Woollongabba Art Gallery (known as WAG to its friends) is hosting two new sets of paintings from the centre, for the next month

Downstairs

© Tilau Nangala

Ngurra Nganampa
“Community”

featuring

Papunya Tjupi

Opening

Friday, 7 February 6.00pm – 9.00pm

Exhibition Dates

4 February ~ 22 March 2014

~

Upstairs

© Wintjiya Napaltjarri

dot.dot.dot.

Paintings from Central Australia

Opening

Friday, 7 February 6.00pm – 9.00pm

Exhibition Dates

4 February ~ 15 February 2014

Woolloongabba Art Gallery
613 Stanley Street Woolloongabba Q 4102
Tuesday to Saturday 9am – 5pm

On a recent weekend visit to Brisbane, I lay on the carpet in my friend’s room watching the fan head push hot midday air towards me, wondering why I had thought it an acceptable prospect to be hung over in the heat that has lately enveloped Brisbane.

My friend was lying on another section of the carpet, melting into it, and another friend was fighting sleep on the bed. We didn’t even have it in us to crawl to the kitchen where there was water and cold tiles which, I knew from experience, offered sweet, energy-efficient relief.

We had spent the previous evening dancing in West End’s The Joynt to the indie roots sounds of the Bearded Gypsy Band. I was naïve about the heat that would come; I had left the sanctuary of my family’s coastal, shaded Byron Bay home just that afternoon, and West End at night was cool and felt through the glaze of good company and cold cider. We danced our way towards one am before letting the sweat dry on our skin and going our separate ways to find beds that we would wake in drenched in scorching sunlight, incapacitated by the thick weight of another summer day in the suburbs of Brisbane.

It may seem inane to complain about the heat of a Brisbane summer – Brisbanites are all aware of how cloyingly hot it is in the soupy bowl we call home. And besides that, for Australians we’ve got it good; our southern cousins swelter in the high forties as I write. We live at least on the edge of a country famed for its vast emptiness’s that are riddled with shimmering heat waves.

But as a lover of grey skies and cool temperatures, the heat I felt in Brisbane – a gorgeous city that I will soon call home again – has become all I can think about. My body ran sluggish and my mind became a miasmic fugue of half-formed ideas. I dreamt of giving up poor student life to become an entry-level career woman, just for the air-conditioned working spaces.

This dream, though, is not so hard to facilitate (take note, fellow heat-sufferers). Sure, without the career woman status I won’t make money there, but supermarkets, department stores and book shops are all havens in the summer for people like me: 20-somethings with a lack of funds and a bounty of time to squander on wandering aisles to escape the humidity outside. And when uni starts back I’ll be in icy heaven; lecture theatres and tutorial rooms and libraries perfectly chilled to facilitate young minds being forced to work again after months of alcohol and heat-induced hibernation.

But escape is intermittent. We can only spend our days hopping from cool zone to cool zone, waiting for the relief of a cooler day and then a cooler season, and then the next summer sweeps in, brighter and more ferocious than the last. The summer of 2012-2013 was Australia’s hottest yet, and the Bureau of Meteorology has told us that 2013 gave us our hottest spring on record – and now January is a furnace. Climate change deniers need only walk outside at lunchtime and the truth will drip down their brows and turn their skin pink.

Driving became my sanctuary; I would blast the air and the radio, temporarily ensconced while listening to news items about the dangers associated with rising heat all over the country. In Melbourne, tennis players dropped out of a sizzling Australian Open, one which has melted players’ shoes and caused a Canadian to faint from heat exhaustion. I remember my time in Melbourne summers ago when the only hope of getting sleep was by draping one’s supine body in a wet sarong – and it’s only gotten hotter.

Unlike Melbourne, Brisbane is enlivened and cooled by the fading of day into night.  And so are many of us without access to a backyard pool or a temperature controlled work place. Drunk on syrupy heat in the steamy summer days, a cooler evening brought a delicious reprieve in which I innocently made plans for the next day, thinking perhaps tomorrow would grant us kinder temperatures. Recalling my previous night spent dining, drinking and dancing in West End, I declared a warm night accompanied by cold beverages and a few good Brisbanites the best coping strategy during a Brisbane summer. I would wear the consequences of another fun evening yet again through the following day’s heat, safe in the knowledge that every hot day in Brisbane folds into the loveliness that is a comparatively cooler night.

The Institute of Modern Art on the corner of Brunswick and Berwick St, Fortitude Valley has new Co-Directors, Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh.

Aileen and Johan are both writers and curators, and they join us from their previous post as Co-Directors of the Centre for Contemporary Art Derry-Londonderry (CCA), Northern Ireland. They bring with them a commitment to supporting the production of new artwork, inter-institutional collaboration, and education. Over the coming months, they will build a program of research-led thematic seasons, involving exhibitions, residencies, publications, and discursive initiatives, embedding the IMA in its region, while connecting it internationally.

At the CCA, Aileen and Johan produced exhibitions with such artists as Goldin+Senneby, Jesse Jones, Anja Kirschner and David Panos, Raqs Media Collective, and Haegue Yang. Recently they were part of the curatorial team for the 2013 Turner Prize. At CCA, with Independent Curators International, they organised the first Curatorial Intensive in Europe. The faculty included Mai Abu ElDahab, Annie Fletcher, Khwezi Gule, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Teresa Margolles, and Declan McGonagle. Previously, they curated exhibitions and projects for Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto; Konsthall C, Stockholm; Overgaden ICA, Copenhagen; and Western Front, Vancouver; featuring such artists as Bik Van der Pol, Geoffrey Farmer, and Superflex. They have written for Art in America, Art Papers, Fillip, Journal for Curatorial Studies,Kaleidoscope, Metropolis M, and Mousse, as well as for exhibition catalogues and books.

After the revelations by Edward Snowden in 2013, most people seemed to be up in arms about the extent the NSA keeps an eye on everyone around the world.

Interestingly the outrage did not seem to last long. Internet users still seem to trust Google to handle all their data. Also, the fallacious claim, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about, was shouted at those who were concerned about their privacy.

Services and software that offer good encryption when communicating online has existed for a while, but they have either been a bit too obscure or a bit daunting for non-savvy computer users.

Now that most people either have an iPhone or an Android phone there is a higher expectation that apps should be easy to use by anyone — even apps that offer to protect your privacy.

Keep in mind, nothing is and can be 100% secure. But the more difficult you make it for someone to eavesdrop on your communication, the better.

Wickr
The company claims to offer the user military-grade encryption of text, picture, audio and video messages — where encrypted messages are not stored on their servers. When sending a message to someone the sender decides for how long the message can be available to the receiver after it has been read.

Wickr’s cofounder Nico Sell even turned down FBI’s casual request to allow them access. Showing they are dedicated to protect your privacy.

It is available for both iOS and Android.

Confide
This app has recently been released and gotten a lot of attention. It has a different approach to how you read your messages, where you have to reveal the message by swiping your finger across each word. After you have read it, the message is then deleted.

For now it is only available for iOS, but they seem to be working on an Android app.

Both of these apps seem to do what they promise, but what might still worry some is that they are based in USA. Which means the company and their servers are subject to US legislation.

This is why Hemlis might be a better option, when it is released, as they intend to host their servers in Iceland.

Hemlis
One of the cofounders of this app is Peter Sunder, whom is also the cofounder of The Pirate Bay and Flattr.

They have not said when it will be released, but given the background of those behind it and, as stated, it will without a doubt become very popular. Especially if they stick to the promise to host their servers in Iceland, where privacy laws are very strong.

When it is released it will be available for both iOS and Android.

Before you think these apps are only for those whom are paranoid or deal with sensitive information, take some time to look at how you communicate with colleagues, friends and family when talking about a sensitive topic.

Using apps like these is no different from when you look over your shoulder, lean in towards someone and quietly tell them something you want to be kept secret.

The only difference is that when communicating digitally it is much harder to notice if someone is eavesdropping on your private conversation.

Over to you, the reader, what do you use to keep our communication private?

Queensland Arts Minister Ian Walker has congratulated Queensland Indigenous artist Danie Mellor on his international success, with the National Gallery of Canada purchasing a major work.

Mr Walker said the Gallery’s purchase of Mr Mellor’s triptych Maba-I-Bala Rugu (of Power in Darkness) showed the benefits of the Newman Government’s arts programs.

“Danie Mellor, born in Mackay, is an artist whose star is on the rise,” Mr Walker said.

“The Newman Government provided $25,000 to support Mr Mellor to show his work in the Berlin Art Fair in September 2013, where he appeared alongside fellow Queensland artists Brian Robinson and Christian Thompson.

“The showcase attracted international attention and led to the purchase from the National Gallery of Canada.

“Queenslanders can see Danie Mellor’s work on home turf with the exhibition Danie Mellor: Exotic Lies Sacred Ties, now on display until 27 April at the UQ Art Museum in Brisbane.

“The State Government is committed to the arts sector and we are delivering on our election commitment to give more Queenslanders access to the arts.

“The success of Danie Mellor also shows the benefits of the Backing Indigenous Arts International Arts Initiative.”

Mr Walker said Danie Mellor’s work is in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia, the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) and private collections nationally and overseas.

UQ Art Museum Director Dr Campbell Gray said Mr Mellor worked in media including ceramics, drawing and mixed media installation, with an eye to Australia’s colonial past.

“Mr Mellor came to national prominence when he won the 26th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award in 2009 and his work has continued to demand attention for compelling images of this country’s shared history,” Dr Gray said.

Mr Walker said the Backing Indigenous Arts International Arts Partnership Program, delivered by Arts Queensland, helps to build a sustainable and ethical arts industry, taking the unique art of Queensland’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists to the world.

For more information on Danie Mellor: Exotic Lies Sacred Ties go to http://www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au/current-exhibitions

 

Hi there folks, the Ruddster Anthony Ackroyd here.

I’m the Bullet Train for Australia candidate in the Griffith by-election.

I’ll be your new member of parliament once you great people vote for me on Feb 8.

Along with putting Australia’s first comedian into Canberra (excluding the current clowns), you will also get a brand new Bullet Train that takes you to Gold Coast and Sunshine coast in just 15 minutes!

Griffith has a great story. The Story Bridge. But the story doesn’t end there. We have 8 great bridges in Griffith: the Go Between, Goodwill, Kurilpa, Victoria, Grey Street, Pacific motorway, and railway bridges. And we’ve also got a tunnel called Clem.

But, my good peeps, something is missing – we don’t have a bridge to the future. We’re missing out.

We’re being ripped off by the boring parties and their ‘time warp’ approach to nation building.

That’s why we need to build the Bullet Train for Australia. And that’s why YOU need to vote for ME, your good old buddy the Ruddster – Anthony Ackroyd.

A Bullet Train for Australia will be our greatest infrastructure project ever. It will mean fast travel times to the beach, and interstate; over 100,000 new jobs, and less aircraft noise over your house.

You can sleep easy knowing that there will be fewer planes in the air, less cars on the road, and less pollution in the air as we start travelling in 350+ km/h Bullet Trains.

Who do you know? Who do you trust? Who do you really want to represent you?

Not the big party politicians. That just means more of the same rubbish and lies.

I’m the man for you, and you’re the people for me, and I won’t go seeing other electorates on the side like some ‘local’ members. I’m committed to Griffithites – this is no casual affair for me.

So let’s you and I consummate on Feb 8. Griffith needs more than a stock standard, puffed up politician to represent them in Canberra – Griffith needs a man with style, flair, wit, killer gags and a Thank you in advance for delivering me a glorious victory.

All aboard for an exciting future!
The Ruddster – Anthony Ackroyd

See other candidate statements on the Westender