Entries from December 2009 ↓

Modernity has begotten a new form of madness – or is it simply the season? Yes, dear readers, Iconophilia offers this dialogical poem on the subject on this Christmas day, 2009. It is dialogical in the sense that it is to be performed by all of you, in random order, in the traffic, to be spoken out loud, windows down, whenever your eye lights on a piece of this consumermodernist contempormodernist wordage brandage. In the spirit of the Cabaret Voltaire Australis, go on, be a sport…

1. ASPIRE RONDO STYLE, SPORT

Swift discovery polo club generation!

Eclipse charade-savvy grandeur (grande, grandis),

swing odyssey, rio titanium!

Sonata astra acclaim, avalon applause echo,

patriot commodore liberty conquest.

Lambada [or: lambadada] avantgarde avenger.

2. PREGIO [translated from the Spanish, roughly, "Dear baby Jesus, pray grant me succour in this hour of need"]

Soarer bora, vienta epica magentis avensis, dualis verso premacy.

Aurion navara solara, aristo yaris, lantra murano pulsar…

Prius terios lanos, rubicon tiguan triton -

solara metiz impreza actyon, pajero altise levin, tiida getz nubira.

3. BOXSTER [translated from the Californian, roughly, "there's a whole new generation who think like this"]

Roomster, forester, sirion pulsar.

Tiburon elantra futura musso, festiva seca paseo…

Dualis.

Fuso.

Applause.

(thanks to Bill and Amanda’s capacity to navigate between dross and gloss)

the things you find… Never heard of him? Start here…

Be it known that Iconophilia does not condone such vandalism… even at the front door of a University. But Relic is surely a soft target for undergraduate humour… these are before and after snaps, thanks to my sense of duty.

And, oh dear, it continues…

Iconophilia invites you to make up your own minds which version of this Rick Amor sculpture on Childers St and University Avenue you prefer. Vote Christo or anti-Christo? It’s the latest instance of the ACT Government’s iconopathic spree on public art. Apparently we specialise in minor works by minor artists – Rick Amor was unknown to the world of three dimensional art until his unhappy black dog was unleashed on the unsuspecting art world as a (tongue-in-cheek, surely) farewell gift to the last NGA Director Brian Kennedy. And who decided this glowering feetless Relic would be a great symbol for the entryway to the Australian National University? Is the CM having a lend of the VC?

Or it it the Family Law Court it’s referencing? Abandon hope all ye who enter here… It seems the ACT Government’s public art fashion sense has shifted to beaky, lumpy, semi-figurative bronzes which evoke British art from the 1950s. And good lord! It (presumably another copy) won the McLelland Award in 2007!

And it’s been a sculpture ‘launch” a week for the Chief Minister’s publicity machine recently. Iconophilia bets this one is destined to sink without a ripple in the dark waters of art history… And let’s hope there’s an exit clause…

Iconophilia suggests: surely some local Wittgenstein afficionado must be the author of this spectacularly austere house in Watson Rise in Canberra?

Or, maybe not… It sure seems to Iconophilia that our first encounter with the PALR suggests that this may not be the panacea for the Global Financial Crisis after all. It just may be a tad too transparent…

Here we were in Nimmitabel last weekend, in the center of the bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro, face to face with the groundbreaking Fourteen-Silver-Birch-Tree-Led-Stimulus-Package. Yes, there are fourteen new bits of steel, concrete and Birch Tree in the main street of Nimmitabel, all in the name of the Government’s Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan.

You’d want to ask, wouldn’t you, what is the contribution to the nation’s productive capacity in projects such as this? Surely little bits of public consumption like this is little more than the ol’ pork-barrel? I would have thought this was a risky vote-losing strategy in this revisionist economic climate?

Iconophilia was excited to receive this contribution from anthropologist Lindsey Langford, (Central Desert Native Title Services), via a mutual friend Bill Kruse. Lindsey’s account of his encounter with this spectacular drawing makes enticing reading. But then again not many of us are likely to make it all the way down the Gunbarrel Highway…

“Wongawol Station station is located close to the Western edge of Lake Carnegie [north east of Wiluna]. The area is known as Pukutu country by the Martu [-speaking] people who are the traditional owners and custodians for the area.  These photos were taken during a Return to Country trip with Martu elders from Wiluna and Jigalong [once a Mission, now a community] who related their stories of  working on cattle stations as young men and women.

The photos are from the inside of the old station quarters where several Martu station-hands had spent their nights while mustering at Wongawol from the early to middle part of last century. Pictured here is Mr Frank Wongawol who grew up and worked on Pukutu/Wongawol. By the late 1970’s most of the Aboriginal stockmen in the area  had moved into Wiluna and mustering was no longer performed on horseback but with motorbikes and 4WD’s.

Watabu Handley’s art was pointed out by some of the elders in attendance who remembered him as a good stockman with whom they had worked  with on Wongawol and other stations residing on their homelands.

[One of the visitors on this occasion was Mr.] Friday Jones [whose] name [was] inscribed there [and dated] 1972. Friday was born on Carnegie station, which is just east of Wongawol, and worked as a stockman all through the area. What makes the autograph special is that Friday was with us on this trip and stood squinting  up at his name and picturing his younger self in that act.”

Oh dear. It’s a fizzer. This “sculptural marker” for Canberra’s non-existent “Latin America Quarter” looks as gimcrack and temporary as the reports of its Sydney sojourn promised. Did the ACT Chief Minister really choose it himself? Maybe he only saw it in the dark… Either way, to elevate this tinny temporary effects $90,000 public artefact to the status of (permanent) “public art” is, I’m afraid, a bad joke all round… Plus there’s the budget for the “launch” – complete with marquee, portaloos, nibbles and drinkies. Incidentally, what the CT first reported as the “Latin American Quarter” is now the “Latin American Plaza”… And then in the CT’s breathless style the sculpture “took the artist three months to make” – well there’s an index of quality for you… one Phillips head screw every three days…

Seems designed to defeat drunken larrikins. A non-voting sector. Except those who vote with Phillips head screwdrivers. We’ll be watching it’s progress with interest. You have to wonder, is this the standard we’ll get for the Glassworks commission? How long before the etched gal rusts, and it’s dented and graffiti’d? C’mon Jon, get some better advice…