Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts - Artists' Week
Jeez, it's been a while now since Adelaide was overrun by Festivals and a stinker of a heat wave. I tried to get to as many sessions as possible of Artists' Week events (1-6 March 2008), all of which I went to were in the comfort of airconditioned buildings. Pity the folks attending the Writers' Week events in the stinking hot tents around the River Torrens. I think a few people had to be taken away by ambulance due to heat exhaustion.
It must be a challenge to schedule speakers for the Artists' Week events who have enough drawcard that people would want to attend the sessions, yet ensuring that what the speakers have to say is relevant to the needs of the group.
A couple of the sessions were frustrating as the artists who were panel speakers were obviously gifted in the visual arts, but public speaking was not where they were most comfortable. So while the images were great, the talks were not.
Unrelated to Artists' Week I listened to a podcast from the Artworks show on ABC Radio National. One of the artists interviewed is the British photographic artist Richard Billingham. Billingham was a 2001 Turner Prize finalist and is well known for his in-your-face photos of his strange family. 'Strange' is probably being fairly meek in my description. Do a websearch about him and you'll see what I mean.
Anyway, the woman who interviewed Billingham on the Artworks show had all kinds of theories about his work and motivations for his work and so on. Poor old Billingham mumbled and uhmed and ahhed through what turned out to be a funny interview because it was so one-sided - she rabbitted on while he had little to say. He did withstand her repeated attempts to put her words his mouth. So here's an example of trying to make someone who is very accomplished in one area (photography) competent in another area (speaking about his work.) I saw simularities between the Billingham interview and a couple of the speakers at Artists' Week.
While it was good having the Artists' Week events I wondered how relevant they were to practising artists, especially for the majority of artists who haven't 'made it'. Most of the speakers I listened to either had 'made it' or were certainly on their way to doing so.
What I did enjoy was the very funny talk by the two principals of Graffiti Research Labs, Evan Roth and James Powderly. I didn't attend their 'Throwie Workshop' but happened to sit in on their talk as it was between two others that were of interest to me. I didn't think the GRL talk would be relevant to me as I'm not a graffiti or street artist. But their talk covered a wide range of topics and was a highlight of the program. It was interesting to hear them discuss copyright issues and the difference between software/intellectual property issues and hardware issues. Visit their website - http://graffitiresearchlab.com/
Another highlight was the talk by Adelaide artist Hossein Valamanesh. His work is so delicate/spiritual/calming. His talk matched his artwork.
Cheers!
It must be a challenge to schedule speakers for the Artists' Week events who have enough drawcard that people would want to attend the sessions, yet ensuring that what the speakers have to say is relevant to the needs of the group.
A couple of the sessions were frustrating as the artists who were panel speakers were obviously gifted in the visual arts, but public speaking was not where they were most comfortable. So while the images were great, the talks were not.
Unrelated to Artists' Week I listened to a podcast from the Artworks show on ABC Radio National. One of the artists interviewed is the British photographic artist Richard Billingham. Billingham was a 2001 Turner Prize finalist and is well known for his in-your-face photos of his strange family. 'Strange' is probably being fairly meek in my description. Do a websearch about him and you'll see what I mean.
Anyway, the woman who interviewed Billingham on the Artworks show had all kinds of theories about his work and motivations for his work and so on. Poor old Billingham mumbled and uhmed and ahhed through what turned out to be a funny interview because it was so one-sided - she rabbitted on while he had little to say. He did withstand her repeated attempts to put her words his mouth. So here's an example of trying to make someone who is very accomplished in one area (photography) competent in another area (speaking about his work.) I saw simularities between the Billingham interview and a couple of the speakers at Artists' Week.
While it was good having the Artists' Week events I wondered how relevant they were to practising artists, especially for the majority of artists who haven't 'made it'. Most of the speakers I listened to either had 'made it' or were certainly on their way to doing so.
What I did enjoy was the very funny talk by the two principals of Graffiti Research Labs, Evan Roth and James Powderly. I didn't attend their 'Throwie Workshop' but happened to sit in on their talk as it was between two others that were of interest to me. I didn't think the GRL talk would be relevant to me as I'm not a graffiti or street artist. But their talk covered a wide range of topics and was a highlight of the program. It was interesting to hear them discuss copyright issues and the difference between software/intellectual property issues and hardware issues. Visit their website - http://graffitiresearchlab.com/
Another highlight was the talk by Adelaide artist Hossein Valamanesh. His work is so delicate/spiritual/calming. His talk matched his artwork.
Cheers!
posted by Rick's Rambles at 9:34 am
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