Posts Tagged ‘Made Creative Space’
THE RANGE Arts and Culture Festival: The LAUNCH
Last night, with much fanfare, social camaraderie and prominence, the Toowoomba art scene came alive with the launch of THE RANGE Arts and Culture Festival. The idea of a nine-day art event was masterminded by Ashleigh Bunter and was generously supported by Federal and State Government grants[1]. This activity promises to give a boost to the local arts community and will also serve as a celebration of the significant artist run initiative (ARI) scene in Toowoomba.
Attendees @ The RANGE Launch Photo: Doug Spowart
Attending the event at the Empire ‘Church’ were the glitterati of the local scene including two councilors (maybe more), the local newspaper art scene critic, gallery people, university art faculty members, art collectors, a couple of TAFE art teachers, art society members and representatives of the local arts council. Added to this group were numerous artists, performers, musicians, film-makers, creatives, art buyers and last but not least, members of the art interested public. SEE: The Chronicle Newspaper photos HERE.
Presented on one wall of the function room was a selectively curated group of artworks from what was described as the ‘Darlings of the Darling Downs’ art scene. This display included works by Damian Kamholtz, Stephen Spurrier and Danish Quapoor and were presented for the appreciation by attendees, and later in the evening, these works were auctioned providing an unusual addition to the formal proceedings.
The crowd excitedly engaged in conversation and were revved up by Councilor Geoff McDonald who acted as master of ceremonies for the evening. The chant ‘The—RANGE’, ‘The—RANGE’, ‘The—RANGE’ made an auspicious start to the proceedings and was followed an introduction to the directors and gallerists of the ARIs featured in the program—Alison Mooney—Mars + The Grid, Sally Johnson—Blockwork, Alexandra Lawson and Tarn McLea—Raygun and Alex Stalling and Elysha Gould—made. Creative Space.
Introducing the ARIs Phtoto Doug Spowart
An address by USQ’s Head of the Creative Arts School, Associate Professor Janet McDonald commented on the ARIs and their importance within our community as providing a space other than the traditional gallery institution. These initiatives allow emerging artists and curators, including many USQ students and graduates, to operate in the public space presenting work and building their experience and professional practice.
A second speaker, Charlie Cush, Senior Advisor Arts Culture, Local Government Association of Queensland, spoke excitedly when he expressed that he was ‘blown away by the grass roots arts movement in Toowoomba’. He stated ‘that many arts communities around the country are looking towards what is being achieved here as a model for the how an ARI can foster emerging artists and contribute to the vitality of a region’.
The audience was then treated to the spectacle of works from the ‘Darlings’ being auctioned off by a professional auctioneer—bids were slow however the activity highlighted one approach to the many ways in which art is presented for appreciation and acquisition.
From my point of view the concept of ARIs has been around for a long time. My experience in this gallery practice goes back to the 1980s when I was co-director of Imagery Gallery in Brisbane. At the time artist-run-spaces as they were called then, provided a platform for artists outside of the commercial scene to present their wild ideas and art. They were experimental art spaces, often overtly non-commercial and supported by an ‘in-crowd’ associated with the artist’s demographic, their training institution and the social networking possibilities that the gallery opening provided.
The RANGE ARI’s, through the umbrella created by this Bunter Project, now emerge, not as isolated special interest groups, but rather as a powerful support mechanism for the advancement of all aspects of art from inspiration, creation, presentation, appreciation, criticism, merchandising and possession. Perhaps, for a regional arts community this event marks a new era of respect and opportunity for art. This attitude is desperately needed in our current political and economic climate which is seemingly ambivalent to the presence and the value of art and its important role in the community and life.
As we left the launch party a lone smoker was outside watching the last of the featured local films projected on the open air theatre set up for the night—I’m sure she was contemplating the meaningfulness of this moment for the arts in Toowoomba …or just enjoying the warm night air, the open air theatre and a smoke.
Watching a movie in the open air theatre Photo: Doug Spowart
ASLO SEE the Ash Bunter interview on the CHRONICLE NEWS Website
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BLOG words and images by Dr Doug Spowart in support of the RANGE Arts and Culture Festival.
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1. Regional Arts Development Fund–Arts Queensland and the Toowoomba Regional Council, and the Australian Government’s Regional Art Fund in partnership with Artslink.
REGIONAL ARTISTS DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES
CRISS-CROSSING THE DIVIDE
Living west of the Great Dividing Range places regional artists far from the arts hubs of the capital cities where the opportunities for exhibition, audience and critical review abound. And whilst most regional artists crave the benefits of urban proximity they may be overlooking plenty of career and professional development opportunities within their own regions.
For that reason Sally Johnson, Director of Blockwork Gallery in Toowoomba, encourages regional artists to seek opportunities within their home boundaries. To show and share her ideas of what may exist for regional artists, she has curated an exhibition called Crossing the Divide at made.Creative Space, that featured paintings by Patricia Hinz, Carol McCormack and Catherine Rose.
The exhibition opening was well attended and the made gallery directors Alex Stalling and Elysha Gould provided a commentary about the exhibitions that were to open that evening—they also announced the imminent closure of the gallery and the new ‘pop-up’ exhibition strategy that they will be introducing, as well as Elysha’s new position in Miles as a ‘manager’ (?) of the Dogwood Crossing Gallery.
Attached to the exhibition was a workshop in which the featured artists participated in a discussion led by Sally that looked at the range of exhibition venues throughout the South West region. Emerging and mid‐career Toowoomba Artists were encouraged to expand their careers by considering exhibitions at the venues mentioned.
The artists represented in the Crossing the Divide show, Pat, Carol and Catherine then discussed the nature and history of their arts practice. Each had really interesting backgrounds in art-making and exhibition with experiences that included working with Mervyn Moriarty in the early days of Flying Arts, having exhibitions in New York and being driven on outback roads with a canvas spread out across the dashboard—painting.
A lively question and answer discussion ensued that connected the ideas and experiences of the three visiting artists with those from the local scene.
Carol McCormack, Patricia Hinz and Catherine Rose
Sally announced that this project will also include a managed interactive online forum that will allow for a continued engagement process beyond the workshop. It is intended that this forum will have the potential to act as a platform by which Toowoomba and South West artists can connect more broadly.
The workshop and forum received support from the Regional Arts Development Fund—a Queensland Government and Toowoomba Regional Council partnership to support local arts and culture.
For more information on the exhibition and the online forum contact, sally@blockwork.com.au or 0418 227 784.
Words: Doug
BOAT and BIRD – Craig R Cole + Alister Karl : MADE Creative Space
Boat and Bird invite
A tale of two types of gallery exhibition
The gallery, the artist, the exhibition and the audience have been around for a couple of hundred years where a common expectation is that the exhibition operates as a vehicle for the selling of art. There is a commercial reality that ‘selling’ art funds the process of art-making, on the part of the artist – and staying in business and generating income through commission, for the gallerist. There has always been an anathema or disinterest in the making of art as commodity against the creative free place that artists see themselves in a community.
In the 1960s, artists rebelled against the commercial gallery structure by making art in the landscape (land artists like Robert Smithson) or making ephemeral conceptual works (Fluxus), which were not the saleable commodity like the painting in the frame. Later, performance art and video artists created art that was often unpalatable to the art purchasing (investor) clientele by the nature of both the content and the medium itself. Artists want to just do their own thing but can art exist outside the mercantile frame? And were does fit within the contemporary artists’ community?
An exhibition by Craig R. Cole and Alister Karl in Toowoomba’s MADE creative space may serve to provide some insights. Entitled Boat and Bird the exhibition is a collaboration project by the two artists that features subject content as defined by the title – boats and birds. The two artists have a creative friendship that goes back over 14 years and for much of this time they claim the subjects of boat and birds have permeated their relationship.
The MADE space is multi-roomed, with wooden floor and black and white walls and the two artists have drawn, affixed and assembled found and collected objects. There is no catalogue, no erudite didactic panels, no pretence (or perhaps – all pretence) and no ‘in your face’ message the viewer to be burdened by. Drawings are fixed to the wall, and in some cases, they have been allowed to leap from the paper onto and into the gallery wall itself. A collection of delicate feathers appears to have settled on one part of the gallery wall where its embryonic bird shape morphs into a boat sail. In a mini installation space around 20-feathered shuttlecocks sail through the air before a framed print of the game being played.
Some collaborative boat works utilise nautical themed things rescued from junk shops and car boot sales. In the context of gallery these objects take on new meanings by the interaction of the viewer. Juxtaposed in the gallery space are boat models, a photo jig-saw, consisting of a harbour full of boats, is presented as a DIY for viewers to attempt to assemble, and a set of coded nautical message flags is presented for deciphering.
In one corner a collaborative piece consisting of things like ship models a bird covered cuckoo clock, a metre or two of fishing net, steel mesh, a pair of crutches and ancient surveyors strings and ropes. The collaged objects seemed sometimes bird-like and yet at other times maybe even boatish.
In viewing the works one may take clues and cues from the art works and then connect them with personal lived experience. Sometimes there is a moment of instant delight at discovering a hidden joke or glib message. Other times there is and enjoyment of the beauty of the simple line and outline or the whimsy of the extension of the artwork into the space.
The exhibition Boat and Bird presents art at its best – free, fresh and fun with enough take away visual memories to stir further thought and reflection. Here perhaps is the ‘other’ form of the exhibition, the hors commerce one. Perhaps this form is where the true he(art) is.
WORDS+PHOTOs: Doug
Is it a boat? or Is it a bird? A collaborative installation by Cole + Karl
Birds drawing: Cole + Karl
Feathers morphing into a sail: Cole + Karl
"Float on": Cole + Karl
Boat harbor jig-saw: Cole + Karl
Birds escape from page
- Alister Karl @ opening of Boat and Bird
Craig explains the viewing alignment of boat and painting
Craig's photo of boat and painting
Craig R Cole and the author Doug R Spowart
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