Sitting in the low-ceilinged loft of a smoky bar in Yangjiang – China’s answer to Sheffield – Zheng Guogu has just learned the English for ‘piss artist’ and likes it so much he says it three times over.

Piss artists… the Yangjiang Group

With the kind of arresting rawness that you only get when foreigners or very young children swear, Zheng relishes the fact he has no idea what he’s really saying and lets out one more emphatic ‘piss artist’ just for good measure.

Zheng and his collaborators in the Yangjiang Group, Sun Qinglin and Chen Zaiyan,use Chinese calligraphy and alcohol to occupy exactly this space – the unconscious mind seething up through the cleft created when you know vaguely what it is you’re trying to say, but you’re so bladdered on the local Zhujiang Beer you can barely hold an ink brush.

“When we first started working together we used to drink and then by accident we found things that we’d written that we couldn’t remember doing at the time,” says Zheng, who first began working with the other two 10 years ago.

The power and clarity of these calligraphic works impressed them so much that drinking became a pre-condition for their Jackson Pollock-like art jams, sometimes binge drinking for up to three days at a time.

“When you’re in this mental situation you don’t remember what you’ve done,” says Zheng. “It’s exactly this distance and unfamiliarity between your state of mind and what you are doing that draws you to a higher state of art.”

Often taking preposterous news stories for inspiration, the calligraphy is so sloppy the viewer is forced to read the label to find out what the work is referring to.

The results are hilarious and disturbing at the same time.

Hilarious and disturbing… drunken calligraphy

One piece entitled “The Morning After: Masterpieces Written While Drunk, No. 1: ‘I Need a New Kidney to Kill Bin Laden’” references American would-be assassin and dialysis patient Gary Brook Faulkner who launched a private mission to kill Osama bin Laden; the dribbles and spatters of the drunken calligraphy highly suggestive of madness.

Another “Bloodwritten Letter on Imprisonment with the Opposite Sex” uses calligraphy to retell the shocking news story of a 16-year-old girl who, in 1996, was imprisoned for a week with two dozen male suspects who sexually abused her. Zheng writes the text over an unrelated photograph of what appear to be binge-drinking revellers.

The group is unusual in China in that they’ve never left their hometown for the art centers of Shanghai or Beijing. Yangjiang is an unprepossessing coastal industrial town in the southern province of Guangdong famous for producing one-in-ten of the knives in American households.

Staying at home means the money from their growing international reputation (they say there’s little interest in their work in China) goes further.

In the past couple of years, they’ve built a sprawling studio in urban Yangjiang in the shape of an iceberg and in the countryside a complex of interconnected exhibition spaces, rooms and gardens that ranges over several acres and is inspired by the video game “Age of Empires”.

Zheng says there’s little in the way of planning or design in the studio or the complex, the various rooms are created depending on discussions with the builders on the day, and there’s nothing in the way of official planning permission for the buildings.

Urban iceberg… Yangjiang Group studio

He says he even once made an exhibit of the receipts for the bribes he had to pay to various authorities to get his architectural projects through. Kickbacks in China are often demanded through semi-official means, for instance overly rigorous fire safety requirements and the like.

“Oh yes, a lot of people complained,” Zheng says matter-of-factly about his own flat, a warren of connecting chambers built on two presumably illegally constructed floors on the top of a central Yangjiang apartment block. In China, obstacles such as bent-out-of-shape neighbours are usually simply a matter of compensation.

While the group is not overtly political, and they say the authorities take no interest in what they are doing, their works are radical and directly challenge the complex position of calligraphy in China where it is regarded as something of a sacred art.

Chen Zaiyan, who studied calligraphy at university, says simplified characters – a system introduced under Mao Zedong which drastically reduced the number of strokes and characters in a bid to lift literacy – is still unable to take complete hold in the country even after more than 50 years.

He says there’s a gravitational pull towards traditional script because the characters carry a deeper cultural sense, which he says comes shimmering out of the characters “like a mirage”.

“Most calligraphers habitually tend to write in traditional script,” says Chen. “I think in 20 years or more China will return to traditional script.”

Their calligraphy and installations not only keenly identify where the written language is debased, but where it is most vital.

Their Presidential Decree of the People’s Republic of China No. 74 takes the dead language of a screed of bureaucratic text outlining the minimum aesthetic requirements for the modern Chinese city and breathes life into it by blowing it up to 30 metres high and slapping it on the side of a glass tower in Shenzhen.

Meanwhile, their installation Last Day, Last Struggle gives a new context to the kind of bold and direct messages you can see on any market stall in China – “I’m bankrupt and suicidal. Everything must go” says one sign, “I’m old, I’m poor and my wife has left me” reads another.

“In China you can’t just go on the street and protest,” says Zheng. “In many ways, these people are using their shops and these signs to demonstrate.”

As for China’s many calligraphy associations and academies, Zheng says the Yangjiang Group has yet to receive any formal approaches.

“From these groups,” he says with a deadpan and faraway expression, “We have had very little interest”.

Hotel art is so often synonymous with mass-produced prints, thoughtlessly arranged in carbon-copied rooms. But there a few emerging boutique properties that are celebrating artistic expression and embracing local and international artists.

Contemporary… THE THIEF

Ranging from the seriously impressive collections of big name artists such as Andy Warhol and Antony Gormley in THE THIEF hotel in Oslo, to carefully curated exhibitions of local African artists at the Tribe Hotel in Nairobi, some of the world’s most exciting art can now be found in hotels.

These collections have grown from each hotelier’s passion for art. Whether it be cutting edge digital art technology like at QT in Sydney or experiential, tactile arts as in Rovinj’s Hotel Lone, this tangible excitement has the ability to inspire a global renaissance.

Art ecstasy in Oslo

World-class curator and former director of Norway’s National Museum of Art Sune Nordgren is the man behind THE THIEF’s stellar art collection. Newly opened in January this year, the hotel’s 119 rooms feature handpicked original artworks by contemporary masters alongside thought-provoking video installation and cutting edge graphic design. ‘Art on demand’ is available in every room via interactive TV, while themed maps such as Oslo Escape Routes take guests on a curated tour around the city. The hotel also features prominent works on loan from its neighbour, the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art.

Tactile art in Rovinj

In-room gallery… Park Hotel Tokyo

Perched along Croatia’s Adriatic coast, the Hotel Lone combines innovative design with functionality to present something distinctly expressive. It is the hotel’s attention to detail which is truly astonishing – every surface, furniture piece, light fitting, even the staff uniforms designed by Croatian fashion studio I-GLE, have been individually commissioned to fit the hotel’s creative concept.

From rich textured wall hangings to decorated murals and living installations, the entire hotel is touchy-feely (read on before making any assumptions) and encourages guests to play with materials, to use their senses and become part of the creative process – unlike the traditional museum ethos.

Sumo delights in Tokyo

Located in the culturally exciting area Shiodome in Tokyo, Park Hotel Tokyo features ART Colours, a quarterly exhibition project that allows guests and Japanese residents to enjoy the beauty of the four seasons. A selection of artworks and video installations by Japanese artists are chosen for every exhibition and displayed in the hotel’s atrium.

The hotel also recently launched an Artist in Hotel project where Japanese artists are invited to create Japanese ink paintings directly on the walls of the rooms, turning hotel rooms into art galleries. The Artist Room Sumo is the first, where guests share the room with lively images of sumo wrestlers.

A dazzler down under

Theatrical… QT Sydney

Right in the heart of Sydney, QT Sydney stands proud within the historic Gowings department store and heritage-listed State Theatre.

Behind its doors, the old world charm is retained with new technology, distinctive art mediums and pioneering artists. Its eclectic and quirky artifacts from around the world are put together in a whimsical fashion alongside cutting edge graphics and an imposing LED wall of intriguing digital art. Hotel guests will experience art as a theatrical performance as new expressions are crafted from old attitudes.

Inspiring tribal art in Nairobi

Tribe Hotel’s treasure trove of art pieces is curated by Faranak Ehsani and is home to some of the finest tribal art to be found anywhere in the world. Artefacts from South Africa to Cameroon and Ivory Coast in the West, through to Kenya and Rwanda in the East fill the lobbies, rooms, restaurants and lounges. Guests might even find themselves sitting on an art piece, dressed as a stool, chair or bench somewhere in the hotel.

The hotel also offers a 50 feet high atrium with tiers of galleries for events and exhibitions, making it a cultural axis to engage locals and international guests. 

www.designhotels.com

When I meet Ben Quilty he looks and smells exactly as I imagined. He’s dressed in a flannelette shirt, jeans and sneakers, with scruffy hair and a beard that’s fiercely thick. He smells of oil paint and I can see it still jammed under his fingernails. Sitting in a leafy courtyard at the National Art School, Quilty disarms me with his warm and welcoming presence despite the obvious emotion he displays as we start discussing his latest exhibition.

On the war path… Ben Quilty

Quilty was commissioned as an official war artist by the Australian War Memorial to document the experiences of Australian servicemen and women and spent a month in Afghanistan back in 2011. The resulting exhibition After Afghanistan has quickly become the most hotly debated of his career. Interestingly, he was officially given the Australian Defence Force (ADF) stamp of approval but, perhaps ironically so, it has stirred up quite a few emotional responses since it’s opening last month. The 21 studio paintings – in Quilty’s signature oil on linen – and 16 sketches reveal a lot more about the human face of war than the ADF is perhaps willing to admit.

We’ve been speaking for only a few minutes but I can already see the incredible effect this collection of work has had on the artist. He speaks with intense emotion, his eyes are wide and concentrated and just as captivating as his words.

“It was dark and sinister and overwhelming,” says Quilty of his time in Kandahar.

“The thing I wasn’t prepared for was the constant threat and rockets landing inside the basin, that was horrifying.”

But Quilty’s exhibition isn’t one that celebrates the war hero in a traditional sense, rather, it focuses on the intense physicality of the soldiers and the emotional and psychological consequences of war.

“They carry with them an emotional experience that is almost physical and I wanted to record that emotional weight,” says Quilty.

Emotive… Troy Park, after Afghanistan

Works like Trooper M, after Afghanistan and Air Commander John Oddie and after Afghanistan no. 2 are not portraits of the traditional heroic nude, but images imbued with the lasting experience of war. The faces in the impressive canvases are frightened and hollow and the bodies stripped bear appearing fragile and contorted without the protection of armour or a uniform.

Quilty spent 12 months creating the works in his studio in the NSW southern highlands where he invited the troopers he met in Afghanistan to sit for him upon their return from deployment.

“It was very confronting, particularly watching these guys fall apart and unravel. There’s a sense of team morale while the troops are in Afghanistan but when they return to their green, safe, first world Australia that’s when they fall apart and that’s the classic time when post-traumatic stress hits.

At work… Quilty in his studio

“They have nightmares, they become very violent, they often drag their partners out of bed and hold them on the ground and scream for cover and I’ve heard that from many young guys who are dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’ve had their wives and girlfriends in tears in my studio talking about their experience being married to these people.”

This is an overwhelming part of a largely untold story.

“Three guys have been diagnosed since I started working with them and most are going outside of the ADFA to find their own private specialists to help them and at the moment the ADFA isn’t making things easy for them.”

Quilty explains subjects like Trooper M are part of the Special Operations Task Group and are therefore classified under protected identity status.

“They are fighting a war every single day and they are engaging with enemies, risking their lives and dealing with high enemy casualities. There is constant death around them, extreme pressure and because of their status, they’re not allowed to talk about their experiences, which is doing them a big disservice.

“The stories [Trooper M] told me about Afghanistan, the triggers to his post traumatic stress, and the experiences he’s had are like nothing I’ve ever heard in my life. And most of them have these stories.”

Throughout the painting process, Quilty says he wanted to provide a vehicle for his subjects to tell their stories, confront their fears, and shed a light on the darkness so many are suffering – often in silence and with little help.

Vulnerable… Captain Kate Porter, after Afghanistan

“I found the commission so much more important than my career and in the end the work that I made is not my opinion of who they are, it’s the truth about how they feel, what they are confronting. It’s about their future and their past,” he explains.

Australian soldiers, sailors and a number of air force personnel have come to the National Art School to view the exhibition and have expressed their gratitude to the artist for telling a story that no one else would.

“The arts are crucially important to a healthy society. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I know what I’ve achieved with this exhibition and how cathartic it has been, on a personal level, for the guys I’ve worked with,” says Quilty.

Yet, in a nation obsessed with sporting heroes and the pursuit of physical excellence, the arts seem to fall to the wayside.

“The underfunding and lack of respect for the arts in this country makes me very sad,” says Quilty, his voice raised a few decibels.

“The arts isn’t just about painting; it’s about film, theatre and literature – these are so important and make up the real fibre and substance of a community.”

In fact, his exhibition is on show at the National Art School in East Sydney because the Australian War Memorial in Canberra doesn’t have an exhibition space.

“The Australian War Memorial has one of the biggest collections in Australia containing some of the most profoundly important work about war, death, sadness and hope, and yet, no exhibition space. In the past they probably thought their collection was worth a lot of money but not really important to their audience.

“I hope I’ve proved them wrong.”

 After Afghanistan will tour New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Canberra until May 2015.

www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions

www.benquilty.com

]]> http://www.lunchmag.com/after-afghanistan-when-the-war-begins/feed/ 0 http://www.lunchmag.com/two-temple-place-architecture-art-and-food/ http://www.lunchmag.com/two-temple-place-architecture-art-and-food/#comments Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:12:18 +0000 jonathan http://www.lunchmag.com/?p=8463 Amy Hughes

Hold on to your hat here. It’s crazy and you won’t know where to look first!

Elegantly sandwiched between the sombre, legal, august Inner Temple and the renowned University of London, number two Temple Place is a triumph of architecture and Gothic Disney.

Exquisite… Two Temple Place

An unsettling, architectural gem of a building, it is a clutter of wood paneling, pictures and paranoia.  So visually overpowering that if it weren’t for the immediate mugging by fabulous Mediterranean and Cornish aromas, you could easily miss lunch, altogether.

William Waldorf Astor, the dizzyingly wealthy creator of New York City’s Waldorf Astoria, built this Thames side, neo-Gothic, late Victorian mansion, (its that and more), in 1895, for £250,000; probably £25million at today’s prices.  It’s rumoured he believed his children would be safer here, from the threat of kidnapping.  With the touch of a button, it’s said, Astor could bar and lock all windows and doors.

And there are plenty of doors. The first one prepares you for what London’s evening newspaper called an “entertaining, camp, joyful and funny” building.

Two romantic cherubs, each holding a telephone, celebrate the then new age of telecommunication. There are carvings of characters from The Three Musketeers, 54 others from history and fiction, Pocahontas, Bismarck, and, probably for some good reason, Marie Antoinette. The Last of the Mohicans is there too, Rip Van Winkle with his dog, and 82 characters from Shakespeare.  To top out the restored, fake Elizabethan stonework there’s a Golden weather vane representing the Santa Maria in which Columbus discovered America. The Astor’s symbolic connection across the ‘pond’ is relentless.

All that and you still haven’t seen the pictures.

But not quite yet… pause here, follow your nose and sample the stupendous salads, good bread or a Cornish pasty. For me though their ‘take’ on a prosaic Egg and Watercress on Poilane rye was second to none.  Mint tea with real mint made me want to hug somebody.

Classic… Forbes’ A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach, 1885

Ok, now you can see the pictures.  They’ve only recently started to stage exhibitions and this one is the most significant grouping of Cornish art, outside Cornwall, in recent times.

‘Amongst Heroes: the artist in working Cornwall’, is a cornucopia of fish, fishermen, their boats and the sea.

Mostly not great art, and very much late Victorian to early Edwardian taste, these works are seldom seen, much of it tucked away in private collections or in museum storage.

There’s a massive Stanhope Forbes, ‘A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach’ which was done, we’re told, ‘as it happened’. There’s the chaotic but triumphant ‘trawling of pilchards’, painted actually on the sea from a neighboring boat. Everywhere are ruddy-faced seafarers in dozens of painterly works and drawings.  There’s even, rather oddly, a fragile Cornish oyster-fishing boat.  There must have been many drownings.  But for me the most thrilling picture is a small, 1930’s Christopher Wood fishing boat; clear and clean, a lovingly painted work from arguably the finest, certainly the most tragic, of the Cornish school.

Two Temple Place is worthy of half an hour of your life, even stripped of the paintings.  And, because this is not a ‘great’ collection, if you haven’t had enough of the very best, all is not lost. A short walk away is London’s greatest gallery, The Courtauld, home of some of the world’s most perfect art treasures. It’s currently staging a small, but perfectly formed two-room exhibit of Picasso works, all produced in 1901.

There’s been much talk about the disappointing, rambling Manet exhibit at the Royal Academy stuffed with lots of filler and few captivating pictures.  This one’s a no-brainer, save a few quid, and get a two-fer, combining the Courtauld with Two Temple Place.  Or, after such a splendid battering of art, you could just retreat to the patio behind the University and sit and watch the Thames.

www.twotempleplace.org

www.courtauld.ac.uk

One of China's leading fashion photographers, Chen Man, will showcase her unique vision at Bangkok’s Metropolitan by COMO hotel in just over a month.

Contemporary... Chen Man

The exhibition, taking place from April 25th to May 31st 2013, will be on display in a pop-up gallery space within the hotel’s iconic Met Bar.

Artworks will include several pieces from her Bad Head series, which uses waste materials in the post-production process to drive the concept of environmentally friendly fashion.

“With the complex use of waste materials carefully constructed directly onto the models' form, the meaning is constructed by injecting the materials directly into the creative process,” says Man.

The show will display nine lightbox images and two printed works in the Met Bar along with six prints in one the hotel’s Penthouse Suites.

A graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Chen Man is China’s leading fashion photographer whose distinctive vision of feminine beauty and power has placed her among the image-makers of choice for luxury brands like Celine, Versace, Chanel, MAC and Mercedes.

Arty... the Met Bar

Her work, considered defining of modern China, has been exhibited at the Salon National d’Art Contemporain at the Espace Cardin in Paris and Ullens Center of Contemporary Art in Beijing.

Man’s upcoming exhibition has inspired a special Chen Man Afternoon Tea at the Met Bar, including a refreshing iced lychee, ginger and silver moon tea; pickled cucumber, shiitake mushroom and lily bud steamed buns; and bamboo, red bean and sesame cupcakes.

Guests staying in the Chen Man Penthouse Suite will also receive a signed book by Chen Man.

comohotels.com

Amy Hughes

It’s easy to see where America’s greatest illustrator took inspiration from as we pull into Stockbridge, a small, New England town in the Berkshires. Norman Rockwell, considered by many America’s most popular artist of the 20th century, made his home here in 1953. He became so attached to the community, he established a trust while he was still alive, ensuring his works would be left to the Stockbridge Historical Society, who later created the Norman Rockwell Museum.

Worth it... Norman Rockwell Museum

For starters, Rockwell has an interesting story. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his “vivid and affectionate portraits of our country.” Born in 1894, Rockwell always knew he wanted to be an artist. He studied art at the National Academy of Design and was already being commissioned to paint Christmas cards by the age of 16. As a teenager, he became art director of Boy’s Life, the Boy Scouts’ official magazine. 

Rockwell went on to produce work for Life magazine and other publications before painting his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post at just 22 years old. He would go on to paint more than 320 covers, all of which are on display at the museum. The weekly magazine covered current affairs, and Rockwell’s lavish covers were clever illustrations of topical themes making both the magazine and the artist wildly popular.

Legendary... Norman Rockwell

What makes the Rockwell museum so accessible is both its subject matter (which is sometimes challenging, as well as humorous, and often plainly pleasing), and its layout. Descriptive panels weave interesting back stories about each picture, rather than posit what Rockwell may have been trying to convey.

There’s something to identify with in most pictures, whether it’s the young boy cringing at the site of a doctor about to deliver a jab, or a warm scene of a bountiful Thanksgiving table where no one is fighting (okay, maybe not identifiable, but certainly idyllic), these pictures are visions of regular people.

Identifiable... Freedom from Want, 1943

The museum also works hard to stay current with rotating exhibits. It’s no secret galleries have to rely on a few tricks to pull people in these days, but the Rockwell museum remains the most popular in the region. It’s packed, in fact. Many have come for the Heroes & Villains exhibit exploring the art of Alex Ross, the prolific comic book artist responsible for Superman, Captain Marvel and other favourites. Why? Because Ross, like so many American artists, was heavily influenced and inspired by Rockwell. The PR man at the museum gives me a wink and explains it’s “a bit of a stretch”. But I disagree.

Rockwell is the real deal; an American icon, and it’s fascinating to see the impact of his work on modern artists. Further, let’s be honest, it’s an exhibit that runs over Christmas and February vacation, and if it lures kids into the museum, which it does, then I think it’s a grand idea. Rockwell took a fun approach to chronicling life in 20th century America, and it shows at the museum. There’s nothing stuffy about it, in fact, if we had more time, we’d sit and stare for a good long while, and one of us is definitely NOT a museum person.
 

www.nrm.org

Boston’s a city dear to my heart. I grew up just a couple of hours south, in Connecticut, a small state that straddles New York and New England; the best of both worlds. Boston, with its dozens of universities, is one of the best cities to earn your diploma, and your beer license in… and then on to New York for the soul-crushing experience of life in the real world.

Quincy Market, Paul Revere’s ride and the Freedom Trail, the JFK Library and the Aquarium were the big sights back then, but Beantown (it’s nickname), has come a long way. Those are all sights worth seeing, for sure, but Boston’s got a funky, new groove with a collection of spots to take in the green, and spend a bit of it, too.

Urban growth... the Greenway Gardens

The Massachusetts Horticultural Society designed the Greenway Gardens, which cover six acres and public art populates open spaces.

After taking in the scenery, it’s time to hit Boston’s gentrified South End. When I was in school, it had an artsy, off-beat feel to it, but was also where most students went looking for cheap rent. Now, it’s even more creative, and hosts the SoWa (South of Market) art and design market. Every Sunday, a changing group of artists, designers, chef and farmers hawk their goods, from gourmet food trucks, to clothing, jewellery, house wares, and produce. The market is sensory overload – in a good way.

Mobile boutique... The Fashion Truck

What the market does best, is show off the innovative, entrepreneurial spirit of the city’s inhabitants. Emily Benson rolls up every week with her Fashion Truck, a mobile shop of curated clothing and accessories in a van turned boutique.

Two years ago, with a passion for fashion and visual merchandising, Emily considered pursuing a graduate degree. Instead, she took inspiration from the popular food truck trend and put her retail experience to use, fitting a van with dressing rooms, displays and carefully selected merchandise. Nothing she sells is mass-produced.

The Fashion Truck relocates to other areas the rest of the week, and hosts personalised shopping parties. The two-hour event takes place in a driveway, with the van door flung open, and refreshments all around.

SoWa also hosts a mobile vintage shop. From a 1954 Bellwood trailer, “Punky” sells her vintage clothing, jewellery and accessories.

Sure, there’s lots more to see in Boston. But if you’ve ticked the guidebook list, or fancy an alternative tour, make sure you include a Sunday visit to the church of SoWa and clear your head alongside the Charles.

www.rosekennedygreenway.org 

www.sowaopenmarket.com 

www.fashiontruck.com

www.haberdashvintage.com

Jonathan Porter

It is difficult to imagine Liz Anne Macgregor being humble.
But the tenacious flame-haired Scot who has headed one of Australia’s premier cultural icons (Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art) for the past 13 years says that is just what overseeing its $53 million revamp has made her.

“It’s been humbling, exhilarating exasperating, but finally it’s come together and look at the results,’’ she tells Lunch Magazine from the Sculpture Garden on level three of the new wing that was three years in the making.
“There were moments when I thought it was never going to happen and I felt like saying “let’s give it up and go home’.’’

“But the results justify all the hard work.’’

She says the much-maligned old building had become untenable.
“As the numbers increased problems became acute. Eventually the museum would have just imploded.

Private philanthropy critically important to the arts ... MCA chairman Simon Mordant

She praised the $15 million contribution from philanthropist chairman Simon Mordant and his wife Catriona, which made the revamp possible.
“Simon and Catriona’s contribution was much more than financial – they kept us going; they really believed that we could do this together.
“He always said: ‘Remember I am a solutions person’.’’
"He is a phenomenal and inspirational person to be working with.''

Ms Macgregor says private philanthropy is critical to the arts in Australia.

“It’s important we get recognition from the government and that is partnered with funding from private individuals.

Mr Mordant says private philanthropy is vitally important for the survival of the arts community.

“If you want a creative and vibrant community the arts are absolutely core to that,’’ he tells Lunch Magazine.
“That is the kind of community I want to live in and I’m sure that’s the kind of community a lot of other people would like to live in.
“If you don’t invest in the arts you will have a dying society. To have great programs and great exhibitions you need great infrastructure.

“This institution was bursting at the seams; we had 600,000 visitors up from 100,000 10 years ago. Without this expanded institution we would probably have peaked and started to go downhill.
It’s a very humbling experience and something I’m very happy to be a part of.’’

Mr Mordant, who is also co-chief executive of Greenhill Caliburn, a leading independent corporate advisory firm, says there is no better location on Earth for the MCA.
“You have got the Opera House spread out in front of us, you have got the Harbour Bridge; you are right on Circular Quay, which is prime access for tourism, but it’s also prime access for commuters.’’

“Our audience is 80 per cent local, 20 per cent tourism and it’s an incredible location.’’
Asked about attempts to move the MCA from its harborside seat he says the MCA had a lucky escape.
“There were many attempts to get the institution to move from this site over the years and as chairman, I fiercely resisted that.’’

And as far as his personal stake in the MCA’s success goes: “I made a philanthropic gift with my wife of $15 million to make sure this happened, I have been involved with the institution for a long time – since 1989. When I immigrated to Australia in 1983 I was surprised there was no institution associated with contemporary art in Sydney, and now look at what we have.’’.

www.mca.com.au

A smaller, quieter, more charming sister to Cannes, Le Cannet is just a few miles west of the French Riviera’s most glamourous city.  Le Cannet is also now home to the first museum devoted to the French 19^th and 20^th century artist Pierre Bonnard.  He led the Nabis movement, which rejected Impressionism and instead embraced the interaction between shapes and colours, particularly beiges and blues. With the exception of London’s Courtauld Institute, and a few other museums, Bonnard’s are not easily spotted.  So for anyone who is a fan of this artist, Le Cannet is a must stop.

The Bonnard Museum opened in the small, hilltop town in June; a tribute to the man who spent the last thirteen years of his life there.  The inaugural exhibition focuses on the light of the Mediterranean, displaying Bonnard’s most accomplished works completed in Le Cannet, many on loan from grand institutions like the Musee D’Orsay and others.    The show begins with Bonnard’s discovery of the Cote d’Azur, and moves on to his interiors, including nudes of his wife in the bath (a favourite theme).

The south of France is awash with great museums devoted to the famous painters who gathered there, but the Musée Bonnard is a gem, not least because you’ll never find so many Bonnard pieces all in one place.

Musée Bonnard

www.museebonnard.fr
16 Boulevard Sadi Carnot
06110 Le Cannet, France

Bright and brighter...thousands of paste-up pictures adorn the warehouse walls

Amila Perera

If the words ‘street art’ make you think of the almost illegible scrawl spray-canned in black on the sides of scout halls and school canteens – then I regret to advise you are sadly misinformed. I have it on good authority that this form of graffiti, known as ‘tagging’, is considered by street artists as tantamount to dogs marking their territory.

Fortunately, the Outpost Project exhibition at Cockatoo Island presents an opportunity to educate oneself. Featuring artists with such enigmatic names as Makatron and Stabs, Outpost is a carnivalesque adventure into a totally aesthetic, political, in-your-face subculture and art movement. The style often contains elements of graffiti art, pop art, surrealism and cartoon but also lovingly appropriates and satirizes almost everything that came before it.

'Stop and Search' ... a piece by Banksy

Anyone who has dipped their toe into the street art pond will at least be familiar with the notorious Banksy, a number of whose pieces are exhibited as part of the private Oi You Collection. Although only a small part of the whole exhibition, it is extensive and should not be missed – not least because it contains some achingly sexy pieces by David Choe.

Apart from providing respite from the searing heat outside, the tunnel that traverses the island also contains some of the best pieces. It moves from the voluptuous hypercoloured femmes by Deb to the explosive pop culture parodies of Ben Frost and then serene and surreal Max Berry.

The exhibition gives the feeling that art has descended upon the island rather than having been curated and positioned there. This is partly because of the nature of a space like Cockatoo Island which, in recent times, finds itself being constantly reimagined.  It’s also because as I wander around I find myself asking, “Is that part of the exhibition? Or was it always there? Or has someone come along for the show and left their mark?”. The whole place has an air of collaboration – coming together to create art, and spectacle, and discover the unexpected.

The large courtyard area near the entrance has buckets of chalk laid out so visitors can contributeto the communal art piece underfoot. In one of the rooms, clothes pegs hang from a network of strings above, and to them are attached cards with quotes, notes and drawings, train tickets and other miscellany that people have left behind. And inside a little hut a lovely man invites me to do a drawing “just for fun” which, unbeknownst to me, is broadcast to a passing audience. Hilarious, postmodern shenanigans ensue.

The Outpost exhibition should be enjoyed by street art amateurs and aficionados alike. It’s about the plebs and the powerful. It’s about rebelling against something, no matter how small the transgression. It’s about the visual and the visceral. It’s about the spaces we live in. In short: it really is for everyone.

When: 4 November – 11 December 2011
Where: Cockatoo Island
Cost: Free entry with Ferry ticket (if travelling by public 
transport, consider a MyMulti Day Pass to avoid ferry ticket queues)
Getting there: Ferries depart from Circular Quay