Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

On Fellini and Melbourne "ALL RIGHT for a visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." I've heard this said cf Sydney and New York and many other really metropolitan cities. I like the metropolis so I'd say the same of Melbourne and Launceston. Yet they have an unde- niable, provincial charm, and they have certainly tried harder than Sydney, whose deniable glamor is pretty sloppy. How small Melbourne seemed, how close at hand those barren plains at its north, when wind-blown thistledown, and brown butterflies, were thick in Collins Street, and lay in drifts around the AMP's marvellous Clement Mead - more sculpture. And Melbourne has a persecution of flies, when flies don't exist in Sydney. And what a perfect little Victorian/Edwardian city Launceston is. It was a resort for 19th -century Melbourne and Sydney, in the days when you wanted to escape the summer heat. It is an elegant watering place, with parks, foun- tains, walks and conserva- tories. But It was my return to Sydney that revealed Launceston's qualities, be- cause In Sydney a great work of art was available, on the day I needed it, to evlain the recent reality. The great work of art was Fellini's film "81." And perhaps great art ali.sys illuminates any recant realities, even If you just sit at home'. "81" is set in a summer resort, with ele- gant old parka, and ele- gant old people. Like Laun- ceston. It is about the relation- ship between art and life. which is an excellent old theme. The artist/film-maker in the leading part Is meant to stand for Fellini him- self, but plenty of other actors were there as them- selves: so art and life were already merging on the screen. One actress who walked briefly into the film, play- ing herself was Claudia Cardinale. Claudia! She was in Sydney that very day! She could easily have walked into the real cinema, and watched self walk into the film. Better still, two commer- cials briefly preceded the film. They were for motor ca s. The usual thing - speed, the open road, youth, eroticism. And what is the opening sequence of "8;"? Motor- cars and buses, tight - packed, stationary In a traffic jam, and all filled with rather old men and women, intelligent looking but not erotic. brilliant I complimented the cinema - manager after- wards for his brilliant choice of commercials, he didn't know what he had done. I'm saying that even though there isn't a single great - great masterpiece painting in Sydney to look at whenever you need it, the great -great master- pieces of film do turn up every few months. But I'm also saying that Fellini's speculations about art merging into life and vice -versa were very timely. In Tasmania I had already set someone a Photo -Project. "Over the next year, at appropriate seasons and times of day, photograph everything on the farm that modifies nature, usually geometri- cally. ART by daniel thomas developed 'Abstract culture witIVLife itself . . ./'Lyri- Kool' is the latest develop- ment from the Lurid art and gas corporation.' a suppose most people know that Kool is a cigar- ette, but Lurgi is more pri- vate: it is a coal -gas pro- cess, very modern in the 'thirties in Melbourne, now obsolete, and a Lurgi fac- tory in Oippsland is due to .iecome an art school, with Lendon teaching.i Lendon, like Fellini, is blending "Abstract culture with life itself." Moreover, I hadn't thought of his tubular wall -piece, rearranged since its appearance in the Transfield, as cigarettes, but now I'm afraid I do: maybe with help from Robert Baynes' cigarette paintings, one of which is now in Bonython's stock gallery. Incidentally, Lendon's exhibition at Watters Is an cotstanding show and all about the casual inter- section of art and life, in tubular scaffolding, velvet - rusty iron floor -works, and a leaning - piece called Flags, but more like hoes and agricultural tools. And, finally, Mike Parr's "Word situations" at Inhi- bodress, were as stimulating as Lendon and as Fellini. Parr was once an ordinary poet, then he was a con- crete poet, now he is a con- ceptual artist. He still simply types on paper, but he can use several shades of grey and black, and occasionally red, and the first impression is a beautiful room full of subtle grey tones. The artist is there in per- son minding his show, and typing; he wore a suitable "Avoid anything that. has art -intention, like a picturesque clump of trees. "I nstea d, photograph straight shelter - hedges, harvesting pattern s, ploughlands, ditches, archaelogical sites, foun- dations, abortive oil -wells, paddocks filled with hay bales, road embankments. Art Is the opposite of nature. "These agricultural and earth works will be art in Its most elemental form." Back In Sydney I found my definition of Nigel Lendon's style as Lyrical Cool had prcduced the fol- lowing piece of mail art. a have a drawerful of mail art. Mail -artists can, and do, operate from Iceland, they don't need New York. "L endon Sentimental Structures N.L./Press Re- lease .../Announcing 'Lori-Kool.' A new taste sensation /To delight the vestibular and 'Vertiginous Senses . Blinding a newly grey jacket, but his green trousers were wrong. The typewritten words are not emotional or evoc- ative or poetic, they are hard, elemental words, like "left," -right," "vertical," "honzontal." "red," "black,' "word," "words." They all refer to visual properties, as well as hav- ing their own literal black, grey and white visual prop- erties. and as well as be- ing placed in a visual arts context, namely an art gal- lery, That is why they are conceptual art, not con- crete poetry (except one or two, "Avant garde' for ex- ample). intersect Yet in spite of their ex- treme abstraction they in- tersect with life. "Window Installat:on," is sheets of these typewritten words pasted on to the windows: you can look through or around them, and you can push them around when you open the window. They are environment - emphasising and architec- tural. They are also par- ticipatory, involving the spectator. And the artist is in the same room. The firth", speaks words as well as typing words. And the words spoken by the live artist might be as interesting as the written ones . . . could they pos- sibly be visual -art, too ...? Three highly stimulating art, life situations, Penult's, Lendon's and Mike Parr's were all available on the same day in Sydney. Who wouldn't want to live there? "TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. e- I friAH; 1971