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Children of the Commune, Audi Festival of German Film |
german film: radical docs
One of the immediately fascinating components of the 2011 Festival of German Film program is Radical Docs, presented with ZDF/ARTE and described as exploring radical attitudes to life. In films about art The Radical Gardener (director Hermann Vaske) observes an artist striving to live up to the ideals of Andy Warhol, Malcolm McLaren and Meinhard Neese, while Super Art Market (Zoran Solomun) reveals the attitudes and lifestyles generated around the art markets of Berlin, New York and London. The lives of children in an Austrian commune are investigated in Children of The Commune (Juliane Großheim), while gated communities in America, Africa and Asia are revealingly scrutinised in On the Safe Side (Corinna Wichmann, Lukas Schmid). The full festival program, including more Radical Docs, will feature recent releases and a Retro program of significant films of the last decade. As ever, the festival is eagerly anticipated. Audi Festival of German Film, Palace Cinemas: Sydney April 6-18; Melbourne, April 7-18; Brisbane, April 7-12; Adelaide, April 13-18; Perth, April 14-18; program available March 15 www.goethe.de/australia
muffling muff
Whatever you might think of Melbourne Underground Film Festival director Richard Wolstencroft’s politics, the laying of charges against him by the Australian Federal Police for screening the Canadian film LA Zombie at the 2010 festival was nonsensical. In a recent press release Wolstencroft wrote, “Our only intention was to play this important work of cinematic art to an appreciative adult audience after its screening was cancelled by the Melbourne International Film Festival due the OFLC’s [Office of Film and Literature Classification] absurd decision not to grant it exemption to screen...Two months later my home was raided by police searching for a copy of LA Zombie. Why an artistic director who runs an established film festival like MUFF should have such draconian tactics...applied to him over a work of art in our day and age is another problem altogether. I had made sure two months earlier that I didn’t have a copy and that our only copy had been destroyed.” On January 20, Wolstencroft was issued with a summons to which, bizarrely, was attached “a diversion notice, agreeing to settle the matter without a felony on my record and with a donation to charity.” Had a formal charge been laid a gaol sentence and fine might have ensued. With pro bono help from leading lawyers, the MUFF director is working out what to do—let the issue drop or face the demands of challenging the AFP action. Wolstencroft has received letters of support from the film’s director Bruce LaBruce, Camille Paglia, Jack Sargeant and the directors of Locarno and the Raindance Film Festival. See Jack Sargeant’s account of the background and the key issues in RT99. Mystery MUFF: Freedom Of Speech Event and Fundraiser, Red Bennies, Chapel Street, Melbourne, Feb 27, www.muff.com.au
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Cover of Oz magazine, part of Lampoon—An Historical Art Trajectory (1970-2010) |
provocations: poster-cover-collage
Sydney’s enterprisingly mobile Arthere, run by photographer and curator Sandy Edwards and exhibiting in often unexpected venues, is staging an exhibition of Jim Anderson’s poster and cover art from the 60s and 70s at the Tin Sheds Gallery. As one of editors of Oz Magazine with Richard Neville and Felix Dennis in London from 1968-73 Anderson was charged with “Conspiracy to Corrupt Public Morals” and publishing an obscene magazine. For this exhibition the artist “has re-imagined some of those Oz covers (School Kids Oz, Homosexual Oz, Special Pig Oz) that the British Establishment found so offensive at the time.” Also on show will be Anderson’s more recent collages which he calls ‘lampooneries.’ Showing on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Oz Conspiracy Trial and in conjunction with the 2011 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival, the show promises a riot of colour and provocative opinions across half a century. Lampoon—An Historical Art Trajectory (1970-2010), February 18-March 12, Tin Sheds Gallery, University of Sydney, www.tinsheds.wordpress.com
the poster & the cultural revolution
For a different perspective on the politics of poster art of the 60s and 70s as propaganda, an exhibition at RMIT Gallery explores “the relationship between the political poster art of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and its impact on contemporary Chinese art.” The show draws on the vivid original posters from the University of Westminster collection, works from collaborating artists Liu Dahong, Shen Jiawei, Li Gongming and Xu Weixin, and oral histories reflecting on the art of the Cultural Revolution. China and Revolution: History, Parody and Memory in Contemporary Art, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Jan 21-March 19, www.rmit.edu.au/rmitgallery
expanding dance worlds
With Dance Massive on the horizon in Melbourne, it’s great to see other programs announced, including Dance Bites from Western Sydney Dance Action & Riverside Theatres in Parramatta and the contemporary dance program at Campbelltown Arts Centre from curator Emma Saunders (p8). Dance Bites commences with Fiona Malone’s new large-scale work Picture Perfect (Feb 16-19) which follows a woman in her quest for physical perfection—how far will she go? Other works in the program will come from Narelle Benjamin and Frances Rings in a double bill, and collaborations between Martin del Amo and Ahil Ratnamohanm and Lisa Griffiths and Craig Bary. In Perth MOVEME.ORG.AU, a new promotional body for contemporary dance is hosting six productions across the year, including Buzz, WAAPA’s Link, Strut and Daneil Micich. Dance Bites, Riverside Theatres, Parramatta www.wsda.org.au/projectscur.htm; www.riversideparramatta.com.au;
MOVEME.ORG.AU, Perth
mardi gras: common noise
Once upon a time, the Sydney Mardi Gras ran a seriously engaging discrete arts festival as part of its annual celebrations. Now in one small step for man, as part of Mardi Gras 2011, Chronology Arts has engaged five emerging composers (Andrew Batt-Rawden, Nicholas Ng, Marcus Whale, Lachlan Hughes, Max Bendall) to write works for Common Noise—an art-music concert delving into sexuality and masculinity through music. The performances include sections of senior composer Colin Bright’s Book of Cock song cycle. Common Noise, Supper Club, Oxford Hotel, Sydney, Feb 19 & 23, 7pm,
www.chronologyarts.net, www.mardigras.org.au
blade runner re-worked
Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic Blade Runner (1982) continues to be an inexhaustible source of inspiration and theorising. Why you might replace Vangelis’ score (superior to the composer’s other output) with your own and edit scenes from the film is a mystery that will only be solved by seeing.
Berlin-based filmmaker and sound artist Zan Lyons perform with viola, foot pedals and laptop while simultaneously remixing and reworking the film. The performance comes at the end of GoMa’s film program, A New Tomorrow: Visions of the Future in Cinema, which coincides with the exhibition 21st Century: Art in the First Decade. Cinematheque, Gallery of Modern Art (re-opening, post flood, Feb 13), Brisbane, Feb 26, 27, http://qag.qld.gov.au/cinematheque/current/21st_century_cinema
expanding the australian sound sphere
The Australia Council is inviting Australian musicians, sound artists and media artists working in sound to apply for a 3-month residency in the AlloSphere at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “The Allosphere is a 30-foot diameter sphere built inside a three-storey near anechoic (echo free) cube. It allows for synthesis, manipulation, exploration and analysis of large-scale data sets in an environment that can simulate virtually real sensorial perception....The AlloSphere is an instrument similar to the telescope, in that it enables scientists to see data in new ways in fields ranging from nanotechnology to theoretical physics, from proteomics to cosmology, from neurophysiology to the spaces of consciousness, and from new materials to new media. But it is has also been compared to a musical instrument or orchestra...” The Australia Council, through its Music Board and the Inter Arts Office, is the first organisation in the world to support a formal artist residency at the AlloSphere, in partnership between with the University of California Santa Barbara. Allosphere Residency, www.australiacouncil.gov.au/grants/grants/allosphere_residency; www.allosphere.ucsb.edu
RealTime issue #101 Feb-March 2011 pg. 26
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