Gosford Art Residency

A week ago just before catching my bad flue (that is finally gone) I went to buy some groceries with my fiancé’ at Gosford’s (that is where I currently live) shopping  Centre. If you are familiar with the area you can imagine my immense surprise when passing by one of the shop I discovered that an art residency was going on! OMG That was so cool! Plus we were lucky enough to be able to talk with two of the artists in residency : Kylie Rose McLean, Janet Mean who are absolutely fantastic people and great artists.

The residency just finished (I ve just realised that...time does pass too quick), Kylie was recolting pieces of fabric and recording theyr history from people passing by, she will then transform the donated fabric into an installation of textile panels that encapsulate the personal stories, histories and memories of local residents.
And Janet was ironing and folding she will be encouraging people to bring in shirts and sheets that need ironing. They will watch her as she irons their clothes and engage in conversation about the service she is providing. How cool is that?
If you want to read more about Janet and Kylie or discover the other two artist in residence projects click here
If you are from the area and you missed out I invite you to go and see the final result whic  will be exhibited at the Gosford Regional Gallery from 21st July to 16th September, 2012.
I will certanily go!
If not you can follow part of Kylie  project virtually  here.
Have a lovely sunday
xoxo
lesley

What is Postmodernism?

It is a cliché to say that we live in a Postmodern world, yet only few people know what it really means. Untill a few days ago I was one of them. But now days I belive there is no excuse to be ignorant: we have access to information so easlly! Just lazyness can stop us!
So I ve decided that once a week I will make a post about an interesting art aspect that can help us be more cultivated! Last week it was Xu Bing today is going to be about Postmodernism.

The most important figure of Postmodernism is Jean Francois Lyotard.
If we had to describe postmodernism as a philosophical movement we should describe as a form of scepticism. Scepticism about authorities, received wisdom, cultural and political norms,…
In other words Postmodernism is the rejection of most of the western values, were revaluation becames very important.
Postmoderism has of course influenced the work of many artists from the music world to the art world, among all the so called postmodernist artists my favourite would certainly be Anselm Kiefer.

                 Karfunkelfee (2009) by Anselm Kiefer

In his work Kiefer refelcts about the violences, atrocities and paradoxes of human history.
I hope that you enjoyed this article and awakened your curiosity and thristh of knowledge and made you want learn more about the subject.
Remeber what Dante Alighieri wrote:
"you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge"
xoxo

Lesley


 

XU BING – When Dreams come true -

As I child I started to invent a secret written language than no one else could understand except me, It turn out that It was too time consuming and too complicated, but I still vividly remember the excitement that this project had raised in me.

So you can imagine my joy, when as an adult, I discovered that some one had done something very similar, but in a far more magical, intriguing and esthetically wonderful way.

                                   Xu Bing, "Book from the Sky" 1987

This someone is the Chinese artist Xu Bing, among his great artworks, my favorite is : “Book from the Sky (1987)”  an elaborate an fascinating installation.
Xu Bing’s “Book From the Sky” is an installation made of books, scrolls and printed sheets of paper with what seems in appearance “Chinese” texts, in reality he made up 4000 characters that seemed Chinese but were completely made up by him.

You can imagine the confusion and disbelief of the audience.
The delicate subjects here treated are the role of traditional culture in our contemporary world, the trustworthiness of information, and the vainness of life.

The artist consecrated three years working on this mind-blowing project.

                                            Xu Bing, "The Living Word" 2001

Fascinating, no?