The Beast With Three Backs
Lane Cormick Tony Garifalakis Matthew Griffin
Project Space RMIT
23-27 Cardigan St Carlton Melbourne, August 2005
I find myself in front of work by Tony Garifilakis comprising a mass of framed pictures of faces; smashed, bloodied, chromed, brutalized. I catch myself in their spectacle, unable to remove myself from the imagery of fresh wounds. The faces are triumphant, defiant; moments of material made palpable. Then I wonder; who are these people? Where do they come from? By what circumstances has life inscribed itself upon them? They mock the specter of middle-class-ness. My banality.
Bianca Hester
see Griffin's comment
Project Space RMIT
23-27 Cardigan St Carlton Melbourne, August 2005
I find myself in front of work by Tony Garifilakis comprising a mass of framed pictures of faces; smashed, bloodied, chromed, brutalized. I catch myself in their spectacle, unable to remove myself from the imagery of fresh wounds. The faces are triumphant, defiant; moments of material made palpable. Then I wonder; who are these people? Where do they come from? By what circumstances has life inscribed itself upon them? They mock the specter of middle-class-ness. My banality.
Bianca Hester
see Griffin's comment
posted by speech at
8:21 AM
8 Comments:
The flip side of the coin, is that this is the same sort of portayal of Australia that we exported to America. There are any number of Australian films that incorporated even more gruesome felons than the Latino, white supremacist types in Garifalakis images from the internet. Walk down Elizabeth St near Coles Express and you'll be asked for your daily savings. I bet no one dares photograph these fellas. Best to stay in the nice suburbs.
But then again there are some people who only look intimidating.
"Yet everyone fears a psycho"
Quote from Chopper
hey Anonymous
why don't you use your name?
I don't get what you mean, you seem to be attacking?
are you saying these works avoid reality by dealing with image and metaphor?
The ghost of middle-class-ness (or is that the peril…mmm…I hope it’s the ghost), nice suburbs, white supremacists, the internet, Coles Express: who gives a damn. I do not wish to deride or champion Garfilakis or any other work in this exhibition, I have looked at this show everyday since it opened and I have no idea how nostalgia for an Other life has anything to do with it. Nostalgia—maybe this is what you are writing when you make reference to your own lives after looking at a photograph of a skinhead. look or leave break the record, I will be more pleasant next visit.
I went to see this show today and they had taken it down. It's finished
I can't tell whether you mean the middle class are shocked by white suprematitsts or they are white suprematitsts.
Is anon saying that the artist wouldnt't photograph these people in reality only download their image?
thank god lane didnt make his van out of terracotta
I’m not interested in championing or deriding work. Boring. I’m interested in how art work works…..how it hooks into you, connecting with things, ideas, events. It makes work of us. This project did that to me, it affected me and asked something our relation to the world. It seems that each post on the blog affects us in different ways, and for that I’m glad that it exists. (On that note, I have no ethical objection to anonymous posters, accept for that it’s kinda annoying to not be able to connect your comments to your contexts. Your context brings with it a bit of a texture that helps make shape of your words. Your anonymity seems a bit un-generous, but also understandable at the same time).
I don’t think that dealing with ‘otherness’ has to be about nostalgia for that Other (in terms of positioning it in an idealized site). Surely encounters with anything other than ‘ourselves’ is an encounter with Otherness. (Even dealing with ‘ourselves’ is to deal with otherness to some extent). The spectacle made of this otherness, and its perpetual commodification and consumption is the idea that this work has sparked for me….the haunting force of the consumption of anything and everything.
I thought the show was awesome, it was just a shame that everyone I sent there to see Mark's work in the back couldn't get in. The story about Lane's van is a crack-up. The tow truck driver asked if the work was finished when he heard it was, he said "so is his career".
What a pearla.
And the pollywaffle is disgusting.
Hey there, me again.
I just thought I'd sit this one out until all your steam had blown out. I really liked Tony's work. He's one of Australia's best artists and I'm not going to run him through the ringer based on a series of images from the internet. The quip about Elizabeth St is in reference to the fear I face every day looking at these crazed people on their way down the road to oblivion. The characters in Garafalakis work have nothing to lose and that is the one thing which I fear the most.
P.S don't assume that an anonymous comment is negative.
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home