Introduction
A Sac of Rooms All Day Long
The Art & culture section of the Creative cowboy films website contains a series of articles, film clips and sound files. The articles are written by PETER and ANDREA HYLANDS and invited contributors, the aim is to bring matters of interest to readers around the world.
Andrew McLellan at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University
We visit the Pitt Rivers Museum, a museum of ethnography and world archaeology and one of a number of museums belonging to the University of Oxford. PETER HYLANDS and ANDREW McLELLAN, the Museum’s Education Officer, discuss the way in which the Museum exhibits its collection of objects and how these displays have evolved since Victorian times.
Mick Kubarkku working on a bark painting (image Margie West)
ROSS BOWDEN writes about the art of Papua New Guinea and MARGIE WEST AM writes about the lives of two of Arnhem Land’s most significant artists.
PETER HYLANDS writes about the highly concerning conduct on the Burrup Murujuga in Western Australia, where precious indigenous heritage is under threat. The destruction of the rock engravings of the Burrup Murujuga are discussed and the articles include interviews with former Premier of Western Australia, the Honourable Professor CARMEN LAWRENCE, Chair of the Australian Heritage Council, Ngarluma indigenous leader ROBYNE CHURNSIDE and Ngarluma artist LOREEN SAMSON. The articles also contain a photo gallery of images from the Burrup Murujuga.
Articles on contemporary ceramics include GWYN HANSSEN PIGOTT, the article features a discussion between GWYN and PETER HYLANDS about the artist’s use of wood firing. PETER RUSHFORTH and SHIGA SHIGEO discuss the importance of making in the 21st century and MICK CASSON is remembered for his enormous contribution to development of ceramics in post war Britain.
Mick Casson at the wheel
After working with ALEX SCHWEDER LA in California we visit ALEX in his new studio in Berlin. In Creative cowboy film’s Space Time Performance, ALEX installs the work A Sac of Rooms All Day Long at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. ALEX describes this work as being part of a series of works that he calls buildings that perform themselves, we follow the choreography of an inflatable vinyl building. Installed, the building performs itself, from a plastic puddle on the floor to a writhing performance of two life size houses stealing space from one another, only to return again, to a plastic puddle on the floor.
An additional feature on the Space Time Performance DVD, a 30 minute discussion between ALEX and PETER HYLANDS called Our weight around us, was filmed during a visit to Australia. The discussion covers the ideas and the international art practice that make ALEX SCHWEDER LA’s work so compelling.
“The work reflects and distorts the bodies of the viewer. ‘How do I get in’ says a young child, ‘you can’t says the mother, that’s the point’. Not being able to get in creates a desire in the viewer to make the entry that is denied to them. To the outsider, what is revealed is an extraordinary work and an extraordinary performance where building and sound and viewer perform together”.
JOHN WOLSELEY writes about his exhibition Carboniferous, which was held at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney in 2010 and in an accompanying film clip, John talks about why art makes science visible.
“The works in this exhibition trace the stages of a three year transition in my painting life from the dry Mallee Country of Northern Victoria to the wetlands of New South Wales and the swamps of the Camargue in Southern France. During this time, I spent many months camping and drawing in areas of remnant scrub in both wetlands and drylands”.