Book Launch

This weekend I have had two book launches for my first book, Sculptures of Melbourne. It was better than my 50th birthday party but that happened during a heatwave in February earlier this year. It was so great to see so many old friends and to actually meet people that I have only interacted with virtually online.

Why two book launches? The second book launch came about when the publisher, Melbourne Books got a stall at the Art Book Fair at the NGV. So it has been a big week. I have been working social media and writing two speeches for the two book launches.

The book launch at Gallery One Three was amazing, Richard Watts gave a great opening speech. Thanks to Fatima for organising the launch at Gallery One Three. I have so many people to thank for helping me with my first book, I am very grateful for all the help. You might not have thought that you have done much but think about it from my perspective where any help at the right time is so appreciated. Melbourne Art Review covered the book launch and check out the great photos by Matto who took the front cover photo for the book.

Left to right: CDH, Mark Holsworth, David Tenenbaum (Publisher Melbourne Books)

The second book launch at the NGV’s art book fair in the great hall. I got CDH to introduce me because he is in the book and I thought it would be slightly ironic after his Trojan Petition if he was officially talking at the NGV. It turns out that he is a very entertaining speaker and quickly got the audience to laugh. I talked about how I developed the book from writing about public sculpture in this blog. Then there were more books to sign.

There is a video of the launch of my book at the NGV, made by Chloe Brien who edited my book and consequently is a well edited video.

The art book fair is another example of the new direction that Tony Ellwood, the NGV’s director is taking the gallery. There were lots of stalls with zines and artist books. Catherine bought a couple of little publications by  Gracia & Louise (Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison). Although there hasn’t been any main stream media about my book (yet) several bloggers have posted about it.

Interview on The Art and The Curious.

Invurt on the book launch.

Art and Architecture on my book.

Public Art Research mentions my book.

Interview on Invurt about my blog and my book.

You can buy the book, Readings bookstore stocks it, or you can borrow my book from the following public libraries: City of Boroondara Library, City Whitehorse and Manningham Library, and Yarra Plenty Library. My events page has more information on my promotional free lunchtime sculpture tours next week. Normal Black Mark blogging will resume shortly.

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Finishing Sculptures of Melbourne

I should write something like “I am pleased to announce the publication of my book, Sculptures of Melbourne” except that I’ve been too busy to think about how I feel. I have been working on the book for a long time, I started a couple years ago and now it is being printed. It still doesn’t seem real yet. All I seem to remember is the harrowing, nightmarish parts and not the enjoyable moments. I really enjoyed interviewing all the sculptors; Peter Corlett, Louis Laumen, Daniel Lynch and Bruce Armstrong. There were surprise encounters with CDH and Stuart Ringholt and the enjoyment of research but that was a long time ago now.

Sculptures of Melbourne cover photo by Matto Lucas

Sculptures of Melbourne is published by Melbourne Books in late April. It is hardback with 224 pages and colour photography throughout the book and there is more information about the book on my new page Sculptures of Melbourne. It is currently being printed in Singapore.

Over the past months I have been finishing up work on my book, Sculptures of Melbourne; doing the photo captions, index, the order of photos and starting publicity. Following what seems to be an obscure rule of nature and due to various unforeseen delays this has been happening at the same time as the carpenter gets around to building the bullnose verandah on the front of my house and it all corresponded with my fiftieth birthday. Fifty appears to be the next most important date after twenty-one and all my friends are having big fiftieth birthday parties. So sometimes I have been I up a ladder painting of the new verandah, sometimes I have been at the computer looking at PDF versions of the book and sometimes I have been partying.

Doing the index was interesting because I realised how different this book from most other art books. Index terms include: health and safety, football and the MCG. This is because it is about the interaction between the public and art, something that public sculptures are perfect to demonstrate. When I finished the index I went back to painting the verandah before the bullnose corrugated iron roof went on.

Then there is publicity for the book because finishing the book is not the end of my work on the book. On the day of my first meeting with Rita Dimasi, the publicist at Melbourne Books the builder has dropped off the fretwork for the verandah, more painting to do. Lots to do for the publicity like this blog post, the static page about the book, working social media and emailing various people. Where has been the subject of many discussions and emails but I can now confirm that it will be on Friday May 1 at 6-8pm at Gallery One Three in Somerset Place, Melbourne, see the Facebook event page for the launch for more details.

This has been exhausting but fortunately I still have some blog posts in reserve. Having reserve blog posts is important for any blogger who wants to post regularly even when they are busy with other projects.

Micro-Reviews of this Week

Here are some micro reviews of current small exhibitions in small galleries. Some of galleries have only opened recently.

Gallery One Three only opened this year and is run by Joe Flynn; I first wrote Joseph Flynn’s too-cool-for-art-school attitude in a blog post back in 2009. Gallery One Three is a one-room art gallery downstairs from a fashion boutique – Joe says that it is a good mix.

“The Subtleties of Form” was a group exhibition by three artists. Pippa Makgill’s installation floor sculptures were deliberate and studied ugly; expanded foam, painted grey seriously ugly (but not as much fun as the ugly art of Valentina Palonen). Kimberly Denson’s series of small paintings were seriously beautiful in a contemporary minimalist way. And Simon Gardam’s three paintings, “The Bald Wanderer” parts 1-3, were somewhere in between the two – I liked the black one.

Kreisler Gallery is a very new gallery beside a kind of laneway café in Brunswick. It has one big well light white space with a high ceiling – it is still empty apart from open painting a taster for their exhibition next week. A corridor off this space is the Dirty Little Gallery, an “erotic fine art gallery” currently with “Polarudes” an exhibition found images by notable, Auckland based Pop artist, Paul Hartigan. Melbourne does need a dedicated erotic art gallery and the tight space will be an interesting and potentially erotic to navigate at a crowded exhibition opening.

Tinning Street Presents is two years old and to commemorate this is showing “Boabs & Boondies” by Joel Wynn Ress at Tinning Street Presents. Joel Wynn Ress was the first artists to exhibit at Tinning Street. “Boabs & Boondies” is a photography exhibition of objects – there is a selection of the objects on little shelves on the gallery wall. The objects are intended to refect Australia: a carved boab pod, a 1 dollar note, the boondies (slang for sand that has caked together). The photography looks too much like catalogue photography for my taste.

The veteran of this group of galleries, Brunswick Arts Space currently has four artists currently exhibiting.

Heidi Tatchell had created almost invisible minimalist art with “Clear View”. Tatchell’s work is in the realm of the ultra-thin, applying clear tape and contact adhesive to the white gallery walls. The strips of tape create great, stripped images that you can almost see.

“Follow the Line” is an exhibition of four drawings where Cameron Hibbs takes a minimal approach to drawing the max. In two of the drawings a biro has drawn a series of densely packed lines millimetre by millimetre down the page. There is a hypnotic intensity to all of these lines.

Sarah Thomson’s exhibition, “Clean Break” is a series of paintings of words in acrylic paint on canvas. Big words against a black ground: “Kindness” “Without” “Sincerity”… And I didn’t think much of Dea Russo’s exhibition “Shaping Emptiness” in the Brunswick Arts Project Space.