artists. It's almost embarrassing to have an emotional or visceral response to artwork these days ( " I don't know much about art but I know what i like"). Of course everyone does...but there seems an increasing reliance on wall texts and self important (often cryptic) catalogue essays to tell people what they should be experiencing. Sigh...It's just nice being dumb sometimes. Or scientific and architectural perhaps!! 

hello lovely...

Le Corbusier produced this colour manual in 1920 which charted an amazing system of matching colours which he invented and developed from non toxic natural pigments ie: lapis lazuli,"green umber from ancient sources on the island of cyprus". It makes apparent the exactness of colour, the rightness of certain hues in combination, like notes and scales of a musical chart that we all recognise. It's a strange point to end on..and the anarchist  inside me would like to dispute any fixed order but then I remember that anarchy too is quite organised..and so is chaos. Ha ha... want to join my cult? Our posters and pamphlets can look this....    

"Several Circles" (Einige Kreise) Wassily Kandinsky, 1926

Nice. Can't wait.