16 July 2012

Oxygen thief or future Canberra Art Prize winner?

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roadkill art

Saw this at the ANU. I hope the tax payer is not footing the bill for this degree…

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c_c said :

a stain on higher education.

A very expensive stain

laomedia said :

This is a process shared by human and non-human animals reminding us of our mortality and animality. Rotting flesh is repulsive to our sensory organs and taboo in our hypoallergenic society.

This kind of nonsensical writing is a stain on higher education.

laomedia said :

This is a process shared by human and non-human animals reminding us of our mortality and animality.

Or you could have said:

This is a process shared by all animals reminding us of our mortality and animality.

Not picking sides, just a pet peeve of which many in this town are guilty.

Another statement by the artist:

The decomposition print or shroud is a bodily stain that captures the rapid breaking down of the body after death. This is a process shared by human and non-human animals reminding us of our mortality and animality. Rotting flesh is repulsive to our sensory organs and taboo in our hypoallergenic society. The notion of the abject or abhorrent in art challenges our distinction between object and subject. An object is perceived as a thing used for a purpose, a subject is one who has agency and rights we can identify with. The representation of animals is a contentious issue at a time when the modern perception of animal as object is being challenged. In my work I experience the assimilation of the abject. The rancid object, a dead body, becomes a subject as I capture the essence of individual disintegrating forms and present them in a painting format to be venerated.
To view the results of this stage of my exploration go to my blog post:
http://laomedia.com/blog/?m=201203

Masquara said :

rosscoact said :

…assuming the tycoons pay [their taxes]….

While on the topic of Art & funding, allow me to digress for a moment and draw attention to the Greens’ incredible hypocrisy on art & taxes … Richard Walsh, the owner of the new art museum in Tasmania, didn’t pay any tax on his business dealings – taking gambling profits from the pockets of gambling addicts, no less – which is why he had the readies to invest hundreds of millions in MONA. Now that the ATO would like to tax him (retrospectively, because he fibbed about his business dealings), none other than Saint Bob Brown, Anti-Pokies and pro Mining Tax,has suddenly decided that it’s fine for this particularly billionaire to pay no tax. I’d love to know the ACT Greens’ opinion of thatty!

Actually it’s David Walsh, and he doesn’t take money from gambling addicts, he wins money from the people who take money from gambling addicts. The profits he didn’t pay tax on were then used to give Tasmania an internationally recognised gallery, one of its biggest tourist attractions and a drawcard for people to go to Tasmania and spend their money, many of whom wouldn’t have heard of Tasmania before the existence of MONA.
From The Australian, 6 July 2012 (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/treasury/mona-in-precarious-spot-as-tax-office-chases-gambler-david-walshs-millions/story-fn59nsif-1226418380383)
“The ATO alleges the international gambling syndicate of which Mr Walsh is one of 19 members runs a $2.4 billion business, based on the use of complicated computer software to analyse mostly racing data to aid successful punting.”

VYBerlinaV8_is_back10:00 am 01 Aug 12

HenryBG said :

urchin said :

everyone so quick to criticise what they don’t understand…
.

It’s not crap for the reason I don’t understand it. It’s crap because Art for the last several decades has lacked originality, lacked beauty, and usually has also been entirely lacking in technical skill. (Modern music is slightly different – highly technical, but dissonant gibberish). Modern Art’s only defence of its descent into crapness is a ridiculous feigned elitism which, although it does have some fooled, doesn’t fool me.
I *do* understand it – crap produced by a bunch of under-educated scammers who can’t produce anything of beauty.

Well said. Art needs to make me think, to move me somehow. Much of the crap I see these days does nothing of the sort. But then occasionally I see a piece (usually a sculpture or painting) where I could just look at it for hours.

Letting animals decompose is not art.

urchin said :

everyone so quick to criticise what they don’t understand…
.

It’s not crap for the reason I don’t understand it. It’s crap because Art for the last several decades has lacked originality, lacked beauty, and usually has also been entirely lacking in technical skill. (Modern music is slightly different – highly technical, but dissonant gibberish). Modern Art’s only defence of its descent into crapness is a ridiculous feigned elitism which, although it does have some fooled, doesn’t fool me.
I *do* understand it – crap produced by a bunch of under-educated scammers who can’t produce anything of beauty.

HenryBG said :

laomedia said :

Whether any of you like it or not, the university is supporting my research, and my experiments with the collection of bodily pigment is not the only research I am doing toward a PhD.
The installation is the beginning of a process and not the final work, I do not kill animals in order to produce work and national parks do not consider what I do (relocating roadkill) to be a threat to animal populations.
In fact in one instant a ranger helped me place the body of a female kangaroo on canvas.
Think about it next time you drive a car.
Leaving a body on the road to be run over multiple times and mashed into the bitumen does not seem dignified to me.
What I am doing requires care and consideration.
I love animals and consider myself a human animal.
Animals have always been the subject of my art.

So, when you get your PhD, you’ll be able to paint like Turner could when he was 18 and living in London doing tourist watercolours during his apprenticeship?
Do you have *any* plans on developing some technical skill?
How about some literacy skills? Most artists in the past were fairly good writers as well.

everyone so quick to criticise what they don’t understand… and good ole’ henry, i’m sure, did a detailed survey of this person’s entire portfolio before accusing him of lacking technical skills. no doubt henry would be a fantastic judge of what constitutes “technical skill”… given his sensitive demeanour he no doubt has a delicate, artistic temperament. taste is subjective, deal with it.

and loving all the grammar policing. it’s a universal law of the internetosphere that that anyone who criticises someone on language will invariably make a mistake of similar or greater magnitude shortly thereafter…

laomedia said :

Whether any of you like it or not, the university is supporting my research, and my experiments with the collection of bodily pigment is not the only research I am doing toward a PhD.
The installation is the beginning of a process and not the final work, I do not kill animals in order to produce work and national parks do not consider what I do (relocating roadkill) to be a threat to animal populations.
In fact in one instant a ranger helped me place the body of a female kangaroo on canvas.
Think about it next time you drive a car.
Leaving a body on the road to be run over multiple times and mashed into the bitumen does not seem dignified to me.
What I am doing requires care and consideration.
I love animals and consider myself a human animal.
Animals have always been the subject of my art.

Moving away from the always contentious question of whether something is art, it’s the PHD I’m more interested in. How does your smearing decomposing remains on canvas further human understanding and knowledge in an important way?

rosscoact said :

…assuming the tycoons pay [their taxes]….

While on the topic of Art & funding, allow me to digress for a moment and draw attention to the Greens’ incredible hypocrisy on art & taxes … Richard Walsh, the owner of the new art museum in Tasmania, didn’t pay any tax on his business dealings – taking gambling profits from the pockets of gambling addicts, no less – which is why he had the readies to invest hundreds of millions in MONA. Now that the ATO would like to tax him (retrospectively, because he fibbed about his business dealings), none other than Saint Bob Brown, Anti-Pokies and pro Mining Tax,has suddenly decided that it’s fine for this particularly billionaire to pay no tax. I’d love to know the ACT Greens’ opinion of thatty!

laomedia said :

Whether any of you like it or not, the university is supporting my research, and my experiments with the collection of bodily pigment is not the only research I am doing toward a PhD.
The installation is the beginning of a process and not the final work, I do not kill animals in order to produce work and national parks do not consider what I do (relocating roadkill) to be a threat to animal populations.
In fact in one instant a ranger helped me place the body of a female kangaroo on canvas.
Think about it next time you drive a car.
Leaving a body on the road to be run over multiple times and mashed into the bitumen does not seem dignified to me.
What I am doing requires care and consideration.
I love animals and consider myself a human animal.
Animals have always been the subject of my art.

So, when you get your PhD, you’ll be able to paint like Turner could when he was 18 and living in London doing tourist watercolours during his apprenticeship?
Do you have *any* plans on developing some technical skill?
How about some literacy skills? Most artists in the past were fairly good writers as well.

laomedia said :

Whether any of you like it or not, the university is supporting my research, and my experiments with the collection of bodily pigment is not the only research I am doing toward a PhD.
The installation is the beginning of a process and not the final work, I do not kill animals in order to produce work and national parks do not consider what I do (relocating roadkill) to be a threat to animal populations.
In fact in one instant a ranger helped me place the body of a female kangaroo on canvas.
Think about it next time you drive a car.
Leaving a body on the road to be run over multiple times and mashed into the bitumen does not seem dignified to me.
What I am doing requires care and consideration.
I love animals and consider myself a human animal.
Animals have always been the subject of my art.

That’s really great, but the last person to use dead animals in their art at the SoA managed to alienate themselves from nearly everyone in their workshop AND also had a run in with the Police and news media.

Just ask the Head of Photomedia if he remembers those ‘glory’ days of the mid-90s, and I’m sure he’ll fill you in on all the details……

laomedia said :

Whether any of you like it or not, the university is supporting my research, and my experiments with the collection of bodily pigment is not the only research I am doing toward a PhD.
The installation is the beginning of a process and not the final work, I do not kill animals in order to produce work and national parks do not consider what I do (relocating roadkill) to be a threat to animal populations.
In fact in one instant a ranger helped me place the body of a female kangaroo on canvas.
Think about it next time you drive a car.
Leaving a body on the road to be run over multiple times and mashed into the bitumen does not seem dignified to me.
What I am doing requires care and consideration.
I love animals and consider myself a human animal.
Animals have always been the subject of my art.

Thanks for the good news.

laomedia said :

The installation is the beginning of a process and not the final work, I do not kill animals in order to produce work and national parks do not consider what I do (relocating roadkill) to be a threat to animal populations.

While relocating roadkill is no threat to animal populations, collecting or interfering with native animals (dead or alive) is still illegal under ACT law, NSW law and the international CITES convention.

In fact in one instant a ranger helped me place the body of a female kangaroo on canvas.
Think about it next time you drive a car.

1. ‘Instance’ – not ‘instant’.
2. So you had a Ranger assist you in breaking the law? The Ranger should know better, you should know better, and those people supervising your PhD should also know better. PhD or not, you are breaking the law when you collect native fauna for your ‘art’.

Whether any of you like it or not, the university is supporting my research, and my experiments with the collection of bodily pigment is not the only research I am doing toward a PhD.
The installation is the beginning of a process and not the final work, I do not kill animals in order to produce work and national parks do not consider what I do (relocating roadkill) to be a threat to animal populations.
In fact in one instant a ranger helped me place the body of a female kangaroo on canvas.
Think about it next time you drive a car.
Leaving a body on the road to be run over multiple times and mashed into the bitumen does not seem dignified to me.
What I am doing requires care and consideration.
I love animals and consider myself a human animal.
Animals have always been the subject of my art.

Spiral said :

threepaws said :

When I saw that, I thought to myself “there should be some kind of a law against that” – and what do you know – there is.

No there isn’t. Artists are above the law.

That seemed to be the idea that most artists and much of the population had about that artist who was using under age nude models a few years ago (in Melbourne iirc)

Artists are not above the law.

Just a couple of years ago some enterprising guys thought of a similar thing to this, they would find a roadkill and shovel it onto a tshirt placed on the side of the road and spray the shirt with paint. After drying and washing the tshirt would be sold with the silhouette of roadkill on it. The gov had them shut down under pain of prosecution for breaking the law already quoted in this thread.

rosscoact said :

Of course the other definition of modern art is what you can get away with 🙂

davo101 said :

rosscoact said :

– Art should have a high level of technical skill

Guessing you haven’t attended a contemporary art gallery in the last 30 years?

Oh look a pile of sticks, some coloured fluros, a glow in the dark light, and a pile of bricks. Wow that last one must of really taxed the artist’s technical skills.

So that’s a fail for David Eastman, then?

Of course the other definition of modern art is what you can get away with 🙂

davo101 said :

rosscoact said :

– Art should have a high level of technical skill

Guessing you haven’t attended a contemporary art gallery in the last 30 years?

Oh look a pile of sticks, some coloured fluros, a glow in the dark light, and a pile of bricks. Wow that last one must of really taxed the artist’s technical skills.

I had visualised a Goth – but apparently this gal drums in a “surf rockabilly band”!

rosscoact said :

– Art should have a high level of technical skill

Guessing you haven’t attended a contemporary art gallery in the last 30 years?

Oh look a pile of sticks, some coloured fluros, a glow in the dark light, and a pile of bricks. Wow that last one must of really taxed the artist’s technical skills.

AsparagusSyndrome said :

rosscoact said :

It’s my understanding that most PHD’s are Commonwealth sponsored so yes, about 7 cents a year of the tax you pay is going to this person.

Does that 7 cents bother you at all? Just wondering.

There are over 11 million employees in Australia. Even if they don’t ALL pay up the full 7 cents (looking at YOU media and casino tycoons), he’s surely still on a winner.

But if you care to restrict the collection of your 7 cent art student levy to each of the 154,100 full-time hard-working and tax-liable employees in the ACT (as at June 2012), well that’s a more modest remuneration to end up with what is, surely, a magnificent tableau of dead birdage, a built in wire grill, some useful tinder to get the cooking started and some logs to sit about on, singing campfire songs. Say… I’m already hungry just thinking about it. Might wander on down to the campus and fix me up a little hobo hoe-down.

(And to think, when I were a wee laddie, 7 cents was the price of a sausage roll. The sauce was free.)

For the record, the birds are a Kookaburra, Magpie and a Currawong. Let us know the results of your taste test lol…

Prize winner: http://www.naa.gov.au/visit-us/exhibitions/waterhouse-2011/avian-spectre.aspx

First place painting in Sth Australia Museum’s Waterhouse Prize 2011

Jethro said :

It’s stimulated conversation. Isn’t that what art is supposed to do?

(BTW – I think it’s godawful).

According to television
– Art should be original – check
– Art should cause or evoke emotion – check
– Art should have a high level of technical skill – hmmm, undecided

Two out of three ain’t bad

Jethro said :

It’s stimulated conversation. Isn’t that what art is supposed to do?

(BTW – I think it’s godawful).

I lot of things stimulate conversation. Try almost any workplace on a Monday morning and listen to all the conversations about football scores. That’s not Art either.

Surely there are better things to be spending your time on?

It’s stimulated conversation. Isn’t that what art is supposed to do?

(BTW – I think it’s godawful).

oh dear Iphone calculator mixed with forgetting my glasses strikes again. You’re right, it’s actually about 0.2 cents per taxpayer (assuming the tycoons pay) for a Phd.

AsparagusSyndrome said :

rosscoact said :

It’s my understanding that most PHD’s are Commonwealth sponsored so yes, about 7 cents a year of the tax you pay is going to this person.

Does that 7 cents bother you at all? Just wondering.

There are over 11 million employees in Australia. Even if they don’t ALL pay up the full 7 cents (looking at YOU media and casino tycoons), he’s surely still on a winner.

But if you care to restrict the collection of your 7 cent art student levy to each of the 154,100 full-time hard-working and tax-liable employees in the ACT (as at June 2012), well that’s a more modest remuneration to end up with what is, surely, a magnificent tableau of dead birdage, a built in wire grill, some useful tinder to get the cooking started and some logs to sit about on, singing campfire songs. Say… I’m already hungry just thinking about it. Might wander on down to the campus and fix me up a little hobo hoe-down.

(And to think, when I were a wee laddie, 7 cents was the price of a sausage roll. The sauce was free.)

bikhet said :

rosscoact said :

It’s my understanding that most PHD’s are Commonwealth sponsored so yes, about 7 cents a year of the tax you pay is going to this person.

Does that 7 cents bother you at all? Just wondering.

In this case, yes. Their research supervisor would also loose their funding if I had any say in the matter.

In wonder how many hospital beds or school resources that 7 cents would buy…

AsparagusSyndrome11:12 pm 16 Jul 12

rosscoact said :

It’s my understanding that most PHD’s are Commonwealth sponsored so yes, about 7 cents a year of the tax you pay is going to this person.

Does that 7 cents bother you at all? Just wondering.

There are over 11 million employees in Australia. Even if they don’t ALL pay up the full 7 cents (looking at YOU media and casino tycoons), he’s surely still on a winner.

But if you care to restrict the collection of your 7 cent art student levy to each of the 154,100 full-time hard-working and tax-liable employees in the ACT (as at June 2012), well that’s a more modest remuneration to end up with what is, surely, a magnificent tableau of dead birdage, a built in wire grill, some useful tinder to get the cooking started and some logs to sit about on, singing campfire songs. Say… I’m already hungry just thinking about it. Might wander on down to the campus and fix me up a little hobo hoe-down.

(And to think, when I were a wee laddie, 7 cents was the price of a sausage roll. The sauce was free.)

What’s worse, the student that created the artwork or the person that photographed it to complain about it?
.

I’m going with the poster after yours who wasn’t happy until he’d found a law against it.

wildturkeycanoe8:11 pm 16 Jul 12

“This installation is a PhD research art project about the representation of animals in painting.”
Well, they have failed their PhD already, because it involves no paint whatsoever.
The wire mesh will do nothing to prevent ants, worms and insects from devouring their bodies either.
If anyone wants to see impressions of dead animals, the dinosaur museum is a good place to start in preference to this kind of rubbish.

ART:

Trying to do something brilliant and screwing it up majorly, what you end up with is ‘Art’.

Here’s the creators blog.

http://laomedia.com/blog/?p=685

PHDs are funded, very handsomely I believe hence the supposedly strict application and selection process.

The purpose of a PHD is to demonstrably and significantly further knowledge in some specific area.

I don’t really understand how this does that, and it’s quite morbid too.

Don’t laugh too hard, folks: the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario includes Mary Kelly’s 1970s “fecal stains” “artwork” – featuring actual poo stains by her baby.

http://www.studio-international.co.uk/studio-images/mary-kelly-2011/Mary-Kelly,-Post-Partum-Document,-1973-79,-Documentation-I,-Analysed-Faecal-Stains-and-Feeding-Charts,-1974,-detail,-courtesy-Werner-Kaligofsy-and-the-artist-b.asp

Dead animals feed others. Birds, insects and other carrion eaters survive pretty well on “deceased animals”. It is part of the circle of life. Unless, of course, they are scraped up and placed under chicken wire to prove……… something or other.

Can I have my PhD now or must I make some pointless art installation first ?

DrKoresh said :

The idea that someone can get a PhD for this is a joke, but I don’t see what’s so shocking about an arts student being a pretentious wanker, that’s nothing new.

+10.

Little_Green_Bag4:34 pm 16 Jul 12

The University of East Bumcrack strikes again.

OverLord said :

54-11 said :

“Here I have lay…”

I would have thought a PhD student would at least know basic English.

No, that’s right. You just need to re-read it while visualizing yourself down on one knee, in the rain while holding aloft a bird skull and projecting your voice.

Of course. Stupid me!

54-11 said :

“Here I have lay…”

I would have thought a PhD student would at least know basic English.

No, that’s right. You just need to re-read it while visualizing yourself down on one knee, in the rain while holding aloft a bird skull and projecting your voice.

astrojax said :

Spiral said :

threepaws said :

When I saw that, I thought to myself “there should be some kind of a law against that” – and what do you know – there is.

No there isn’t. Artists are above the law.

That seemed to be the idea that most artists and much of the population had about that artist who was using under age nude models a few years ago (in Melbourne iirc)

bill henson [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Henson]

one could make some comments about the pornography/paedophilia issues being as much in the mind of the accuser…

Yes, because there could be some perfectly innocent reason for wanting to take photos of naked children in sexual poses.

“Here I have lay…”

I would have thought a PhD student would at least know basic English.

Spiral said :

threepaws said :

When I saw that, I thought to myself “there should be some kind of a law against that” – and what do you know – there is.

No there isn’t. Artists are above the law.

That seemed to be the idea that most artists and much of the population had about that artist who was using under age nude models a few years ago (in Melbourne iirc)

bill henson [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Henson]

one could make some comments about the pornography/paedophilia issues being as much in the mind of the accuser…

The idea that someone can get a PhD for this is a joke, but I don’t see what’s so shocking about an arts student being a pretentious wanker, that’s nothing new.

It’s a lot better than Blue Poles, I’ll give it that.

I’d prefer that the bodies rot on roadsides with dignity, not in this shameful art piece.

Well, it’s been a great while since anybody displayed the talent of a Rubens or a Turner, so collecting dead animals and shoving them under a bit of chicken wire is this guy’s way of communicating to us the dreadful dearth of artistic talent in Canberra at the moment.

“Look how crap Art has become”.

That’s my reading of it, anyway.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd1:11 pm 16 Jul 12

I don’t see the problem???

threepaws said :

When I saw that, I thought to myself “there should be some kind of a law against that” – and what do you know – there is.

No there isn’t. Artists are above the law.

That seemed to be the idea that most artists and much of the population had about that artist who was using under age nude models a few years ago (in Melbourne iirc)

What’s worse, the student that created the artwork or the person that photographed it to complain about it?

If we got to choose how every tax dollar was spent, I would ban all public servants from using the internet at work. This site would be dead in a week.

🙂

When I saw that, I thought to myself “there should be some kind of a law against that” – and what do you know – there is.

45 Taking native animals
(1) A person shall not, except in accordance with a licence, take a
native animal, whether dead or alive.
Maximum penalty:
(a) if the animal has special protection status—100 penalty units,
imprisonment for 1 year or both; or
(b) in any other case—50 penalty units, imprisonment for
6 months or both.
(2) This section does not apply to the taking of an animal that is
suffering from a disease, illness or injury for the purpose of treating
it or giving it to a conservation officer.

rosscoact said :

It’s my understanding that most PHD’s are Commonwealth sponsored so yes, about 7 cents a year of the tax you pay is going to this person.

Does that 7 cents bother you at all? Just wondering.

In this case, yes. Their research supervisor would also loose their funding if I had any say in the matter.

It’s my understanding that most PHD’s are Commonwealth sponsored so yes, about 7 cents a year of the tax you pay is going to this person.

Does that 7 cents bother you at all? Just wondering.

It’s an expression non the less. The kid had talent. I would buy for th outdoor pool room.

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