Elam School of Fine Arts show

On the weekend I visited the showing of 4th Year and masters students exhibition and the Elam School at Auckland University. My general impressions…overall, indifference is the adjectve that comes to mind. I suppose 'fine arts' is a take it or leave it kind of thing versus creating ideas for a market. I felt the exhibition lacked any kind of unifying cohesion - the work was displayed in the rambling studio complex throughout two buildings. Some effort at signage or information architecture would have been helpful, as would a gogent system of identifying who the artists responible for the work were - both next to their exhibits or as a catalogue of the event.

My impressions of the works themselves? There were some interesting pieces. Nothing breathtaking. I like painting but there were few examples of painterly craft. Came away feeling rather flat and uninspired. In other years I have wanted to buy some of the works but I didn't this year.

Mind you, I struggled to feel very excited by the graduation show for Massey University's Design School (where I have taught for three years). Nothing that absolutely took my breath away. Bear in mind I teach the dry papers like marketing Communications and Design Research Methods - so I was seeing much of the work for the first time. I think I'll have to go back today for a second look without the crowds of proud parents…standby for some pictures. I do have to wonder about the value of teaching kids to render supercars in the Transport Design paper when a) New Zealand doesn't have a car manufacturing industry of any kind and b) the issues around sustainability seem more pressing than fantasy vehicles. Lets invent some transport ideas and technologies that the world will want to license...

Off to Auckland University of Technology's Design show opening at the Aotea Centre this evening. Fingers crossed.

Comments

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse...

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St...

Why billboards must go.

The problem with billboards and advertising in public places is they are an invasion of privacy. Unlike magazine, tv, radio (etc) advertising you cannot choose to turn it off or avoid it. Nor does it offer anything in return. It is a medium that offers no benefit or advantage to the person it is inflicted on. At least television ads subsidise the programming. Without doubt some billboards are entertaining - I thought the anti GE poster for short lived MADGE activist group was particularly good. But most are rubbish. Literally. Badly executed. Nothing important to say. The debate has led to a great deal of hysteria - mostly from people with a vested interest in perpetuating the deployment of hoardings. Perhaps the idea that the issue at stake is 'property rights' is the creepiest. If you own a building you have every right to plaster anything you like on its external surfaces. Is that an antisocial point of view? I think so. In the UK you could have an ASBO slapped on you for si...

ThoughtSpurs

Search This Blog