Thats the attractive by-line on a flyer I just received from Auspicious Arts Projects Inc, based in Melbourne. The assistance comes in the form of ‘financial management and advice for small arts companies and arts projects, including qualified financial management for unincorporated associations, individual artists and arts projects, allowing artists to manage their projects effectively and efficiently without losing money’. It will be interesting to see how their ‘funky new site’ shapes up in a few weeks time.
John Howard Statue: ‘If the Boots Don’t Fit’
On Saturday Feb 7th the Melbourne sculptor Greg Taylor erected this fine life-size bronze sculpture of the Prime Minister, John Howard, in Reconcilliaton Walk in front of Old Parliament House in Canberra.
Called ‘If the Boots Don’t Fit’, it is reminiscent of all those noble-looking statues at ANZAC memorials across the country, but a wonderfully stunted one: the boots are like Goofy’s, the uniform baggy and oversized, the rifle held back to front and the hat worn with the wrong side up. Add in the droopy-shouldered stance and the self-satisfied expression and you have fine satire. Taylor says his artwork is intended to draw attention to Mr Howard’s “smallness” in a metaphysical, spiritual and political sense.
Unfortunately, the National Capital Authority removed it promptly the next day. And ever since, events surrounding the statue have just kept bubbling along in a very entertaining manner.
On the following Thursday, the Canberra Times reported that the statue had been found ‘behind barbed wire’, in an NCA ‘detention camp’: a storage compound in Commonwealth Park. That day Taylor was allowed to hire a crane to lift the one-tonne statue out, and by then our electricity and water company, ActewAGL, had offered to pay $2000 to charity if they could exhibit it outside their shopfront in Garema Place in the city for a few days. Click on the thumbnails below to view images.
Since then:
Jon Stanhope, the Chief Minister of the ACT, has said he would like the ACT to buy the statue so that even if Howard won’t live here himself, at least the statue will have a permanent home here. That is causing consternation in some quarters! Some people have suggested the people of Canberra would be willing to subscribe to a fund to buy it if that plan falls through. Meanwhile, the head of ActewAGL apologized if they had offended anyone, saying exhibiting the statue was only intended to be a bit of fun.
The letters to the editor have been vitriolic and amusing on both sides.
The Sunday Canberra Times editorialized about the value of satire, and surmised that Howard himself might have preferred the statue to be allowed to stand in the first place.
Geoff Pryor, our cartoonist, had some fun with it all.
The art critic Sacha Grishan reviewed the work and concluded that the only reason it did not fit the bill as artwork that the ACT might purchase was that it had not been commissioned.
The NCA is considering charging Taylor $850 for the removal and ‘storage’.
There were rowdy scenes in a Senate Estimates Committee when the Territories Minister expressed outrage at having his Sunday afternoon interupted by the NCA advising him of the statues removal. Also, “Senator Heffernan asked what would happen if ‘every second yobo’ wanted to erect effigies on Commonwealth land in future. ACT Senator Kate Lundy suggested the NCA could erect big fences around any open space.” ;-P.
The statue has spent last week outside the Hawker Butchery, and a sausage sizzle was held in its honour, with donations going to the charity Koomari. Tomorrow it apparently moves on to be on show outside the Kingston Hotel.
Stay tuned, folks… And thanks, Greg!
Automata
Sometime last year I happened across the Flying Pig Gallery, a site which houses whimsical paper automata models for you to cut out and make. There are numerous models in kit form, such as this hopping kangaroo, while others like the Agreeable Sheep are free to download. There’s also a very cool section of animations that illustrate mechanisms that are used in automata. They assure us that no sheep were hurt in the making of the trebuchet animation :-).
Of course if you are interested in automata, and haven’t come across them already, you need to know about Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, a Museum of Automata (Mechanical Sculpture). In particular, follow the artists links to see some wonderful creations.
Disney buys the Muppets
‘The Walt Disney Company and The Jim Henson Company announced last Tuesday that they have entered into an agreement under which Disney will acquire the beloved Muppets and Bear in the Big Blue House properties from Henson.’ Kermit the Frog is included, but not the Sesame Street characters, such as Big Bird and Elmo, which are separately owned by Sesame Workshop. Somehow I doubt if Disney will do justice to characters like Kermit, but it would be interesting to hear other opinions on that.
David Strassman’s Chuck Who? Tour 2004
Strassman is in town for only one night and I’ve missed my chance, its sold out. I would have liked to see Ted E. Bear, Chuck Wood and the other zany characters on stage. Meanwhile, scientists have been gaining some new understandings on how ventriloquism works.
New domain for UNIMA Australia
UNIMA Australia, the Australian branch of Union Internationale de la Marionnette has recently moved to its own domain. UNIMA is an international organisation bringing together people from around the world to contribute to the development of the art of puppetry, and to use it in the pursuit of human values such as peace and mutual understanding between peoples.
Chiao Wan Jan Children Hand Puppet Troupe
In Canberra we have enjoyed the annual National Multicultural Festival over the last couple of weeks. For many people its an opportunity to relax in the late summer weather, sample a myriad of different foods from the stalls lining Garema Place, and see performances from other cultures. The Chiao Wan Jan Children Hand Puppet Troupe from Taiwan was visiting from the 11th – 13th, and I caught their last performance at Glebe Park last Sunday morning. The troupe was founded in 1988 in the Ping-Den Elementary School in Taiwan, and the puppeteers are children aged 9 to 11, who learn the traditional hand puppet theatre as an elective at the school.
Before the show I was able to meet some of the kids and their teachers, who were kind enough to show me their puppets, traditonal characters such as the Monkey King and the Dragon King of the Sea. I particularly liked the ones that held weapons or fans in one hand. They were attached inside with a spring to a rod, and when you turned the rod the puppet would swing the sword or stick. At the begining of the show, The Raiding of the Crystal Palace (from the Journey to the West) the musicians told us about their instruments, and the puppeteers showed us several tricks their puppets could do. This included running by swinging the weighted feet, and twirling, jumping and summersaulting from hand to hand! There were some great fight scenes in the play, with wild kicks and leaps; comedy; a lovely scene where a crane is grooming a dragon; and a great use of the various ‘windows’ in the booth theatre. If you get a chance to see Chiao Wan Jan Children Hand Puppet Troupe, don’t miss it!
