Vociferous Whimsy

From my note book, my real not-metaphorical notebook.

Though it has been almost six months since I was last in Brisbane, I think it’s time I shared some of my gallery hopping from that trip, as I contemplate a return trip. (Uni has been hectic this year. Including a summer semester on Renaissance art, I have been studying for 12 straight weeks, and it’s not over yet. )

On 27 January this year I was wondering through the University of Queensland Art Museum (UQAM) viewing the National Artists’ Self-Portrait Prize. Among the many challenges to the idea and subject of portraiture were Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan’s Foreigners: Project another country 2011. I wrote at the time:

A wardrobe stands open before the viewer with a red circle of carpet on the floor in front. The wardrobe has three doors, standing open. Into the left and right compartments belongings and objects have been meticulously packed. Boxes, shoes, a beer mug, a doll, instruments, Australian souvenirs, jewellery, books – the history of Australia, CDs, jumpers and small toys are among them. On the left it Alfredo, with the beer mug and on the right with toys is Isabel. 

The objects reflect the place of their owners in our society, they locate themselves here through objects, but they note their continuing foreigner status, voluntary or not it isn’t clear. The Aquilizan’s have been living in Australia since 2005. The centre of the wardrobe is empty; perhaps it denotes the land they have left behind – the Philippines. On the wall inside hangs a picture of palm trees, boats and an ocean.

From the Queensland Art Gallery|Gallery of Modern Art website: 

The husband-and-wife team of Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan creates works that use the processes of collecting and collaborating to express ideas of migration, family and memory. Often working with local communities, the Aquilizans bring together personal items to compose elaborate, formal installations reflecting individual experiences of dislocation and change.

Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan, Be-longing: In-Transit, 2006, personal effects, scaled model of a house, Sambaguita scent. Via Artlink.

More images can be viewed here of the In Flight (Project: Another Country) 2009 which featured in the 6th Asia Pacific triennial of Contemporary Art at QAGGoMA.

Review | Yayoi Kusama: ‘Look Now, See Forever’

Yayoi Kusama
Dots Obsession 2011
Vinyl balloons, dot sheets, paint, mirrors
Image: Exhibition catalogue 

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist whose paintings, sculptures, performances and installations have influenced generations of artists from minimalists in New York to contemporary practitioners the world over. Kusama was born in 1929, in Japan where she studied for one year before moving to New York in 1957/58 (reports differ). At the time New York was living in the shadow of Abstract Expressionism, a movement which had thrust the city to the centre of the art world. Kusama’s influence was to be profound as she defied definition, experimented and captivated everyone with her eccentric persona. In 1973 Kusama returned to Japan and her profiled waned in the US until retrospectives of her work brought her international attention, particularly the 45th Venice Biennale in 1993. During the exhibition she began selling the silver spheres which made up her installation Narcissus Garden for the equivalent of $2. Reuben Keehan, Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art suggests this was clearly a critique of the institutionalisation of contemporary art. This is just one example where her work defies the expectation of genre, audience and authority.

Kusama has been continually influenced by the hallucinations she had as a child in which she was surrounded by colourful dots, flowers and patterns. Kusama’s mental illness is not extensively written of, nor does it need to be. She has an obsessive compulsive disorder. In Japan she chose to live at the Seiwa Hospital in Tokyo. She continues to live there, painting everyday. Her art and her life are inseparable.

An exhibition of Kusama’s recent installation, and well as video and sculpture is on display at the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art. Her exhibition ‘Look Now, See Forever’ features samples from her diverse output, but is perhaps less indicative of her defiance of genre and authority than earlier exhibitions. This exhibition, however, is highly engaging and sure to excite return visits.

Read More