Garland magazine

An ambitious Australian project has recently emerged. The Indigenous Jewellery Project was initiated by Emily McCulloch Childs and to date has involved Melanie Katsalidis, Kate Rohde and Melinda Young. We learn from Emily about its origins, values, methods and future ambitions. She is interviewed by Kevin Murray, Managing Editor of Garland.

Garland: How was the project was conceived?

Emily McCulloch Childs (EMC): This project came about through an evolving interest in Aboriginal jewellery and contemporary jewellery. Early on, I was inspired by the exhibition Art on a String curated by Louise Hamby and Diana Young for Object in 2001. It to date is the only considered widely-focused Aboriginal jewellery exhibition and catalogue done in depth.

Researching Aboriginal women’s art, I became interested in the long (probably the oldest in the world) tradition of Aboriginal jewellery. I was also friends with several contemporary jewellers and contemporary jewellery curators in Melbourne, and we would often have long discussions about contemporary jewellery and Aboriginal art, wherein we would learn from each other.

I have been collecting Aboriginal jewellery from around Australia for about 15 years. Every time I visit events like Desert Mob, the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair, and the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, I collect jewellery. I always am impressed by Indigenous jewellers skills and design abilities.

Two necklaces I have from the NPY Lands (Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara region in Central Australia) particularly inspired me. They are painted quandong seeds, in very bright, contemporary colours. No artist was noted on their label. Part of this project is to identify Aboriginal jewellers, as Art on a String noted, so many are just anonymous. I could see also how great these quandong seeds would be cast in resin, which was the reason we started working with Kate Rohde.

Working in the field of Aboriginal art, I began to see a real gap within the field of contemporary jewellery. I’ve taken to calling it ‘the last great medium’ of Aboriginal art. Most other mediums, from painting, to weaving, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, new media, etc., are very well-represented by Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander artists, but only a handful of concerted contemporary jewellery projects have been undertaken.

One was a project with the Tiwi Art Network with Melbourne jeweller Ali Limb, which really inspired me. The work produced in silver was really beautiful. I could see the potential for indigenous artists to upskill their work into a more fine art, contemporary jewellery level. Through working with good curatorial drive and passion and great contemporary jewellers and object makers, I knew these artists could produce some really exciting, interesting art jewellery.

After making contact with Melanie Katsalidis of Pieces of Eight Gallery, who also saw the need for this sort of project, we began working with Kate Rohde. I helped Erub Erwer Meta art centre in the Torres Strait Islands to get Australia Council funding to send Kate up for two workshops. They fuse their ghost net weaving jewellery with resin.

Kate Rohde and I ran workshops in resin and lost wax at Ernabella Arts (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, SA) and Ikuntji Artists (NT). The work produced in these workshops was shown at the JamFactory in the exhibition Jewellery has always been here as part of TARNANTHI.

Garland: What does “upskilling” involve? What do you think may be the meaning and function of contemporary jewellery in a remote Aboriginal community like Ernabella?

EMC: Our aim is to give these jewellers the materials and support—the opportunity to work in a more fine art context. It has been done in every medium except jewellery: it’s been done in painting, ceramics, printmaking, sculpture, weaving, photography, new media, so why not in jewellery? It really is long overdue. These jewellers don’t have the opportunity to study at art schools in metropolitan cities, so we bring the art school to them. The workshops are a very intensive course in jewellery technique, using correct tools and professional materials, but also focused on maintaining tradition and passing on skills.

Aboriginal jewellers are perfectly placed to be contemporary jewellers. As you have written Kevin: contemporary jewellery is defined by connection to place. These jewellers’ work is all about their country: the materials, such as native seed beads, are gathered on country and relate to ancestral country and totemic ancestors. This is part of the artist’s identity. The Ernabella concept of walka: special design relating to an artist’s country and identity, has great application for contemporary jewellery, wherein design is personalised by its maker.

Ikuntji artist Virginia Ngalaia Napanangka’s work, such as her Western Desert Series is all about the symbolic totemic creation animals of each major site in the Western Desert, and her movement westwards through marriage to a Pintupi man from Kintore. It is highly conceptual: I believe Aboriginal artists are great conceptual artists: and this applies to their abilities with contemporary jewellery making also.

Additionally, Ernabella artist Niningka Lewis recorded endangered and extinct animals from her country in her work she did with us: this was used in the art centre during the workshops to teach children, the artist’s children and grandchildren, about these animals.

This project not only teaches new skills but also led to an interesting revival in tradition: at both Ernabella and Haasts Bluff, jewellers started making lots of what are called “bush jewellery”: necklaces in gumnuts, ininti and other native seeds. All of a sudden, these art centres were filled with this beautiful bush jewellery. The way it spread like wildfire was so inspiring and surprising to see: how if someone from outside, and the art centre, take an interest in an area of art, the artists will respond so well. At both art centres, jewellers came in who had never really come into the art centre before. I believe there’s a whole group of jewellers aren’t there with real skill and talent, just waiting in the wings for this kind of opportunity!

Last November, Pieces of Eight jeweller Melinda Young and I ran a two week jewellery workshop at Ernabella Arts.  We have just had an invitation from the NGA Shop to stock some work so that is an exciting promise for the future of these artists as contemporary jewellers and small object makers.  We are finding a lot of demand for this work particularly in the Aboriginal galleries, more than we are able to produce, as one of the reasons I began the project was because of the huge gap I saw, where there was really no consistent contemporary jewellery in the Aboriginal art worlds, apart from Lola Greeno, who was a real inspiration. More recently we have of course seen Vicki West, Maree Clarke, Jason Wing, and there has been a silver project in Arnhem Land with Zoe Crowder, but not really anything from these areas: the APY Lands, Western Desert in particular.

A huge part of this project was in identifying these jewellers and bringing forth their biographies and traditions, as well as working with them on new innovations, as is done in non-Indigenous contemporary jewellery and with say Aboriginal painting. As a collector I have a lot of anonymous jewellery and as an artist biographer, the artist is important to me.

Everything we do  (in the multi-faceted art company I run with my mother, Susan McCulloch, especially because we are art historians, is about personalising the artist as much as possible and undoing the colonial hangover of the “Anonymous Aboriginal Artist”. Indigenous jewellers have their own skill sets, designs, techniques and artistic creativity in their jewellery work just like they do in their other mediums, and this was a huge impetus for me in researching and doing films, etc. I was also becoming tired of beautiful necklaces that broke! Hence the upskilling.

Garland: I’ve  watched and considered your beautiful videos. It was great to get so much speaking to camera. It was clearly a sign of trust that the participants had in your project. I was also wondering: what do you think was special in the way the Aboriginal artists in Ernabella approached the use of resin in jewellery?

EMC: The background of Ernabella artists as punu (wood) carvers and their ceramic work was as important as their jewellery skills. Having an artist like Niningka Lewis who is unusual and experimental was important and having younger artists like Marissa Thompson who has a real skill for resin work was invaluable. The Ernabella tradition of walka (design) lends itself perfectly to mark making on clay or plasticine for making masters for resin. The ability of these artists to create small figures for casting and to gather seeds for beads was invaluable for resin.

The same goes for Ikuntji Artists: Virginia Ngalaia Napanangka, one of our most talented artists at Ikuntji, had a background from Hermannsburg—in fact her grandparents founded Hermannsburg Potters. She has an innate skill with clay. So when it came to resin, it’s really the same thing: it’s shaping in clay. So this was a perfect match. It’s much easier and more practical than glass for these remote art centres to work in. And they can also mix it with other materials easily.

When we were making the films one of the artists at Ikuntji, Alison Multa said to us: “You know jewellery is central to us traditionally. Jewellery is everything. It is probably THE most important art form.” Jewellery has very strong significance ceremonially and hairstring was used in love magic and things like that. So it is very powerful. But it was also used just more simply as body adornment, so it can be made as secular art, which works perfectly in a contemporary art context, where it can be publicly shown, and of course sold, and there is no issue with transgressing law or anything like that.

These artists are already working in a fine art context with their other mediums, particularly in weaving, painting, ceramics and printmaking. So this is not new to them in that sense. I think they feel similarly to me; that jewellery hasn’t been given its due and it is something that needs to happen. Some of the young leaders we have like Marissa Thompson and Anne Thompson who are very brilliant young women are really driven to do this more fine art work with jewellery. Marissa in particular identifies as being a jeweller, she has made jewellery since she was a little girl; she has a huge passion for it. People really enjoy making it. So if they can do that as a serious career, instead of here and there, it will be fulfilling and open up new doors for them.

Author

Emily McCulloch Childs is an art historian & writer, curator, gallery director, publisher and researcher.  She specialises in Indigenous art, and has worked with Aboriginal art and artists since 1994. She is co-director, with her mother Susan McCulloch, of McCulloch & McCulloch, a multi-faceted art company, and Whistlewood Gallery, on the Mornington Peninsula, and is the founding curator of The Indigenous Jewellery Project. She lives on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria.

Marissa Thompson

 

Marissa Thompson is a young Pitjantjatjara artist. The daughter of Ernabella Arts board member and former Chairperson, artist Carlene Thompson, her father Kawaki Punch Thompson was prominent in the APY Land Rights Movement, and her cousin is the significant ceramicist Derek Thompson.  As a child, Marissa was fascinated by traditional Anangu jewellery techniques and making, and studied these skills with her grandmothers who were elder jewellers.  Her jewellery work in the medium of resin includes necklaces using a variety of natural seeds, and seeds cast in resin, earrings and pendants. Her subject matter consists of totemic ancestral figures such as a small, local lizard and the well-known Ernabella walka design, etched into pendants and rings. Her skill at piercing ininti for necklaces is adept and remarkable in one so young, and her jewellery practice now extends to working not only in resin but also lost-wax design for silver and other metals.

We provided some questions for Marissa which were asked by Hannah Kothe, manager of Ernabella Arts.

Where does the design come from and who does it belong to?

The design is referring to that kind of tree that has small little bean pods hanging from it. The old ladies use to paint this shape longways.

With the help of a senior artist, Tjunkaya Tapaya, Marissa was able to identify the kind of tree she was referring to. Tjunkaya advised us that there are several kinds of trees that have these pods. In Pitjantjatjara the names for them are watarka, wakalpuka, ngatunpa and wanari. In English they are known as acacia or wattle trees. One variety is called Colony wattle or acacia murraynana. Traditionally the pods were moistened with water to make them soft and then ground to make a paste and eaten.

Marissa said she decided to change the original design used by the old women and create a walka where the bean leaf/pod went around in a circle.

What does it mean?

It is about country, the plants and the animals and how life goes round and round in a circle and everything is connected to each other.

Would you like to make more of these?

Yes, I enjoyed designing this work and creating thiswalka. I would really like to keep on going with it, to make more earrings and necklaces and other jewellery.

This interview appeared in Garland Issue 3: With Nature July 2016

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Writers Bench: Interview with film maker Oriel Guthrie

Writers Bench: The Evolution of Melbourne Graffiti and Street Art Culture 1980-2011 is a new documentary that studies the origins and developments of both the graffiti and street art cultures in Melbourne over the past 21 years. The film “takes the audience on a first-hand journey through the historical timeline of graffiti and street art culture in Melbourne, exploring some of the revered artists who have helped to shape Melbourne’s cultural identity.”
The documentary invites you to “meet the legends of the graffiti and street art scene, as Writers Bench guides you through the events that created the culture as we see it today. Hear stories of growing up with the movement, why each artist got involved and what influenced their style. From its raw beginnings as political and radical slogans plastered on walls throughout the suburbs, to the colourful burst of murals splashed along urban train lines, to the rise of street art as an inner city tourist attraction, Writers Bench traces the evolution of this vital artistic movement.”

The first two thirds of this film is almost a visual version of the Kings Way book, and is similar in its tracing of the origins and evolution of the movement. Like Kings Way, it begins with some background of the Sharpie subculture in Melbourne of the 1970s, who wrote simple tags on walls. It also, again like Kings Way, appropriately discusses the late great photographer Rennie Ellis, a formative documentor of Australian sub cultures, who published three books on Australian Graffiti of the 1970s and 80s.

The film cleverly documents the huge impact of hip hop culture in early 1980s Melbourne, showing the break dancers and then graffiti writers of the day. The sense of innovation and freedom of those days is displayed through the interviews with some of the writers themselves and footage of the City Square and graffiti done in the 1980s.

Writers interviewed include old school king and queens, which is in particular, along with lots of great old photos, where the gold lies in this film. Some of my favourite writers such as Duel, Krissy, Paris, Peril and Merda are interviewed. It also features street art, with street artists/people discussed and/or interviewed, including Marcos Davidson, Andy Mac, Ha Ha, Rone and Meggs.
I tracked down director Oriel Guthrie, who made the film with co-director Spencer Davids, and asked her for an interview about Writers Bench. Here it is:

EMC: What led to you deciding to make a documentary on Melbourne’s graffiti and street art scenes?
OG: Graffiti culture was something I wanted to explore after I briefly touched on it in my last film ‘Skip Hop’ a documentary showcasing Australian Hip Hop culture. I was particularly interested in the early graffiti culture from the 1980’s, as there had not been enough documentation from that era. Melbourne has such a strong art culture and I feel its important to show people what has come from this city.

EMC: Graffiti writers in particular are often elusive and suspicious of outsiders, how did you approach the writers/artists?

OG: From my past film and involvement with the hip hop community I have developed great connections within the culture. I have found that once you gain the respect and trust from one writer, it leads on to another.I have always been pretty serious about the film and doing it justice to the culture. My co-director Spencer has a strong connection with the graffiti culture and has been able to get in contact with a lot of valuable writers. Most artists were positive about the project and enthusiastic about showing the history of the culture and their legacy.

EMC: I think it’s great that Melbourne graffiti, particularly the old school graffiti time of the 1980s is starting to get the recognition it so rightly deserves, with the publishing of the King’s Way book and now this film in particular. I find the more I learn about graffiti and speak to writers, the greater my respect for them grows, but it really is a closed world and difficult for outsiders to understand. Did the making of this film give you a greater insight into how important these writers/artists were/are?

OG: I couldn’t agree more with you!  Since delving into the production of this documentary I have discovered the 1980’s graffiti scene to be such a fascinating subculture in Melbourne. With the post modern punk movement and Sharpie gang culture fading out in the early 80’s, and the new generation discovering  the hip hop movement that exploded worldwide, Melbourne became rich in colour and vibrancy, transcending from the inner city to the outer suburban train lines. At the same time, we had artists like ‘Boxman’ & ‘Conehead’ who were coming from a more alternative scene and were doing early street art around the CBD, long before the popular movement we have seen in the early 2000’s. People are drawn to Melbourne for its graffiti & street art scenes, this makes the culture forever evolving and really exciting.

EMC: What were some of your highlights during the making the film?

OG: Highlights were having the privilege in meeting these graffiti legends and listening to their stories of growing up with the movement, their motivation, inspiration and sharing their collection of works. I have so much respect for the amount of skill, determination and energy that goes into graffiti. Some of the pieces that were done in the early days are really impressive, considering the limited amount of paint they had.

EMC: How has the response to the film been so far? I think some of the writers really enjoyed it, which is great.

OG: So far we have had great feedback from the writers, which is so important for this film. That was the most nerve racking thing for me, leading up to the premiere screening and seeing all the writers pour into the cinema! I have also had some great feedback from the general public who had no idea there was so much history in Melbourne’s Graffiti culture. Its important for this film to be interesting to all walks of life!

EMC: One of my only criticisms of the film would be that it jumps from old school graff and early street art into contemporary street art, with little discussion on mid school (90s) and new school (2000s) graffiti. Many writers and crews from these schools, such as the important 90s/2000s crew 70K, for example, were not discussed at all. Was this a conscious decision, did you base it on wanting to interview people directly (as I’d imagine 70K would not like to be interviewed for anything, even if you could find them in the first place)?

OG: I can understand your point, we are actually adding more graffiti artists to cover the late 90’s & early 2000’s graffiti scene. We tried to steer away from focusing on individual crews and naming writers and their crews. We approached the graffiti movement as a whole, by including interviews from writers across many different crews and environments. I hope this doco inspires someone else to keep documenting graffiti culture and tell their story or add to what’s missing from Writers Bench, to carry on and show what’s happening from now, and the new scene that has evolved. Some of the stuff people are doing now is insane!

EMC: Who was the masked writer with the memorable ‘fuck capitalism’ rant in the bathroom? (you don’t have to answer)

OG: I’m sorry, he must remain anonymous! But he does come from a very significant crew if you join the dots together.

EMC: For those that miss this final screening on Saturday, do we really have to wait until August 2012 until the documentary is available on DVD?

OG: We would love for the film hit the festival market and get seen to the rest of Australia, Europe and America. I feel its important to show Melbourne’s rich history in graffiti and street art to the rest of the world.  DVD release is the last step in releasing this documentary, but something we’re truly looking forward to!

Writers Bench is showing its last screening (for now) at ACMI this Saturday at 4pm, I urge everyone to see this important document of Melbourne’s cultural history.

 

Interview with Apolline Kohen

Apolline Kohen

interviewed by Emily McCulloch Childs

for Aboriginal Art Magazine, first issue, 2009

During her time as Director at Maningrida Arts & Culture, Apolline Kohen managed to combine co-ordinating some 25 exhibitions a year with running the art centre and the Djómi Museum, the regional museum that acts as the custodian for the area’s cultural and historical material. She also initiated several important exhibitions, including the major survey show Crossing Country, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2004 and the retrospective of John Mawurndjul, <<rarrk>>, at the Museum Tinguely in Basel and the Sprengel Museum in Hanover in 2005. In 2008 she became the acting director at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) in Darwin.

I spoke to Apolline in her home in Darwin from my studio at Shoreham on a Sunday afternoon.

EMC: What did you do in Paris, before you came to Australia?

AK: I studied in Paris and left for Australia two days after completing my diploma at the Ecole du Louvre and my specialisation in Oceanic Art at the then Musée des Arts d’Afrique et d’Oceanie (MAAO, now Musée du quai Branly). I was eager to learn more about Aboriginal art and the only way at the time to further my knowledge in this field was to go to Australia. I ended up in Canberra at the National Museum of Australia (NMA).

EMC: What impact did the Magiciens de la Terre exhibition, the 1989 Paris exhibition organised by the Centre Georges Pompidou, have on your life?

AK: Magiciens de la Terre was a landmark exhibition that challenged me as a teenager interested in art.  It opened my mind to other contemporary art practices happening outside my European culture or America. It triggered emotions I had never experienced before. I was a bit familiar with African art through Picasso’s work, but had no idea about contemporary art practices from Asia, Oceania, let alone Indigenous Australia. When I decided to study art history, I chose to specialise in Oceanic art as I was aesthetically and emotionally drawn to these art expressions. Unfortunately, Aboriginal art was only a small component of the curriculum but it gave me the idea to go to Australia.

EMC: You have said of Karel Kupka, the Paris-based Czech artist, collector and writer whose collection of superb barks are housed in Paris, that ‘he was the first to recognise the individuality of each artist’1. How did Kupka influence you in your appreciation of Aboriginal art?

AK: I was fortunate to have access to the Kupka Collection while I was at the MAAO. I also admired Kupka’s approach and work given the then view most people had on Aboriginal art, he approached Aboriginal art from an artist’s perspective not as an anthropologist – quite revolutionary at the time. I loved the art of Arnhem Land, but I would not say that it’s entirely because of this bark collection that I came to have a passion for bark painting. I first went to Australia in 1994 for my honeymoon and we spent most of our time going to galleries looking at as much Aboriginal art as we could. It almost became an obsession. This made us want to come back, hence the decision to come in 1996 to live in Australia for a year. We never left…

EMC: What is it that so moves you about Aboriginal art?

AK: The aesthetic sense that you see in works by artists such John Mawurndjul, Rover Thomas, Kitty Kantilla, Yala Yala Gibbs and Makinti Napanangka. I think they all have in common this burning desire of communicating the power and beauty of their land and it must resonate with me.

John Mawurndjul, Ancestors at Milmilmingkan, 1994, ochre on bark, 168 x 110 cm. Private collection. Courtesy Maningrida Arts & Culture and Joel Fine Art.

EMC: How did you feel when you first arrived at Maningrida?

AK: I first came to Maningrida in 1998 while I was working for the NMA and had no idea before I arrived at Maningrida airport what sort of community it would be. I came with an open mind, with no preconceptions. I am adaptable, so nothing came as a shock. At first, the hardest was not to be able to source my favourite coffee and food – not a big drama.

EMC: What was your experience like working with these artists, and bringing Mawurndjul to your own ‘country’, Paris?

AK: That was my favourite part of the job. To be honest, I loved working with some artists but not all – we all have our preferences and personalities. I most loved working with those who were not only talented but also very professional. I travelled with many artists, you develop either friendships or cold relationships on trips as it quite taxing to spend all your time with someone you barely know for days. John has taken me to special places on his clan lands so I was very happy to be able to show him my country and culture. We had great times together and he knows Paris better than many Australians as he has been to Paris five times with an ex-Parisian as travelling companion. I treasure lots of memories and stories from these trips.

EMC: Having visited Paris in 2007, I found John Mawurndjul’s installation in the bookshop at the Musée de quai Branly an inspiring, accessible way to present Aboriginal art –where the general public can view it, rather than the offices, where the Ningura Napurrula artwork and others are installed. How did you and Mawurndjul plan this installation?

AK: It was quite a coup to get John’s work in the bookshop, it was also a challenging task! John worked really hard on the column. His concentration is exceptional and he could paint non-stop for 12 hours while myriad journalists were coming through. It was truly mad. We had to come back to Paris as we were not satisfied with the ceiling plan and proposed style of execution. John ended up supervising himself in a -5C environment. I became the facilitator. We both worked hard but enjoyed every minute of it. John’s dedication and professionalism paid off as the result is quite remarkable and we have been getting some really good feedback. We did celebrate in style when we finished this project!

Sonia Payes,  John Mawurndjul,  C-type photograph,  2006,  127 x 127 cm,  Ed 10,  Curtin University Art Collection

EMC: You had great success with commercial exhibitions of barks, lorrkon, the large poles, and fibre. Was this a challenge?

AK: A well-prepared bark has more chances of lasting than some of the badly prepared canvasses I sometimes see on the market. A bark has a beautiful unique texture, which is part of the artwork itself. Sculptures, lorrkon, are easy to sell as when collectors have no wall space left in their house, they can always find an empty corner for a sculpture…it’s all about quality of the art, not the medium. Some people say fibre is ephemeral but I don’t see this as a problem. We collect and buy artworks because we love them. Is it really that dramatic to think that it might not last forever? Who cares? People have to learn to enjoy things and not always think of an investment that will last for generations. It is all about changing people’s perceptions and playing on emotions when you sell art. As long as it is good art and you’re good at communicating your passion for an artist, you will succeed. Remember we have seen art dealers selling empty walls in the 1950s with Yves Klein.

John Mawurndjul, Lorrkon, Collection NGA

EMC: You’ve been quoted as saying ‘From my experience in Maningrida, it’s been very good being French…because they think I’ve got a culture as well.’2 Did the artists react differently to you because you were French than if you were Australian?

AK: I think it made my life easier as I did not have the baggage that some Australians have toward Aboriginal issues. I had no preconceptions about Aboriginal culture and no guilt about how Aboriginal people have been treated by white Australians. I just interacted with artists in the same way I would have done with anyone. And I always refused to play the race card.

EMC: How did you find living and working in an Aboriginal community, where people are still engaged with their cultural traditions, and art centre managers are able to witness ceremonies and the like quite often?

AK: It is fantastic to see that ceremonies and cultural practices are very alive and play an important part in people’s lives. I enjoyed being able to witness some cultural practices but never felt the urge to be part of it. I have seen too many white people desperately wanting to be ‘initiated’. I feel sorry for these guys…

John Mawurndjul, Mardayin, ochre on bark, Collection NGA

EMC: You took Maningrida art to Europe and the Middle East. Do you think appreciation for Aboriginal art is growing internationally?

AK: I strongly believe that appreciation of Aboriginal art is growing at an international level. However, this needs to be nurtured. I urge the Australian government to support and fund more exhibitions to tour overseas, especially from public art institutions. I feel that Museum curators and Directors have a role to play there.

EMC: Has your passion for Aboriginal art changed your perception of contemporary art that you might see on your return to Europe?

AK: Of course, yet I regard Aboriginal art as one of the interesting contemporary art movements at the moment but I am also interested in artists such as Tracey Emin, Yinka Shonibare, and Zadok Ben David.

EMC: In 2007 you implemented the Aboriginal Art Fair in Darwin, run to coincide with the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA). Why did you decide to start the Fair?

AK: I felt that there was room within Darwin for arts centres to promote their works while most collectors, curators, and art critics are in town for the art awards. And it worked.

Lena Yarinkura, Group of 5 Dogs, 2008,  ochre on fibre,  from the Menagerie exhibition, Object Gallery

 

EMC: In 2008 you became acting director of MAGNT and instantly had the difficult task of co-ordinating the NATSIAA, Australia’s largest and most important indigenous art award, in its 25^th ‘Silver Jubilee’ year. How did you find this?

AK: It was particularly challenging as I just started in the job when the ‘silent protest’ started.

It is also always hard to step in when a project has already started as you always feel that you may have done a few things differently. Hopefully, I have learned a lot from it and the 2009 Award will be a walk in the park in comparison. We’ll do a few things differently this year in terms of the event and selection of works etc. Additionally, I had to deal with some very bad news in my private life, so I will always have mixed feelings when thinking of the 25^th Silver Jubilee.

EMC: The ‘silent protest’ you mention: seven art centres pulled out of the award in protest of the inclusion of Irrunytju Art Centre, whose advisor John Ioannou also operates a city-based commercial gallery. You broke your silence on this and have welcomed open discussion.3 I find such openness refreshing in an industry that thrives on gossip. How do you think the Aboriginal art world is responding?

AK: I believe in open communication and I am sick of the constant gossiping in the art world. This drove me to run the forums and discuss issues with key players in the arts industry. The benefit has been that people realised through our discussions how important the award has been in the development of Aboriginal art. It is easy to criticise the award, but without it many artists would not be where they are now. This is not to say that we should not try to make it even better. No one came with revolutionary ideas but some good comments were made and we will certainly take some into account. For example, this year, the judges will be involved in the preselection as well as the final judging. I think that was a very good suggestion so we took it on board.

EMC: Aboriginal art led you to Australia; having lived here now for some years, do you think of it as your home?

AK: Yes, Australia is my home now but I do need to be able to visit Paris regularly as my family and some dear friends live there. I am Franco-Australian and my goal is to enjoy as much as I can the best of both worlds!

Further reading:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/artists-stories-will-live-on-forever-in-paris-museum/2005/09/09/1125772690196.html

1 Kohen in Michael Fitzgerald, ‘A Parisian Romance’, Time Magazine, 15 May 2006.

2 Kohen in Michael Fitzgerald, ‘A Parisian Romance’, Time Magazine, 15 May 2006.

3 Ashleigh Wilson, ‘Indigenous art awards furore prompts changes’, The Australian, August 7, 2008 and Kohen has since run forums in Alice Springs and Darwin inviting art centres to share ideas.

Interview with Ben Frost

Ben Frost: Interview
Originally appeared in  The Scene 2007

Ben Frost, Quick Draw, 2006, acrylic and aerosol on board,  25 x 20 cm.

Ben Frost’s paintings have taken collage and pop art into the next era, that is: now. A kaleidoscope of skewed Disney images and brand names compete with horror elements to create a visual cacophony of a world gone mad, where ratings and sales figures matter more than true emotions or genuine relationships.
Frost has taken on all the Big Cheese Companies, from Burger King to Lego, fusing their logos with images taken from our childhood: Hello Kitty, Bambi, Snow White and The Simpsons all feature, albeit in a distorted fashion, in Frost’s world. He has cleverly reminded us of how labels and brand names are taught early, and thus how much our lives are in fact carefully constructed by marketers wanting us to buy their products.
I interviewed Ben Frost by email from an internet café with dial-up in a sleepy village lying at the foothill of the Scottish Highlands, en route from the London Book Fair to visit my family’s Clan McLeod home of the Isle of Skye. Slowly my questions filtered through to Frost’s Sydney studio in sunny Surrey Hills. This was our exchange.

Ben Frost, Dawn of the Dead, 2007, acrylic and aerosol on board, 120 x 120 cm.

EMC: Tell me about your title image for the exhibition, ‘Dawn of the Dead’. What I loved about is that you have Lurch from The Addam’s Family with ‘MySpace’ scratched into his forehead. I have a friend who believes that MySpace is the work of Satan. Perhaps it is perpetuating our zombie-ism to a degree, and of course it was recently acquired by the Murdoch empire, so is now just a part of another major corporation. And of course it provides a wonderful tool for gathering information about us (I found scary evidence of this in a BBC article “And most importantly, Myspace has detailed logs of its users’ preferences, online behaviour and personal information”. Is this referenced in this work of yours?

BF: This was today’s television program content of ‘Mornings’ with Kerry Anne Kennerly April 18^th, 2007 9.20 a.m to 9.50 a.m : 80 year old woman starts smoking, Is your man a metrosexual?, Lose weight with the Magic Bean Deluxe, Virginia college student kills 32 fellow students, Food prices set to skyrocket due to Australia’s greatest water shortage on record, commercial for window cleaning product, commercial for juicing machine, Debate on adoption rights for celebrities, Should Britney’s mother be blamed for her bizarre behaviour?, commercial for cheap home loan, commercial for life insurance, commercial for caravan and camping supershow, news update on reasons why Virginia college student kills 32 fellow students, commercial for Australia’s Funniest Home Videos.

I listen to all of this in the background whilst viewing Myspace on the internet. During the day, Myspace has more ‘upbeat’ content – this morning I notice advertising pop-ups in this order: Free ring tone, animated commercial for a ‘listening lounge’ sponsored by a vodka company, Free ring tone, Lady with large breasts offering free t-shirts, the new Spiderman movie, Free ring tone, New energy drink, Broadband special offer, Free ringtone, Cheap ring tone, Ski in New Zealand, Free ring tone.
I often have to wipe the dribble from my chin as my brow extends and I groan like a zombie, but I’m not feeding on brains, I’m feeding on friend requests and revolutionary new weight-loss programs.  This is only the first half hour of my day and my eyes have already glazed over from the constant technicolour barrage of banality that looks more grey with every mouse click.
Like Frankenstein’s monster we have become undead – neither contributing nor being provided anything of value, aimlessly participating in a vast advertising campaign that thinly masquerades as entertainment.

EMC: Your latest artist’s statement describes nightmares, the paranormal and other such matters. I was interested to read your experience of the ‘Old Hag’, which you describe as “a troublesome event where one awakes in the middle of the night unable to move or call out whilst a feeling of evil and dread fills the room”. You say you have suffered from this from childhood into your adult life.

How does your art provide an expression for this? Do any worries and anxieties go out into your art, then perhaps back into your mind? Or are you perhaps capturing a mass fear of where we are on this planet right now and where we are heading?

Ben Frost, The Fear, 2006, acrylic and aerosol on board, 20 x 25 cm.

BF: I’m definitely trying to capture a sense of hysteria in my work.  The way the media whips up perceived threats and fears from terrorism, oil shortages, bird flu, incompetent doctors, ice epidemics and nuclear war, sometimes it seems safer to stay in bed with a cup of tea.

With our current level of globalization our world is presented to us in an interwoven tabloid form where everything works on extremes. Extreme weather conditions in America that are the ‘biggest’ and the ‘worst’ juxtaposed with extreme children’s programs where the characters are the ‘cutest’ and their associated toy range are the most ‘fun’ and ‘entertaining’.

If we weren’t so desensitized, every day would be this rollercoaster of amazement, ecstasy and sorrow that would leave us completely exhausted by nightfall.
But what is the answer to all this?  There isn’t.  We have devolved into mindless consumerists that tout freedom by force, our understanding of freedom dictated to us during commercial breaks of Big Brother (Ten Network, Mon-Fri, 6 till 6.30, live evictions every Sunday night at 7.30).

EMC: You have talked about appropriation before, which is a really hairy issue in the art world. You’ve said that you liked the side of it as being  “kind of like a ‘fuck you’ to art and the supposed preciousness of it” (Ben Frost, interview, Chief Magazine, Issue 4, 2006). Most of your work involves appropriation of brand names and images, which I think, considering how much they have been forced down our throat, it’s about time artists started messing with this imagery. But where would you draw the line at appropriation? How do you feel about copyright issues? Would you, say appropriate another artist’s work?


BF: Culture jamming brings the power back to the individual, in a world where the individual feels more leadership from corporations than it does their own governments.  People buy what they are told, but they won’t do what they are told.  There is then this perceived sense of fear that the Special Branch of the Kellogg’s Squad is going to raid an artist’s studio to confiscate the highly illegal use of the words ‘Corn Flakes’ in a painting, where the letter ‘C’ in ‘Corn’ has been replaced with the letter ‘P’.  I can just see Snap, Crackle & Pop dressed in head to toe leather with oversized handcuffs and big colourful batons knocking the beret off the poor shocked painter.

I do appropriate other artist’s work and I think there has always been a great tradition of this.  But I don’t go sifting through the work of my peers.  I most often lift and manipulate artwork from obscure sources like old sixties comic books.

Ben Frost, Portrait of GG Allin, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 120 x 90 cm.

EMC: In an interview you said that you were inspired by Julian Opie, Warhol, Jamie Reid, Ron English, Robert Williams, all the Judge Dredd/2000AD comic artists. I am most interested in the last reference, the 2000 AD comic artists. How do you think they have influenced your work?

BF: 2000 AD was such an amazing and revolutionary tome of the fantastical and the absurd.  Stories like Judge Dredd, whilst telling macho stories for young boys, had this British comedic sensibility where everything was tongue in cheek and bizarre.  It was set in this future world where Judge Dredd had to cruise about keeping the order in the out-of-control, overpopulated and media influenced world, that in retrospect was really quite prophetic.  I remember this funny story called ‘the fatties’  where every year scores of morbidly obese people would gather for a type of overweight Olympics. The fatties would compete in sports such as fast-eating and sprinting (with various ‘gut-barrows’ to help them along) – which is not much different from any episode of ‘The Biggest Loser’ really.
I think as a young boy, 2000 AD drew me into drawing superheroes, which realistically started me into art, and the way they presented the future I guess I’ve always stayed linked to this idea of our own future and how ridiculous and bizarre it’s going to be – if it isn’t already.

Ben Frost, Let’s Be Friends, 2007, acrylic and aerosol on board, 120 x 120 cm.

EMC: I am interested in how your work combines images of sex and horror, even gore. I suppose I would read this as a way of commenting on the ways in which women’s bodies are used to sell, the ways in which, despite the (3) feminist movements, sex still ‘sells’. Or is it something different?

BF: I have the constant urge to paint naked women and guns.  At first I thought it was because I am a man – which I think has a lot to do with it, but there is also a huge element of indoctrination involved.  My process of art making involves sifting through countless images, whether they are on the internet, in magazines or in comics and in these forums the depiction of women is almost always the same.  In comic books, the female is the ‘innocent’ in magazines a ‘commodity’ and on the internet, a desirable ‘object’. I play with these representations and mix genres to create surreal dialogues that bring to the surface more darker consumerist motivations.

EMC: You’ve described your paintings for your new exhibition as “punk-pop mash-up”. Which sounds more like a band description than an art one. Excuse me for asking the old question about music influencing your work, but seeing as you actually are in a band (Danger of Death), does it and how so?


BF: My first exhibition I did when I got back from living in Japan was painted over a 4 month period listening solely to a band called Arab On Radar.  After first listening to one of their albums I committed myself to try and paint in that style of music, which I pretty much did.  Their stuff has a nervous frenzied, math-rock kind of style, with perverse poetic lyrics.  I lifted some of their song lyrics to name some of my paintings at the time like ‘Judy Garland Never Wore Tampons’ and ‘Yahweh or the Highway’.  I like using words and titles, and music has that ability to explain things in a way painting can only ever come close to.
I look at my artwork as being punk, and I extend that to my contribution to my band Danger of Death.  It’s fun to express yourself to a beat, get in fights on stage and generally make everything that I’m about in a more performative and physical form.

Ben Frost, Yahweh or The Highway, 2006, acrylic and aerosol on board,  120 x 120 cm

Ben Frost, Exxon, Painted rubber duck, 2006.

EMC: I saw somewhere recently, I think it was the school’s test on some tabloid tv show, like Today Tonight, that children can now spell brand names better than they can the names of items of clothing. I think your work alerts us to this fact, although you probably examine the issue with a bit more complexity than tabloid tv shows do.


BF: I’m obsessed with Today Tonight and A Current Affair – they are the best shows on television, and I get totally annoyed they are on at the same time, because I don’t know which one to watch.  It’s like watching Bill O’Reilly on Fox News – he’s so repulsive and you can hardly keep from gagging on your own vomit, but there’s a type of message that is being broadcast that you don’t see with as much passion anywhere else.
I think I remember this program about the kids, and I think they had another spin on it where the kids now who Ronald McDonald was but not John Howard.  It relates to the power that the corporations have attained as the real seats of government.  Politicians are so damn boring.  Though they weren’t like this in the 80’s.  Mikael Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, Bob Hawke and Margaret Thatcher were all in power at the same time – and despite their points of view at least they had some charisma.  It’s quite possible that our current leaders are dressed by the corporations to look old and dull, so as not to draw any attention away from the tampon commercials.

EMC: Being interested in ephemeral art and projects such as Peter Hill’s imaginary ‘Museum of Contemporary Ideas’, I was fascinated to read that you faked your own death in 2000. Unfortunately it coincided with the death of an art world luminary. I was overseas at the time and missed all the hoo-hah, has the art world(s) forgiven you yet? Is it part of an ongoing project that you are going to continue, I can see a theme here…is your upcoming exhibition  ‘Dawn of the Dead’ Ben Frost returning as a zombie?

BF: When I faked my death, the newspapers picked up on it and thought I really was dead, which just goes to show how easily the media can be manipulated and makes you think just how accurate reporting really is.  For me the use of ‘death’ as a motif, is not about morbidity but about change and transition – like the death of the 20^th century gave birth to the 21^st.
I think as an artist too it’s good to kill off parts of your practice that aren’t relevant anymore – much like when they kill off boring characters in tv-sitcoms.  Lots of artists find a groove and stick with it all of their lives and feel they can’t step out of it, because the market won’t understand.  But I think there is a lot of room to express yourself in different genres and avenues like music, performance or illustration that help make up a bigger picture of what you’re about.

Ben Frost, See Inside Box For Details, 2008, acrylic and aerosol on board,  120 x 90 cm

EMC: You are now also working with sculpture; sadly one of your sculptures was broken, with a resulting court case. I recently witnessed a similar event at an opening where an extremely valuable Koori possum skin cloak had red wine spilt on it. I am an advocate for getting up close and personal with artworks, how do you feel about that? Do you have to put barbed wire around your sculptures now at openings?

BF: I can understand vandalism and destruction for a reason, but in the case of my Self-Regenerating Bambi, the girl who knocked it down was just really drunk and had to be carried out of the gallery.  I guess I should probably have less debaucherous openings in retrospect, but it was just a stab in the guts that she could stand there like a drunken zombie and try and tell me to my face that she hadn’t done it.  But my lawyer captured her and we feasted greedily on her corpse.
My girlfriend has had her work stolen from exhibitions on about 4 separate occasions, which I’ve never personally experienced, but yeah it seems like you’ve got to screw the work down these days just to keep it safe and in the gallery.

 

Websites:

www.benfrostisdead.com www.stupidkrap.com www.pastemodernism.com