Dream Worlds Within Worlds

Lilypads from underneath, in ‘Gravity Be My Friend’ 2007, in the second roomOn Friday lunchtime some work friends and I wandered down to the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art to take in Pipilotti Rist’s exhibition I Packed the Postcard in My Suitcase. I’ve always been a bit sceptical about video installations since most I’ve seen make me yawn and move on fairly quickly (maybe I’m just impatient), but I went along with an open mind – after all, it takes us only five minutes to walk there. And unexpectedly I was blown away!

There are four rooms to wander through. The first begins innocuously enough, with a painting on one wall and an oval table in the centre of the room, set with an odd assortment of wine glasses and a peach and some cherries on a plate. Around the table are five unmatched chairs. There are two projections running simultaneously, one cast on the painting, and the other in the centre of the table. They are mesmerising, fluid, taking you from our world into the galaxies beyond, opening out like the petals of a flower worshipping the sun, or like a kaleidoscope. It was a long time before I could stop staring and go into the next room.

Take a seat and enjoy the show; ‘Laguna’ 2011 in the first roomThis large room has two projections on amorphous shapes suspended from the ceiling. Beneath them, in mirroring shapes, are padded mountains, contoured like a map showing the heights. I lie down and look up.

It’s our world, seen from below, literally because one is lying on the floor looking up at the projection, and because the artist has filmed the world from a camera that is always looking up, through endlessly moving water, through waving trees, past the limbs of swimmers. ACCA’s website puts it perfectly:

Lush and Edenic, sexy but sinless, the hedonistic pleasure worlds created by Pipilotti will delight, refresh and chillax you. Pipilotti’s vivid video environments take you into a dream state of elements. Earth, wind, fire and water are alchemically activated in her mesmerizing loops of trippy experience.

‘Administrating Eternity’ 2011; Chloe in the third roomThe third room takes you through a forest of semi-opaque projections, and the fourth into the mind of the artist herself.

The experience was fascinating, refreshing – we managed to spend almost our entire lunch hour there (it was hard to tear ourselves away), and I’m definitely going back.

If you’re in Melbourne, don’t miss it. It’s on until 4 March. 

‘Administrating Eternity’ 2011‘Administrating Eternity’ 2011; concentric rings of light projected onto the floor of the third roomA glimpse of the artist in ‘I Couldn't Agree With You More’ 1999; looking into the fourth room from the third

Eye-Catching

The Family Dog ‘Gloria Swanson’ poster by Alton Kelly and Stanley MouseI love it when random Googling will turn up really interesting things. In my case it wasn’t so random, as I was doing picture research for a story on the 1920s actress Theda Bara. This amazing poster image caught my eye: for the colour and graphics, and not least for the arresting stare of Gloria Swanson.

The poster came from The Family Dog, the promotions company attached to rock-promoter Chet Helms and a bunch of other hippies who in 1966 teamed up to put on some of the ‘greatest rock events of all time’. The artists were Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelly, part of the famous ‘San Francisco Five’, a group that created hundreds of the world’s definitive rock art posters. Mouse and Kelly became legendary collaborators, creating a distinctive psychedelic style of design – ‘riffing off each other’s giggle’, to quote them.

Gloria Swanson’s eyes are here advocating patrons to purchase tickets to hear Big Brother & the Holding Company, and the Sir Douglas Quintet at the evocatively named Avalon Ballroom.

Gloria Swanson, photographed by Edward Steichen, 1924As though the graphics and colours were not eye-catching enough, this picture is more than remarkable in its original form. It was taken by master photographer Edward Steichen in 1924 for Condé Nast. The taut lace forms a veil between the viewer and Swanson, obscuring her from us as the fretwork of Oriental architecture divides the inhabitants of a harem from the male gaze.

Swanson stares impassively past the net, is indifferent to us, yet we can’t look away. 

Auld Lang Syne

Farewell 2011! It was a year of good memories, beautiful moments, successes achieved and ambitions realised. There were many good times with friends and family, new jobs, new hairstyles and new shoes. I was chuffed to have an illustration chosen for a nationally distributed postcard, and a childhood dream was fulfilled: I crossed the Straits of Gibraltar. I travelled to Europe and sailed to Africa, saw wonderful things and met fascinating people (and a very kind and helpful Aussie who rescued me when I was stranded at midnight in Chefchaouen with a dollar or two in my purse).

Every year I become a little wiser. I’ve learned savour those moments that will never come again, and to appreciate the commonplace (clouds in a blue sky) – and the not so (phallic pastries wrapped in cellophane and red ribbons). Live in the present, hope for the future. Hello 2012!

Toilet Humour

Christmas TP :: Libatique // Big Up // No flashSo you’ve done your house up in lights. There’s a Santa in a sleigh with his entire complement of reindeers taking off your roof. There are icicles dangling off every perpendicular surface. You’ve decked the halls with boughs of holly, overhung the doorways with mistletoe, and wrapped tinsel around the tree.

But have you thought about the Little Room?

Just in case you’ve been shockingly remiss, I have the ‘so-loo-tion’ for you.

Beardsley Blown Up

A model of the set. Image: MTCA couple of months ago I had to produce some enormous wall decals for the Melbourne Theatre Company’s VIP room, based on Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations for the theatre. The MTC’s current play, The Importance of Being Earnest (starring Geoffrey Rush) has an amazing set: a giant book with pages that flip over, changing the backdrop of each act. The set is a loving copy of Tony Tripp’s original set from the 1988 production.

My brief was to use Beardsley’s illustrations and create two decals. The only daunting aspect was the sheer size: one wall was 4m wide, the other 8m. It was a little like creating a collage, only using Beardsley’s drawings. I felt a bit sacrilegious doing this. 

It was a little like creating a collage, only using Beardsley’s drawings. I felt a bit sacrilegious doing this.

Obviously I did not create the artwork at actual size, but the Photoshop files were so enormous I could not produce press-ready PDFs, as the printers requested. (Photoshop’s response to this outrageous demand was to immediately crash.)

I was concerned about how well the illustrations would hold up when enlarged 1000% (or thereabouts), but when I finally saw them hung in the room, I was impressed. 

There was an additional amusing aspect to the job: I needed to create a cardboard cut-out of Geoffrey Rush costumed as Lady Bracknell – with a hole cut out of his head so punters could stick their heads through and vicariously (and hilariously no doubt) wear a dress. Originally the cut-out was going to be partially hand-drawn, in Beardsley style, but what with the enormity of the decals, and the concern the cut-out would disappear into the background (sort of like camouflage), it was decided to go back to a gilt-framed portrait that was used for some other promotional collateral. Even Geoffrey had a chuckle over that one.