Artists At Work

Move along. Artists at work. Nothing to see here…

Parliament House, Canberra.

Bolt at Pasquarelli’s opening

Crikey! I heard the alarming news this week that the crocodile hunter will be holding an art exhibition at Lynne Wilton Gallery on the gold-paved art strip in Armadale. No I’m not talking about Steve Irwin, but the other crocodile hunter and former political puppeteer of Pauline Hanson, John Pasquarelli.

Mr Pasquarelli is the kind of man people feel compelled to call ‘colourful’. Former crocodile shooter, skin trader, art dealer, right-wing agitator and Member of the New Guinea Parliament, National Party staffer, Liberal Party member, One Nation political fixer and speech writer. To that list we can add a profession I had not previously imagined he would have much time for: artist.

It’s a pity really, since a quick look around Lynne Wilton’s website reveals that the galley represents Julie Davidson, a painter I’ve admired as doing interesting things re-imagining the Still Life tradition.

It’s not difficult to see what might be in it for the gallery, since this is too good a story to pass up, especially since the show is reportedly being opened by right-wing blow-hard Andrew Bolt. (See, I’m doing it now: talking about them. I can’t help myself.)

I can see them now, the crocodile shooter with the new career and the ubiquitous opinionista, standing around with glasses of expensive Chardonnay in their hands, while the idol rich of Armadale compete with each other for Pasquarelli’s awkward pictures of rusty sheds and Hills Hoists. They would be congratulating each other, without irony, for not belonging to the hated ‘cultural elite’.

They certainly would be conversation starters, no doubt about that.

Artists lose again on resale royalties

One feature of last weeks’ federal budget that has not received much publicity is the Commonwealth welching on its long-held promise to legislate for artists’ resale royalty rights.

A resale royalty, also called a droit de suite, entitles an artist to a royalty payment when a work of art is resold at auction, or by an agent or private gallery. At the moment, if a work sells for a second time for more than its original price, the artist gets zip. Unlike in France, where they have had a resale royalty scheme for artists since 1920. Not that cultural backwater, I hear you say!

This hits indigenous artists very hard. Many are kept in penury by wealthy white art dealers who might pay them a meagre sum for the original work and then onsell it for a tidy margin, leaving the artist with nothing other than what they were able to weadle out of the original deal. Recent cases where indigenous artworks have sold for astronomical prices at auction have passed into art industry folklore, as have stories of some our most august and accomplished artists living or dying in poverty in Turkey Creek or Utopia or somewhere out of Alice Springs.

Johnny Warangula Tjapurrula’s ‘Water Dreaming at Kalipinypa’ originally sold for $150 – but went on to fetch $486,500 at a Sotheby’s auction in July 2000.

We remember that it was government-appointed Rupert Myer who recommended the introduction of a resale royalty bill in his report into the visual arts and crafts back in June 2002. Obviously we’re still waiting.

The Government has apparently thrown away the pretence of examining re-sale royalties and caved in under pressure from Liberal Party heavyweight Michael Kroger acting on behalf of auction houses.

"When I hear the word ‘culture’…"

Now kids, who said “Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver!”? Answer below.

I have previously commented on the sedition provisions of the Anti-Terror Bill which last night the federal government jammed through the Senate after cutting debate short once again. So now we have the whole ugly mess in law whether we like it or not.

Even Ruddock agrees that the sedition schedules are badly worded and has already promised to review them next year. So you pass laws that you know are inadequate,
then review them, then come back to Parliament to make changes? As John Faulkner had it on Monday:

These are bad laws written for bad reasons. The government acknowledge that these laws are flawed. They have admitted that they need to be reviewed. But, rather than allow proper legislative process with adequate scrutiny and amendments, the government propose passing the laws first and fixing them later. A responsible government one might think would get the laws right before they got them passed. A responsible government might try to fix the problems in the laws before innocent people’s rights and liberties are unnecessarily infringed.

Contradicting Philip Ruddock, Peter Garrett released legal opinion on the sedition clauses which found that they could lead to artists being prosecuted for free expression. Confronted with this, Ruddock simply asks us to trust him.

Far more interesting than attempting to read the actual bill, is having a look at the Bills Digest from the Parliamentary Library on the proposed legislation. Bills Digests are prepared by staff of the Parliamentary Library who are experts in their particular fields. They contain histories of the issues, discussion of various points of view and conclusions about their probable effect.

The National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) have been extremely active in elucidating the effect the sedition clauses could have on artists and journalists, and actively campaigning against the measures.

Now Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in Sydney have issued an open invitation to all artists concerned about the implications of the legislation to make a work that expresses the right to freedom of expression as a means of protesting against the Federal Government’s legislation.

Artists Against Sedition Laws Exhibition will open on Monday 12 December at 6pm. All work submitted will be exhibited.

Most developed nations have long since withdrawn sedition clauses from their statute books on the grounds that they can and have been used by unscrupulous governments to silence dissent. Countries that still retain active sedition laws include China, Cuba, North Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Syria, Zimbabwe and now Australia.

Now is it just me or is there a pattern here?

ANSWER: it was Hermann Goering.

Ruddock’s cold, dead hand on the arts

An aspect of Phillip Ruddock’s noxious ‘anti-terror’ laws which is beginning to receive some attention is the effect it may have on freedom of opinion and public comment. It will certainly have a censorious effect on freedom of expression in the arts, which come to think of it, may have been the point all along.

Peter Garrett, the Member for Kingsford-Smith, who many readers would know as the lead singer of Midnight Oil, is also the Labor Parliamentary Secretary for the Arts. In Randwick the other day, he quoted legal opinion recieved from senior counsel Peter Gray in relation to the effect of these Bills, should they be made law. It stated:

”Australians involved in the artistic and creative fields are particularly vulnerable to the risk of prosecution under the regime to be introduced by this Bill.”

Garrett said that the laws appeared to create a new category of conduct under the sedition clauses, the ‘urging’ of another person to do various things. The lack of definition appears to include and implicate artistic expression.

Garrett said:

It is in the hands of the Attorney General to decide if an artist should be prosecuted, which will be cold comfort to those who’ve witnessed the failure of Mr Ruddock to protect core principles of our legal system.

Those still suffering (and I mean suffering) from the effects of Ruddock’s term as Immigration Minister will be able to tell us exactly what Garrett means by this.

An accusation of breaking this law could implicate plays films or TV programs which take an informative or insufficiently hostile look at, say, the Iraqi insurgency for example. Also include news or magazine articles that take such an approach, even when based on accurate material, or any creative work that repeated ‘seditious’ views expressed by others.

It’s not hard to see how this would apply in practice. This government would be very pleased to shut down an exhibition or play about or by someone it was determined to blacklist or isolate. It would only do this after ‘community consultation’ of course, and in response to an overwhelming argument for the national interest. By which I mean contacts, campaigns or boycotts by groups it is sympathetic to, like the Family Association, or after a few well chosen articles by the hordes of Howard lick-spittles in the Murdoch media and the think-tanks.

Exhibitions have been shut down in this way in recent years, and many films have been re-classified or withdrawn from exhibition in just this way already, even without these laws.

Garret continued:

How much closer do we want to creep towards a state of oppression? And the supposed defence of acting “in good faith” would only apply in very limited circumstances, so we can’t rely on that to be able to defend our freedom of expression.

John Howard and his government have done their normal trick. The Prime Minister throws in a ridiculous ambit claim, or has an extreme position, or includes a “straw man” like the ‘shoot to kill’ provisions then removes it or alters it slightly and paints himself and his changed position as reasonable.

This law is not reasonable. It has major implications for civil liberties, freedom of speech and expression – and these ridiculous new “sedition” elements, with their present wording, will do nothing to counter the threat of terrorism, and much to dampen legitimate, creative expression in our country.

Politically correct in Woodend

Looking forward to seeing and hearing some of the events in Woodend as the first Winter Arts Festival goes down over the long weekend. I almost said “Queen’s Birthday”, but as it’s not her birthday, it seems a bit redundant. We’d do just as well to call it Christmas, but I digress.

The festival has its own website, and it’s worth checking out the program at: http://www.blogger.com/www.woodendwinterartsfestival.org.au. If I had some extra money kicking around, I would be warming my hands and soul to the Tony Gould Trio at the Victoria Hotel on Friday night. I’ll think about it on payday.

I’m really pleased to see that the festival is making no compromises in its intention to present real quality. While not exactly avant-garde, the program is substantial, and bodes very well for the future. There are already dozens of festivals around country Victoria which, while perfectly well intentioned, attempt little more than scones and watercolours. There is however, as demanding an audience in the regions for adventurous art and music as there is in any capital city. The extraordinary success of the music festivals like Port Fairy Folk, East Coast Blues and Roots and Wangaratta Jazz have shown that uncompromising quality can be both popular and profitable in the country.

The local papers have given it a solid boost this week, with an extensive article in the Leader especially, which introduces us to Jacqueline Ogeil, a well-travelled musician resident in Woodend. She is a notable exponent of Early Music, which emphasizes the performance and recording of classical works on period instruments, especially where listeners have become accustomed to hearing them on modern instruments like the piano, for example. The results can often be startling.

Reading Jacqueline’s statements in the Leader, I came across this weird paragraph: “With record companies it comes down to profits and that is changing the face of classical music. At the moment a lot of great art is not being seen because it is not politically correct and the art scene has become very frigid.”

Now, it might have been a simple slip of the tongue, but politically correct classical music?

I’m sure while record companies might be cutting corners on quality to maximise profits, somehow I don’t think it’s out of anxiety over political correctness! Just think of all those great nigger-minstrel songs languishing in vaults while timid record company executives cower under their desks for fear of violent left-wing protestors in the lobby…

Or is she talking about art in general? All that rousing public sculpture begging John Howard to keep out the boat people, huddling under wraps in the council basement for fear of offending the leftist cultural elites. Pah-lease…

Maybe it’s no surprise that the festival is to be opened by the Member for McEwen, Fran Bailey, since she’s certainly in charge of the purse-strings: http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/One-electorate-16-of-27-sports-grants/2005/06/08/1118123897739.html