Carol Joyce Jerrems (1949-1980)

Workshop 1

Carol Joyce Jerrems (1949-1980)

Interesting some of the terms used to describe her in the beginning of the DVD by her and friends/associates such as: “Fearless”, “go to the edge”, Be true” and ‘Brave”.

Throughout the film it was obvious that these descriptors well described Jerrems. I found it an interesting insight into her life through her photographs and her narrated words. I’m always inspired when I see bodies of work that include what I’d call “snapshot” because it brings home the realisation that not every photo has to worthy to be hung on the gallery wall. God knows, I’ve got thousands of “snapshots” that were envisioned to be something far more than that.

It seemed clear in the film that Carol was constantly taking photos, except during her periods of depression, of friends, flatmates, lovers, the school gang and herself. It is inspiring that someone can be that focused over a long period. As illustrated in the film she focused on the gang and was willing to do or go along with everything they wanted to capture the images. Some might say she may have lost her moral and ethical compass but as a member of her generation such things were not an imperative. Living life was for the moment without regard for the future or the consequence.

I’m not sure I would say that I found her work compelling in the sense of “Evoking interest, attention, or admiration in a powerfully irresistible way.” Her photographs are interesting, got my attention and admiration but not to the extent they were irresistible. Her work is iconic for the time in Australia and documenting the counter-culture of the 70s. The Australian Dictionary of Biography Online refers to “one critic regarding her as uneven–‘she took a casual approach’ “ something I can relate to. Her work is inspirational in that she stuck to and documented her topic.

Project 10: Architecture & Identity

Project 10: Architecture & Identity

Blue Poles located in the National Museum of Australia’s Garden of Australian Dreams.

Image: Paul Livingston

I’d never explored the Garden of Australia Dreams (GOAD) or looked at the area in more than a cursory way before our excursion. The explanation of the representations in the GOAD I found very enlightening and has inspired me to explore it further.

One of our set questions asks, Why the GOAD is considered ‘Postmodern’ landscape architecture? Jodie provided the answer at the start of our tour by simply defining Modern architecture as referring to “truth to material” whereas, Postmodern architecture refers to “saying something with material.” The discussion below is about what is being said or interpreted by the viewer through the use of material.

The feature of the GOAD that I chose is the eight blue poles representing communication by telegraph and telephone through this great country. The “Eight blue painted poles [are] set according to the angles of Jackson Pollock’s ‘Blue Poles’ …”. (Reed p.137)

Initially when I saw Blue Poles 11 in the National Gallery of Australia in the 1980s I did not like the work. Over the years I have come to appreciate it having visited it a number of times and probably more so after seeing a documentary about Jackson Pollock. Of course, I’d heard the tales of the uproar the purchase of the painting caused when it was initially purchased and the current comment of what a great investment it has been.

While trying to decide which of the works I photographed I would use for this project I think Joyce Morgan’s article in The Age, 12 December 2003, cemented my decision. It related to David Barnett’s, John Howard’s authorised biographer, objection to the blue poles in the garden because it was a monument to Gough Whitlam. Professor Richard Weller, who designed the GOAD, said the sculpture was intended to be humorous. “(It) was a joke on money and culture and recent Australian history,” Professor Weller said. “We were punning on value and how things became valuable.” In Barnett’s submission he said, “I was told the poles would be painted another colour. They are still blue.” Weller’s response to that, “If this regime thinks there is some problem with the blue poles, perhaps it would suit them better if they were cut down and turned into black stumps,” he said. “We did not intend them as a monument to a particular political figure.” One does wonder if Professor Weller protests too much. Surely the reading of the blue poles as relating to Gough Whitlam must have been a conscious intent of Professor Weller considering all his subtle references in the garden. All I can say is, I’m glad they are still blue!

Aside from the ‘unintended’ monument to Gough Whitlam the poles represent telegraph poles and communication across Australia from pioneering times to the present. As quoted above, the blue poles also represented changing value. The great monetary expenditure and attitude regarding the painting being purchased for $1.3 million a “world record for a contemporary American Painting” compared with the current monetary value and attitude of the public about the once outrageous purchase.

It has been a challenging assignment trying to interpret various works when deciding on which one to write about. I’ll end with a quote from The Guardian by Deyan Sudjic, “There is no Rosetta Stone provided by the architect to unravel all the meanings, just a few broad and not so broad hints. It is an architecture of intelligence and anger, of imagination and obsession, with an ambition not just to redefine Australia’s sense of itself, but architecture too.”

Bibliography

ALIA 2001, Canberra sites ~ sites in and around the national capital, viewed 12 May 2011,

Kremmer C 2003, Discord – and lots of concrete – fill garden of Australian dreams, Sydney Morning Herald online, 8 December 2003, Fairfax Digital, viewed 12 May 2011,

Cement & Concrete Association of Australia 2003, Overall winner: National Museum of Australia, Canberra, ACT, ROAD note, May 2003, number 65, pp. 3-5,viewed 12 May 2011,

Cement & Concrete Association of Australia 2003, Category - Precincts, ROAD note, May 2003, number 65, pp. 16-17,viewed 12 May 2011,

Devine, M 2006, Disclosed at last, the embedded messages that adorn museum, Sydney Morning Herald online, 2 April 2006, Fairfax Digital, viewed 13 May 2011,

Dove S 2009, Design Inspirations behind the Museum building, National Museum of Australia [transcript of seminar talk 29 April 2009], viewed 14 May 2011,

McCarthy G 2004, Postmodern Discontent and the National Museum of Australia, borderlands e-journal, Vol 3 No 3, 2004, viewed 12 May 2012,

< http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol3no3_2004/mccarthy_discontent.htm>

Morgan J 2003, Gough! Splutter! Museum’s blue poles cause a whole new row, The Age online, 12 December 2003, viewed 14 May 2011,

National Gallery of Australia undated, Jackson Pollock Blue Poles (Number 11, 1952) [image], viewed 14 May 2011,

Reed D (ed.) 2002, Tangled destinies: National Museum of Australia, Images Publishing Group, Mulgrave, Victoria

Sudjic D 2001, Australia looks back in allegory at its inglorious past, The Observer, 4 March 2001, viewed 13 May 2011,

Project 9: Issued Based Art

Visual Culture

Project 9: Issue Based Art

Artwork: Abo history (facts) 1988 by Robert Campbell Jnr

I selected this particular work because it was a work we had identified in one of the early Visual Culture classes. Admittedly I didn’t understand all the images contained in it nor realise it had been painted the year of the bicentenary. It was only after we left the Gallery and did further research that I fully appreciated the work. This assignment gives me an opportunity to delve deeper into it.

In the reading Postmodernism and the art of identity by Christopher Reed I find it easy to embrace the definition of Postmodernism as “The broadest definition of postmodernism, then, would be the non-abstract art of the sixties, seventies, and eighties.”, if only it could be that simple.

Reed probably most succinctly defines and explains Postmodernism in two sentences:

“Instead of pretending to an authoritative originality, post-modernism concentrates on the way images and symbols (‘signifiers’) shift or lose their meaning when put in different contexts (‘appropriated), revealing (‘deconstructing’) the processes by which meaning is constructed. And because no set of signifiers, from art to advertising, is original, all are implicated in the ideologies (themselves patterns of language or representation, hence, ‘discourses’) of the cultures that produce and/or interpret them.”

In his work Abo history (facts) Campbell uses the ‘signifiers’ of white and black lifestyles and interactions as seen primarily in white images and he has ‘appropriated’ them to for a new meaning ‘deconstruction’ from the view of his culture so they can also be interpreted by members outside the Aboriginal culture. This along with the fact it is non-abstract art of the eighties makes it Postmodern in my opinion. “Robert Campbell Jnr was among the first wave of urban based Aboriginal artists who rose to prominence in the late 1980s.” (NGA YouTube)

Campbell is addressing Australian history through the eyes of Aboriginals as opposed to the conventional white Australian viewpoint. He did it at the time of the Australian Bicentenary, a time that the nation was reflecting on its history and basking in the celebration of 200 years of European settlement and in many cases forgetting the original inhabitants of the country.

I think the response the artist sought was to receive recognition for his people of the atrocities that befell them and also recognition of the part they played in the developing nation.

“The painting’s background patterning, figurative elements, colours and stylistic conventions are based on traditional Ngaku clan designs found on boomerangs and shield, while the ‘red ‘tie’, or oesophagus, on all human and animal figures is a symbol of life.” (NGA) Additionally, his use of “… comic strip style and dayglo pallet belied the tough subject matter of this, his most renowned painting.” (NGA YouTube) The mix of traditional styles and modern day should give viewers pause to look at the images within and outside the “comic” windows. The ‘red tie’ on both the black and white humans brought to mind the idea that although we may be different on the outside, within we are all the same.

Influences for the artist would be his own background having experience growing up and attending Burnt Bridge Mission school and traditional designs he had seen on the insides of “traditional possum-skin cloaks. … Bright and cartoon-like, his episodic snapshots of contemporary events merge his Aboriginal world view with that of the wider Australian society (from which he was mostly excluded) … .” (DAAO) The celebration of the bicentenary probably provided extra impetus for his work with such a strong cultural context.

The work is successful in conveying the message. It has been acquired by a National art institution, who identify it as “his most renowned painting”. (NGA YouTube) It is successful to the viewers, such as myself who understand aspects of the painting when first viewed. The use of strong colour and the comic style with the traditional style intertwines two artistic cultures, as well as, sending a poignant message at the time of the bicentenary that is as agonizing today.

My life experiences, knowledge, cultural, political, and personal opinions definitely affect my reading of this and any work. Although I grew up in the United States it was during a time of civil unrest in the 50s-70s with issues of desegregation, Vietnam, Cold War, Cuban Crisis, assassination of a President, etc. those experiences and ‘baggage’ are still with me. Reading this work I can relate to the black and white issue and how humans can treat each other. I’ve also lived in Australia long enough to know some of the history. As I grow older my opinions, likes, dislikes, attitudes and philosophy of life change, for the better I hope.

Bibliography

Mundine D 2008, Robert Campbell (Junior), Dictionary of Australian Artists Online (DAAO), viewed 10 May 2011,

National Gallery of Australia (NGA) 2010 Collection search, text from Franchesca Cubillo and Wally Caruana (eds) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art: collection highlights, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, viewed 10 May 2011, < http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=82130&PICTAUS=TRUE>

National Gallery of Australia (NGA) 2010, 117 -82130 – Robert Campbell Jnr “Abo History (facts)’ 1988, YouTube video viewed 10 May 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRfDgI8MNS8

Project 4: Frames of Reference

MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York) search results for Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, viewed 14 March 2011 < http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79766 >

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)

Paris, June-July 1907. Oil on canvas, 8' x 7' 8" (243.9 x 233.7 cm). Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest. © 2011 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

333.1939

1. Choose one of the artworks mentioned in the article and write a paragraph in your own words that summarises Spalding’s interpretation of the work.

Spaulding interpretation of the work is based on his knowledge of Picasso’s life - gifted painter at the age of sixteen; desire to paint feelings; studying and viewing art of the world; and a subject and fear that Picasso knew, brothels and venereal disease. Spaulding’s interpretation is woven with all of these aspects of Picasso’s life to provide a rational for the painting and his break from the conformity of painting traditions of the time and creating a new art form – cubism.

2. Write a paragraph that summaries the work from your personal perspective. Is your perspective different from Spalding’s? Why? What are the factors (social, cultural, political, educational etc.) that have contributed to the forming of your opinion?

This is an interesting exercise in that had I been given a copy of the image without reading Spalding and trying to locate a copy of the image and then reading several texts on the MoMA site my response would probably be entirely different but I’ll try to form the opinion I might have had before the readings.

I suspect I would have been inclined to say I didn’t understand the work. I’d need a gallery label to provide the context for me. The title I could roughly translate “The women of Avignon” but that is of no use to my understanding.

I’d question the gender of the subjects and might consider the person on the left to be a male figure and the seated one could either male or female. The faces of the two on the right did not seem to me to be masks but the artist’s distortion of their faces for some unknown reason. Since I saw male and female figures; white sheets – togas maybe; fruit on a table my mind though of an orgy; which might explain two of the party having their faces painted or masked to provide anonymity or intrigue. The reference to an orgy probably comes from historical readings about Romans – no wine here so not Romans – and social and cultural readings and movies involving orgies. If my reading is correct the artist’s intent may have to shock his audience considering the sheer size of the work 8 x 7 foot (approx 2.4 x 2.1 m). Picasso could also have been making a cliché statement about beauty being in the eye of the beholder.

Additional readings providing other reading of the image form staff at the MoMA

MoMA Gallery Label Text (same source as above)

2006

The result of months of preparation and revision, this painting revolutionized the art world when first seen in Picasso's studio. Its monumental size underscored the shocking incoherence resulting from the outright sabotage of conventional representation. Picasso drew on sources as diverse as Iberian sculpture, African tribal masks, and El Greco's painting to make this startling composition. In the preparatory studies, the figure at left was a sailor entering a brothel. Picasso, wanting no anecdotal detail to interfere with the sheer impact of the work, decided to eliminate it in the final painting. The only remaining allusion to the brothel lies in the title: Avignon was a street in Barcelona famed for its brothel.

Publication Excerpts (same source as above)

The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 64

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is one of the most important works in the genesis of modern art. The painting depicts five naked prostitutes in a brothel; two of them push aside curtains around the space where the other women strike seductive and erotic poses—but their figures are composed of flat, splintered planes rather than rounded volumes, their eyes are lopsided or staring or asymmetrical, and the two women at the right have threatening masks for heads. The space, too, which should recede, comes forward in jagged shards, like broken glass. In the still life at the bottom, a piece of melon slices the air like a scythe.

The faces of the figures at the right are influenced by African masks, which Picasso assumed had functioned as magical protectors against dangerous spirits: this work, he said later, was his "first exorcism painting." A specific danger he had in mind was life-threatening sexual disease, a source of considerable anxiety in Paris at the time; earlier sketches for the painting more clearly link sexual pleasure to mortality. In its brutal treatment of the body and its clashes of color and style (other sources for this work include ancient Iberian statuary and the work of Paul Cézanne), Les Demoiselles d'Avignon marks a radical break from traditional composition and perspective.

Other Texts (same source as above)

Audio Program excerpt

MoMA Audio: Collection, 2008

Curator, Ann Temkin: This painting is titled, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, "The women of Avignon," and it's Avignon Street in the city of Barcelona where Picasso was a young artist. The Demoiselles d'Avignon are actually five prostitutes, and these are five women—obviously naked—and they're looking at us as much as we're looking at them.

The very early studies show a sailor walking into this curtained room where the ladies stand and the woman on the far left now has the traces of having been that man entering the room, and you even feel a certain masculinity in the sort of sculptural carving of her body and the way that very large foot is stepping toward the others. It almost seems like its a build-up of geometric forms, and if you look at the chest of the woman at the very top right, you can see one of these cubes making up the space underneath her chin, thus the name Cubism.

One striking aspect of this painting is the way this stage on which these women are painted is almost looming out at the viewer. Rather than feeling like these women are nice and safely set back in some kind of room that you are peering into, I, at least, feel like the women are almost piled atop of each other and piled in such a way onto the canvas that they almost could step out of it at the viewer. It's part of the desire of the painting to confront you physically, psychologically, as well as intellectually, with everything that's going on in it.

Project 3: Acknowledging the Source

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Berger, J et al. 2005, Henri À La Sauvette, Aperture, no. 179, Summer 205, pp. 74-76.

Duggan, B 2010, Life story; Henri Cartier-Bresson at the MoMA, big think, viewed 4 March 2011, < http://bigthink.com/ideas/20179 >.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, 2006, Thames & Hudson Photofile, New York.

Hofstadter, D 2010, Anti-Photographer, March 2010, vol. 33, no. 3, March 2010, pp. 84-91, Wilson Web, viewed 4 March 2011, < http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.ezproxy.cit.act.edu.au/hww/results/results_single_fulltext.jhtml;hwwilsonid=RN0W1XOGQ1HLTQA3DIMSFGGADUNGIIV0 >.

An inner silence: the portraits of Henri Cartier-Bresson, 2006, Thames & Hudson, New York.

LA art show debuts never-before seen works by photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, artdaily.org, viewed 4 March 2011, < http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=43894&b=cartier-bresson >.

Maysles, A 2008, Albert Maysles on Cartier-Bresson’s Matisse, Aperture, no. 191, Summer 2008, p. 88.

Tully, N 2010, Henri Cartier-Bresson: the modern century, The New Criterion, June 2010, vol. 28, no. 10, pp.46-47, Wilson Web, viewed 4 March 2011, < http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.ezproxy.cit.act.edu.au/hww/results/results_single_fulltext.jhtml;hwwilsonid=RN0W1XOGQ1HLTQA3DIMSFGGADUNGIIV0 >.

Assignment 1 Is it any good

Photo: Madoz, Chema, 1992, “Untitled” [image] in Aperture: Optical Allusions: New Perspectives in Spanish Photography, Spring 1999, pg. 62. [ISBN 0893818585]

Madoz says about his work:

“Oddly enough, in the inert presence of the object there is a constant invitation to action, a silent quietude that incites reflection.

The object occupies that uncertain space halfway between reality and desire, and with its capacity to provide us with access to the most diverse perspectives, it is converted into a body through which our energies are channelled; a quality that will give it a great symbolic charge in which the spirit of our dreams appears and disappears.

To change, overturn, or manipulate the object is to open a Pandora’s box; to let loose the latent forces that live beneath its forms.

In that way, we establish an identification between object and concept that allows us to evoke the ideas that travel along the shadow of our gaze, thus creating new paths that link together the most remote places in our minds. And we accomplish all of this through the use of metaphor, paradox, metonymy, which are nothing more than the different names that we give to the same process, the process that allows us to leap from one reality to another, that of visual metaphor, that of optical allusions.”

As a former librarian the image of books in this arch formation was intriguing. I’ve always been interest in freestanding arches and use of keystones to hold it all together. These things raised my interest in the work.

The use of sepia made me initially focus on the structure rather than to look at the titles of the works which formed the structure in the same way I would look at a rock structure, i.e. admire the structure and the craftsmanship to build it rather than the individual rocks. One can, with difficulty, make out the names of some of the books although for me it is not important to identify the titles only enjoy the work. The titles may be of importance to some and perhaps even to Madoz.

The dark vignette around the edges of the photo and the lightness inside the arch draws the view in, but to where? My interpretation of this light area is it symbolises knowledge and a source of enlightenment from books.

The creativity of the wok is the fact that books are not normally seen in this arch formation. We pile them up on a desk or books shelf or we stand them up on a bookshelf library style but never have them hanging in the air in this impractical way. It is impractical because to remove one item would cause the entire structure to tumble. For me the work isn’t boring because it causes me to ask questions of why a book arch; how was it made; what was the artists intended message to the viewer or was the viewer to make their own interpretation and are the titles of the books of any significance? The photographer does not give us any clues due to the lack of title of the image.

From a photographic technique standpoint I feel the image is enhanced by the use of sepia rather than full colour, the vignette is used to draw the eye to the book with the contrasting white negative space in the centre of the image.

Reading Madoz’s statement makes me wonder if we will be learning the “art speak” or the language of art in this course?