Today's guests were:
10.10am
The director of the Melbourne Art Fair, Bronwyn Johnson
10.30am
Justin Paton – curator and author of How to Look at a Painting
"At a time when art commentary often seems incomprehensible to the layperson, Justin Paton has established a reputation for making the subject lucid and exciting. Curator of contemporary art at New Zealand’s Dunedin Public Art Gallery, he has written for many local and international publications and is a frequent commentator on New Zealand radio and television. 10.45am
Artist and musician Jon Campbell, whose band Gloss Enamel is performing at Friday's Artists' Bar event at the Art fair.
Jon Campbell was born in Northern Ireland, and emigrated to Australia when he was three years old. He’s been an artist in residence at Camberwell Boys Grammar, and is represented in numerous collections, including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Victorian College of the Arts, the Australian Football League, and at Heide. Jon has been described as “creating work that in style and content was modelled on the simplicity of the 3 chord song” and as “dancing along the disputed boundary between art history and mass culture.”
He is represented by the Robert Lindsay Gallery, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, and Sydney’s Darren Knight Gallery in Waterloo.
11.05amArtist Marian Drew, a Brisbane-based artist and lecturer who works in the fields of photography and video. She is represented by Fitzroy's Diane Tanzer Gallery.
Crow with Lemon, Marian DrewHer work displayed at the MAF was drawn primarily from her 'Australiana' series of 2003.
"This work is a recontextualization of Australian wildlife within the context of the European still life. It presents wildlife that becomes dislocated from the idealized view of animals in their natural habitat. The long lens of the ‘wild life photographer’ is replaced by the close up lens, painted light and the table top."
11.20am
Next up was artist Michael Parekowhai from New Zealand. His giant inflatable rabbit Cosmo (pictured below) is the specially-commissioned centrepiece of the Melbourne Art Fair this year. He is represented in Australia by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney.
"Michael Parekowhai is one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most significant contemporary artists. Primarily known as a sculptor, his work is acclaimed not only for its meticulous finish but also for the way it engages with ideas about the creation and place of culture.
Through a minimalist aesthetic, coupled with a dadaist sense of humour, Parekowhai creates works that are deceptively simple.
Parekowhai is a jester, choosing to convey complex political and social issues through satire and subtlety." Or so says the Queensland Art Gallery at any rate.10.35am
Next up was Joni Waka (Johnnie Walker), the Director of A.R.T. (artist residency tokyo) and a Japanese Jew who for twenty years in Tokyo has single handedly run his own art foundation supporting avant-garde culture in Asia and Asian avant-garde culture abroad. A.R.T. has provided exhibitions, performances, and residency spaces for unknown artists to such names as Gilbert and George, Francesco Clemente, Joseph Kosuth, Kazuo Ohno, Yayoi Kusama, and dumb type and such institutions as the Tate, the Guggenheim, and Venice biennale.
A.R.T. operates in two buildings in Tokyo: a contemporary version of a machiya, a traditional Kyoto town house, designed by Hiroo Nanjo, which has served as an artist in residency space for such institutions as the Tate, the Menil museum, and AFAA; and a gallery/event space designed by Koji Takematsu, the architect of Mariko Mori's dream temple.
11.50am
My final guests for the day were two well-established and well-connected international collectors from Washington DC: Heather and Tony Podesta, who spoke about collecting art for its aesthetic value, not its price tag. Oh, to be wealthy enough to travel the world collecting art!
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