Museums and Prostitution

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A SMH EXCLUSIVE: 

The Powerhouse Museum has been prostituted in pursuit of misguided populism, says one of Australia's leading arts figures.

Leo Schofield also said millions of dollars had been wasted on renovating the building, in a withering attack on the management of the museum at Ultimo.

''As a former trustee of the Powerhouse Museum I am appalled at the recent history of this once vibrant institution and the whoring of a great and eclectic collection in pursuit of misguided populism,'' he said.

Schofield's scathing comments came as Arts Minister George Souris announced on Wednesday that Rose Hiscock would replace Dawn Casey as director of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, which includes the Powerhouse and the Sydney Observatory.

But Ms Hiscock would inherit a troubled institution, said Schofield, who was a trustee for nine years.

Schofield's views are rejected by Shirley Alexander, who became a trustee in 2007 and is deputy vice-chancellor of the University of Technology, Sydney.

''I think there are some people who will never agree that something deemed to be popular is the right thing for a museum,'' she said.

''We cater to all audiences, not just the elite.''

Schofield is also critical of the museum's facelift that resulted in a gallery devoted to design being replaced by a temporary touring exhibition space and upgrades to the entrance, cafe and shop. ''Millions have been wasted on rejigging what was a perfectly fine building and the choice of recent directors has been questionable,'' he said.

Schofield said the museum's reputation for collecting and exhibiting contemporary design had been harmed during Dr Casey's five-year tenure. Exhibitions on popular culture such as the Wiggles and The Chronicles of Narnia had come at the expense of decorative arts, crafts and design. ''What has got my dander up is the complete destruction of the design section of the museum,'' he said.

Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art and the refurbished Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery showed it was possible to elevate public taste, not debase it, Schofield said.

Schofield has been critical of Dr Casey, claiming in 2010 that many long-term museum supporters and donors viewed her appointment with ''considerable trepidation''.

''The institution is designated as a museum of applied arts and sciences but, bit by bit, the applied and decorative arts are being de-emphasised and the program of exhibitions dumbed down,'' he said in 2010.

A former director of the Sydney Festival, Schofield said: ''The tsunami of goodwill that once flowed to this institution has dwindled to a trickle''.

His criticism was echoed by the NSW Auditor-General, who gave a harsh report of the museum's performance in 2011.

The report found there was a ''dramatic decrease'' in the number of exhibitions held, while its Top Secret and ABBAWorld shows were so unsuccessful that the museum removed admission charges.

In contrast, Harry Potter: The Exhibition, which opened in November 2011, drew large crowds and helped contribute a profit of $2.7 million to the museum in 2011-12.

Professor Alexander said the renovation was prompted by visitor feedback that the museum was hard to navigate. ''We put a lot of money into re-engineering the space and fixing signage so when visitors come we want them to have the best possible experience,'' she said.

She said Dr Casey had addressed the lack of attention to science, innovation and engineering with new shows.

GLASShouse Night Sounds # 1

The inaugural performance of Night Sounds #1 on Wednesday, December 12, 4:30-6:30pm, featured musician Julianna Barwick in the Glass House alongside Ken Price’s sculpture Doola (2011). Julianna Barwick: Hauntingly beautiful & immersive, the music of vocalist/composer Julianna Barwick becomes a total experience of the senses when paired with sublime design. Barwick has released three albums to tremendous critical acclaim from The New York Times, National Public Radio (NPR), Pitchfork and more. The interface between voice and technology is central to Ms. Barwick’s art: her music is composed of raw material almost exclusively her own voice, layered and processed into figures that can alternately be described as familiar, soothing, alien, and tense... CLICK HERE TO GO TO SOURCE

40 Fruit

Tree of 40 Fruit, 2008-Present

Grafted fruit tree including peach, plum, apricot, nectarine, cherry, and almond
Courtesy of the artist and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts

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WHAT CAN AND CANNOT BE DONE

If you are proposing to do something out of the ordinary, a little unusual, that contests the status quo, that involves change or even something quite simple, there is bound to be a whole list of reasons as to why in cannot, should not, must not, will not, be done.

The Auxiliary Museum is attempting to build an online ‘exhibit’ of these reasons given for NOT doing something in a museum. Indeed we are attempting to compile a definitive list so that people who come across idea blocks can recognize them for what they are – bureaucratic stalling devices. If as a musing visitor you are wishing to encourage the unexpected, the atypical or some other curious outcome, or even some other laudable outcome that challenges ‘the norm’ we hope that we can help you  muse upon these things when you hear them or bump up against them in some way. If you find a new manifestation please let us know.

Any unwelcome, extraordinary or unexpected initiative from an outsider or cultural activist can be delayed until after the next meeting, sustainability conference, review session, whatever, by a bureaucrat or functionary somewhere via a 'multi stage and multi facted' delaying process:

1. Informal discussions with appropriate people;
2. Draft proposal developed by suitably qualified people;
3. Preliminary study formatted to meet the required standards;
4. Discussion document drafted to meet the need of the appropriate authorities;
5. In-depth study investigating the concerns of appropriate authorities;
6. Revised proposal that addresses the issues identified in the earlier studies;
7. Policy statement that accommodates the issues identified in previous reports and studies;
8. Strategy proposal towards delivering the anticipated outcomes;
9. The assessment of human resource capacities and needs
10. Discussion of strategy to ensure that the process is as inclusive as required by key stakeholders;
11. The application of fiscal resources
12. Implementation plan circulated to ensure that all impacted upon by the proposal are included in the process;
13. Revised implementation plans to accommodate unanticipated issues;
14. Authority agreement to proceed conditional upon any new factor that may have arisen

NOTE: The funding agency does not work out what is needed and then think how to raise the money. It pitches for as much as it can get away with from wherever it can get the funding and then it thinks how to spend it.

If you have experienced, or are experiencing, other inhibitors please email zero@7250.net for our records and where possible for any assistance we are able to supply.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: This list draws upon Antony Jay's and Jonathan Lynn's 'Yes Minister' tweaked somewhat to fit the MUSERSworld 

AN 1818 MUSEUM IN A BOX

CLICK HERE TO VISIT & TOUR THIS MUSEUM

CONTENTS: beetles birds black swans butterflies cabinets colonial art cranes (birds) ducks egrets fish insects kangaroos native birds natural history illustrations pelicans pigeons presentation pieces scientific specimens seashells spiders spoonbills stuffed birds

AN ONLINE MUSING EXPERIENCE

Watching for the ways the world is changing around us

The history of the papacy, the office held by the pope as leader of the Catholic Church, spans from the time of Saint Peter to present day. In that time the shifts in social sensibilities, cultural realities, knowledge and belief systems and technologies have been both dynamic and glacial. In 2013 the papal changeover serendipitously demonstrates the speed of change evident in the 21st Century.

The image above is a poignant demonstration of change. After the faithful had waited for a puff of white smoke from a chimney on the Sistine Chapel they shared their experience with their worlds.Tradition dictates that the new Pope should change into his papal white cassock as, one by one, the cardinals who elected him in the conclave approach him to swear their obedience. Tradition demands that he stop and pray in the Pauline Chapel for a few minutes before emerging on the loggia of the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square to reveal his identity to the world.

There the faithful wait to see their new Pope and receive his blessing. But despite the established traditions technology had added a new layer to them in that the experience of being in St. Peter's Square at 'that moment' can now can not only be share and beamed around the world and can be stored in cyberspace.

In 2005 'that moment' was witnessed by the faithful in almost the same way and then too their 'digital memories' galloped around the world and found resting places in cyberspace to be mused upon. The difference in 2013 being that these digital records – images and sounds – reached further faster. The digital recording 'device' has become ubiquitous to change the ways memories are store, shared and mused upon. 

The opulence of Pope Benedict XVI reign promises to be transplanted with the Franciscan austerity in line with Pope Francis' sensibilities and Jesuit heritage. The papacy is unlikely to ever be the same as moves forward into the 21st C with all that entails.

Likewise, musing is unlikely to ever be the same again as the world changes around us and paradigms shift in unanticipated ways.  

[COOLABAHplacedness] Sally Brown Draws

CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE DRAWING

To draw:
1. to cause to move in a particular direction by or as if by a pulling force; pull; drag (often fol. by along, away, in, out, or off). 

2. to bring, take, or pull out, as from a receptacle or source: to draw water from a well. 

3. to bring toward oneself or itself, as by inherent force or influence; attract: The concert drew a large audience.

4. to sketch (someone or something) in lines or words; delineate; depict: to draw a vase with charcoal; to draw the comedy's characters with skill. 

5. to compose or create (a picture) in lines.

6. to mark or lay out; trace: to draw perpendicular lines. 

7. to frame or formulate: to draw a distinction.

8. to write out in legal form (sometimes fol. by up): Draw up the contract.

9. to inhale or suck in: to draw liquid through a straw. 

10. to derive or use, as from a source: to draw inspiration from Shakespeare. 

11. to deduce; infer: to draw a conclusion. 

12. to get, take, or receive, as from a source: to draw interest on a savings account; to draw a salary of $600 a week. 

13. to withdraw funds from a drawing account, esp. against future commissions on sales. 

14. to produce; bring in: The deposits draw interest. 

15. to disembowel: to draw a turkey.

16. to drain: to draw a pond. 

17. to pull out to full or greater length; make by attenuating; stretch: to draw filaments of molten glass. 

18. to bend (a bow) by pulling back its string in preparation for shooting an arrow. 

19. to choose or to have assigned to one at random, by or as by picking an unseen number, item, etc.: Let's draw straws to see who has to wash the car. 

20. Metalworking.to form or reduce the sectional area of (a wire, tube, etc.) by pulling through a die.

21. to wrinkle or shrink by contraction. 

22. Med.to cause to discharge: to draw an abscess by a poultice.

23. to obtain (rations, clothing, equipment, weapons, or ammunition) from an issuing agency, as an army quartermaster. 


24. Nautical.(of a vessel) to need (a specific depth of water) to float: She draws six feet. 


25. to leave (a contest) undecided; finish with neither side winning, as in a tie.

26. Cards. 

• to take or be dealt (a card or cards) from the pack. 
• Bridge.to remove the outstanding cards in (a given suit) by leading that suit: He had to draw spades first in order to make the contract. 

27. Billiards.to cause (a cue ball) to recoil after impact by giving it a backward spin on the stroke. 

28. Northeastern U.S. (chiefly New Eng.). to haul; cart. 

29. Hunting.to search (a covert) for game. 

30. Cricket.to play (a ball) with a bat held at an angle in order to deflect the ball between the wicket and the legs. 


31. Curling.to slide (the stone) gently. 


32. to steep (tea) in boiling water. 


33. to form or shape (glass) as it comes from the furnace by stretching.  

34. to exert a pulling, moving, or attracting force: A sail draws by being properly trimmed and filled with wind. 


35. to move or pass, esp. slowly or continuously, as under a pulling force (often fol. by on, off, out, etc.): The day draws near... click here for more still

The word 'draw' is amongst the most loaded of all words in the English language. Sally Brown, as a maker, is a 'drawer' and subliminally she draws on place in the ways pacemakers and placemarkers do in order to celebrate her placedness. There is not much space for words in Sally practice.

Click here to go to her folio – DRAWING: Gods & Mine

Posted By nudgelbah to COOLABAHplacedness on 3/09/2013 07:39:00 am

[COOLABAHplacedness] International Art English Exposed

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A user's guide to artspeak: Andy Beckett The Guardian, Sunday 27 January 2013 19.00 GMT 

"Why do so many galleries use such pompous, overblown prose to describe their exhibits? Well, there's now a name for it: International Art English [IAE]. And you have to speak it to get on. Andy Beckett enters the world of waffle ... The Simon Lee Gallery in Mayfair is currently showing work by the veteran American artist Sherrie Levine. A dozen small pink skulls in glass cases face the door. A dozen small bronze mirrors, blandly framed but precisely arranged, wink from the walls. In the deep, quiet space of the London gallery, shut away from Mayfair's millionaire traffic jams, all is minimal, tasteful and oddly calming.

Until you read the exhibition hand-out. "The artist brings the viewer face to face with their own preconceived hierarchy of cultural values and assumptions of artistic worth," it says. "Each mirror imaginatively propels its viewer forward into the seemingly infinite progression of possible reproductions that the artist's practice engenders, whilst simultaneously pulling them backwards in a quest for the 'original' source or referent that underlines Levine's oeuvre."

If you've been to see contemporary art in the last three decades, you will probably be familiar with the feelings of bafflement, exhaustion or irritation that such gallery prose provokes" ... Click here to read this article

All this is not a phenomena confined to the High Art venues of  London, New York, Paris, Berlin etc. .... Its just as prevalent in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart and even Darwin. Sometimes IAE is applied to Aboriginal art and when you you read it you might wonder where has all the 'placedness' gone? 

International English by itself tends to be disempowering when it blends-in and blands-down the vernacular wherever it is used. The project, seemingly somewhat imperial by nature, is predisposed to the 'Englishness' implying some kind of hegemonic authority in operation from elsewhere. When it is applied to cultural production it seems we enter even deeper water.

--
Posted By nudgelbah to COOLABAHplacedness on 2/24/2013 03:45:00 am

you gotta love it

Pat Hoffie 31 January - 3 March 2013

“Pat Hoffie’s project focuses upon Australian identity, not as it is considered and constructed in Australia, but rather, how it is interpreted and propagated externally. As an artist who has invested significant periods working in and with the various communities of nations in the Asia-Pacific region, her work frequently focuses on issues of cultural exchange and social justice. This project emerges out of periods of research in Bali, the Indonesian province most favoured by Australian holidaymakers. In this region, the local economy and infrastructure have been recalibrated to the tastes of tourists, at odds with the broader culture of Indonesia. Of the many tourist-oriented products that have become prevalent in Bali are crudely sloganed t-shirts, novelty hats, and of pertinence to Hoffie’s project, bumper stickers. These items are sold almost exclusively to Australian tourists, and indeed, are produced solely for their demand. As a way of connecting the distribution of these paraphernalia with the actual traditions and customs of production in Indonesia this project involves the engraving of banks of these stickers by traditional Balinese wood carvers. In the form of stickers, these slogans are disposable souvenirs of a particular type of humour, but in this more elaborately laboured form they are rendered into artifacts that warrant closer scrutiny, as objects embodying some of the inherent complexities of cultural exchange.”

SOURCE: http://www.artspace.org.au/gallery_project.php?i=175

WARNING: young Melburnians at work

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Inman Gallery Online

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Sigrid Sandström, Viewfinders. Installation view; Inman Gallery, Houston.

Sigrid Sandström 

Viewfinders 

January 11–February 16, 2013 

Inman Gallery 3901 Main Street Houston, TX 77002 

www.inmangallery.com

VISIT & EXPLORE

Inman Gallery announces Sigrid Sandström: Viewfinders, an exhibition of new paintings by the Stockholm-based artist. Viewfinders is Sigrid Sandström’s sixth solo exhibition with the gallery since 2002. It will be on view January 11 through February 16.

ARTIST DUO CLARK BEAUMONT SELECTED FOR 27TH KALDOR PUBLIC ART PROJECT

Sarah Clark (left) and Nicole Beaumont (right). Photo by Michael Young for ArtAsiaPacific.

CLARK BEAUMONT, Undress, 2010, performance. Courtesy the artists

21-year-old Sarah Clark and 22-year-old Nicole Beaumont, making up the artist duo Clark Beaumont, are most definitely star-struck. They began collaborating on their performance art practice two years ago at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. They do not even consider themselves as emerging artists. They have no gallery representation and have only had two solo shows in minor Brisbane galleries to date .... But all this could change.

LOOK HERE: A new way to publish and market ideas

click here to go to source 

Well the people at Apple have, as usual, been very busy creating dots for us to join. They've even taken up some of the options they've seen themselves to show us new ways to imagine our world. So, it looks like real producers, thinkers, movers & shakers, 'DOERS', have yet another set of eTOOLS  to get their ideas out there.

As they say, get with the program, join the pack or "eat dust"! The opportunities are boundless but as usual joining the dots is the issue as the excuses for not joining the program melt away in front of us.

Towards Tomorrow's Museum 2013

Tate Modern: Thursdays, 17 January – 28 March, 13.30–17.00

£320, concessions available

What will the art museum of the future be? 

How will its role change? 

This 11-week course will discuss such questions by looking at issues affecting art museums and Tate in particular. Each week, Tate staff will introduce their areas of expertise and consider how a world-leading arts organisation makes plans for the future in an international context of rapid change. Case studies will include the Tate Modern Project and new directions in collections and exhibition making. Using these insights, course participants will examine emerging influences on the activities of the art museum as they happen. Additionally, we will discuss the impact of issues including funding, research and organisational change. By considering a range of themes, the course provides an understanding of and critical engagement with the mechanisms by which the art museum plans for what lies ahead. In collaboration with the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King’s College London

ArtAsiaPacific Almanac 2013

ArtAsiaPacific
ArtAsiaPacific Almanac 2013 Volume VIII Out now www.artasiapacific.com
ArtAsiaPacific has completed another era: its second decade. In 1993, the art world in the Asia region seemed full of possibilities, or bleak with a lack of them—depending on your perspective. Today, the region is enjoying a cultural renaissance and is the most happening place to be. New museums and galleries continue to be launched or construction is underway, art schools are expanding with more aspiring artists, while alternative art spaces push boundaries of experimentation across Asia and the Middle East. All of this leads to more opportunities for artists, curators and proponents of civil societies that respect creativity and freedom of expression. At the same time, other institutions have extended their censorship with increased budgets for surveillance. All of these indicators—some positive, others regressive—are carefully traced in the Almanac ... visit the BOLG http://www.artasiapacific.com/Blog

OMG CROWDfunding

http://www.pozible.com/

11/18C Creamware Drainers ... THRICE stolen

Stolen, stolen again & stolen again: Click Here

THRICEstolen

Carriageworks / 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art

	Song Dong: Waste Not 5 January–17 March 2013 Carriageworks 245 Wilson Street, Eveleigh, NSW Free entry  Song Dong: Dad and Mum, Don't Worry About Us, We are All Well  5 January–30 March 2013 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art 181-187 Hay Street, Sydney NSW Free entry SONG DONG: Waste Not www.4a.com.au
	Song Dong, "Waste Not," 2005/2009/2012. Installation view, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Courtesy of the artist and Tokyo Gallery + BTAP.
This summer Carriageworks and 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in association with Sydney Festival will present two exhibitions by one of China's preeminent artists, Song Dong. SONG DONG: WASTE NOT: From his family home in Beijing, to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Waste Not is a transformative installation by one of China's pre-eminent artists, Song Dong. Conceived by the artist following the death of his father, the work represents his mother's process of mourning and remembrance. Consisting of the entire contents of her house, Waste Notreflects a journey of hardship and grief, resulting in a display of personal resilience and ultimately a celebration of life. The official opening of Waste Not is at Carriageworks, 4 – 7pm, Sat 5 Jan 2013. "Deeply moving... a work of art that is every bit as much about loss as it is about muchness" The New York Times Coinciding with Waste Not is Song Dong's Dad and Mum, Don't Worry About Us, We are All Well, a survey of his work from the last three decades at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.