A visit to Adelaide

I was recently in Adelaide, where I visited the Art Gallery of South Australia, Carrick Hill and two historic artist studios. I was aware that I was coincidently continuing my research into art crimes as I was visiting the scene of some historic art thefts, photographing windows, and retrospectively casing the joints.

A painting by Paul Gauguin that was stolen in a robbery from Carrick Hill

The Art Gallery of South Australia the gallery’s collection has been wholly rehung in a vast improvement from the traditional hanging I remember seeing on my last visit over a decade ago. Indigenous artists repainting the white colonial arches, paintings hung on patterned wallpaper, items juxtaposed, works placed high and low. The binaries of European and non-European art and historical and contemporary are ignored to give thematic coherence and more for the eye to find.

In contrast, the “2022 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Free/State” (at the Art Gallery of SA) was hung in the now traditional manner for contemporary art. Basically, one work or artist per room. This safe approach applied to its curation, which was fun enough without anything new. There was a diversity of contemporary Australian artists, from Abdul-Rahman Abdullah to Reko Rennie. It was also good to see the work of the former Melbourne street artist known as Miso, now doing contemporary art under her name Stanislava Pinchuk.

Stanislava Pinchuk, The Wine Dark Sea, 2021

I had been warned about the cafe at the Art Gallery of South Australia by a random lady on a bus, but I ignored her warning about my loss. If you fail to fill a coffee order, you fail as a cafe.

Carrick Hill, the former home of Australian ultra-rich couple Bill and Ursula Haywood now open to the public. The mock-Tudor house is a Frankenstein creation bringing to life parts from a demolished English manor. The odd contemporary sculptures have since been added to the estate’s expansive gardens but not enough to call it a sculpture park. The wealthy art collectors were purchasing safe options. Their tastes were conservative and uninspired but expensive. A Turner, a Gauguin, several works by Augustus Johns, about ten busts by Jacob Epstein and other works of English, French and Australian artists. The Gauguin and a Boudin were stolen in a break-in just after the house was open to the public but were fortunately recovered shortly after.

Some of the items displayed at Nora Heysen’s studio

Hans Heysen’s studio

In a bucolic setting out of the city, just outside the town of Hahndorf, are the historic studios of Hans Heysen and his daughter Nora Heysen. The landscape, even some of the same trees from his paintings, can still be seen close by. There are very few historic artist’s studios open to the public in Australia; the other is Brett Whitely’s studio in Sydney. Historic artist’s studios are an opportunity to see the artist’s actual materials, tools, brushes, palettes, easel, collection of art books, and even some incomplete works. Again a few contemporary sculptures have since been added to the rural property but not sufficient to call it a sculpture park.

The nearby Hahndorf Academy had a couple of art exhibitions by some contemporary artists, some historical exhibits and a couple more drawings by Hans Heysen. Heysen had donated more pictures to them, but they had been stolen in a break-in decades ago, uninsured and never seen again. Except for their frames which were found discarded in someone’s backyard on the way to the airport.

I would have liked to have seen the Samstag Museum of Art at UniSA but ran out of time on my brief visit to Adelaide.

detail from Marguerite Derricourt, A Day Out, 1999, Rundle Mall, Adelaide

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Cosplay in Keitaknen Garden

Seeing a cosplay photography session in Keitakuen Garden in Osaka was super-kawaii. What I saw was a collaborative cultural practice between the cosplayers, photographers, and gardeners as the garden provided the final collaborative element in this cultural practice. I have long wanted to write about cosplay and other para-artistic cultural practices but until recently I didn’t have the right opportunity (or my own photographs which essential for a blog post).

Cosplay in Keitaknen Garden

When I visited Keitakuen Garden on a Sunday, the first day of December, it was a warm sunny day and there were about twenty people in costume. There were a few older people, enjoying in the scenery of the garden and the presence of cosplayers, but the cosplayers and their photographers were majority of people using the garden. In the garden’s pavilion an older man sketching of the view in brush and ink.

The garden, designed by Jihei Ogawa, was part the Sumitomo main residence and is a designated important cultural property. It is a man-made landscape, a circular garden with central pond that provided many varied backdrops for the photographers and cosplayers.

The cosplayers had fantastic costumes, along with wigs, props, make-up and stacks of bags for all this stuff. Their poses were static, frozen positions for even in action poses, as if posing for a drawing and not a photography.

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Many of the female cosplayers were portraying male characters, complete with foam or latex male chest parts, but this was more Takarazuka Revue (which, like cosplay, is manga influenced) than a drag-king.

Almost all the cosplayers were women; there was one man in costume who was also a photographer. The gender of the photographers was more varied, as was there standard of equipment. Some were also participants using cell phones but there were also photographers with a very professional set-ups with tripods and light reflectors.

I didn’t recognise any of the characters but then I know very little about Japanese manga. Was the woman in the dark kimono a cosplayer?

It raises the question, are all people that I saw in kimonos (or hanboks in Korea), engaged in a kind of cosplay? And, consequently, are all people in tradition clothing/wedding costumes also engaged a collaborative culture practice that closely resembles cosplay? These questions present new angles on old questions. Does cosplay empower or exploit those involved? Does it expand the possibilities of life or narrow them?

Cosplayer and photographer at Boso-no-Mura farmhouse gate

I saw some more cosplayers a week later at the Chiba Prefectural Open-Air Museum Boso-no-Mura. There was even a “Cosplay Center” there, although I’m not sure what they were providing besides renting out kimonos and ninja suits.

Hosier Lane 2018

Hosier Lane has changed and will continue to change, it has also stayed the same. The homeless are still in Hosier Lane, seeking shelter around the corner in Rutledge Lane. There are still people doing graffiti in the lane, residents who live in buildings and the workers in the businesses but mostly there are the tourists, local, interstate and international tourists. Hosier Lane is an established part of the Melbourne tourist experience.

From the instigator, Andy Mac moving out of his laneway apartment to draconian anti-graffiti legislation and the threat of installation of CCTV there have been many predictions that the lane would cease to be a successful street art zone. However no-one predicted that the lane would be killed by its own success. What did you expect from street art and graffiti’s aim for mass appeal?

Now many street artists and graffiti writers are complaining that the lane is being destroyed by tourists. There were always tourists who visited the lane but now there are more tour groups and individual tourists than ever before. Tourist attraction are the Kali Yuga, the fourth stage of the world.

There always was developments and building in the lane but now the Culture Kings shop is ripping a hole in the middle. At least we spared it overshadowed by a massive tower, yet another of its predicted demises; Keep Hosier Real.

It has long been an established photo location for bridal, fashion, advertising and selfies but now it is difficult to even walk up it because of the number of cameras pointed across the narrow lane. Every metre there is someone posing for a selfie next to its walls thick with aerosol paint.

Melbourne’s great graffiti location has become crowded with tourists, tour groups all day, every day. There always were tourist in Hosier Lane, often they were on ‘spraycations’, visiting graffiti writers and street artists from around the world had long contributed some of the graffiti in the lane. However, now there is tagging on pieces by people whose handwriting demonstrates that they have no idea of graffiti or its etiquette (do not tag on a piece).

It long ago ceased to be the best place in the city to see street art and graffiti but the tourists don’t care. They are too busy taking photographs of each other in front of its walls. It doesn’t matter that the quality of the painted walls because the focus of their cameras is on the tourist and not the walls. Although it once was sufficient to see Hosier Lane to understand the vibrant scene; seeing or painting in Hosier is no longer necessary for the survival Melbourne’s street art and graffiti.

One obvious benefit that Hosier Lane still provides is that it is an example to every local council and business as to what a success that a graffiti and street art zone can have in the centre of the city. One of the more surprising recent changes is that along with the tourists there is more protest art in the lane, for more on that see my Political Graffiti in 2018. I have been watching and reporting on the development of Hosier Lane for over a decade and I intend to keep on.

Protest art in Hosier Lane 2018

You are here, wish you were there

I didn’t expect to see Godzilla in Tokyo. On my recent trip to Japan; I encountered Godzilla, a bit of graffiti and a few art galleries.

The statue is based on the film “Shin Godzilla” released in 2016 and had just been installed when I first saw it in March. It is the second Godzilla sculptures in the square; the previous statue, from 1995, was modelled after the original 1954 Godzilla. It is not monstrous, the statue measures about 3 meters in height, which seems small for Godzilla. It is located in Hibiya Godzilla Square where Toho Studios, who made the Godzilla movie, was founded. And it, stands next to a booth for buying cinema tickets.

“This statue contains the surviving final version of the shooting script and storyboard from Godzilla (1954). Here resides the soul of Godzilla.” The statue’s plaque states along with: “Man must live with Godzilla – Rando Yaguchi Unidentified Creature Response Special Task Force Headquarters” It is the first sculpture based on a movie that I have seen but as the quote from the movie script argues we have to learn to live with monsters. (“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.” Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 146)

I almost always write a post about what street art I saw on my holiday (see my posts on Athens, Dublin and Korea) only I didn’t see much Japanese street art or graffiti. I was expecting to encounter some along the streets or lanes or along the rail corridors but I didn’t see enough to write a blog post about. Nothing that was even worth a photo: a bit of tagging, a paste-up and even a small piece of yarn bombing.

I did see several art galleries in Japan from the elegant contemporary, Museum of 21st Century Art in Kanazawa to the Sumida Hokusai Museum, the most unergonomic museum that I’ve ever visited (both C and I came out with aching backs from leaning in to see the prints). I have already written about some of the exhibitions that I saw in one post about sakura influenced art in Japan. I don’t think that I will be writing anymore as writing blog posts was way down on my list of priorities in my travelling to Japan.

Sakura influenced art in Japan

The influence of cherry blossom time on the art of Japan. The masses of pale pink petals exploding across the bare trees before any green leaves appear have been a feature of Japan art for centuries. On a recent trip to Japan I did flower viewing hanami) of the cherry blossoms (sakura) in Ueno Park, Nara, Kyoto and in the mountains around Kobe. I also saw a couple of exhibitions and many beautiful works of art influenced by sakura time.

Tsuchida Bakusen, Oharame, Women Peddlers, 1915 (photo Yamatane Museum of Art)

The Yamatane Museum of Art was showing a thematic exhibition: “Sakura, Sakura, Sakura 2018 – Flower Viewing at the Museum!” (Exclamation marks are common in Japanese translated into English.) It was an exhibition of traditional Japanese art, separated from the influence of contemporary international art; paintings in ink or the thick opaque mineral based Japanese pigments. Even though most of the paintings were recent, their techniques and style are traditional. However, tradition does change and in Tsuchida Bakusen’s Oharame, Women Peddlers, 1915, there is an awareness of French modern art in the way the women’s foot was loosely drawn.

There were other exhibitions influenced by cherry blossom time, paintings beautiful women (bijinga). I didn’t see the exhibition at the Tokyo University of the Arts, “Masterpieces of Beautiful Women Paintings”, but I did see the Sumida Hokusai Museum’s exhibition “ Hokusai Beauty – the brilliant women of Edo”. The roots of bijinga are in genre paintings and ukiyo-e in the Edo period and although Hokusai is noted for his landscapes he did many bijinga during his long career. Paintings of beautiful women are genre in European art too but in Japan the focus in more on the fashion rather than the flesh.

The Sumida Hokusai Museum is a shiny new building built near the artist’s birthplace. It does not a large permanent exhibition but without the temporary exhibition it would have been a disappointingly small experience. The design of the building has a real triple bottom line by enhancing the local community with a local park and a children’s playground on the museum’s plaza. 

For more on sakura art read the Library of Congress notes on another exhibition.

(photo thanks to Catherine Voutier)

Graffiti Alley in Toronto, Canada

Graffiti Alley in Toronto is also known as Rush Lane or Rick Mercer’s Alley. It runs between Queen and Richmond streets and west from Spadina Avenue to Portland Street. It is an alley in every sense of the word, a single one lane access for services, parking and deliveries. There might be fashion shoots in Graffiti Alley but it still is full of rubbish and delivery vans. It is mostly low, one story with the occasional multi story building, a couple of full building commissions but mostly just piece after piece, on back wall after back fence. There are so many pieces that it goes for almost a kilometre.

I know nothing about Toronto’s graffiti and street art. I’m from Melbourne, as the subtitle of this blog indicates and I want to see something like Hosier Lane. One distinct difference is the community garden off Graffiti Alley.

It is the first place that I go in the city, it says something about me but also the attraction of graffiti for a jet lagged international traveller as it is there when you are, a twenty-four hour seven days a week spectacle. I walk to Graffiti Alley from my central hotel (my wife is attending a conference in the city). There aren’t any other tourists in the lane but I believe that there are graffiti tours of the area (I was just on the wrong day).

There were several pieces are commenting on former Toronto Mayor, occasional substance abuser, and currently deceased, Rob Ford. Ford is targeted because he promised to stamp out graffiti. Graffiti culture is frequently a reaction to its most prominent opponents.

Graffiti Alley is in a cool neighbourhood of Toronto with interesting shops, places to eat and band venues. There is the “hug me” tree on Queen Street. There are a full more murals on carpark walls around the area and a few other small concentrations of graffiti.

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Graffiti Alley is not the only place to see graffiti and street art in Toronto I saw more murals in the Kensington Market area. Lots of cool things in the Kensington Market, marijuana dispensaries and Sth American food. This is Canada in the twenty-first century and not Australia stuck in the past and aspiring to be another Singapore. Maybe I should just live in Toronto, after all I am a Canadian.

Chelsea Gallery Crawl

Chelsea is a neighbourhood on the west side of Manhattan Island that is currently the main gallery district in NYC. It has been three years since I did a gallery crawl through Chelsea.

Walking back and forth between 10th and 11th Avenues, up and down the streets: West 25th, 24th, 23rd. It is so easy to find a gallery on these blocks, just go to the next door, the next room on the floor of a warehouse, they are in almost every space.

In Chelsea you have to put up a sign to say that it is not a gallery.

Often my gallery crawls are endurance walks, hours of the touring around galleries, climbing up stairs in old warehouses and in newly furbished gallery spaces. Often I was looking at third rate commercial art, or second rate work by established artists. At times I wonder why am even here looking at pointless commercial art suitable only for the lobby of a three star hotel. I’ve never heard of any of the artists exhibiting at the Agora Gallery’s “Out from Down Under & Beyond – Fine Art from Australia and New Zealand.” My guess is that Agora is renting the wall space by the metre.

James Turrell installation at Pace

Wondering is Cindy Sherman too old to play dress-ups and what will happen if she lives into her 90s? There are other veteran established artists continuing to blandly do their trademark thing; David Hockney is drawing Yosemite National Park on his iPad, Richard Serra has large pieces of steel, and James Turrell working with space and light. Then I see art that really works and I know why I am on this gallery crawl.

The highlight of visiting all of these galleries had to be an installation by a duo of Canadian artists, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, “The Marionette Maker” (2014). The installation, at Luhring Augustine, included a caravan with robotic marionettes, audio, and lighting. It was such stuff as dreams are made of; amongst the miniature scenes in the caravan was a tiny scene of the caravan in a field by a lake. (For more see Hyperallergic’s review.)

Another exhibitions that caught my attention was Anthony Adcock, “Marks of the Trade” at Lyons Wier Gallery, has painted aluminium to look like sheets of plywood and carved wood that looks like steel, it is very impressive while remaining almost too subtle.

Aiko at HG Contemporary

And at HG Contemporary a group show of street artists from around the world; Retna, Swoon, Olek, Aiko, Pixelpancho and Jay West. There is so much variety in styles, and techniques from Aiko’s stencils to Olek’s crochet world.

There is some good street art on the streets; street artists like to put up work near art galleries, perhaps because there they find an appreciative audience. I see a couple of low relief panels by Kai (tying in with my special interest in street art sculptures).

I pause briefly for lunch but then I keep going until 5pm as I don’t know when I’ll be going around the Chelsea galleries again.