Saturday, July 3, 2010

You don't ask why, you ask what for.


This was advice a friend recently gave me, to which I barked back 'Aren't they the same thing?!'

Apparently not. And I kind of get it. Like when I think about my very first job out of uni. It was this awful place that did tax for smelly backpackers. A place that made me tense up in dread every morning when my alarm went off. On my very first day, my boss threw a bottle of water at my head and snarled 'Wake up.' I must have been dozing off when being taught utterly boring tasks that have never served me in my life since. It wasn't a good first day, and it didn't improve much for the whole three months I was there. From getting in trouble for the clothes I wore (too much colour - who would've thought backpackers had an aversion to bright, shiny things?) to being watched like a hawk and dealing with some of the most ridiculous people I'd ever met (this one guy put down his occupation as broccoli - I just thought he was making his shopping list when he asked me how to spell it) I asked, pretty much every day, why? And I could never think of a good answer.

So, change it slightly to what for? And I think of the small amount of time I got to work at our Bondi office with Rick, listen to triple j, help pack magazines, talk about magazines, what bands he'd interviewed and how much 'love my way' rocked our worlds I guess I have my answer.

Recently Rick was down old Sydney town way and put on an exhibition called The Keg Show at amBush gallery. Local artists were given beer kegs and got to work on painting, felting, wall-papering them. I walked through the hanging kegs while some heavy metal blared in the background and felt a new appreciation for all things blokey and Australian. There was a fair share of oestrogen at the show though, like this really cute Cathering Campbell keg with bunny rabbits completely covering it.



This one was so special my friend Katy needed to take it home! (Needless to say, her husband was impressed that the keg not only serves as a lovely sculpture, but is also fully functional in the way a keg should be). And the cash went straight to unicef - how could she resist?

Beer and art; who woulda thought? Nice one Rick.

cactus
x

1 comment:

  1. It's interesting how art has developed. The old stuff said something about the time it was in, an embodiment of a period of history that gave insights and stories into the tangible aspects of society. Then cue post modernism. Now art can be a blank canvas, an installation of an ordinary circular dial phone with the receiver off the hook or, a mishmash of concentric shapes in various colours in random formation. Then slap some bullshit metaphor on it and bobs your uncle, you've done did art! Art has truly become anything you can get away with. Could anyone outside of the artist and the so-called boffins of the industry derive any cultural or societal message from the procession of most 'modern art' other than "self-indulgent wankster who can't draw, fools everyone with glorified hobby". Where is the technical mastery in it all. Perhaps i should call myself a chef now that i can cook an egg, a lawyer because i can dispense advice on how to avoid jail or, an actor because i'm quite good at lying. But it looks nice, a visual shock or treat to the senses - but so does the flyer i'm handed in the street with the hot guys on it enticing me to come to a homosexual club event.

    Technology and greater access to it are making us all artistes.

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