09_04_2010

This internship with the Biennale of Sydney was facilitated as part of an Education and Guiding course through COFA.  As such, one component of the course involved doing a presentation on three artists.  The artists that I was assigned were Robert Macpherson, Rodney Glick and Yang Fudong.  Two of three from the trifecta were of Australian background, interesting for me because I am from Canada and am always interested in learning about local artists, so I was thrilled by the challenge of researching these artists.  The presentation took place today, in front of 8 other COFA students that will also be giving tours to the public during the Biennale period, and Public Programs and Education Manager Dougal Phillips and the PPE Coordinator Nisa Mackie.  I should mention, that the point of the Education and Guiding Course is to learn about all the artists exhibiting works on Cockatoo Island (where we will be conducting tours), as well as acquire skills for both guiding tours and writing educational materials for the Biennale – similar to those one might be expected to write for any major arts institution in the industry.  Needless to say, the experience of writing educational materials and learning to speak knowledgeably about artworks is invaluable.  Furthermore, it has been really great to help boost confidence as an expert in the field of arts administration.

I was pretty nervous speaking about my artists at first, but loosened up as the presentation went on.  First I spoke about Robert MacPherson.  His practice involves recreating roadside signs, like those one might see along the highways in rural Australia, as a means of preserving the vernacular of small rural communities.  So, ultimately, he is interested in addressing the colloquial and distinctive aspects of Australian landscape and language.  He is drawn less to exact meanings of words and is more interested in the way written language conjures mental imagery for the viewer.  For BOS17, MacPherson will exhibit Chitters: A Wheelbarrow for Richard – 156 paintings/signs describing the roadside drive-by of terminology describing the landscape of regional Australia.  The second artist I spoke about was Rodney Glick.  Glick, like MacPherson, is Australian but he is fascinated with traditional Balinese sculpture.  Mixing the modern with the traditional, Glick (in collaboration with Balinese woodcarvers) created life-size versions of multi-armed Hindu Gods based on the likeness of Western figures, including himself!   Historically, this practice was reserved only for iconic divine figures.  This juxtaposition makes for interesting investigations regarding the social and political implications of such work.  For example, local Balinese families started requesting likenesses of themselves from a local carver after the Glick project.  The last artist I was assigned to speak about was Yang Fudong.  He is a Chinese artist that is interested in investigations about identity through myth, personal memory and lived experience.  His works are predominantly film works, of an existential nature, sublime, cinematic, avant-garde and shot with a film noir aesthetic.  For BOS17, he will display his work East of Que Village (2007), a fiercely personal work, where the artist takes us back to his home village, left dry and desolate and focuses on a pack of dogs struggling to survive in the arid landscape, while the human inhabitants are side figures that have been hypnotized by their own indifference.  This work is meant as a metaphour for the unforgiving experience of modernization in China, systematically extinguishing traditional rural lifestyles.