Sunday Arts Magazine

26 Feb 2017

Oscars, Tom Lowenstein Collection, Carl Gardiner, Martin Hansen

Art Collection, Arts, Dance, Music, Performing Arts, TV & Film, Visual Arts

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Oscars, Tom Lowenstein Collection, Carl Gardiner, Martin Hansen

It’s Oscars week this week with winners announced tomorrow (27 February) our time. Brendan will be doing a special segment on them and playing the music from some of the nominees. Sitting in this week are Taste Of Radio (TOR) students Fiona and Peter. Peter has just started and is doing an intense 4 x all-day-Saturday course. Brendan starts off reviewing 3 new films. First is Hidden Figures –based on a true story of 3 trail-blazing African American working for NASA in the early 1960s. A well put-together crowd-pleasing film despite being a bit ‘Hollywood-ised’–4 stars. Next is T2 Trainspotting which comes a long time after the first Trainspotting from 1996. This was a deliberate move by the film-maker so that the drug-taking characters looked old enough for the sequel. The storyline is rather outrageous but also well done. Music also plays a very big role–4stars. Lastly there is horror film Rings. Brendan saw it as very bland and boring—2stars.

Later in the program, Brendan talks about the music in films which were Oscar nominated for this category–starting with Jackie. He then goes into the ‘bigger’ awards in contention, putting his predictions forward! This is a mixture of who he thinks will win and who should win. His Oscar predictions are 1) Best picture: Moonlight, 2) Best Actor: Ryan Gosling, 3) Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali or Dev Patel, 4) Best Actress: Natalie Portman or Emma Stone, 5) Best original Song: City of Stars, 6) Best supporting Actress: Michelle Williams or Naomie Harris and 7) Best Director: Barry Jenkins. Brendan then quickly goes through some of the other important categories.

Special Guests today are:

19:16 to 42:09 mins–Tom Lowenstein is a well-respected Arts Accountant who has amassed an extraordinary collection of art by representing and helping countless artists over many decades. About 250 of these artworks will be offered for auction at Mossgreen Gallery in High St Armadale in Melbourne on 7 March. Part of the proceeds will be used as a philanthropic fund for young emerging artists. Until the 1970s Tom was in a conventional accounting practice. Once he got married, his wife directed him towards the cultural aspects of life which led Tom to set up art gallery in Acland Street, St Kilda called the Collector’s Lithograph. Here they met artist David Rankin who Tom helped with record-keeping problems. David knew many famous Australian artists and introduced many of them to Tom who also became clients. He tells anecdotes about John Olsen, Charles Blackman and the amazing Margaret Olley. Artists had the option of paying for Tom’s accountancy services via an artwork which matched up with the time and effort spent on the service. This was more for emerging, or less established, artists who often couldn’t afford for necessities along the way. It was also a good way to get to know the artist, and their work on an ‘equal basis’. Tom was contributing to their financial/practical success and they were contributing to his education about art. Tom’s assistance included fighting the tax office for artists and at present he is fighting the government over self-managed superannuation funds not being able to acquire artworks.

1:02:28 to 1:19:57 mins–Carl Gardiner is now an artist (or ‘Exhibitionist’) after having worked for many years in the Recording industry. He is here to talk about his art exhibition called Beats Working at 4Dverse Gallery at Lvl 1, 118A Carlisle Street, St Kilda and is on from 24 February to 5 March. Carl’s always liked art and music. He dabbled in art at school and won an art prize there. But later he went the academic route to uni and early on got to be assistant to a marketing manager for Blues Union Jeans. Here he met and eventually got to work with musician/artist manager Glenn Wheatley. Through this work he often ran into a giant of the Australian Music Industry–Michael Gudinski of Mushroom Records– and eventually worked with him from the late 90s right up until recently. He did specialist areas, sponsorship, lobbying, strategic marketing and convincing corporations of the importance of supporting contemporary music. Carl is also a keen surfer and did this to get some downtime from his all-consuming job. Carl got back into art in a big way 2 years ago as this was the medium he was best able to express himself and create. David and Brendan have seen his exhibition and can see the influence of music, surfing and nature on his art. Carl can express the joy he gets from music through his art. Carl then talks about his process of creating artworks (or ‘assemblages’) and the unusual materials he uses such as driftwood or doorknobs!

1:20:57 to 1:32:55 mins–Choreographer Martin Hansen is here to talk about his show If It’s All In My Veins which is part of Dance Massive. It’s on from 23 to 26 March at Dancehouse in Carlton North. As a child Martin watched his mother teach dance at her danceschool in Rye and got the bug. About 10 years ago he visited Berlin and over time he found many interests, challenges and inspiration. In 2011 he studied at a uni where they pushed the boundaries regarding what dance could be, with experimental choreography and dance. Now he lives there part-time and is heavily involved in contemporary dance. His piece If It’s All In My Veins is about ‘the way that different kinds of time operate in a theatre’ with time incorporating dance history, the time of the performance and the time of the body. There are 3 female dancers of different ages in the show and it looks at how dance travels through generations and time. Martin put together a 20 minute version of the piece for a competition in Melbourne. He didn’t win but the artistic director of Dancehouse asked him to extend it to a full-length piece. He talks about the challenges of doing that. This is the ‘most professional platform’ that Martin has shown his work in in Australia and he is keen to get more work here and be part of the scene as well as get noticed by international delegates at Dance Massive so he can take his work overseas.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:35:04 — 43.5MB)

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