Sunday Arts Magazine

8 Nov 2015

Hilary Cresp, Arts House, Sean McDonald, Jewish Int Film Festival

Arts, Comedy, Design, Music, Performing Arts, TV & Film, Visual Arts

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We have our trio of David, Brendan and Daniel again today and first on the agenda is a discussion of the film– The Dressmaker—which they have all seen. It stars Kate Winslet playing the title character plus a huge cast of Australian actors. These include veteran Judy Davis and rising star Sarah Snook. It is a kooky, farcical, absurd, black comedy. 4 stars plus.

Special guests today are:

12.00 to 25:55 mins–Artist Hilary Cresp just finished an exhibition of drawings about doing the washing called Endless. Many are humorous and subvert what she does with the washing, and some are on tea towels. Hilary has always drawn and is a versatile fulltime artist now (both artistic & commission) after being a librarian and studying engineering. The idea for her exhibition came from The Sketchbook project in Brooklyn NY where they sent her a small sketchbook which she drew in and sent back for them to put in their library. She procrastinated on doing the washing and drew it in the book instead. The Washing is a constant source of inspiration for her drawing, as it never stops and changes over time. At present she is also doing illustrations for her sister who wrote a childrens’ book set on the moon.

26:09 to 34:42 mins Writers &performers—Nicola Gunn and Brian Lipson tell us about their latest shows at Arts House in the North Melbourne Townhall. Nicola’s show is called Piece for Person and Ghetto Blaster on from 11^th to 15^th November. It’s about a man, a woman and a duck and extrapolates from a brief interaction she had in Belgium in 2014. She calls it a ‘contemporary performance’. Brian’s show is called Edmund: The Beginning 11^th to 22^nd November is ‘more complicated’. It is an episodic show with a ‘bombardment of different ideas’. It has 14 plus characters– some famous, some not– including William Shakespeare and his younger brother Edmund, an unsuccessful actor. Brian is the conduit for all the characters. Another show at Arts House—a take on PTSD– is called Give me your love by Ridiculusmus is on from 18^th to 22^nd November.

52:53 to 1:05:18mins–Sean McDonald is one of the 30 graduate photographers from the Photography Studies College (PSC) exhibiting his work in an exhibition called The Power Of The Image – PSC On Show on until November 26^th 7:00am–7:00pm at Media House Gallery, 655 Collins Street, Melbourne. Sean loves creative ventures and tried and failed a lot of them before discovering photography when travelling. He likes the visual and storytelling elements of it and feels that the ‘eye’ of the photographer is an innate part of the art. As it can be an isolating profession he likes the present era of social media and uses Instagram a lot. He also often collaborates or brainstorms ideas with photographers he met at PSC, or his subjects who are frequently creative people. Sean’s preferred genre is portraiture in B & W which he has in the exhibition and on the top of his list of favourite artists are street photographer Elliott Erwitt and modern portrait photographer Joey L.

1:05:51 to 1:27:08 mins–Eddie Tamir runs many things but is also Festival Director of the Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF) 4^th to 29^th November in Melbourne. He thinks he got interested in film because he was a skinny, sensitive only child who watched everything on TV until 15years old. He also saw many films on TV and in the old city cinemas. He felt part of the film story sitting in the dark and still feels the magic of it now—the last sacred or respected space. He has been rejuvenating old cinemas like the Classic, Cameo to be technologically modern but with also quirky and homey with some film festivals so that audiences can have a shared experience. The Lido also has a rooftop cinema (showing new movies) and a jazz room with live music to recreate the ‘circus’ of cinema to compel people to come out of home. One of the festivals he and director Clayton Jacobson created is 8k Radius showcasing local people –4 min mini docos about people who live or work within 8km of the Lido. At present Eddie is directing JIFF which means to create a comprehensive window to Jewish experience showing half Israeli films and half Diaspora films (outside Israel) from many different countries. Highlights include 4 Oscar-nominated films in the foreign language category and Natalie Portman directing and acting in her first Hebrew language film called Tales of love and darkness.

34:56 to 52:20 mins Our trio discuss their Favourite Visual Artists in detail and they also put it out to the listeners to choose one. The brief was to choose one artist each but, apart from Daniel, it doesn’t work out that way! The favourites included—sculptor Rosalie Gascoigne, painter Johannes Vermeer, architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, photographer Diane Arbus, surrealist Salvador Dali, artist Andy Warhol, graffiti artist Keith Haring, architect Frank Lloyd-Wright. Listeners favourites included—Salvador Dali again, painter William Dobell and textile artist Douglas McManus.

Lastly, Brendan felt compelled to mention City of Angels a musical comedy set in a film noir type LA –with a short run from 5^th to 8^th November at The Arts Centre—Singer Amanda Harrison is amazing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:29:39 — 82.1MB)

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