Panacea Theriac (aka Miss Pussycat, dazzling cohort to Mr. Quintron) taught us that puppets aren’t just for crusty carnival
vegans, suffering lonely hearts, and schizophrenic Christian
Scientists. Mysterious bossy entities from the center of the earth
preside over the elaborate, vaguely pagan, psychedelic parallel universe in which her
rinky-dink cutie-pie critters who’re high on life (and OK, drugs too)
caper, frolic, and shred in bands. It’s totally weird, but we sometimes secretly wish we could be puppets and live in that world too. You can see more than a hundred of her creatures (including favorite classics such as Christy Corn Pop, Dusty, Treasure, Captain Dream Weaver, and the Happy Tree) staring at you from a wall at Live With Animals on Saturday from 7 to 10. It’s a gallery setting, but don’t mistake this for art—it’s a glimpse inside a portal. Live show “The Mystery at Squirrel Ranch” included.
Last time I saw Patti Smith live I was 16, on top of a garbage bin above a sea of fairy wings trying to keep my balance while having a head full of acid. It was my first Big Day Out and sadly, I was more excited about the hearing The Prodigy do "Firestarter" than I was about the bedraggled 'legend' singing about cannibals and people power. Teenagers are arseholes. Thankfully I'm now a decade wiser and this time I'm so excited about seeing Patti Smith that it's all I can think about. If you're smart you would have bought tickets to her concerts at the Melbourne International Arts Festival months ago. If you didn't, too late cause all of the ticketed Patti Smith events are sold out (including her performance with Philip Glass and all the screenings of the new documentary Patti Smith: Dream of Life) so I won't say anything more about them. But someone at the festival was nice enough to make sure there's a couple of free Patti events on for the poor and disorganised.
“Award winning Berlin based artist Natascha Stellmach has acquired the ashes of Nirvana frontman, Kurt Cobain.”
Three months ago Kurt Cobain’s ashes were stolen from Courtney Love’s place. At the time it seemed as though the urn in which they were contained had been mistaken for something valuable by crooks who, no doubt, disposed of it when they realised it was full of ashen smackhead. But apparently not! No, according to a press release which arrived in my mail box today, the theft of the ashes was actually a bespoke crime, carried out for the good of conceptual art. Who’d have thought that the arms of the Berlin art scene extended into the LA underworld? Well they must do because German based Aussie creative Natascha Stellmach claims to have them. In fact, she has rolled Cobain’s dust into a spliff and promises to smoke it at the culmination of her exhibition Set Me Free at the Gallerie Wagner + Partner in Berlin. Wow, what a derivative combination of death, drugs and rock music, she’s clearly been thumbing heavily through the Wanker’s Book of Cliché and Tedium. I wonder what her next piece will be? Maybe a portrait of Bush with red buttons for eyes, or a vagina made of rubbish? Or maybe she’ll just crack out that missing Ian Curtis headstone and do coke off it at the Venice Biennale...
Have you seen the new show at Rivington Place? If not, run don't walk. The Kingdom of the Blind features 14-foot figures made of fake leather handbags, plastic dinosaur figures, doll parts, sequins, chains and toy guns. London-based artist Hew Locke says it is supposed to represent the plundered riches of an imagined African despot. Not sure about that, but me and my 10-year-old niece thought it all looked pretty amazing. See images from the show below...
This week we’re opening not one but two photo exhibitions and they’re both so good that we’re getting goosebumps. US photographer Peter Beste has curated a show based around the Norwegian black metal musicians whose scene he has spent years immersing himself in. Swedish photographer Hannah Modigh traveled to St. Charles, Virginia to find her subjects. She lived and partied with poverty-stricken kids around the Appalachian mountains for two months as seen in our recent Photo Issue.
In Kaunas, Lithuania’s second largest city, lies the Antanas Zmuidzinavicius museum. Antanas Zmuidzinavicius was a famous 20th century Lithuanian painter who collected a lot of spooky folk art. This museum, which is in his old apartment in a stoneclad Soviet block, holds 3,000 statues, artefacts and likenesses of Satan. It’s kind of corny but we love things with the devil on them so we sent our Baltic contact Povi over to Kaunas to have a look around the place and check in with the museum’s director, Jurgita Rimkute.
Put down that huge brick of a ten mega-pixel 'intelligent image capture sensor' digital SLR and stop worrying about how many RAW files you can fit on your 5GB SD memory card and if your Lithium-Ion battery can hold out the rest of the day and make your way down to the 'UNSENSORED 08' exhibition this Friday in Collingwood. The exhibition is a celebration of analogue (thats good old film) photography and consists of a collection of talented local artists who prefer to spend hours in a dark room than adding a sneaky 'lens flare' in Photoshop.
Opening Night 6pm - Friday 8th August 2008, Collingwood Gallery, 292 Smith Street, Collingwood
This walking stick belonged to Charles Darwin. It's made from whalebone and an ivory-carved skull pommel with emerald eyes. The cane is my favourite random memento of the thousands on display at the Wellcome Collection. Over two floors of well-lit cabinets you'll find eccentric tidbits from human history like: an 800-year-old mummified Peruvian, Aleister Crowley's stash container, a Chinese torture chair, a shrunken head from an Amazonian tribe. It's a bit like rummaging through Indiana Jones' basement.
London illustrator Chaos V Cosmos first came to our attention through the flyers and posters he designs for noise and hardcore shows. This week his work is being included in a group show curated by Stolen Recordings. It features paintings, drawings, photographs, objects, fragments and documents contributed by artists such as Billy Childish, Mathew Sawyer, Rachael Robb, and James
Cauty. See selected bits by Chaos V Cosmos after the break.
* The Stolen Recordings 3rd Annual Exhibition runs until July 10 at The Aquarium L-13 Gallery, Farringdon. 10am - 6pm
We've got no idea what sort of art they make and if it's going to be any good but if their musical output (and the flyer) is anything to go by then we're pretty sure that Angie Garrick and Jack Mannix's exhibition will be great and you should go. These two have been collaborating for years, most notably in Sydney-based bands such as Kiosk and now Circle Pit, who are also playing the exhibition opening party. We love it when these guys come to visit, which is pretty much every weekend, proving once again that Sydney is a bog and that these guys are the only good thing about it.
Our Majesty at Joint Hassles, 2A Mitchell St, Northcote 6pm Friday 4th July www.myspace.com/circlepit
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