News

Recent articles on Marginalia (by Gracia) alongside news and exhibitions.

"A domesticated animal which has never been reduced to servitude, a cat, the emblem of Independence, is sitting at Liberty's feet"

August 31, 2014 Gracia Louise

Recently landed: "A domesticated animal which has never been reduced to servitude, a cat, the emblem of Independence, is sitting at Liberty's feet", a new post on Elsewhere (by Louise)

Gracia & Louise, Concealment in Calais sought (II), 2014, postcard collage with a Leopard Cat (Felis bengalenis) and a Jaguar (Panthera onca)

Gracia & Louise, Concealment in Calais sought (II), 2014, postcard collage with a Leopard Cat (Felis bengalenis) and a Jaguar (Panthera onca)

Meanwhile,

#55filmsin16days draws to a close with #MIFF2017 film 55 BEUYS: ART AS A WEAPON (D Andres Veil). Originally booked when it was to screen on the last Saturday night of the fest, it is to be our full stop. It is perhaps not the ending we would have drawn up, but it is anticipated all the same. In 2003, when Louise and I were invited to give our first talk in a gallery about our work as part of a group exhibition, we combined our book vouchers as payment to purchase a copy of Joseph Beuys: The Multiples. With soft hearts, felt-suited, we enter the cinema. How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, quite. "Art alone makes life possible. this is how radically I should like to formulate it." — #JosephBeuys
#theend
#thisiswinter
#thisissunday
#artasaweapon
#gesamtkunstwerk

Joseph Beuys, 'Eurasia Siberian Symphony 1963', 1966, Panel with chalk drawing, felt, fat, taxidermied hare, and painted poles, composed from materials he used during a performance, or "action," in Berlin.

#art
#JosephBeuys
#warmththeory
#propertiesoffelt
#andataxidermiedhare
#EurasiaSiberianSymphony

Branded t-shirts. Selfie sticks. Holocaust tourism. Observed. Accountable. '#Austerlitz'. With heavy heart, we leave the cinema. Humanity! Oh! Sunk! And with our heavy hearts, we're almost there. At the #ComedyTheatre. Our second last film. Over to you #MIFF2017, film 54, IN THE FADE (D Fatih Akin). A proposition: "'what would you do?' So ask yourself" (#FatihAkin). Okay. Accepted.
#theend
#IntheFade
#thisiswinter
#thisissunday
#55filmsin16days

These patterns we form. Passing Milton House en route to #MIFF2017. ("#MiltonHouse is a three-storey brick building with an almost Georgian symmetrical facade with quoined corners and deep, bracketed eaves. The linked chimneys suggest the English Baroque of Hawksmoor. The central bay incorporates a major arch of American Romanesque character. The overall classical form is probably attributable to the #architects Sydney Smith and Ogg, but much of the detail is thought to be that of their consultant #RobertHaddon, the leading local exponent of the #artnouveau: in particular the #ornamental terracotta band, the sinuous broken label mould of the entrance arch, the wrought-iron work within the arch, and the use of brick strips to link windows of the first and second floors — all of which are more or less characteristic of Haddon's work elsewhere.The glass includes some very subtle and some very bold combinations of colour; single pieces of mixed hue; motifs resembling #snails and #sunflowers seen on edge like parasols; abstract renderings of scenes such as the sun shining on waves; and other compositions of exquisitely contrived tension and asymmetry. Built as a private hospital in 1901 for the eminent Melbourne surgeon, William Moore, who was the first master of surgery graduate of the University of Melbourne, Milton House was subsequently a rooming house, reverted to a medical context in its use by the Victorian Health Commission for X-ray purposes and later became government offices." Heritage Council Victoria)

(What faith in humanity '#LovingVincent' restored, our next film is sure to erase.) Call memory forth, and bid it to slow down. #MIFF2017 film 53, AUSTERLITZ (D Sergei Loznitsa). "It seems to me then as if all moments of our life occupy the same space, as if future events already existed and were only waiting for us to find our way to them al last …. And might it not be, continued #Austerlitz, that we also have appointments to keep in the past, in what has gone before and is for the most part extinguished, and must go there in search of places and people who have some connection with us on the far side of time, so to speak."— #WGSebald
#sorrow
#memory
#Holocaust
#SergeiLoznitsa
#55filmsin16days
#memorialtourism

It is time. Soon. Spring. Feeling restored after '#LovingVincent'. (Vincent van Gogh, Orchard in blossom (detail), April 1889 Arles, oil on canvas, in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)
#climb
#seasons
#MIFF2017
#spring (soon)
#VincentvanGogh
#OrchardinBlossom

"I don't know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream." 65,000 frames. 1,000 canvases. Colour me curious, and twinkle my heavens, #MIFF2017 film 52, LOVING VINCENT (D Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welshman). "I dream my painting and I paint my dream" (Vincent van Gogh) seems a very good place to begin the last day of the fest.
#dream
#painting
#paintedframe
#LovingVincent
#VincentvanGogh

Toss me a stick; comfort a boar. Of all the #MIFF2017 films seen so far, the character we felt the greatest affinity with and perhaps resemble is Duszejko in Agnieszka Holland's "a bit like a fairytale about anger", '#Spoor' ('#Pokot'), and this is a very good thing indeed. And with only a handful left to see, running through the #wild it is likely to remain. Our resolve to keep fostering for #RSPCAvic strengthened.
#nature
#voiceless
#animalrights
#environment
#55filmsin16days

Edmund FitzGibbon and Sarah FitzGibbon (Charles Summers, 1877 Rome, marble) lingering on the stairs.
#NGV
#lingering
#thisiswinter
#inthegallery
#palettecleanse

Though the breaks between #MIFF2017 sessions have been chiefly slender, sometimes there was a chance for a quick saunter through the gallery to serve as a reminder that a quick dip is better than no dip. A brief saunter for the mind. Time should always be made for a brief saunter. An opportunity to just take a look around.
#NGV
#lingering
#thisiswinter
#inthegallery
#palettecleanse

Quick costume change. Paint me, manga. A different kind of time machine awaits with #MIFF2017 film 51, IN THIS CORNER OF THE WORLD (D Sunao Katabuchi). "I knew I wanted to become a visual #storyteller first and I feel that I was able to discover that animation was the most interesting way to tell stories. Because we recreated a world that once existed, the audience sees more and more details every time they re-watch the film that leads to the discovery of different emotional experiences and perspectives. For those who are seeing In This Corner of the World for the first time, I hope they will see it more than once. By doing so, they will be able to experience the world and society that once existed in a very raw way. I'd like to think that In This Corner of the World is like a time machine where you can experience life and a culture of a different time."— #SunaoKatabuchi
#animation
#lastweekend
#thisissaturday
#55filmsin16days
#InThisCorneroftheWorld

With two white rats in a carry cage, mysterious radio message received. Saturday, in a Guardian of Energy costume designed by Alexandra Exter for the film #Aelita, 1924, ink, gouache, and pencil on paper.

#MIFF2017
#thisissaturday
#AlexandraExter
#costumedesign
#GuardianofEnergy

Draw my eyebrows like yours, Yuliya Solntseva. Frame me in a geometric shape, Nikolai Tsereteli. #MIFF2017 film 50 belongs to AELITA, QUEEN OF MARS (D Jakov Protazanov), which the New York Times referred to in 1929 as being "far more interesting to read about than to gaze upon". Pluto to that! Let me wear one of your Martian costumes, Alexandra Exter, and feel as though I am hovering in a machine age of aluminum, glass, acrylics, and steel. 1924, in motion.
#USSR
#YuliyaSolntseva
#NikolaiTsereteli
#AlexandraExter
#JakovProtazanov
#55filmsin16days

Be still the heart. Alexandra Exter's (1882–1949) costume and set design for '#Aelita'. If I can't live in a remote hut in '#Spoor', surrounded by deer, stoats, boars, and magpies with an eye for all things shiny, perhaps constructivist Mars, for something different.

#design
#costume
#MIFF2017
#constructivism
#AlexandraExter

"Behind the first sheep, trotted a second, a third, a fourth, until the whole flock stood around her at the spring. Each sheep had a tiny bell around its neck and as the sheep came there, the bells gave a gentle tinkle. But wonder of wonders, the little girl could hear them. She could now really hear. They were her father's sheep. There was the faithful, old white dog, trotting along and wagging its tail, as he looked up in the eyes of Barta, the shepherd, as much as to say, 'What’s all this about?'"
(From The disobedient kids : The disobedient children and other Czecho-Slovak fairy tales by Bozena Nemcová, illustrated by Artuš Schooner.)
#fairytale
#illustration
#CzechoSlovak
#ArtušScheiner
#BozenaNemcová

Last night, a #performance in the La Trobe Reading Room, to celebrate the 'Great Lady' of calisthenics, Miss Vera Hopton. A performance around our #GraciaLouiseLooped display, no less. While we couldn't make it along, reposting this rather surreal image from @library_vic. You can also see "a showcase of #calisthenics history in The changing face of Victoria exhibition, featuring items from the Vera Hopton archives."
#domedais
#inthelibrary
#artistsbooks
#aboutlastnight
#LaTrobeReadingRoom

Roe deer, fox, badger, and wild boar. With a hankering to stay in the forest ('Spoor') and read what author Olga Tokarczuk describes as a "metaphysical thriller", Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. But on this wet night, such plans will have to wait, William Blake. #MIFF2017 film 49 is taking us to the Democratic Republic of Congo with the promise of the Symphonic Orchestra of Kinshasa performing in an old warehouse the compositions of Arvo Pärt et al. FÉLICITÉ (D Alain Gomis), rounding out a three film day. Ready and crumpled as we'll ever be. Light the fire, hedgehogs. I'll be home soon.
#Spoor
#AlainGomis
#KasaiAllstars
#VeroTshanda
#55filmsin16days

In keeping with the theme of today. Illustration by Artuš Scheiner for Vyšehrad by Julius Zeyer (1841 – 1901). #fairytale
#Bohemia
#Vyšehrad
#illustration
#ArtušScheiner

Chasing 'The Giant' with a different kind of fairy tale, where 'every time he moved snow fell from him like icing sugar from angel wings.' #MIFF2017 film 48, because Bohemia, with 'the deer …. standing in snow that came almost up to their bellies [gazing] at us calmly, as if we had caught them in the middle of performing some ritual whose meaning we could not fathom' (Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead). Knocking on the wooden door covered in black tar paper at the Forum. SPOOR (D Agnieszka Holland), I await. "Even though you may consider it a dark eco-thriller, the film reflects our world and where we stand. I had no idea that the movie would be so up to date, since we were working on the project for a long time, and owing to events in the world, Spoor also proved to be political."— #AgnieszkaHolland (in interview with Martin Kudláč, Cineuropa, 2017)
#Spoor
#nature
#WilliamBlake
#OlgaTokarczuk
#nocountryforoldwomen

Illustration by Artuš Scheiner (1863 – 1938) for Under Command of Magic by J. Š. Kubín (c. 1920).
#fairytale
#illustration
#Bohemian
#ArtušScheiner
#UnderCommandofMagic

RT @palacefilms: also for the benefit of those still doing the #MIFF2017 thing 👇🏻 👇🏻 👇🏻 https://t.co/2UZYrGP2Sp
about an hour ago
Waiting for sparkies. (Rewiring house today; Olive & Lenni unsettled. Post #MIFF2017 blues hittin' hard; Olive & Lenni happy we're home.)
about 14 hours ago
And of all the #MIFF2017 ads, @melbfestival's TREE OF CODES (@WayneMcGregor) whetted the appetite most of all. #cannotwait #dance #love!
about 14 hours ago
#MIFF2017 colour palette to live within: SAMI BlLOOD; AFTERIMAGE; FINAL PORTRAIT; CALL ME BY YOUR NAME; SPOOR. #withdrawals
about 14 hours ago
#MIFF2017 films in which my body gave out (though not necessarily a reflection of the film): BEUYS; BOURGEOIS DOG; THE CHALLENGE.
about 14 hours ago
If you need me, I'll be like MAUDIE. This world! (#MIFF2017)
about 15 hours ago
LOVELESS; BIG BIG WORLD; INSYRIATED; THE PARTY; MAN OF INTEGRITY; COLO (is me), et al., we are the most terrible creatures. #MIFF2017
about 15 hours ago
Never meet your idols: BEUYS (#MIFF2017)
about 15 hours ago
With #MIFF2017 big love to I DREAM IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE; RAILWAY SLEEPERS; AELITA (set, & live score); UNTIL THE BIRDS RETURN; BY YOUR NAME.
about 16 hours ago
For what was, and what is, #MIFF2017: AUSTERLITZ; DAWSON CITY; SPOOR; COLO; MY HAPPY FAMILY.
about 16 hours ago