i know you’ve been wondering to yourself, what’s xero up to?

just what kinda trouble is that contemporary & street artist, filmmaker, academic,
bohemian, & world-traveller getting himself into now?

to see for yourself, come along to the opening
of my contemporary painting show on friday week.

it’s called in absentia, and is at brunswick arts,
and will be your last chance to berate or adore me
prior to my departure for parts far hence for who knows how long

there’ll be some nice art, some lovely people, and me!
you know you and your friends can’t wait

so come to brunswick arts
it’s at the back of the carpark behind alasya on sydney rd
2a little breese st, off hope st
(there’a lil map on the invite)
from 6 on friday the 28th of july 2006

love,
xero.

this week on a current affair:
“the foreign food invasion”

this week on sixty minutes:
“foreign workers lining up to take our jobs”

yes they actually said that

appalling and inexcusable

“be my (kent) valentine” is the story of the year he spent unsuccessfully trying to find love after getting dumped by his girlfriend. surely a difficult premise, and one not quite managed by the comedian. before he makes it to the big leagues kent will have to overcome two kinds of nerves. the first and probably easiest is that of doing standup to a room full of people. i personally think this would be one of the scariest things in the world, and power to him for making a go of it, but his nerves in this regard were palpable and did intrude upon the experience.

the other kind of nervousness is much more difficult to overcome, and it was about the emotional core of his story. at the centre of the story he was telling was a painful breakup, but the tension between his love for his ex, and her no longer caring for him, was handled tenatively and nervously, like he was unsure how appropriate a thing it is to be talking about. while that would ordinarily be a reasonable concern, the middle of a standup routine is no place for such self-doubt.

if you’re a keen fan of young melbourne comedy with a spare $20 in your pocket then maybe check out the show, but if you’re just an average punter looking for a night out, i’d give kent valentine a couple of years to mature as a performer before adding him to a comedy festival ‘must-see’ list.

the vip opening night was a cracker. punters paid $40 a head for generous and good free booze, and i spied john saffran and a couple of channel ten newsreaders in the throng. the atmosphere was buzzing and sales were brisk, at least at our stall. it’s more of a shopping mall than a museum, it’s possible to buy artworks and leave with them. the blank space left on the wall is soon occupied by another painting and the cycle continues.

an article in the age today suggested that the show was trying to rectify a slightly tainted reputation by injecting fresh talent, and i guess the inclusion of me and my street art cohorts is a manifestation of that. art is about taste, and i must say there’s some stuff there that’s not to my taste, but the thing is there is a lot of stuff. i’ve been there two days and i’m sure i still haven’t seen it all.

the show’s on until sunday at the exhibition buildings. more info here.

the big news in art in melbourne this week is of course the artmelbourne06 show. in previous years it has been called the affordable art show, and it still is, in the sense that 75% of the work is under 5 grand, but maybe they thought “affordable” implied low quality or something, so this year it’s artmelbourne. it’s basically the royal melbourne show of art, where over 100 galleries from around australia and the world each have a stall at the royal exhibition buildings.

tomorrow night is the VIP opening, and thursday night is the general opening. it runs until sunday, general admittance is $20, $15 concession or prebooked. you’ll find all the details here.

if you look carefully at stall 320, you might see something a bit like the work pictured above (jungle boogie, by your humble narrator). come & buy it and receive a complimentary beaming grin from me and feeling of profound satisfaction from the universe at large. ; )

[to our international readers: melbourne is the second largest city of australia, which is an island continent in the southern hemisphere. the city is renowned for its changeable weather, love of sport and vibrant arts scene. its inhabitants supposedly put some effort into their appearance, and have a penchant for wearing black, especially in winter. ]

thankyou and goodnight.

if the herald sun and the nightly news are to be believed, putting street art in galleries is a dangerous glamorisation of illegal activities. you’ll be able to decide for yourself when you see the new brunwick arts‘ street art show: urban myths.

the show, at the new artist-run space off sydney road, will showcase the latest in melbourne street art as well as music, zines and clothes by austrian designer, “ella fashion”. features work by ashtek, buni, dv8, haha, jinks, lav, ling, reka, re-set, sirum, snarl [sydney], stats, yanie and your humble narrator.

the opening is on friday 17th march, 2006 from 6pm at 2a little breese street, brunswick. be there or be elsewhere having not quite as good a time. if you’re the first person to buy my painting you’ll receive a complimentary gleeful smile and a feeling of profound satisfaction.

the grapevine has been creaking in the wind,
and making noises about a public pillow fight
coming up soon and involving random strangers and you!

it’s planned to coincide with some athletic event
that is apparently happening soon
and will take place in an as yet unidentified location.

background here.
updates and info here.

melbourne is world famous for its graffiti. or at least it was prior to the current citywide cleanup for the commonwealth games. in last few months street artist, photographer and filmmaker xero (yours truly) has photographed thousands of tags, and spoken to the key players in the public debate over graffiti. urban scrawl, a 13 minute documentary on dvd is the end result of this process.

the premiere of urban scrawl takes place tomorrow night, to coincide with the launch of the book stencil graffiti capital: melbourne and its accompanying photographic exhibition at citylights hosier lane and until never gallery, as mentioned (in scandalised tones) in this story in yesterday’s herald sun and on the channel 10 news.

the film features interviews with australia’s most outspoken anti-grafitti activist steve beardon, resident’s rights spokesman geoff barbour and one of melbourne’s most prolific taggers k2* (not his real tag), and documents tags by the infamous stan and bones of the notorious 70k crew (which if the herald sun are to be believed are the subjects of international manhunts), haha, phibs, tekno, zork, aeon, teror and many more.

the opening goes from 6 to 9 tomorrow night, at 3-5 hosier lane, melbourne, and should be a cracker. copies of the film are available on the night or from your humble narrator.

while both quite engaging, the most impressive aspect of our visit for me was the library’s architecural interiors, some of which i’d not seen since the library’s upgrade, and one of which i’d never seen at all. the redmond barry reading room has a most impressive ceiling. and the dome above the central reading room is an underrated melbourne landmark. the spectacular architecture is worth a visit in its own right.

the exhibition we were there to see was a display of the library’s collection of rare books, mirror of the world. it includes illuminated manuscripts, a gutenberg bible, a second edition shakespeare folio and a cunieform tax receipt in stone from ancient egypt. particularly interesting was the changing form australia had in maps as the new world became more familiar to its western european explorers.

on the floor above is a collection of local historical artifacts, which comprise
the changing face of victoria. seeing photos of families in the outback wearing suits and comparatively formal dresses, or young boys sailing off to war, or taking a rest from it, made me appreciate the comparative ease with which we live.

the centrepiece of the collection is ned kelly’s armour – surely even more of an australian icon than the man himself. i understand the library also possesses his helmet, but in this case it seems curiously to have been replaced by an unconvincing replica.

the curators make a political point in their annotation of one of the batman treaties, which established british dominion over the land that became melbourne. the accompanying note explains that the native people had no conception of land ownership or of the terms of the agreement and it was therefore not legal.

i also learned for the first time the extraordinary story of william buckley, whose ghostly likeness stares out from a painting exhibited two floors below.

in 1802 william buckley was a volunteer private for the british army when he was charged and found guilty of involvement in the burglary of some irish linen from a shop. for this crime he was sentenced to hang. his sentence was soon commuted, however, to transport to australia for life, and he was part of port philip’s first colonisation in 1803. after arriving, he escaped custody and was the only white man to remain in the area the 32 years until the second, voluntary, colonisation by batman and fawkner.

he survived only by being found by local aboriginies and being mistaken for a reincarnated warrior. he lived with the natives as one of them for over three decades and when he finally encountered white europeans again he had unsurprisingly forgotten english. eventually he regained the ability to communicate with his compatriots, was granted a pardon, and achieved celebrity in the colonies as “the wild white man”.