Bella World

 

Some people have a knack of pulling objects together to create interesting scenes that surprise but also possess a degree of coherence. I love Bella Cooke’s home for this reason. It’s vibrant, crazy fun and restful at the same time. I am not sure how she achieves it except to say she has a great feel for textiles (she has quals in this area), plenty of natural weather-worn furniture, the colour white, fresh cut flowers, and a love of vernacular expression. Magazines often describe it as Industrial but that brings to mind over-sized objects and distressed surfaces. That’s not quite it. Bella loves the local, commercial and small time operators of this world (and celebrates place through her own line of posters). She collects objects d art on the road and fosters the same spirit in her community through a market she runs once a month Seaford Handmade and Homemade Market . Over lunch yesterday with her usual modesty she described herself as a Penninsula bogan. I don't think so.

Polish Poster Art 1952-1984

Wojcieh Fangor (1922), Picasso 1957, France. colour offset, 86.0 x 61.5 cm, reg. no. 1996.4666. The University of Melbourne Art Collection. Gift of Gerard Herbst 1996. © Unknown

Believe it or not one of the three largest public collections of Polish Posters in the world is located at the University of Melbourne. Who would have thunk it? An exhibition of Polish posters, Polish Poster Arts 1952-1984, is on right now at the Ian Potter Museum of Art. I stopped in recently, heart just a little swelled with patriotic pride, and took in the 70-odd posters (from a collection of over 2000). They looked good. Really good. My companion and I were divided on the hang; several of the works are hung salon-style. With such intense images, did they need a little more room to breathe? I didn’t think so. On the way down the stairs I passed a hipster wearing a LOT t-shirt (Poland’s national airline). I wanted to stop him and ask, “Hey, who are you?.” It was a lunch time that sent me backwards in time, to post-war Europe, it’s hopes and anxieties, and forwards into the future. I wondered, when is technology going to catch up with my science fiction vision, retinal scanning software that would actually tell me the name of that dude on the stairs by the blink of an eye.

Polish Poster Arts 1952-1984
Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne

26 January – 26 May 2013

Michael Callaghan tribute

Tribute reproduced courtesy of Art & Australia, Summer 2012, volume 50, number 2.

Michael Callaghan: Merchants of War, 13 November – 1 December 2012 at Damien Minton Gallery
61-63 Great Buckingham Street, Redfern New South Wales, 2016

Get. There. Pronto.

Vale Michael Callaghan

Today Michael Callaghan (4 November 1952 – 19 May 2012) is laid to rest in Exeter, New South Wales. The flier with funeral arrangements read:

Artist – Raconteur – Reader – Collector – Pleasure Seeker – Holder of Hearts.

I'm not sure I've ever read a more affectionate description of a person in such few words.

When I finished writing my book on Redback Graphix Michael asked me which poster I would like for myself. One of the posters I selected was this 1984 poster for Raise The Dole Dance. It hangs in my kitchen, its live-wire figure carving it up on a Japanese dance floor. I never tire of its vibrant colours, the sheer mentalness of it. I'm a long way from down-and-out Wollongong and those desperate economic times. Michael captured the restless spirit of its underclass without peer. Like all great designers he had a freaky sensitivity to atmosphere. In words and pictures, he gave it form.

We'll miss you.

From the archives: Earthworks Poster Collective

Christmas, it's a time to look back, no? I was going to look way back at the great American Paul Rand, but a devilish mood took me. Is the end of the year anytime for that kind of sunny optimism? I don't think so either. Too much shit has gone down. We can start afresh come January 1. This poster by Chips Mackinolty for Earthworks Poster Collective (1971-1980) was for one of their Christmas parties. Earthworks was based at the Tin Sheds on the grounds of Sydney University, where a loose group of students gravitated to make posters and hang out. They made posters for political causes and events. The year before they opened up the workshop to community access and classes. It was one happenin' place. Frankly it's hard to believe this is already 33 years old. This was the year that Mental As Anything formed. Mackinolty's posters always had a certain point of view and confidence. Looking back at their posters you always got the sense they knew how to have a good time.