1.5 A Call to Rise - Firstdraft Woolloomooloo

Transcript

Hello Sydney, I’m Matt, I’m Aiden, this is Hung Up.

When we talk about art it feels like there’s too much emphasis on getting it. We want to talk about it like how we talk about music in movies. This week we’re at Firstdraft in Woolloomooloo for A Call to Rise. Follow us on Instagram at hungup.au to see the pictures from this show.

It’s so nice here. There’s this gallery in the UK called Approach and I had this same feeling of like, you know, it’s this old building that no one goes to and you get to like explore through the rooms. Yeah. It’s like a big fucking club. You’re like, ah, what’s around this corner? That’s so true. Yeah, it feels like, it feels a bit more like exploration vibes.

Fuck yes dude, this one’s about food. This is so good. Okay, this is a food one and we’re just, let’s just describe the room. We’re standing in this like nice big generous sized room with not polished concrete floor as is always the tradition in these, you know, white QB galleries. It’s like nice old wood that’s like black and it’s a little bit squeaky.

A Call to Rise. Yeah. I love it. So this is about, this is kind of playing with the sourdough obsession phenomenon like during the lockdown everyone was into making bread. Fuck yeah dude, let’s talk about this one. Yeah, this is so good. This is, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before. We like make fun of and laugh at like the CRTs and the like shit that video art gets displayed on.

Yeah. This is like a nice screen. It’s just on the ground. Yeah. Nice flat screen and it’s on the ground. Yeah, it’s true. Nice big screen. Okay. So, and then there’s a person in the video, they’re like playing with like sort of just being with this dough as if it’s kind of like a dance duo or something.

Sure. They’re just like, it’s like rolling around their body and they’re like pulling it up off the floor. It’s gotten to that stage of like perfect stickiness where it won’t like stay on something, but it kind of, it sticks to some things. It’s a pretty fucking massive loaf as well. I was thinking it’s like a big baby size and right now she has it over her shoulder like you would be like burping a baby.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s beautiful. It’s so pretty. Yeah. It’s so cool. It’s just constantly slowly sort of melting in her, in her elbow there. Yeah. It looks a bit like the concrete. She’s like leaning on a concrete, a white concrete, like pole behind her, like painted brick. And some of the shapes in the like chips, chipped brick are like recreated in the dough.

Yeah. Already in the like half a minute we’ve been standing in here, this is just more like footage of just dough that I’ve, that I’ve ever seen like put together. Do you know what I mean? Like in a cooking show, it’s like, it’s cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. And then you rise it. But this, she’s just like spending time with it. And it’s like, you know, the, just the physical nature of the dough is really being explored here.

Like you just like checking it out, you know, see, see how it reacts to stuff. I actually feel like this would do really well on YouTube. Like it’s like one of those worlds that people are like, mmm, like so satisfying, so tacky. Like, I just want to see someone play with that dough for four hours. Yeah, I need this so I can eat my dinner. I need this to relax. And there’s like a little orange, like empty pillow. It’s kind of like twisted up a bit. Like maybe it’s like a bread bag or something.

Yeah. What the, is a bread bag a thing? Uh, nah. I’m calling it a bread bag. I’m going to go with no. Did you make bread this year? I know your mom did. Um, I made pizza dough. Did you do anything in the, in the COVIDs? You weren’t doing bread? I was, uh, I was doing, um, Spanish guitar. I did. Yeah. I got like some fucking nice Burke street bread and I was like super hyped to make it.

Like I’ve made a couple of really good loads of bread. Yeah. Uh, first try actually was really good. Clever boy. And then, uh, I tried to do it again and I used like shitty old expired yeast and I wasted all my good expensive, I feel like how many people do you reckon like used expired yeast during COVID like for their bread? Are you sure it was expired?

Yeah. It didn’t rise. How long did you check for? Oh, the dough didn’t rise? The dough never moves. Yeah. Cause we had this whole thing of yeast in the freezer. Now this is just a digression for you. This is a yeast challenge. Yeast hour. Welcome back to yeast hour. And it was for Sam’s like fucking, um, like, uh, industrious booze production. Yeah.

He had like a still and stuff and it was like a whole container of yeast. And I took some out and I put it in a, like a sugary warm water. I was like, oh, this is dead. I literally spent five minutes on the counter. Nothing. I was like, fuck, we’ve got to throw this whole thing out. Yeah, I guess so. We were like in a cleaning mood. So chuck the whole fucking thing out. And then I come back inside from throwing it out. The thing has gone mental. It’s like all bubbling and it smells amazing.

The kitchen is like, fuck, I just chucked it in the bin. Cool. Oh, you already threw it out? Yeah. That sucks. I think we’re going to leave her with her dough. Cool. Well, I think we should leave her with her dough. Yeah. I think we might’ve looped the whole video. I think we have. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s something like, it’s a nice short video or maybe it’s a, it’s a repeated action that she’s doing again and again. Could be. Yeah. Potentially.

Cool. Okay. Let’s leave and let’s move along to this next thing. It’s very mercifully light on this room. It’s like, there’s about five or six, seven works. I don’t know. It’s not, you know, it’s really not asking too much of us. There’s so much space to breathe. Yeah. Which feels good. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Okay. This is like a ceramic frame. It’s really beautiful. Like glazed.

Oh, it looks like the outside crust of a pie, right? That’s right. Yeah. And then on the middle, it looks like maybe a tile, which has been painted with this beautiful pair of hands, just very faintly, faintly painted. I look at little nails. Can you see what are they holding? Like maybe like two buttons or something, little, two little bells. Yeah. They’re like pie crust frame is beautiful, but it also looks really like fantasy.

It’s like this burnt, it’s like dragon scales. It reminds me of like all these, like, yeah, the, it’s like black and orange and has all these like, yeah, the little like folds of like, yeah, a crust or something. Yeah. It’s beautiful. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of like, um, this, uh, picture in the middle reminds me of like depictions of the Buddha and like, just like, um, Buddhism related art.

Really? Yeah. I was getting like Lotus flower shapes from it. Interesting. I don’t know if this is related. I was like elsewhere. You were getting like Lord of the Rings. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I’m getting that too. Yeah. There’s like some gates. Yeah. And I love, it’s like, it’s got this like, fuck, this is really good. Yeah. It’s really cool.

And it’s like hiding in plain sight, which is really great. Like it’s like, like it kind of looks, yeah, I dunno. It’s like, it’s outside of the standard aesthetics of like art world shit. Yeah. It’s beautiful. Like when we walked in, I have to be honest, I was like, Oh, a picture. Yeah. Yeah. Now that I’m up close, it’s, it’s really so visually, it’s like so juicy to look at.

That’s like my fucking, that’s like my catchphrase now, but the, the middle of it. So the center of the pie has got like, it’s been set. has been set it looks like a layer of jam or syrup has like glazed over this really generous like it looks like if you were going to eat it it would be way too sweet you would just have to have a little slice with a bit of coffee i love like yeah there’s like i was thinking of the word

like portals like behind the hands there’s this thing it kind of looks like um mosaic tiles but then and then like at the top it kind of like fades away and it kind of feels like we’re in like a few worlds or something yeah it’s got like flashbacky portally yeah like that fucking yeah i know sometimes something fantastic magic yeah yeah and i’m just i’m just looking closer

so it’s like it must be like a resin or something and the the drawing itself is just this thin piece of paper that’s kind of floating in there like you can see the fuzzy edge of the paper here and here yeah i love that and like there’s a little tear on the bottom right corner okay we can come back to i don’t even know what’s in her hands though yeah that’s true they’re like batteries or like decoration

like cake decorations i keep thinking like have you seen like um like a cat has a bell around its neck like they look like those kind of bells yeah it’s cool it’s like also the way the hands that kind of you don’t you don’t know if they’re being like presented or they’re like being like deeply examined yeah what is this yeah yeah super magic yeah what is this yeah it’s magical it’s so magical i’m

thinking like ursula le guin or like jr tolkien yeah this is like an elf’s hand she’s receiving the rings yeah yeah yeah it’s beautiful fuck we’re gonna watch a lot of the rings dude what are you doing tonight okay this is like a poem now do you want to read it it says i work in kitchens and they work on me

i get grounded and get exhausted here all space contains a potential for everything i am touched by all of the outside but i am turning my inside outside too because anything i hold inside of me spills and spills is italicized dot dot dot spills and ellipsis yeah this one like uh it’s cool i i

mean like we’ve both spent a bit of time in kitchens nothing serious but like i’ve definitely you know i’ve worked like front of house and like been mates with people who are fucking like the second line like and i work in kitchens and they work on me yeah uh there’s so much like and i worked with this

one dude who was like an artist first worked like the tate for fucking a decade and was a really beautiful and interesting chef but like there’s still this like uh i don’t know there’s all this brutality in like the professionalization of food whatever but it just made me think of like how kitchen work both like domestic and professional is almost intrinsically like thankless i work in

kitchens and they work on me i get grounded and get exhausted here all space contains a potential for everything i am touched by all of the outside but i am turning my inside outside too because anything i hold inside of me spills yeah i wonder i mean i i would think this that like poem is more like hopeful

than like the stuff we kind of got into like i like this idea like they work on me yeah kitchens are amazing like domestic and pro ones like yeah they’re so powerful like yeah you know they’re so shit and they’re so good they’re so messy they’re so beautiful like we could do a whole season about kitchens they’re the best yeah yeah yeah forget forget even talking about the food yeah i’m thinking about

the like um the sort of thankless thing you were saying and like so there’s that but also that what you were saying about um the kind of heroic highs of food like the um the um unsaid thing about this poem is is all of the peaks and the like five-star reviews and the rock star chefs and like all of that

stuff or um what also is unsaid in this poem is like the um sort of like gathering around a table and like sharing food with friends or family like that sort of um essential thing about food that’s the thing about food as far as humans are concerned anyway um and it’s kind of very neatly um like avoiding

saying that it’s like this one person’s relationship to the work yeah and like and it’s sort of invisible the the like and sort of aside from the point exactly and like i was actually like looking through some of my old poems yesterday and there was one called like dessert as a kind of eucharist and i was trying to get at some of this but it’s really hard to like show like how important you think a meal can be

and how profound it can be and when you kind of try and capture it in some way it just like feels like i don’t know you’re never quite getting at the brilliance of them but i think this poem is probably yeah one of the first i’ve read that manages to get that and it’s this thing you’re saying it’s like grounded in like a spiritual personal experience yeah like i love this like uh i’m touched by all of

the outside but i’m turning my inside outside too yeah it’s like this like uh this loop this and and and kind of the way that like when you when you make a meal you’re like really putting like some significant part of your like experience and and feeling and like shit into a meal yeah even like even if it’s a shit one that you’re not thinking about yeah you’re doing it yeah you can’t help but do

that yeah you can’t help but do that

and then um just walking back to the end of this long room now we’ve got this um really beautiful dot painting um and it’s like it’s not big it’s probably like a bit smaller than what an a3 page and sort of thinner and taller than that um but it looks like um like an indigenous like style of like

dot um painting with this like big beautiful like um i was calling them a bang like remember that shape it’s um yeah it’s like a like it starts out as like a star with many points but this has kind of been spread out to a big rectangular like blobby star with like heaps of little points on it and

that’s kind of the maybe i would say the big structural thing about this um image is that yeah and then within that there’s like this kind of um galaxy of like white and um um ochre dots and grays and then a band of uh like a sort of circular like amoeba shaped band and then more oranges and

ochres and like sort of you know you can see for yourself on the picture that’s great it’s cool i was thinking like we saw this bang on the uh artist labels at pari a couple weeks ago and we saw like maybe some similar things at bumali last week and i was just thinking about like this project that we’re doing and like the continuity of seeing you know uh just seeing art every week um and how you

kind of get better at seeing that like just like recognizing a form like first time you see it it’s a it’s a little bit difficult but if you go and see it like you know every so often that’s true you just you get more comfortable in that that space so true yeah yeah yeah like you’re doing pretty good i think i just spotted the flip side of that fantasy before we look at this cool video work okay this is

cool so this is on the window opposite oh wow this is so good beautiful so like this is yeah we’ll call it the flip side of that um fantasy portal so now it’s like a pair of like chicken feet um and it’s a very modest little wooden frame but there’s the same pencil drawing um and this time it’s an interior

with that hand and ours like picking up um you know it’s like grabbing over a table and it’s like this little bit of bread it’s quite it’s very ominously like you know it’s a scary hand now to me there’s yeah a loaf of bread and the hand has got like its index finger raised it’s like creeping up like everyone’s gone to bed and i’m gonna like snap the bread fantastic it’s like who’s living in your house

that you don’t know a little window left a jar how but how did it fit through the bars it’s beautiful it’s so cleverly placed in the gallery it’s like in the corner like as if it was on like a mantle in your house and it’s like on one kind of wall of the gallery and like leaning on the window it’s just really feel like it’s like not in a gallery yeah that’s true it’s like a part of your

house decoration and like fun like the the window in the picture and then we’re at the window with bars as well in the gallery dude this is beautiful frilly tablecloth edge this pair of work is just yeah it’s melting my mind absolutely banging it’s so good i’m in love with these it’s so unique and interesting uh yeah it’s really really great the all of the like all of the like in their

drawing style all of the kind of classic like art world drawing stuff is just like so barely there but so powerful like they’re not like oh look at the shading texture of the bread they like give you just enough to get an idea of the texture but like it doesn’t really fucking matter and then like the bars on the on the windows again they’re not like they’re not like supposed to be realistic but

they’re so like so so cleverly portrayed that it just it makes it real enough and like maybe more than real enough for me a hundred percent i mean this person is totally in the uh that sweet spot of you know the two worlds which is like fucking you know people that can draw really well but like

the drawings are of the most boring things like they’re like look at me draw emma watson yeah and then there’s like you know whatever extreme conceptual art where it’s like you have the best ideas but it’s really hard to look at yeah and like i guess you rarely i mean good art feels to me like it hits in the but you don’t i don’t really feel like you get to like really enjoy like a great drawing in the art

world like a lot of drawing that i see is really boring yeah i agree yeah this is so fantastic like just the joints in this person’s hand like this creature’s hand maybe i don’t know and then one other thing i love is the composition it’s very bare like the they didn’t bother to fill in any of the walls and then the chair and the window are pushed all the way to the edge the the tablecloth detail only

starts right at the edge then there’s a little um bird upside down like hanging from a like in a little oval frame but also right up the edge and everything’s just like so bare and like exploded outwards this is this is pro composition and like craftsmanship like it rocks and yeah the the little

chicken feet that you spoke about they’re in that a similar kind of yeah a ceramic gauzy thing to like the like uh what do you call it the frame on the other wall yeah it’s like sort of glazy or resiny yeah and yeah the the feet they look yeah they look like chicken feet are like uh in the top corner of the frame and they’re kind of curling over it which is like such a powerful addition like it’s so loud

yeah it works so well

okay so now my eye has been led over here we’ve got another qr code if you remember mixed business a couple weeks ago we were looking at this work um i forget the artist’s name but that qr code took us into a virtual world a virtual um mixed business well let’s shall we see what this qr code takes us

to let’s do it and then we’re kind of still on the fantasy themes like the qr code’s on an a3 bit of paper and it’s like wrapped around these like chain links uh they almost look like little tags that are like tabbed together and the qr code is like brilliantly shining out from the center of the image yeah i’ve already like kind of tapped through a few of these but i’ve like wound up on this website

called after.care and um it’s like these little kind of like half poems or something the allegations discussed revolt there will be zero tolerance and then i tap and there’s another one we counsel and we discipline care and conservation are for objects dismissal and objectification

of our employees called into a meeting to discuss a comment on a blog post thank you okay so we’re in this like corporate dystopia yes that’s where we’re living yeah it’s very pretty like browser experience like it’s this kind of like nice greeny blue gradient and this kind of yeah that like classic bright green

internet bright green yeah we like that we like that one and yeah we’re in this it’s it’s like this kafka like trial kind of hell that you don’t know you don’t know where you are yeah oh this is a cool one the work of the gallery occurs on slash in the walls the floor the office the cafe the store the warehouse

the security dock and after the incident crying while management stiffens at the thought of the email chains and the up up upwards reporting that’s a nice we got yeah the chain i was talking about yeah qr code is nice i like that i think that’s that’s a nice line and there’s like yeah this line break on email chains and i i think uh most uh office workers definitely feel uh constrained and chained by their

hellish emails right now yeah for sure yeah i archive my emails heavily yeah good that you probably have very good email hygiene i bet at work yes personally how many unread emails are you on your phone like over 20k that’s pretty good dude it’s way you know what i’ve started doing though which is actually really cool oh yeah unsubbing from things yeah do you answer awesome yeah i i mean i i try to but i’ve just

got so much stuff what i do is like once every six months or so i get really fed up and spend about four hours like getting back to zero yes and then i just leave it for another like actually you know what six months i’m flattering myself on the mic two years let’s say two years okay let me look back at the uh fantasy one this is what i love it’s gone from like yeah like interesting to like cool to like like

like actually moving like i love it and uh we totally got the like uh twist we got a twist we weren’t expecting like that was really good and then we turned the corner and like there’s another one there’s another one like just as good maybe even better one just sort of around the loop of the gallery it’s just like uh coincidence like the power of coincidence or like people that take a lot of

mushrooms would call it like a synchronicity okay like these little things that like just happen in the world you’re like ah how cool is that like and if i missed it by a minute i wouldn’t have seen it

i think you’re my only visitors today we kind of tend to always be the only visitors which is kind of something we’re yeah hopefully that changes a bit yeah yeah there you go yeah people are getting out there yeah we would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which this episode was recorded and pay our respects to their elders past and present we extend that respect to aboriginal and torres strait islander peoples listening today next week we’re at gallery pom pom in chippendale paolo montajejo hall x

tam

Show notes

EPISODE 5 🍞🦂🔮💅 This week our boys visit First Draft in Leichhardt for A Call to Rise curated by Eleanor Zurowski. We discuss works by Laura Wilson , Francesca Zak, Maike Hemmers, Vistaria Nakamarra Ross, Rebecca Hall Included themes: ASMR, Lockdown activities, kitchen labour≠kitchen love, and fantasy w0rlds 🧙‍♀️🧝‍♀️ The show runs until 11th April find us on instagram at https://instagram.com/hungup.au