OK Gallery

GUEST LECTURE: CHRIS JOHANSON

8th of February, 2012

Posted by Jamie

'It doesn't have anything to do with what i'm going to say, except everything'

Words of Advice starring Chris Johanson (of Encinitas Realization fame) by Aaron Rose, for Comme de GarÃ§ons SHIRT and The Generic Man.

via TWBE

Back East

8th of February, 2012

Posted by Gemma
Some recent eastern states projects:

New OK addition Jacob Ogden Smith is currently presenting his recent body of work at Craft Victoria:

" Jacob Ogden Smith explores the representation of pottery within contemporary mediums such as film, television and the Internet. His archetypal pottery forms, such as Ancient Greek amphorae, Chinese celadon and Japanese tea bowls, will sit alongside a series of videos that depict actions associated with pottery production.Smith's videos in Pottery Practice Project are intended to integrate ceramic practice into the medium of television - a medium that has an ability to impart significance through representation. The work interrogates understandings of television's mastery of quality and popular entertainment, as if somehow if it's on television it must be 'good'. This idea is best represented in the work Pottery Stills, a collection of images taken from film and television, which depict popularised examples of pottery and pottery practice. (his) archetypal pottery forms, such as Ancient Greek amphorae, Chinese celadon and Japanese tea bowls, will sit alongside a series of videos that depict actions associated with pottery production."

Pottery Practice Project runs until March 3rd.

Ben Barretto also headed east recently to perform onstage at the Forum Theatre with Sun Araw at the Suger Mountain Festival. Footage from their collaboration is available on Ben's website.

Jacob Ogden Smith, Hair Metal Raku, 2010

Ben Barretto/Sun Araw. Image courtesy Ben Barretto

Back in Action/Perth Centre for Photography

8th of February, 2012

Posted by Gemma
Where have we been?

The first month of 2012 has been one for taking stock, applying for various things, shoring up our program for the new year, which is rolling forward with stealth and speed.

Next week we'll open our own doors for 2012. This week, Perth Centre for Photography is opening its new Aberdeen Street space, and we're proud to be a part of their inaugural exhibitions.

PCP are unveiling a new screen room and have kindly invited us to showcase some work in it: Alongside Collective (a suvey and auction of a diverse range of local photogrphic works) and the Art/Text/Clearinghouse project (an archive of local texts curated by Lethologica Press) we're presenting a reel of inaugural OK artist Casey Ayres' video works.

The beautifully renovated character building opens its doors tonight (Wednesday, Feb 8th) at 6pm: 100 Aberdeen Street, Northbridge. Visit the PCP website for more information.

Casey Ayres, Party Like it's 1985 (video still), 2010

From friends in far off places...

7th of February, 2012

Posted by Admin

GEW

JHH

YMCA HQ

19th of January, 2012

Posted by Andrew

'True North' Review in Das500

28th of December, 2011

Posted by Andrew
Emma McPike's exhibition 'True North', which was on display at OK GALLERY last October, has been reviewed in Das500. Check it out here.

Emma McPike, 'Rhys', 2009, inkjet transfer on Archers 88

Seria Ludo Images

14th of December, 2011

Posted by Andrew
Documentation images of Seria Ludo up on David Egan's website. Show runs until the end of the month.

Reece York (SEATED) and David Egan

Review in Runway Issue #20

12th of December, 2011

Posted by Andrew
OK's inaugural exhibition, 'Picnic at Fanging Rock' by Casey Ayres, has been reviewed by Sheridan Coleman in the latest issue of Runway Magazine.

You can get Runway from the Art Gallery of WA or from PICA, or you can get it online here.

Mark Parfitt 'Anyday Now'

9th of December, 2011

Posted by Andrew
Anyday Now by Mark Parfitt at Galerie Dusseldorf

Check out Mark's documentation images on his website here.
This show is also still on until December 18th.

"Coming from a simple desire to make an ordinary life more celebratory, Parfitt journals his investigations of growing barley, developing great abs, and finding the overland route across the promised land of Australia. Using drawing, diagrams and photography combined as some kind of misguided scrapbooking, Parfitt elevates the humble visual diary to unforeseeable art-form.

Anyday Now is an account of living a good life, learning through experience and preparing for any trial in the face of a mundane life."

Mark Parfitt, 'Field' 2011, courtesy Mark Parfitt and Galerie Dusseldorf (Photograph by Adrian Lambe)

WILDERNESS YEARS

6th of December, 2011

Posted by Gemma
Installation progress for Wilderness Years: Ben Kovacsy with his hand-made Tasmanian oak and cedar canoe plus the edge of Nathan Barnett's DIY plastic net. By 'DIY plastic' I mean that he made the plastic, as well as the net.

PERTH, AUSTRALIA: AMPERSAND MAGAZINE

1st of December, 2011

Posted by Gemma
Considering today is the first day of summer, I'm behind the times posting about something in a magazine's Spring edition, but this article is keeping itself on my mind, so I thought it'd be worth sharing.

Last week I finally got around to reading the outgoing edition of Ampersand Magazine: Spring's From the Heart of the Forest to the edge of the Road. loosely themed around potent middle of nowheres. Amongst the issue's pocket sized pages is a piece by media arts lawyer Julian Hewitt on Perth.

Written from the perspective of a vistor and approached here from the perspective of an insider, Hewitt's picture of Perth is so accurate it hurts. It has the elegant bemusement and incisiveness of Joan Didion reporting on the idiosyncrasies of California, something Hewitt must know, because he quotes her. For this reason I'm also slightly jealous of it because it preempts something I was also trying to write connecting Didion's California dreaming (portentous weather, true crime, pioneering hangovers, landscape angst) to Perth, because it would work: something like her geomancy, her shrewd sense of articulating place could be easily transplanted and really valuable here. He even uses the quote I have written down and circled and underlined:

"California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension; in which the mind is troubled by some buried but ineradicable suspicion that things better work here, because here, beneath the immense bleached sky,is where we run out of continent." ("Notes from a Native Daughter," Slouching Towards Bethlehem)

Does that feel familiar to anyone else?

It's heartening I guess, for someone who lives here, to find that an 'outsider' can identify what is felt from within: that something strange is happening here, right now, and that the particular history and character of this place, despite often being portrayed as sluggish and dull is in fact alive with colour and melancholy and weirdness and that it is in fact able to support analysis and poetry, that it's worth the time and attention. At last, someone else has noted the surplus of society columns in the 'press', the historical forgetfulness indicated by the city's tendency to eradicate its heritage architecture, the unforgiving sprawl of the suburbs, the hang up of Perth on being known 'worldwide' in 1962 as the City of Lights and has thought about what that might mean. It's also a valuable text as it provides a neatly balanced counter-action to the often polarized portrayals of Perth from its residents: the bitter vitriol or the blind, stubborn enthusiasm.

Hewitt also reminded me that Honolulu is in fact the most isolated capital city in the world, so we'll have to get over that one soon.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say about it, actually, other than it's well worth reading - as is Ampersand itself, which dubs itself as a 'Curiosity' magazine and has a varied and enthusiastic approach to culture. You can buy it in Perth from PICA in Northbridge, from Oxford Street Books in Leederville, from the Planet empire in Mount Lawley and Crow Books in Victoria Park, or online from Ampersand's website.

Issue 5 will arrive for summer, sometime soon.

Sneak Peak

25th of November, 2011

Posted by Andrew
Wilderness Years.

Production Still Image courtesy Jacob Ogden Smith and Ben Kovacsy

GUEST LECTURE: FINN THE HUMAN

25th of November, 2011

Posted by Jamie
The Origin of the Oktachoron.

(clarification: that rotating 4th dimensional bubblecube is an 'octachoron' - the derivative for our obscure domain name, which seemed like a really good idea at the time considering there are a few other things called 'OK something'. We're also just big fans of Finn the Human.)

Tonight

25th of November, 2011

Posted by Andrew
Pilot by Clare Peake at The Museum of Natural Mystery

Get there at 6PM.

268 Charles St (entrance on View St)
North Perth
Western Australia, 6006

mail@naturalmystery.org

"Clare Peake's work connotes a landscape that is neither wholly real nor strictly imaginary, the maps are the keys to themselves.

In Pilot, Peake presents a concise array of sculptures and drawings that track a basic form as it oscillates and evolves to make a diagram of itself."

Image courtesy of Clare Peake

Friday 2nd December: Seria Ludo at the Galleria

22nd of November, 2011

Posted by Andrew
Seria Ludo, an exhibition by David Egan and Reece York at the Galleria
December 2nd at 6PM
55 Wittenoom St,
East Perth WA 6004

Facebook group right here.

Thursday 12-9pm
Friday-Saturday 12-6pm
And by Appointment

Galleria presents Seria Ludo (Serious matters in a playful vein), an exhibition about neo-classicism, the vantage of the dilletante and backyard archaeology by David Egan and Reece York.

The third instalment on Galleria's developing exhibition calendar, Seria Ludo is an in-house exhibition, which includes both individual and collaborative works that range in from from oil paintings to a purpose built sandbox. These new works are consequence of an ongoing conversation between Egan and York in a shared studio space above the gallery. The artists position Wikipedia as oracle as they explore obvious and unlikely connections between subject matters relating to the perpetuation of traditions in art.

The Society of the Dilettanti were a group of wealthy Englishmen who formed in 1734 after taking an alcohol fuelled art tour through Italy. They sort to elevate their less fortunate, un-cultured English brethren by sharing the majesty of renaissance painting and sculpture by funding exhibitions and building collections. Essentially a rich boys-club, The Society combined revelry and witty irreverence with the serious study of antiquity. Applying this methodology to contemporary culture, Egan and York present works that oscillate smoothly between irony and sincerity in an inevitably unsuccessful pursuit of the miraculous.

Now on at Venn

18th of November, 2011

Posted by Andrew
Wyalkatchem by Alan Jones at Venn Gallery

'Self-portrait 1980', Alan Jones, 2011, oil on canvas, 183 x 152 cm

GUEST LECTURE: TO CATCH A MILLENNIAL

17th of November, 2011

Posted by Jamie

'twitter zuckerburg social media hotmail
please come see Ryan Trecartin ANY OTHER
at PS1 excite web log information super
highway modem kardashian'

A live installment of ART THOUGHTZ from your boy Hennessey at the Museum of Contemorary Art in Chicago on maintaining relevance for art instutitions.

REmida

14th of November, 2011

Posted by Gemma
I'm sometimes convinced I barely know my own city.

Back in August I wrote about the Central Tafe residency program, and how I'd forgotten about it. This time I'm addressing something great that I think everybody knew about except me.

'REmida WA Creative Reuse Centre' operates from an old squash court between Prospect Place and Newcastle Street in West Perth. REmida is a one-stop stockpile of useful discards from retail/semi-industrial businesses, offering unlimited access to materials for schools and individuals for a reasonable yearly fee.

Stock is arranged according to size, and varies depending on recent donations, but it stands to reason that there will be something useful available even for individuals with strange and specific requirements: leather, paper, steel, misc. Anyone wishing to acquire surfaces or structure whilst bypassing expensive and monopolising suppliers could do so. Anyone in charge of a highschool art department full of kids wishing to build junk-mosaic cyborgs could find everything they needed to make those dreams come true. Anyone who makes the kind of work that involves putting a lot of the same thing together would be in heaven. There is also cheap coffee and a lounge and a workshop, where things can be cut on polite request.

Sometimes I think that contemporary creative production might just be the considered process of either moving things from one place to another or placing one thing next to another. REmida can assist this process at a reduced cost and a reduced guilt rate on both ends of supply and demand.

All necessary information - joining, volunteering and supplying - is available here

'Big Room'

'Small Room'

Ben Barretto at Gallery A.S.

11th of November, 2011

Posted by Andrew
If you are in Sydney next weekend, then go and check out Self Est:

SELF EST at Gallery A.S. feat. OK's own BEN BARRETTO

NOVEMBER 17-20 2011
Kirin Presents SELF EST.

Contemporary Art from Outside The Institution
Curated By Joseph Allen Shea & Marty Routledge
Self Est is a four day art event exploring contemporary art from alternative backgrounds. This first installment of Self Est (short for Self Established) investigates the study of letterforms and pavement based education. Self Est presents art created outside the traditional academy that has infiltrated the institution. These art forms may be self-taught, intuitive or born from marginal activities such as commercial art, graffiti or skateboarding. Taking motivation from these auxiliary artistic pursuits these artists bring unconventional and unique twists to fine art and are being recognised by galleries and institutions.

DATES
Thursday 17th, 6pm, Open till 20th Nov
Paintings and installations by Roid, HorfÃ© & Dmote
kind of -- gallery, 72 Oxford St, Darlinghurst

Friday 18th, 6pm, Open till 2nd Dec
Paintings and installations by Jeff Canham & Ben Barretto
Gallery A.S. 53-55 Brisbane st, Surry Hills

Saturday 19th, Drinks 4-9pm
Murals by Roid, HorfÃ© & sign painting by Jeff Canham
Kippax & Lt Riley st

Saturday 19th, 12-1.30pm
Conversations: A discussion and Q and A with Self Est. artists and experts on unconventional sources for fine art.
Ben Barretto (AUST) - artist
Jeff Canham (USA) - artist
Fred Forsyth (UK) - director of Topsafe & Crack & Shine
Cameron Macauliffe (AUST) - public art expert
Gallery A.S, 53-55 Brisbane st Surry Hills

Sunday 20th
Walls to be completed, and gallery walk throughs.

Ben Barretto 'See Sounds' opening at OK

The joy of creating. (In the background: Ben Barretto 'Thrash Petal' (2011) AND Ben Barretto 'Velvet Blues' (2011)

This Friday!!!

8th of November, 2011

Posted by Andrew
There's a lot of really good exhibitions opening this coming friday so you're going to have make some hard decisions. Choose your path carefully.

WHITE RHINO by DAVID COLLINS opening at LINTON & KAY CONTEMPORARY
11th - 25th November 2011

An exciting exhibition of new photographic works featuring one of the rising young stars of the Perth art scene opens at Linton and Kay Contemporary in November.

Young Perth artist David Collins presents a provocative and erotic body of work in his first solo exhibition with Linton and Kay entitled 'White Rhino'. A recent graduate of Art with Honours from Curtin university, Collins utilises the medium of photography to explore the notion of hedonism and more specifically, the modern concept of the 'Responsible Hedonist'; that is, the appearance of hedonism as a disguise for masking the everyday anxieties experienced by a generation.

His elaborately constructed scenes form a complex and rich narrative, exuding lush opulence and richness of texture in scenes reminiscent of the opium dens of days gone by. His achingly beautiful and nubile subjects cavort languidly within indulgent sets lined with fur and finery in a defiant manifestation of excess and sensuality.

David goes on to explain, "The objective of the work is to create an immersive experience for the audience that will make them an active voyeur, someone who is overwhelmed and swallowed by the work, and who through their curiosity chooses to look further and see more. The intention is that photography will support the illusion of 'truth' evoking empathy from the audience, further provoking curiosity. It is through 'gazing' at the series of images that a filmic narrative is built like a scene that lingers. The camera's ability to capture the essence of time in the work gives the impression that everything visually stands very still allowing for a consuming gaze where the 'eye becomes a prosthetic device to roam around the image petting and exploring the tactile' until, the static nature of the bodies transform from erotic into a state of normality."

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ALTERNATING CURRENTS: JAPANESE ART AFTER MARCH 2011 at PICA
Artists: Yukio Fujimoto, Taro Izumi, Yoko Mohri, Nadegata Instant Party, Otomo Yoshihide & Sakiko Sugawa
Curaotors: Azusa Hashimoto, Jaime Pacena II & Leigh Robb

Alternating Currents is a major exhibition developed by PICA and the Japan Foundation and sponsored by Allens Arthur Robinson, that presents significant new work by six contemporary Japanese artists, artist collectives and musicians. Spanning a number of generations, the artists in this exhibition have multi and interdisciplinary approaches to their art making that encompass performance, film, installation, sound art and music. Their works interrogate notions of live art practice, involving local artists and communities on different levels and in a number of instances in ways that reflect on the local and global effects of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan earlier this year.

The works in this exhibition will surprise, delight and provoke visitors to PICA and in some cases encourage them to become active participants. Audiences will be prompted to buy and consume a 'local delicacy', experience a giant game, walk on charcoal and contribute to an international 'conference' on the Reconstruction of Japan.

Alternating Currents is one of three connected projects that came out of a month long residency for 16 emerging curators from around Asia that was held in Japan last year and facilitated by the Japan Foundation. PICA's Leigh Robb was one of these, and she, together with Azusa Hashimoto, Curator at the National Museum of Art, Osaka and Jaime Pacena II, an Independent Curator based in Manila, will curate Alternating Currents, one of the first shows to offer Perth audiences a unique engagement with current Japanese art practices.

The word 'Current' has multiple meanings which lends itself productively to the curatorial premise of this exhibition, but which also extends to the connected exhibitions that will take place in India and Singapore in 2012, under the collective title Omnilogue, a term designed to present a multiple exchange of culture, ideas and processes between different curators and artists working on this project. 'Current' as an adjective can refer to contemporaneity, something happening now, the most recent, something in the present - such as the Japanese interdisciplinary art practices which embrace performance, music, collaboration and respond to local community in the 21st century.

'Current' as a noun also refers to water, to a flow, to a fluid movement. This understanding of the word also relates specifically to Perth, a city which sits on the Swan River, a water way that extends into the Indian Ocean. These bodies of water, and the currents that they produce, connect the three countries involved in the Omnilogue project: Australia, India and Singapore. 'Current' also refers to electricity - a flow of an electric charge between two points which can be also be thought of as a form of communication - a dialogue, which is what the exhibition hopes to encourage between Japanese artists and the local Perth community and art scene, as well as a dialogue between East Asian countries.

The artists who will be producing work for Alternating Currents have all been invited to create new works responding to the curatorial premise and to the location.

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CAPITAL CITY by TOM MULLER at HEATHCOTE MUSEUM & GALLERY

The Heathcote site in Applecross will be re-imagined as the state's capital city in a bold new exhibition CAPITAL CITY by artist Tom MÃ¹ller to open on Friday, 11 November 2011 at the Heathcote Museum and Gallery.

Curated by the City of Melville, CAPITAL CITY is part of Tilt, an exhibition program where one artist is invited each year to respond to the layered history of the Heathcote site, creating artworks through their chosen medium.

Artist Tom MÃ¹ller said his exhibition was inspired by the fact that, in 1829, Captain James Stirling earmarked the location as a potential capital city.

"I am seeking to acknowledge Point Heathcote as the quiet brother of the City of Perth and highlight that it was considered for the capital," he said.

"I also want people to think about the Indigenous history of the area and how the location might have been different - among other works, I have created a thought-provoking film, Silent Capitulation, which depicts Captain Stirling climbing up a bank and approaching an inhabitant."

City of Melville Curator Soula Veyradier said, "There is a rich history to the Heathcote site which Tom MÃ¹ller explores quite wonderfully."

"Kooyagoordup (the place of the Kooyar - a species of frog) or Point Heathcote was a significant location for Aboriginal men who used it for initiations. Of course, Point Heathcote was also the site for an important mental health facility which closed in 1994 and Tom Muller's work takes a unique look at this aspect.

"Tom MÃ¹ller has developed a series of fictional scenarios inspired by past residents, events and histories of the site. Borrowing from a multidisciplinary approach including film, installations and found objects, the artist presents a multi-facetted interpretation of Heathcote."

A tour of the exhibition and artist talk will take place during the Museums Australia National Conference 2011 on Wednesday, 16 November from 2.00pm to 3.00pm at Heathcote Museum and Gallery.

CAPITAL CITY by artist Tom MÃ¹ller will be officially opened on Friday, 11 November 2011 at 6.00pm by the Art Gallery of Western Australia Director Dr Stefano Carboni. RSVP by Wednesday, 9 November 2011 to claire.bushby@melville.wa.gov.au or phone 9364 5666.

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DOUBLEUAYE by BEN HUGHES and AARON MARCHANT at GALLERIA

An exhibition of new wroks by Ben Hughes and Aaron Marchant at Galleria.

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David Collins, 'Music Box (2)', 2010

Tom Muller, 'Heraldic Animals', 2007, Inkjet on Archival Paper