Wieneke Archive Book 4d : Artists - Australian & Other Presscuttings

THEWEEKEND AUSTRALIAN MAGAZINE 7 Head Of Christie, 1964 LEY. were sL as mit of :ussed and. Olgas; plc- .ydney were rs and which timing Laurie mullion when ebition icadas sirens Icy and lespair,, 110 cool r tack: orld of exhibi- ividual uteley. ars and es, his equally es and and cture, me It angel e midst ouncedi uonisin sat had ted the or their .1a. He ind the ded Wits *1 sheer , ' wrote ttinear ross a it ies: "It March 17-11 1971 edited by maria prerauer Self-portrait After Haircut, 1976 Self-portrait In Studio, 1976 The Artist as Hero THE pictures above and the extract below are taken from a remarkable new art book, BRET i WHITELEY, by The Weekend Australian's art critic, Sandra McGrath. The 232 -page lavishly illustrated book will be published shortly by Bay Books at a price of S34.95. It will also be made available as a special offer to readers of The Weekend Australian and The Australian. Watch the next issue of The Weekend Australian for details. is a splendid, reckless, sprawling tour de force with an unsequential medley of deranged images that accumulate in shattering climaxes. It's a dreary world where the energising horror is Whiteley's. True or not, it's a vision of life as hell as valid as Baudelaire's is,. but it is interspersed with flashes of slicer loveliness as Pilgrim in the Slough of Despond sights the Promis- Land. "Whiteley, the enfant terrible of the Marlborough Galleries, is only partly a combination of Swift, Celine, Daimler and Hogarth, for he is no pure prophet of doom; as corny as it may sound, he does glimpse dawn's pearly light and life is real and life is earnest. What Whiteley has done amid all the youthful, total denigration of our times, has been to present with 'extraordinary intensity the old theme of the possibilities of good and evil," (How Pilgrim In The Slough Of Despond Sights Paradise, The Bulletin 27 June MO.) Whiteley in a sense baffled everyone. He was sinselfconsclOUs enough to paint banalities and picture -postcard material - the kookaburras, Ayers Rock and the, Opera House - as well as to try to convey in glowing surreal images some kind of metaphysical state of being. Most people thought the title of The American Dream was Heaven And Hell. While Whiteley always has one eye cocked on nature he has the other cocked on man. The interaction between the two is often behind some YRECEPTION FOR IE AUSTRALIAN 11ASNIS IVERTISEMENTS ARE BETWEEN AM -4.30 PM I JOIDAY TO FRIDAY ,YDNEY, MELBOURNE ,BERRA, BRISBANE 9 AM -4 PM MAY TO FRIDAY IN ADELAIDE IN HOBART 9 AM-2PM ONDAY TO FRIDAY IN PERTH comedy_ Here k Rf IV Mr Ewing with an vcr Just J, Sfr canon Thursday Juno 2Ist Thursday July 191% Thursday Sept 13th of his most powerful works of this period. It would be unfair to summarise this exhibition without saying that behind. the breathlessly expansive reviews there was no reservation. Almost to a man, there was also a feeling of suspended disbelief or suspicion. The reviews, with one exception, are notable for this almost schizophrenic reaction to this particular group of works. Elwyn Lynn again saw him as a showman good enough to both use and despise the mass media. His messages were not, he felt, prophetic but rather. collages of opinions. Daniel Thomas found aspects of the exhibition slightly sado-masochistic. "There are lots of sharp spears, beaks, needles for impaling with pleasure." James Gleeson, whose review had Started with such enthusiasm, found "when he put on the dark glasses of criticism" that the ideas, the philosophies, as they were ex written into the jottings and statements his works, wore in the end "classical hippisnis in which the ideals of peace and love are cocooned in woolly thinking. They offer no concrete programs, no intellectuality, clear or precise proposals about how the rrdllenium is to be attained." This attitude was mast forcefully expressed by Donald Brook who two rars earlier had in a rare moment of exuberance announced Whiteley as being "absolutely and without reservation first rate. It is weird, beautiful, nasty and authoritative. Essendon Grammar School DELPHI SOCIETY Subscription Series 1979 AlcNab House Lecture Theatre Waxlike Place. East Keller 7e1 ro.gorr 4,1 rokmisrim 11 eu Pa eht We are proud to primal OW artists: Thursday April 361$, La Romanesce Early Music Consort Hartley Newnham. Counter Tenor Ruth Wilkinson, Recorders, Viol da Gambit Ros Eland' Recorders, Renaissance Flute Jon Griffiths, Lute The CollegiumTrio Stephen McIntyre, Piano Mary Hornet, Violin Phillip Green, Cello Melbourne Mandolin GuitarsPlucked string orchestra comprising Mandolins Melbourne University Faculty of Music Brass Ensemble Simeon subscription HdtN Alb% 116.00 students $10.00 Coquinec: COrICCri Manage, DELPHI SOCIETY P.O. Sou 136 ESSENDON. 3040 wiL..was 13 A IMNE: [1.11INC.01 Without considering what reasons one will give on challenge, one recognises at sight that this must be among the best of today's paintings." (A Huge Talent, 8 February 1968. The Sydney Morning Herald.) But Brook found this exhibition, with some flashing exceptions, "clumsy and coarse and invaded by visual tracts and verbal commentaries," He went on to pose a question that was almost unanswerable, "We shall need to make up our minds whether the artist's mystical cult, or lifestyle or art - activity, as manifested through these by-products, Ls one that deserves our respect. I am inclined to doubt it. It seems to me that Brett Whiteley's vision. of a good life, as it comes through this new work, is as self- indulgent and pathetically unformed as a child's; and that his style of advocacy is too monotonously high- pitchedto command our admiration." He reached the conclusion that "... there are still traces of the brilliant painter, but he is rapidly giving ground to commonplace poet and the pretentious sage." But what annoyed the critics sangto Sydney's under -30s. Whiteley was almost universally hailed among the young as a kind of messianic figure. Gleeson, trying to take a distant view of Whiteley even while celebrating him, had to admit finally that from a cool and sober point of view some of the exhibition seemed exaggerated to the point of hysteria. But few would be able to deny the power of the exhibition "or resist the fascinations of his dazzling imagination" and "the brilliance of his invention" as well as the "magic of his craftsmanship." It is important to realise how far out of the mainstream of international art this exhibition was. In New York that year the dominant figures were such artists as Richard Serra, Donald Judd, Frank Stellatsand a host of other minimal Whiteley's decision to abandon abstraction in 1964 was even more severely being tested against current art fashions. In the 'sixties he could have been considered a fringe Pop artist, and In fact he did use many of their devices, but Whiteley used objects - either found or made - from everyday life, always applying or embedding them as footnotes to the drawing or painting. By using rocks, feathers, champagne corks. photographs, birds nests, shells and electric lights Whiteley was attempting to stretch or bridge his own form of surrealism into a more strange confrontation. The tension he set up between real objects and the exaggerated and distorted Images of his Imagination were often shocking and sometimes violent. The skull of a cat's head which he found In a locked garage (some one had chained the cat to the wall and left it to starve) is an example of the kind of horror image he sometimes employed, The Fijian landscapes, birds and flowers were straight lyric statements and had the same balancing effect as the animals in the Christie exhibition. Whiteley had written in a page of his diary: ' How can! take myselfseriously 98% fs compromise, predictable action, sludge .that 2 = 100 per cent is so sweet, so powerful . . and from the breast rightness . . . that, that, my foolishness annoys me into the stupor of a profound silence. But words ago, I thought I knew about class. It 79as (upper, middle, lower and !RYER) It is a useless answerless program from now on . . . in a serious silence, the visual predominates. He was and still is his own harshest critic. The exhibition was working on a 98 per cent program - but he knew that the 2 per cent was so authentic and so powerful that it would carry his intensity, "his sweetness," his power. BARRY STERN'S EXHIBITING GALLERY AN EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS ANNE JUDELL LEON PERICLES HUGH OLIVEIRO SCULPTURES By SAUL MUNRO 17th PAref, until 7,5 April 1979 42 Cur.,' St. Paddington 2021 (02)350523e. Gallery Hours' 11.10 arn-5.30 pm, rioted Sundsr, BARRY STERN'S GALLERY 19 Glentwore ad, raddinelon 2021102)V 1674. Gol.e Hour,' 11 JO sm-S.30.0n. Closed Sunday. 1001a Pcifl Pymble (02)4496356 Comm.,, Hours: 10 sm-S pm. closed Sundays *********************41 ALUN LEACHJONES 111,* RECENT PAINTINGS * * * * * Monday/ SaiurriaV 10 dm. 5 pm RUDY KOMON ART GALLERY 124 Jersey Road, Woollolua, Sydney. AU'attlAtiA it GOULBURN COLLEGE OF ADVANCED EDUCATION CRAFTSMAN/ WEAVER IN RESIDENCE As part of Its continuing ..Artists /Craftsman in Residence" programme, the College. in conionction with the Crafts Board al Australia Countll with/. toappoint . suitably muddledperson k. a CralisrnaniW In Residence for the 1g7g Pow, sm. Applications are now Invited from CriallinteniW Ith n outstanding of athlevernent who are prepared e work at their Craft in Goultrurn and who are willing to communicate with broad tress section oil persons I tttttt ladle wearing, The CraltiMan In Residence will be expected to promote hi, craft by workshops. lectures, demonstrations and oghleltIons both within the College and the region which It serves. Tear dewed programme PI wore will he negotiated with the Cheltsmen. man. The successful applicant will be provided with a stipend In the wee 57.50010 910.000 for periodof 6 to 0 months, on cam P ut accommodation. r W trowel arrangement.. romp. mentimettrieds and tools of trade (up to a predelermined maximum value) and a place to work. Applications must Include: NAME,ADDRESS AND TELEPHONE NUMBER: SUMMARY OF EXPERIENCE. TRAINING AND CURRENT INVOLVEMENT. TWO WRITTEN REFERENCES: A SETOF COLOUR SLIDES OF RECENT WORK: AND AN OUTLINE OF THE RESOURCES REQUIRED. ,:ilatIorto,mclose on FRIDAY 6TH APRIL. 1979 and should by The Servlary. B oard of Liberal Art Studlei, GOULBURN COLLEGE, Or ADVANCED EDUCATION, PAtEltrniolt Drive, (10 MOURN, NSW, 2560 1 nonl on, arm he ..oirPrIed to tornmentr dulY 111. /fLiurther informa.