My rant about the Biennale
The Sydney Biennale is on at the moment. There are 20 artists at the NSW Art Gallery, and I had swung by and had a quick look the weekend they opened, but let me say I was less than impressed. But last night, a Wednesday (and also the 1 year anniversary of my heart getting smashed to bits, but never mind), I took advantage of the late night opening of the gallery to swing by and do the tour.
I have been spoiled by Philorum and really missed my opportunity to respond to each work for 3 minutes, so I will put a bit of my rant here. I will focus on two women (there are 14 women among the 20) both of whom use embroidery quite prominently in their art.
There were four works by Kei Takemura, but I will focus on 2. In one, she is reponding to the fact that now that she lives outside of Japan, when she goes back she is very aware that it is an earthquake zone, even though the inhabitants seem to repress this fact. To preserve in memory the apartment of a friend, she drew her recollection of it nearly life-sized in pencil on one wall, and then overlay a gauzy sheet where she had embroidered in white all the objects she remembered from the kitchen -- wooden spoon, tea kettle, bowls, etc. Opposite this work was a glass case along the far wall that held little objects coccooned in silk cases. The guide explained that these were things she had found at friends' houses that were broken. She bound them up in silk so that they could be together again -- silk lasts for 100 years, so it is strong and could bind the things back together. The things were mostly kitchen objects like beautiful antique tea cups, wine glasses, plates, one wooden spoon, but there was also a little toy that had been wrapped in colourful silk threads and put back in its little wooden box. This piece didn't do anything for me the first time I went by, but this time, hearing the explanation, I thought it was quite sad and beautiful. Having moved house so frequently and recently, having thought hard recently about why I keep things and my sentimental nature (hey, if anyone needs a 1971 Jaguar...), and being someone who has recurring nightmares about having to pack all my childhood things in time for an imminent flight, the impulse behind the work really spoke to me. All these little lovely broken but treasured things in their little white shrouds were very sad and beautiful, futile but treasured and preserved.
The other embroiderer just pissed me off. Her name is Ghada Amer, she is originally from Egypt but now lives in the US, and is such a US feminist artist. She does big square canvasses and it's hard to make out what they're of at first. They are line drawings based on images of women taken from pornography. Great. The images repeat in a pattern like a tapestry -- so, line drawing = women are empty, repetition = the women are commodities and industrialised. Yawn. One in particular pissed me off. Overtop of the multi-coloured images of women there were what looked like Pollock-like splatters of paint. But if you looked closely, all the splatters were embroidered. Painstakingly embroidered. Sure, embroidery and tapestry and textile work is more traditionally a female medium (although the other artist, Kei Takemura, learned embroidery from her father who was a national master of it). But to claim Pollock's activity painting back for the feminine in such an anal way, it just seemed such an angry gesture. More angry than Pollack deserves (and he was a complete jerk to women, ended up killing one of them in his car he was such a jerk). It didn't show an adquate appreciation of what he and his peers contributed to art. I thought it was unfair, and cynical and mean and too angry.
But then, this probably just reflects my biases. I'm a midwestern Episcopalian left-leaning voter. Pornography does not affect me in the slightest, I find it boring and mundane and physical and not at all taboo or interesting or having anything to do with what people essentially are, which is things that can reason and talk and vote. And I am a Modernist and so mid-20th C. art seems to me to be all the art that anyone ever needs, ever. If you'd like to go have a look, the show is on until 27 August.
http://www.bos2006.com/
I have been spoiled by Philorum and really missed my opportunity to respond to each work for 3 minutes, so I will put a bit of my rant here. I will focus on two women (there are 14 women among the 20) both of whom use embroidery quite prominently in their art.
There were four works by Kei Takemura, but I will focus on 2. In one, she is reponding to the fact that now that she lives outside of Japan, when she goes back she is very aware that it is an earthquake zone, even though the inhabitants seem to repress this fact. To preserve in memory the apartment of a friend, she drew her recollection of it nearly life-sized in pencil on one wall, and then overlay a gauzy sheet where she had embroidered in white all the objects she remembered from the kitchen -- wooden spoon, tea kettle, bowls, etc. Opposite this work was a glass case along the far wall that held little objects coccooned in silk cases. The guide explained that these were things she had found at friends' houses that were broken. She bound them up in silk so that they could be together again -- silk lasts for 100 years, so it is strong and could bind the things back together. The things were mostly kitchen objects like beautiful antique tea cups, wine glasses, plates, one wooden spoon, but there was also a little toy that had been wrapped in colourful silk threads and put back in its little wooden box. This piece didn't do anything for me the first time I went by, but this time, hearing the explanation, I thought it was quite sad and beautiful. Having moved house so frequently and recently, having thought hard recently about why I keep things and my sentimental nature (hey, if anyone needs a 1971 Jaguar...), and being someone who has recurring nightmares about having to pack all my childhood things in time for an imminent flight, the impulse behind the work really spoke to me. All these little lovely broken but treasured things in their little white shrouds were very sad and beautiful, futile but treasured and preserved.
The other embroiderer just pissed me off. Her name is Ghada Amer, she is originally from Egypt but now lives in the US, and is such a US feminist artist. She does big square canvasses and it's hard to make out what they're of at first. They are line drawings based on images of women taken from pornography. Great. The images repeat in a pattern like a tapestry -- so, line drawing = women are empty, repetition = the women are commodities and industrialised. Yawn. One in particular pissed me off. Overtop of the multi-coloured images of women there were what looked like Pollock-like splatters of paint. But if you looked closely, all the splatters were embroidered. Painstakingly embroidered. Sure, embroidery and tapestry and textile work is more traditionally a female medium (although the other artist, Kei Takemura, learned embroidery from her father who was a national master of it). But to claim Pollock's activity painting back for the feminine in such an anal way, it just seemed such an angry gesture. More angry than Pollack deserves (and he was a complete jerk to women, ended up killing one of them in his car he was such a jerk). It didn't show an adquate appreciation of what he and his peers contributed to art. I thought it was unfair, and cynical and mean and too angry.
But then, this probably just reflects my biases. I'm a midwestern Episcopalian left-leaning voter. Pornography does not affect me in the slightest, I find it boring and mundane and physical and not at all taboo or interesting or having anything to do with what people essentially are, which is things that can reason and talk and vote. And I am a Modernist and so mid-20th C. art seems to me to be all the art that anyone ever needs, ever. If you'd like to go have a look, the show is on until 27 August.
http://www.bos2006.com/
posted by Ellen at 9:55 pm
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