Stumbled across Mark Denver Vintage Industrial, a shop in Fitzroy. An absolute gold mine if you have a few thousand dollars spare. Items for sale included taxidermy stag wall mounts, working van der graaf, old school evaporator and condenser, cast iron birdcage and various scientific miscellany. If only I had a mansion I could turn the vintage step ladder into shelving for my pantry.
Van Der Graaf fun
Shop interior (note stag heads)
arbitrary shot of window from my sub-standard phone
“Experimental, provocative and utterly compelling...”
Two of my earliest memories of graphic inspirations were László Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky and since then Constructivism and later Modernity have been of huge inspiration throughout my career. On discovering NGV latest exhibition entitled “The Mad Square” (Der Tolle Platz), it was a pre-requisite for me to attend. The exhibition name derives from Felix Nussbaum's 1932 painting of Berlin's famous Pariser Platz. 'Tolle' translates to mean both 'mad' and 'fantastic.' which is certainly a common thread, running through the exhibition. The 'square' is approached as a physical space, with representations of the city, as well as a state of turbulence and unrest, which characterises the era.
Felix Nussbaum, Der Tolle Platz, 1932
Aptly the exhibition begins with a screen excerpt of “Das Cabinet Der Dr. Caligari,” which is the story of deadly sonambulist, Cesare, approaching mental illness in a way which forces the viewer to be sucked in and an example of early German Expressionist cinema.
My recently completed university dissertation follows themes of unrest in Weimar Germany, in relation to artists such as Hannah Höch and Marianne Brandt, both of whom feature in the exhibition. A time of turmoil within Germany inspired incredible 'avant-garde' art movements; Expressionism, Dada, Constructivism, Bauhaus and New Objectivity. It was really inspiring to me to see so many points of cultural and contextual reference grouped together in one exhibition, and especially considering their relevance and importance to my own creative development. For me the exhibition combined both artistic, graphic, physical and filmic examples of a whole spectrum of inspiration and as I followed the prominent jagged red arrow around the space I was never disappointed by what was around the next corner.
El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919
László Moholy-Nagy
Aritists featured in the exhibition include: Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad, Hannha Hoch, August Sander, Laslo Moholy Nagy, El Lissitsky Website
When I first arrived in Australia, just under five months ago, probably the first creative I met was Hamish Ta-mé, a Sydney based photographer. I was visiting the infamous Rocks market and came across Hamish selling photographic prints. Later that week I visited Hamish's studio and helped him with some snapshots for his online store, which can be found here.
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