3.3 The NAS Post Grad Show Review

Transcript

I’m all fucking ripped up, ripstop, you know those like, you know the Beyblades right? Not ripstop. I know ripstop. No, not ripstop. You know how they work right? Like they’ve got like that… Do I know how Beyblades work? Yes! Yeah. Yes I do. It’s like a ripcord. Yeah, it’s like an engine starter.

Yeah, it’s got all these teeth. That’s me, listener. But you don’t get to know what it’s about. Are you the teeth or are you the cord? I’m the fucking Beyblade dude. And I’m like, not a shitty knockoff one. I’m like the expensive one with like cool heavy metals.

I’m one of the Beyblades that you get out of a packet of chips and you have to like break it out of a little cart. Did you get those? Yeah, like little Tazos. Those were pretty sick. They were bad, yeah. They were all like covered in MSG and finger dust. I’m the best. Every seven months Matt has to deal with like a complete. Complete turnaround of philosophies and ways of life. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Good shit, huh? As long as you keep making nice food, I’ll have to allow it. Keeps you on your toes. But the second you get into denying me the nutrition of your cooking.

I think you’d be really sad if four years had gone by and I was just really stable. You’d be upset. You’d be like, something was missing. Yeah, maybe. Some special sauce was missing. Maybe. I need a little spice. You just spice this friendship up every now and then by doing a 180 on something that was an essential part of your identity for the last six months.

You were so upset about the sports one. Do you remember? I spent Matt like three years getting Matt invested in sports. Like literally like slowly, slowly like, man, maybe you should check out this game. Maybe I’m watching Gridiron. You should get into it. You’re like telling me all about all the different players and all the teams and I’m like dutifully learning all of their names.

And then what happened? And then one day I was like, sport fucking sucks, dude. Everyone was right. I nearly had a fucking aneurysm. What? What? Oh, what? Oh, what? He looked at me. You’re wearing all this like sports gear. I was holding a soccer ball. I was like, fuck. Does that mean soccer’s canceled?

We don’t fucking do that anymore, bro. Yeah, we don’t. Hey, we should go out for a kick again. If you think it’s cool. If you don’t think it’s cool, that’s all right. I get it. No, that’s okay. I can do things that aren’t cool. Really? Yeah, you’re allowed. I’m not allowed to do that. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you do it so much then? I don’t know what that is.

Sick. Fucking welcome to Hung Up. Episode 3.3. My name is Matt. I’m Aiden. You can find us on Instagram at hungup.au and send us a DM and we will respond to the DMs. And leave us reviews. Yes, please. Spotify now has reviews, which is pretty cool.

Apple Music. Apple Podcasts. Apple Podcasting. So we went to the NAS post-grad show. And if you are hearing this, then that means it’s too late. You already missed it. Or you’ve already gone, which means you’re a good member of the art scene. It was good.

It was really good. We loved it. We had a really lovely day. It’s a nice sunny Sunday. Literally, we had nothing to complain about in the world. It was like we all arrived from different locations in the same 30-second window, which was incredible. Yeah, it was nice. It was like full 90s street meet,

like as you’re putting money in the meter. Yeah, true. I was like wrestling with the meter. I was about to fucking hit it. The buttons wouldn’t respond to my touch. I don’t know. What the fuck’s out of the meter? I’ve never put money in the meter. You wouldn’t know. You’re not a driver. Yeah. And then we went in and we had a great time. It was fucking dope. Beautiful day.

Beautiful campus. We hyped ourselves up for ages. We got to see it. It was the last day, which kind of gave it some emotional weight. Yeah, exactly. And it was funny. We were framing it because we were all so hyped up, the three of us. It was like, we’re framing it like some kind of like a fight. Like, yeah, let’s fucking get it.

We’re about to get some of that. Yeah, yeah. Like, come on. Yeah. That was a bit of a like, yeah, I wanted to say competitive, but it was more like a sportsman-like attitude at the beginning. We’re like, come on team. Which is a fun way to like, because I guess it was funny because it was like, just to like maybe 20, 30 other people there, like over the course of a few hours.

And there was so much space to explore. I think it felt like we had some like agency or ownership, like more than usual. Yeah, we kind of had like all access, access all areas pass, like at some points, you know. There was times where it was like, someone’s mom was there and we were like, ooh, sorry for farting or something. Totally. Aiden said, sorry for farting.

I do not apologize. I’m just, no comment.

I’m going to let you craft your hung up identity as you wish. You and I both know, like, who you are. I know who I am. You know who you are. You got to live, you got to sleep in the bed that you have made, my friend. I think like, I think we can, we should start off because we like,

didn’t really, we didn’t fucking get a map or anything. We just like walked and I do this shit all the time. This is our, our trademark hug up style of approach. Our approach angle is very steep and it’s fast. We just go as fast as we can to the first artwork that like pulls our attention in. So like,

even if you’re supposed to do it in a certain order or whatever, we just go straight in. It’s like, we see the ice cream in the window and then we eat that. And then we’re like, what restaurant is this? And they’re like, this is a chicken restaurant. And then we order a chicken. That’s what it’s like. And like we, now we do it without trying and it always serves us really well.

True. Yeah. So far it’s been like 30,000 times. We’ve flipped a coin heads every time. Like how does that work? Yeah. So this time our fucking ice cream was walking straight into the studios for like, if you didn’t go, the exhibition was kind of set up in like two phrases. One was like the artist studios,

like studio visit kind of tier. Uh, and then the other one was like the kind of polished, you know, front facing exhibition where, where you would have been if you had the, uh, like went to the opening night or wherever. So yeah, it would be cool. We picked out like a handful of stuff that we really liked. I think we’re just going to give like a kind of rundown and maybe some like

connecting dots that we noticed. We started in the studios, um, which was,

yeah, it was pretty cool. I think we started in the, um, was it the painting and photo media studio? I don’t remember exactly how they broke up all the genres. We started in the country and Western studio and, um, they had, uh, the, the first thing that really like caught our eye was, um, these works by Joseph Christie Evans,

which were on big boards, like big, um, plywood boards. Um, and I think we all pretty much agreed that they were like maybe snapshots or something that had been painted up, you know, to about, I don’t know, two meters high or something like that. And, um, our favorite feature was the,

uh, vape. Like there’s a, there’s a little like purple vape that someone’s holding with like a smile in, um, this really interesting composition. So it’s a board in portrait orientation on the left hand side, uh, pretty much sort of taking up the whole left of the piece is a big blue jacket.

Uh, and then behind that and to the right is a big blue sky and then a blue roof. Uh, and then right in the bottom right hand corner is, I guess the subject of the painting, um, a short haired person with a smile, a sort of smudgy smile with like lipstick on and raised eyebrows and this purple vape in their hand.

Um, and we just thought it was funny, like so cool that that’s now like the technology has caught up with the art or the other way around. The art has caught up with the technology. Do you have anything to say? Yeah. Yeah. I loved this painting and it was nice being in the room, like surrounded by these. That was one of the cool things about the way the studios were set up.

It was like a mini exhibition of each artist and you got to be like, they had their three walls and you could be like kind of cornered, you know, or completely surrounded by that world for that moment. And yeah, the more I look at this painting, like we’ve got it up now, there’s a bunch of interesting stuff going on. So one of the things that we noticed, like after looking back at our pictures is there’s hardly any faces in the

entire show, right? Especially in the painting stuff. Like there was a lot of like figurative references, like references from pop culture, like icons, um, like shapes, things from the real world. Yeah. Things from the real world, like references to the real world. Like it wasn’t like some extreme,

like non-representational abstraction. It very much felt grounded, but in terms of like the human subject that like wasn’t really on the cards. Totally. Um, so I love that this, um, these paintings that Joseph Christie Evans paintings have that and they have it in this kind of,

yeah, really casual, almost like kind of corny way. Like it’s like a sunny day and yeah, there’s all these like, we have big bright colors. It gives me some like reminiscent of like, you remember Anna Boris that we saw at space wise ed, like the smiling cat teeth. Like it’s got a bit of that, like a cat with lipstick,

like it’s just a bit cheesy and rosy and just something. It makes you like, Oh, that’s sweet. Yeah. They’re really sweet. And like that snapshot nature of it, like one of the, one of the paintings in that room was, I think maybe the same person, um, getting into a car and it was like the, the, it was like a photo that had been taken almost, um, as just as their mate was getting into a car or like their friend or partner,

whatever. And, um, yeah, it just kind of, uh, interestingly sort of revealed the, the, the background of the, of the plywood in, in like critical places. I think we’ve got another picture here. So yeah, we’re looking at these as we talk just so we’re starting to talk about. Yeah. Like in this one,

someone’s eating, um, something with their hands. What is that? What are they, what are they eating? Like, I don’t know. They’re eating pasta with their hands or something. It’s not pasta. What are they eating? It’s something cool. Dumplings or something. No, it looks like something cool. Like I’m always, it almost looks like a bit like a roti or something. Oh yeah. True. Yeah. Tearing. Got tears or something. Yeah. Um, and then the sofa that they’re sitting on is like just the word.

So the outlines have all the outlines of the little buttons and the leather surface have been really nicely laid out. And then big, beautiful white, fluffy pillows have been laid out. And then the, the, I assume the black, let’s say leather sofa is just left. So it’s just, yeah, the, the light Brown, uh, wooden canvas as it were.

Yeah. It’s a tough, it’s a tough effect. Like visually it’s, it’s like one of these things that I like to, I come back to sometimes where it’s like, you can create this, like, you know, something subtle, like objectively subtle can, can end up being like quite a profound rupture in the sense of like the logic of the piece.

Like, you know, even though this is quite serious to leave a whole fucking object just as like plywood, like it looks like unfinished and it looks crazy. And it’s like, where’s the rest of the painting? You know what I mean? Like, it’s a pretty serious thing to do. Like, it’s a pretty dramatic, um, like stance to take. Totally. It’s funny because it’s there that aside from that,

they’re like, you could call them accomplished or very like full paintings. They’re very full images. And then that is like such a beautiful rupture to have these big sections of it left out. But I think it’s a really, it’s got a really nice balance about it. They’re like, therefore, let’s say, um, the, the sort of lack of that big, um, wash of leather,

whatever the color was, is a really nice. Yeah. It sort of grounds it and balances it and makes them light and sort of, they feel like they take up less space somehow. Um, I think the blue jacket in the first one we looked at was kind of doing that too. It’s like, it’s funny. It’s, it’s like one of those photos that you would think is a mistake. Cause someone walked in front, you know,

in, in, in the moment before you got a picture of your friend, but it’s very deliberately framed that way. Oh yeah. And then on the sofa, we loved this little detail, um, on the sort of, uh, background on the wooden ground, they’ve written their name, Joseph. And it’s so cool. We were joking. We were like, that was Joseph being like, this is my canvas.

Like, don’t touch my shit in the studio. And then like, that’s the side that ended up facing the exhibition, which we loved. Yeah. And then it ends up being like a bit of a joke to like, you know, painters signing their work and shit. Like, yeah, true, true, true. It’s like an upside down Joseph. But yeah, wouldn’t it be funny if it was like property of Picasso? Do not touch.

Like, yeah, but there’s a, yeah, no, there’s a really nice, I wanted to say one thing, like, cause when we move on from this, there won’t be much talk of people or subjects in a direct sense. True. But like you kind of mentioned about the, the first painting with the blue jacket, um, you know, if it were a photo, it would be like a bad photo, a mistake, but you know,

that relationship between the photograph and the painting is the painting cannot really be a mistake. Not in this case. Like it has to be, I’m going to take that to, you know, if there were, was a reference photo, I’m going to take this and then I’m going to render it, you know, in paint. Painstakingly. These paintings have so much love in them.

It’s like a really nice thing. There’s this real honoring of like, I’m having a vape. I’m with my friend. Like I’m watching my friend fucking eat roti or whatever bread with her hands on the couch. And like, I fucking love them so much. And I think that’s one of the things that I really dug about these paintings. Cool. They’re really honest. Okay. And then we moved on. We’re just going to like rapid fire go through these because we don’t have all the time in the world.

We spoke for ages. Hey, yeah, we did. We did hang out for a little bit too long beforehand. Maybe. No, that was, that was less than usual. Was it less than usual? Okay. Cause normally we have to cook. It’s in a hurry for some reason. Normally we have to cook a whole dinner. True. Oh yeah. I had prepared. I mean, I was up until two making a bolognese. And thank you so much for that,

dude. You’re welcome. We did the, uh, yeah. Sella has an recipe. Oh my God. It’s so good. Yeah. I almost want to like take it to people’s houses to like show off how good the recipe is. It’s almost like having a really good album, you know, like that no one knows about. Yeah, man. I was getting a couple of comments when I posted the recipe online being like, you’re doing it in the wrong order,

but I don’t know if you tasted it, you know, no comment. Um, no comment anyway. Right. So then, uh, we’re into, I think this was in a different little building. Yeah. This was a different building. Yeah. I don’t know if all of these pictures are in order or whatever. And like, it doesn’t really matter,

but anyway, so we’ve got this painting by Claire Wigney up now and the, um, the title is to make eight and it’s oil on canvas, not for sale. Disappointingly. We really liked this one. And it’s just the, the letter, the number three in that kind of,

uh, us sports Jersey font, um, rendered in the most amazing, like, yeah, digital analog style or like, um, video filter, something, something. It’s like really a really developed, um, uh, vision of all these,

like this is Claire’s works that we saw as a whole, where he’s really beautiful, um, developed visions of like little ephemera of TV snippets and maybe signs from stores and stuff like that. Um, it’d be interesting to hear what they’re, um,

you know, cause I’m pretty sure at NAS they’re like make you ground all this stuff in some kind of theoretical, right? Yeah. Um, it’d be interesting to hear what their, you know, thoughts were about the process, but yeah, we, we were in love with all these. They’re so like, at once they’re kind of got that, um, like teasing subject matter where it’s,

it’s not, yeah, it’s not like a face or, or even a, um, an object like, uh, you know, I don’t know, whatever. I’m just looking around my room, like a radio or a pair of scissors would be like a very concrete object, but these are all sort of human made, like signs and scribbles, not scribbles,

but like, do you see what I’m getting at? They’re kind of, um, they’re ephemeral in the sense that they, that they, they’re not really meant to be kept. They’re meant to like display things. So it’s just this like layering of displays of displays and, um, paintings of pixels and paintings of film grain or something that,

um, we just thought was so like hypnotic. Totally. Yeah. It’s, it’s for me, it’s a pretty, like, it’s a well-worn subject, especially now. Like you see it like that, like, um, uh, like taxonomy of things. Like, I don’t know, like phrases, like there’s like this,

maybe a subtle, like irony here too, like with painting some of these things, like painting the like TV ad or like painting the like nail salon thing. Um, but capturing that kind of like, you know, street shit, like, I don’t know, but, but, uh, for me, it slows that stuff right down.

So like a couple of references that this painting makes me think of the one that I like mentioned in the gallery was, I don’t even know this dude. I like only know this painter from like liking this painting. And I only know the painting from a William Carlos Williams poem, but the painting is called,

I saw the figure five in gold by Charles DeMuth, which is like, it’s a, I guess probably something from like the forties or something. Yeah. It looks like, yeah. 20s. Yeah. 1928. Like American modernism or something. Yeah. It’s like a art deco. Yeah. But it’s totally exciting image to me. And I love the title and it made me think of that.

Yeah. And then the other thing that it makes me think of is the Seattle Seahawks QB Russell Wilson, who’s like one of the best all time scrambling quarterbacks. And he wears number three. And yeah, in America, like in NFL, you’re like Jersey number, you own it. And like each position gets like,

I don’t know, part of the numbers one to a hundred. Like if you’re like a quarterback, you get like one to 12 and then like the offensive linemen get like 90 to 99. I see. But in like Australian sports, usually like in rugby and stuff, your number is a position. Right. So your number is just a position. That’s the position.

Exactly. Whereas in America, there’s a lot of identity with the number. That’s cool. Like, and they’ll like retire the number if you were good enough. So they’re probably like the Seahawks would probably retire number three. That’s so cool. When Russell Wilson retires. No one brings up to this guy. Exactly. Yeah. That’s, that’s a cool little, uh, sports story. There you go. So he does like sports after all. Yeah. Well,

he’s not allowed to say it anymore. You can’t unlearn what you knew, but there’s something quite fucking dope about making a number, like a profound thing. That you can like feel about and talk about for five minutes. Yeah. And like the title, what is it? Two makes eight. Yeah. It’s like, what is that?

Like, I guess like you only need one more line on that three to turn it into an eight. True. Yeah. I loved the title though. There’s something about that. Yeah. Really tickled me. Puzzling, like sort of, yeah. Cryptic thing. Like two fours make eight. And this is a three, you know, like, yeah, it’s just something, something off about it. Like, yeah, it’s,

it’s, it’s, it’s wonderful. Let’s look at another, another Claire Wigney. These were just in the, like the, the, the sort of, yeah, in the studio. We’re not even on the, the air quotes exhibition itself yet. We liked this one. Yeah. We liked this one a lot. Um, so, uh, can I get the name of it? Does it say camel?

Well, our like phone doesn’t zoom in enough. Just call it closing down sale. Closing down sale. And it’s like, yeah, it’s like Claire has like painted individual pixels somehow painstakingly around all these letters. There’s this kind of busted out, busted out sign. And the, the,

the textures kind of make up the composition of this. Like aside from the flyer, you can’t really tell what exactly is going on, but it’s an absolute like masterful study in texture and color. And then like raises all these kind of, um, questions about like, um, or, or raises all these feelings for me about,

yeah, things about like nostalgia and, and like obsessions with, with, with aesthetics and like how much has changed since this aesthetic was like in our everyday life. And like, yeah, it’s, it’s fucking cool, man. Yeah. It’s really exciting. I love now looking again. It looks like it could be, yeah. On through a window again,

like that’s flies, like stuck on the inside of a window and you’re looking in, there’s a really nice kind of like, see the bottom third, there’s this like triangle shape. And then there’s like the circle in the middle. There’s just some really nice compositional rhythms going on. But yeah, no, I remember all of us like being a bit like, whoa, like there was something about these that like captured,

captured our attention in, yeah, like a really like contemporary way. I remember like seeing them and being like, damn, you know, we were, we were shook. We were fucking shook. Good job, Claire.

Okay. Now we’re on to, um, so this, I think this was in the exhibition itself. Am I right? Yeah. So, so far, I think we’ve mostly just spoken about studio stuff. Yeah. And then this was like, yeah, in gallery too or whatever. So these are works by Corey Black. Um, Aiden,

do you want to like introduce them? I think there were like my favorite works of this room. Um, I haven’t really seen anything like them and there’s kind of a lot going on. So now we’re really into like, yeah, a pretty heavy abstraction. Um, they, what, these are like UV prints on some kind of,

I don’t know. Do you know what the backing board is? They look like, um, it’s like acrylic or something that has been cut out by like a laser or something. Yeah. And yeah. So there are these kind of, there’s like multi dimensions. The first thing that I kind of just got fascinated by was the prints before. So you’ve got like the two, I don’t know,

big, like sweeping aesthetic components are like the shape and then like the prints. Yeah. So some of them are more conventional, like canvas, like shapes, like one’s just a rectangle and you kind of get lost in like the rhythms of the abstraction. And then some of them have like, yeah, pretty extreme cutout shape. Yeah. It’s sort of, it’s like part of the border,

but also part of the composition. Like, yeah, it’s, it’s hard to nail down where, where one of those features ends and another begins. Totally. But yeah, I think there’s just something about these, especially like the work they were around, like a lot of it was beautiful, but like some of it, we were like, you know,

we were just looking through the photos and we were kind of like, all right, like we probably won’t speak about that. Sure. Um, but like in that room, these really stood out to me as like, this is something new. This is something that feels like it’s like working towards a definition of like an, an aesthetic style or something that felt really new.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Like if maybe new isn’t the right word. It’s, it’s talking to stuff that we see at like the cutting edge of like modern technology. Like it’s definitely got this kind of AI sort of haunted kind of, um, like internet vibe going on.

Right. And then, and then it’s got this kind of like, I would say like daring or even brave, um, assembly of materials. Like they’re reflective. They’re really reflective in this kind of funny way. Like the, the picture that we’ve got here that we’re looking at, the exit sign is reflected like very clearly, you know, in the,

um, in the thing. And then the border is just this, like, yeah, I was saying, I’m trying not to refer to everything in terms of video games. Since we did video games last week, I’m like, I’m thinking, I’m thinking a lot about video games, but yeah, it’s given me gears of war vibes, like big time, this thing. And I never even played that game. In fact, I thought it looked kind of dumb, but aesthetically,

I think that game was important somehow. Yeah. Yeah. I think what, what Aiden saying is, yeah, it’s, it’s like, it’s, um, Corey has, has gone ahead and like defined their own kind of, uh, modern visual language, you know, beyond probably the bounds of what let’s, let’s just venture to say what NAS has to offer its students.

Maybe like, I wouldn’t be surprised if like the teachers were like fucking thrilled with this stuff, you know? Yeah. It’s really exciting that this one, and maybe we can like move on to the next one, but this has like, it is like you were saying, like feels super contemporary, feels super like a web 3.0, but it also has like some, like, yeah, and other, like, see that big fucking circle top right.

That feels like some kind of like, yeah, whether it’s like a sci-fi thing or like some kind of quicksand thing, it feels like it’s got like this sort of portal. Totally. Yeah. I have Sauron. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I wonder if we can get a title for this. Let me look up a title for that just so we can all stay on the same page. It’s cool.

It’s also like, yeah, I guess when I was thinking about the Joseph works earlier, those kind of like bright paintings, I knew we were going to talk about this, and I feel like this is, you know, some of the like darker work in the show. Yeah. You know, like other things had, you know,

more like the color palettes were quite bright or quite natural. Yeah. You know what I’m saying? Yes. Whereas this stuff was like, yeah, like messy and dirty. Yeah. And all blended up. Yeah. The colors are just like a digital thing. The colors are actually insane. It’s like, if you ever like had, you know,

finger paints or something when you’re a kid and you kind of accidentally mix too many colors together and they, they, you wind up with like this, like a black hole of like browns that you can’t sort of redeem by any, by adding any color. And it sort of had, it flirts with the threshold of that like color hell. Oh my God. Amazing.

Yeah. So this is called prophecy is dirty and ragged by Corey black, aluminum fusion print, custom machine cut. Even the words. Yeah. Sound fucking metallic. Um, all right, cool. Let’s move on to, let’s do one more Corey. Yeah. I think like, it’s fair to say that this work doesn’t look like anything else in the show.

Uh, yeah. Right. It feels like it comes from a completely different fucking, I don’t know. Yeah. That one’s pretty dope. The like two worm things, the double worm. Yeah. Phallic objects that are like straight up pixelated to there’s their pixelated. And then the border is pixelated too. Yeah. Which I love. I love that.

And they’re kind of thrust out from the wall on these like Bunnings, like garden rake hangers, which is just dope. Like very cool. Yeah. They look like, um, lightsabers from like, they, they also look like, um, they look like lightsabers from like some kind of dark alternative universe. They look a bit like we’re doing about like Abe’s odyssey at the pub.

Yes. Is that what we said? Yeah. They look a bit like that. Is everything video games or are we just being? Maybe we’ve gotten to a point where like, whether you play video games or not, like if you’re an artist, the visual culture has like borrowed and blended so much with whatever fucking video game culture. Yeah.

Let’s open those neural floodgates. That’s the two like phallic looking objects. Yeah. We’ll put the link in here so you can like look at all these images. Corey Black’s titles give me the, the whole like fantasy fucking through line that I’ve been stringing across all these episodes. And you, you’ve also been doing this.

Except Bud. What does that one refer to? Huh? I love that one, Bud. Yeah. Bud is cool. But yeah, we’ll drop links, right? Because the, all the stuff is really. I mean, people have seen this already probably or yeah, well, we can just like give them links to. No, we don’t have to give them individual links, but just, I mean, most people probably know it’s really well photographed online.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. God damn it. Corey. So cool. Yeah. If anyone could tell us why Naz took all of these arts, artworks and put them as NFS, like not for sale on the website. It’s like one of us was, uh, potentially going to buy something and then they’re, uh, they’re all not for sale now. Yeah. It’d be cool to know what the deal is there.

I mean, whether people feel okay about that, whether you like, it seems like you don’t get that, that long to buy stuff, but maybe there’s a reason. Yeah. I don’t know. Art market nerds hit us up. Yeah. Let us know, please. We’re dying to know. Cool. All right. Let’s move on.

Okay. So we’re back in the research studio zones where people, I suppose, displaying the things that they didn’t get to show in the main show. Uh, and we come across Luca Blasonato, whose work just totally bowled me over. Um,

I don’t remember what I saw first, but I think I loved every single work of theirs that I saw in the show. Um, let me just talk about this one though, which is called Neo Element 23. It’s bleach on canvas with acrylic painted perspex frame.

Yeah. So the outside of these, like where the, the wooden frame would normally be was this kind of painted acrylic. And then the canvas itself is like peach colored fabric with these kind of, uh, bleached and gray, like tooth figures sewn on.

Um, and then through the middle down the center of the canvas is this, um, it’s like an embroidery pattern from a, um, sewing machine. That’s like a sort of, uh, it looks like the cover of that Arctic monkeys record. It’s like a, it looks like a little sign wave or something. Um, I just thought there were like, like premonitions of like future fashion trends or something.

They feel incredibly like runway and like, Vogue to me, which is really cool. Um, Luca also produced a magazine, which we loved. I don’t have a picture of the cover of it, but like, we’ve got a picture of Aiden’s hand holding open the page that says abstract. So it’s like the abstract and it’s kind of in this like two thousands font with like a gradient in the background and shit.

Like, damn it. So cool. There’s a cool like end line of this abstract where they say, I sometimes feel I’m a kind of witch doctor trying to enchant my audience with my potions and colors, but I’m also like an eternal student, always learning more about the possibilities of color and its power to transport our imaginations. Beautiful.

Well done. Look, beautiful. And I wanted to like speak to that as like one of the points from this show was it was pretty colorful. So colorful. Like there was like this real like brightness. Yeah. And use of color. Like, yeah. Bleach like almost all throughout. I wonder whether someone at NASA is like,

what, you know, one of the, someone’s putting something in the water, whether that, or whether, you know, like all the scenes like do get heavily inflected by, like, I know, like when I was studying like poetry or whatever, like the French seventies, like Rimbaud and stuff was what the professors professors were really into. And that had like shaped what,

you know, the young academics were into. And like, you know, it’s pretty like small scene to the point where, you know, there could totally be like a sort of seed for all this. Maybe. Yeah. No, well, definitely. Whether it’s a seed or not, I think it was interesting because there’s definitely like been phases of like art where you could go into exhibition and everything could be brown and white.

Yeah. True. So true. Yeah. I definitely like such a colorful show, despite the like most despicable year that all these students probably had, like being forbidden to go and access the fucking facilities that they’re probably paying through the nose for. True. Yeah. That sucks. Yeah. If you have any horror stories about that,

please send us a message. Yeah. Read them on air if you want us to. Yeah. Otherwise you can just confess or something. Yeah, totally. And then the last Luca that we saw in the sort of research, um, studio or whatever was, um, this pair of dolphins, which was a really beautiful, like full circle. Cause it’s like probably the third or fourth, like dolphin sighting that we’ve had in a gallery since we started running this podcast.

I’ve seen more art dolphins than real dolphins. Yeah. I was saying that the other day at the beach. Like, yeah, I, I’ve never been this close to a dolphin in real life before. So yeah, seeing them like really joyfully represented in, um, in paints, it was like, it’s just always a pleasure. They make dolphins have rapidly and easily become the spirit animal of this podcast.

They kind of look like in the back of this painting, like femur bones or something. Yeah. I was getting bones. Um, yeah. And that works with like the last one we were looking at with like the peachy pink background. Yeah. Had, um, so this painting is called market dolphin. Yeah. That, that had what looks like molars or teeth. Yeah. In the background as well,

which I like. There is definitely a sort of biological, like an x-ray kind of look background of this. Yeah. This is really dope actually. Yeah. Yeah. Damn it. Luca. You fucking got me. It’s kind of messy and scrappy. Yeah. That’s the shit you love. Yeah. Like a bit of acrylic and a bit of mess on the sides. I love it. Yeah. Nice. Yeah.

Good job.

Well, I think if we’re going to talk about like color, there’s like one artist in the show who was like unapologetically colorful. Oh yeah. And maybe bucking the trend. I think we preferred the like exhibition. Yes. You know, the stuff that made it to the big gallery that just felt a bit more realized.

It’s Madeline Feist, um, who had created like, again, fantasy, but more like fantastical. Yeah. More like, um, Dr. Seuss fantasy. Yes. Yeah. Than, uh, Skyrim fantasy, which is our default fantasy setting from now on until forever.

But this is, yeah, this was really exciting. Yeah. There was so much fun in this, like, uh, in this like wall of the room. I wonder if we can get a couple of the names of those works. Do you have a picture of that? I think. Yeah, I’ve got, I know that one underneath the big umbrella is called tramp stamp. Okay. Really? Yeah. The titles of these works are just like so much fun on their own,

like tricky throne slash big flushy. Just that as a phrase. I’m like happy to just take that with me. Tramp stamp vortex of apex amalgamation. It says votex. Votex. Oh, I just read that. Type right. Type right. Give me a look at, again, at the titles. I want to like read off some of the materials too, because I think this will give you like a pretty cool,

like, yeah, we’ve got wooden chair, paper pulp, toilet flushing mechanism, like exposed, expanding foam, sand, wig hair, wig hair makes a bunch of appearances. Like what have we got? Like acrylic paper pulp. Yeah. So air conditioning filters, like really in that kind of like wacky,

like scrappy repurposing world. Yeah. These were definitely, a lot of things were like probably garbage, right? Like that she found some trash. Straight up. Yeah. And there’s a gallery that like, I will not name because I like it. And it’s a Ari, but like, they have a habit of like putting together shit like this,

but without what I would say is like the fucking pain of laboring, like through your MFA with those materials. Like this is where you end up. Yeah. When you like dedicate yourself to an aesthetic practice and you like learn with your body, you know, you learn to know those materials.

Yeah. And this stuff is like shockingly bad when they like, don’t know that. Yeah. When they don’t have that deep knowledge of like turning trash into something like profound. Yeah. But like, again, like in, in a similar vein of like Corey black, or maybe these colors are kind of more indicative of the rest of the show,

but it was really exciting to me to like capture this, like this fun, like you were saying like that Dr. Zeus, like what is that? There’s the big kind of towering tippy sculpture of like, what is like cans? Yeah. What was that? There was like a tube sort of, yeah, this thing. Yeah. Like a wacky spotted blue. It looks like a bunch of like aluminum cans.

Maybe it’s, um, it’s like ducting from like air. Oh, that’s the filters. Yeah. I think, actually, I don’t know. Anyway, whatever it is, it’s like a big windy tube. It looks like, like a long section of that, that part of a straw that they give you on like a little up and go, or like one of those, uh, little juice boxes,

the bit that you can go like folding in and out. It’s like a long version of that. And yeah, spotty. When was the last time we saw something spotty? Totally. I mean, come on. I love, we’ve like, the chair that you, that is like, you’re not allowed to sit on. Cause it’s like got a big, it’s got like the, uh, like a bench seat,

sort of a bench, um, armrest in the middle of it. So it’s like forbidden. It’s so good. Totally. And it’s, yeah, I guess that’s cool. That’s like, I saw a cool post like just on Twitter the other day of like these body suits, some artists had made that was like for dealing with that, like the hostile architecture. So it was like a suit. Did I send you that would like say there’s like,

uh, those things like they put on like public benches or whatever to like stop you from laying down. This suit was absurd. So like the suit would have like massive like blocks on it. So you could lay and it would have like, like negative space where the like hostility would be. And they had made some like really funny ones. Like, you know,

where they’re like city had gone to extreme lengths to shut you out. Like the suit needed to be bolder to like handle that. Um, but yeah, this stuff also throws back to like, yeah, I mean like surrealism and like Salvador Dali and shit, right? Like, uh, the fucking lobster phone and shit, which is,

you know, whatever. Like it feels definitely like a contemporary version of that. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. This chair that we were just talking about, it has like a mullet on the back of it. Yeah, true. Yeah, true. And it’s got, and like, maybe this is a bit of a stretch, but if you, if you will, um, oblige me, the, the like silhouette of its feet that have been molded,

like those are Yeezys. It’s got the like squished out, like big sneakers. It’s a stretch. That would be cool. That is a huge stretch. I don’t know if Madeline would be impressed with that, but I think like, I reckon they would. This like, despite like, I, I, I sort of used Dr. Seuss, like, um, kind of hesitant with,

like with hesitation because it’s, it’s cooler than that makes it sound. I think it’s, it’s got this, like vim and life to it. It’s like fucking modern feeling, you know? Um, but it does evoke this kind of like play and silliness, which like is, is always refreshing in a gallery.

Like we’re always talking about how, you know, things get boring in art galleries sometimes. And this is not that fun and humor. And I don’t think like the artist would have like, should feel any kind of way about being compared to Dr. Seuss. Cause I think that, you know, that work is, you know, pretty emblematic of a certain type of like,

you know, fun and depth going hand in hand. Totally. Um, yeah, no, really, really cool way to like round out this depiction, I think. Right on. Yeah. So, um, yeah, really cool show. We were glad to have caught it before the end. Yeah. I think like overall, this was a really, really exciting show. Like I didn’t really fully know what to expect.

I’ve never been to one of these before, but I think it totally moved us. Like we were driving home and it was such a fucking beautiful day. And we had like a sick pit stop where you had like anchovies on toast. And I finally found this like a German tea that I’d been wanting to drink for like years. Club Marte. And we like split that in the sun, like on Oxford street. Yeah. And we were like driving back with like the sunroof down.

Like, yeah, it was just such a, like, like, I don’t know, beautiful afternoon. And I think we felt super energized and like, it just felt like, yeah, I was like, damn, that was sick. That was sick that this was coming out of like our city. Yeah. Like such a breadth of like really good work. Yeah. It made us feel really good to be living here and like surrounded just like with overflowing,

you know, with good art. Um, so fuck. Yeah. Sydney, keep doing it. Keep doing what you’re doing. Thumbs up.

Review and Rex. All right. Review. Review. So what a busy weekend we’ve had. Um, Aiden and Matt, Aiden and Matthew, young squires, young, fantastical squires. Aiden’s giving me an expression now. I’ve actually got a piece of juice for you. Oh, go on. It’s not that juicy.

Give me the juice. Carriageworks is now shut for like three months. Whoa. So we like got there. Whoa. We saw the last thing. The listeners don’t know, but we went to go see, uh, straight talk by the dance company, Marageku. Yeah. Um, at carriage works. And it was like the first time I’d been there in ages. Yeah. First time post COVID. Yeah. Fucking reminded of how beautiful a space it is and how they like to cram you in,

in like tiny seats. Oh my God. The seats were so uncomfortable. The seats were so small. Everyone was squirming. But I was like, fuck yeah. Like pack me in, bro. Yeah. Yeah. It was cool to be packed in. It was so funny. It was the same night that, um, Ash Barty was going to win her grand final. And the guy in front of us was like, him and his wife were like checking the score before the,

before the show. And then after it, we’re like, yes. Like, but yeah, the guy in front of us was like, maybe not impressed. Like, I mean, it was a long show and it was like difficult work, you know? It was difficult, but, um, yeah. So he’s was small. Oh yeah. One thing I wanted to say was like, I used to have that job. So I used to like set up seating banks and like roll out rubber,

um, dance mats for Bangara, which was a cool way to like see sort of behind the curtain of like an element of Sydney’s art scene. It was cool. It was a very informative and interesting job. And I worked with some lovely people, a couple of decades, but a lot of lovely people. Um, so the lights go down. We’re not going to describe the whole show to you.

I think we should just pick like one caveat. And then like, I reckon we pick like a couple of our favorite moments. Yeah. Mostly because it was, well, that’s my washing. Yeah. So I think, um, I think, yeah, we should just pick a couple of moments that stood out to us. It was a really wide ranging show and it had like a lot to talk about.

Um, you could probably like, you know, easily spend a few thousand words or a whole episode talking about it. Totally. Um, but there was some really like beautiful moments, but yeah, I would say like, it was pretty challenging from an audience member. Like as someone like, you know, we dig dance, but it’s probably something like we know the least about. Sure. Yeah. Or like even know,

as in like, you know, we have seen less dance performances than anything else. Totally. There was definitely some like dance heads in the crowd who were like, Oh, I can’t believe they did that. That’s so cool. And we were like, sick. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, it sort of felt like, um, a postmodern like opera or something. I don’t know. It was like a postmodern structure where the narrative like was,

I mean, I was going to say it took a backseat, but they were, they shattered the idea of narrative. Like there was no, there was no question of that. There was definitely some like big, strong through lines in terms of like indigenous incarceration and like, um, disadvantage. And, um, there was like a bit on climate change, um,

and like mental health stuff too. Uh, but the overall, like the, um, the dancers each kind of got their like solo moment. And, um, then these big like choreographed, like group sequences, group scenes with the most amazing set. I thought really cool set, like this, um, big great in the background, which was like a prison at times and a club at other times.

And like all these other, these like really, um, interesting, uh, lighting effects. Like when we sat down, it looked like solid, uh, steel plates or whatever, like solid steel, um, panels. And then when the lights lit up behind it, it was like a mesh, it turns out. So you could see all the silhouettes of dancers behind it.

So yeah, really beautiful, um, production as well. And yeah, the dancing was maybe it was like above our pay grade to like fully describe, but it was fucking beautiful and very cool. Yeah. It was really, it’s exciting because I don’t know if you remember, like when I was a lot younger, I like got stuck on this idea.

I was like, we should be able to like fully express ourselves with like just with movements or something. Do you remember that shit? And you guys were like, yeah, we, we do that. Like people do that. Like they shake hands and they hug. I’m like, no, I don’t even know what I was getting at. A language, a nonverbal language. Something, something like that. So it’s always exciting. And like, I think dance is very, very profound,

whether you’re the one doing it or seeing it. Um, you know, it has its own like super complex and intricate language, but it is, you know, and it is so cool to see it in like a club context or a gig context, but it’s also something very different. Like, you know, the opening dance was like this older indigenous dancer. He was so cool. I think he was my favorite. Yeah.

I think so too. And you were mentioning, like, I didn’t really even notice afterwards, but yeah, he was a little bit older, like maybe 50 or something. it was like, he, he had this like, um, like, you know, you could tell from looking at his body that he wasn’t able to do all the like super acrobatic stuff that the 25 year olds or whatever were up to. But he had this beautiful, deep, like knowing expressive talent within him.

That was just a complete pleasure to like be a part of. It was so cool. He, the, the sort of intro was, yeah, the lights go down and he starts moving. To me, he was like making tree roots with his hands somehow. And it was just amazing. It was like, you could see all the like knots and twists in like an old, old tree somehow with this dance that he did.

It was so cool, man. Yeah. There’s something about those, some things I noticed, like it can be like a really cool entry point into like bodies and seeing bodies. Like you’ve got like this long period of time where you’re going to be looking at bodies. And like, we know like, you know, your main like lens of looking through bodies is, you know, I don’t know.

It’s, it’s more pointed than that. It’s like, do I like the way this body looks? Like, is this an attractive body? Is this a strong body? Is this like a tall body, a small body? It’s always a bit more like pointed and like political. And yeah, there’s moments where like I was lapsing into this. Like I was seeing the dance as like a person and like, but then there were moments where,

yeah, like you’re completely losing them just in like the abstraction of like their movement and almost like beyond their like human self. You kind of forget that that’s just like a person. Yeah. And it’s like, yeah, it’s really kind of, there were moments where like, there were moments where I was bored, not going to lie. Like it was long. Yeah. It asked a lot of the audience, but there were moments where I was like,

yeah, feeling really like moved and really excited. And there was one moment where it was like this big, so I don’t know, there was maybe a dozen dancers and they kept coming back in like different configurations, like a few here and a few there. And then occasionally everyone. And there was this most, like what I call like the most kind of ugly part.

Like everyone was kind of writhing and there was a zombie thing. It was like a, like a meltdown. Like everyone was melting down. Yeah. Yeah. And it was almost like, it was almost like a horror thing. Exactly. Yeah. It was almost like a horror thing. Like zombie vibes, something like absurd about it. Like there was a moment where I thought like if someone had,

yeah, like the tennis guy, like that was the moment he would be like the most exasperated by. Oh yeah. Cause it like, you know, it out of context, it can feel like not cliche, but you know what I mean? Like there was a lot going on in this show. Sure. But then it kind of resolved with this moment of, and I was like looking for moments, maybe because I was like finding it challenging, looking for moments of like,

you know, when the performance would extend a hand to the audience. And then like one of the dancers just came out and like perform something that was like just by themselves, like a lot more traditional. Yeah. And like, yeah, I’ve only been to a couple of dances, like a couple of ballets or whatever, but that felt like really like kind. And it kind of like threw me back into like at that moment of complete meltdown,

I was further away from that abstract dance. And I was more into like, you know, something else, like, you know, it was making me look at something ugly about the world. And like, that’s fair. And that has to be done. And of course we can’t just have art that makes us feel nice, but you know, it was in the context of a performance, it’s nice. Structural like moment of tension.

Yes. And it was cool. It kind of went for longer than like, you know, we would like expect or want or something, you know, it was like a big, like tough chord that like gets resolved to a nice, beautiful chord, you know, in music. Like, yeah, it was cool. There was a lot of speaking in the, in the thing too. Like there was, there was like lots of little monologues and stuff that people had,

which was interesting. There was like a trap moment. Like guy was, guy did like, this is Australia, like the Donald Glover, uh, this is America song. What’s his name again? Not Donald Glover. That’s his name. That’s his name. Childish Gambino. Childish Gambino. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I agree. And I, but you know what it did? It like successfully made me,

it gave me enough moments of like unique beauty that I was like, fuck, I want to see more dance. Like, Oh yeah. I would love to see. Yeah. Like to build up my understanding of this, this thing. Yeah. It was fucking exciting, man. It was really exciting. Where are all the, where are all the dance students? What’s the like, there’s shitloads, bro. I’m sure there’s shitloads.

Like postgrad dance show. I’m sure there’s shitloads. Yeah. Kind of. Cool. But dance guitars get like put on a fair bit. True. Yeah. We should go to some more. It’s fun. Yeah.

Recommendations. Aiden goes first. Me go first. I went first last time. All right. My, uh, my, uh, someone in my, uh, wrestling group chat just posted. Cause it’s like the year of the tiger. Oh yeah. Or whatever. Oh yeah. And they were like, by the way. Yeah. Happy new year. And they were all like, yeah, fucking West tigers fans. Don’t get excited. It’s not your year.

You pussies. And I was like, bro, uh, am I allowed to say pussies? I don’t think I can. Yeah. I mean, it’s a quote. It’s a quote. Yeah. But I don’t think I can. It’s a quote. Should I take it again? I’ll beep it out. Just keep going. You can’t beep me out. It’s going to sound like I said something really bad. Anyway, they were all like, don’t get hyped up. If you’re a West tigers fan, um, this, this ain’t shit.

This ain’t your year. And I was like, Hmm. Cause I am a West tigers fan. And so my, uh, my rec for this week is in preparation of 2022 NRL season, starting in a month or so that you pick a team. If you don’t already have a team. Oh yeah. Cool. Now’s the time. Now’s the time. Like start learning some things like DM us if you need some help.

I think I can, I can be your like, what is it? Like crystal ball. Like just give me like three sorting hat. Yeah. Give me three things. What I need to know. Like, yeah, true. You’re where you were born. Obviously. Where you were born, your star sign and your favorite, uh, soda,

your favorite, like soft drink, just your favorite drink in general. And I’ll pick the team that will like, you will feel most aligned to. You’re the only person to know who could possibly come. Maybe we should make a website where you like, you get put in your like filters and we spit out a team. I like that. I like it. Um, and,

but that is, I’m not being completely stupid. I’m my like love of rugby league has kind of been revived by this book by Max Easton, the magpie wing. That’s not my rec. That’s a tease. Cause I’m still reading it and we want to cover it on the pod. Yeah. We’re going to do a full coverage of it, but yeah, the magpie wing, you should check it out. Get a copy. Super local book.

Holy shit. Yeah. My recommendation, and it’s not just because this came up and because I was unprepared this week for a recommendation, but my recommendation is if you have a computer screen in your house that faces into your world all the time, spend a half an hour, an hour, spend an hour and a half,

spend two hours finding a really beautiful screensaver that makes you feel calm and makes you feel like you don’t need to look at your phone because I have a really awesome screensaver just throbbing right now, which is endless fun to look at. And it makes me feel like I live in a fucking sophisticated dreamland with like my shit

together. And I feel like everything’s going to be okay when I see this fucking computer pulsing away. So my recommendation is do some research. I’m not going to tell you how to do it. You got to go get your own ones, but find a screensaver that you love and let it bring you joy, the joy that you deserve. It’s a really good rec. And I was actually looking at that screensaver and I noticed it like not subconsciously,

but like on a bodily level. There you go. Yeah, there you go. This is a good one. I can’t tell you who it is because I can’t have everyone having the same sick screensaver. No, this one’s really nice. Yeah. Yeah. Someone thought I made this like the sound guy, Will, at one of my gigs was like, did you write this code? I was like, no, but thank you for thinking that I was capable of doing that because that’s extremely cool.

That’s quite cute. Fucking sick rec, dude. Nice. Thanks. We did some good ones. That’s it, right? At hungup.au. If you DM us, one of us will respond. Yeah. Especially if you DM us anything to do with art world stuff or art market or dance shows

that we should be seeing. Or if you read the magpie wing by Max Easton and you just want to vent to us. Fuck yeah. Aiden’s got to go. All right. He’s got to go to an appointment. Shut the fuck up. You can’t say that on the podcast. All messages have to be out. Okay. True. Aiden’s got to go. No.

Just the end of the podcast, bro. All right. See you everyone later. Bye. Follow us on Instagram. See you later.

Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.

Thank you.

Show notes

We get into our faves from a whip around the NAS post grad show on its last day. We chat works by:  Corey Black : @orfyn Luca Blasonato : @lucaa__b Claire Wigney : @wigneyclare Madeleine Feist @feistfeist Joseph Christie Evans @joseph.cristieevan_s  Thanks for listening!