When life gives you Clemens...

Hey pal, on Monday night I went to the Discipline lecture series at Gertrude Contemporary Gallery to see a talk by the Australian writer Justin Clemens.

The talk was packed, if you arrived 15 minutes before it started you probably wouldn't have gotten in. I got there 25 minutes early and just managed to squeeze in up the back.

As you can see in the above image, it was really dark where I was standing, and Clemens head was blocked by a TV, but even still, during the talk I made this drawing.

Clemens talked about the current state of art criticism and the varying degrees of censorship within contemporary art. 

Before the talk it felt like I was the only one there who didn't know who Justin Clemens is, but it didn't take long before he'd won me over. 

It wasn't just that Clemens is clearly a smart guy and that I'm really interested in what he was talking about, but also he spoke in a passionate and direct way that you don't always hear in public lectures.

After the talk I mustered up the courage to show Clemens the drawing. He was really great, and when I asked if he'd maybe sign it for me he said he'd be happy to.
Clemens was amazingly generous with me, and wrote "Dear Kenny Pittock With adoration Justin Clemens". It was pretty awesome.

After the talk I went out for dinner with two friends as a kind of goodbye thing for a friend who's moving overseas. 

The dinner is irrelevant to the Justin Clemens lecture but I really wanted to mention it because I never go out for dinner. We went to a Japanese place, and for dessert I had green tea flavoured ice-cream and Nutella dumplings. 

The same way I didn't really know about Justin Clemens before that night, I also didn't know that either of these foods existed. They were so yummy.

I didn't think to take a photo of my dessert but here's a quick painting I just did of what it looked like, (I made the spoon out of clay).

Justin Clemens seems like he can potentially be pretty brutal with his art criticism, and it's entirely possible that one day he may write something about my art that'll get me really upset, but I think the guy's brilliant and at least I'll always have this drawing.

Keep your Eye on West Space

Hey, so ok, guess what, I'm gonna be on a game show tomorrow night!

It goes from 7pm until 7.30pm.

It's happening at West Space gallery, but it's no problem if you're not in the area, you'll still be able to watch it live as it's streaming on the web at channel-g.tv 

Here's a video of the Channel G logo.

Channel G is basically an event where an exhibition space has been turned into a live online television station. There's a lot of cool shows going on, I'm especially excited to watch Oscar Perry's Artworld Poker Tournament.

For a full listing of what's on and when, click here to read "the TV Guide".

The game show I'm on is called The Eye. Here's an image of The Eye itself.

Channel G is being run by Sean Peoples.

If you've seen the Chris Hill I talked about in the last blog post then you would've seen Sean's work as well. 

Sean's piece in Margaret Lawrence Gallery is titled Fizzer. It's a box of expired green Fizzers with a painted plastic skull in it.

, Fizzer is on the floor, just around the corner from the Chris Hill.

There isn't really anymore I can say. That's all I know about the show really, I'm just a contestant.

In other news, last night I was helping my Dad in the backyard and when I lifted something a bit too carelessly I tore a ligament in my wrist.

It hurts so much. Even just typing this is killing me. 

Here's a photo that was just taken of me and Sean, with my arm all bandaged up like a kid dressed as a Mummy.

Hopefully my injury doesn't stop me from winning the game show.

On the plus side, I have been wanting to buy a pair of fingerless gloves for ages, and now I'll only have to buy one for my left hand.

As a contestant I was asked to pick one topic I'd like to specialise in. 

I haven't been told what anybody else picked.

I picked Eminem.

What would you've picked?

Crocodile rock!

Hey sharp tooth, how're ya?

I'll try and make this snappy, but I couldn't resist taking a quick break from writing my thesis to quickly fill you in on some news I'm really excited about.

One of my best buds and favourite musicians, Nelson Walkom, has his first full length album coming out really soon, and if that isn't exciting enough, I'm very proud to say that I was very privileged to have been asked to do the album art.

(I wrote "album art" instead of "cover art" because not only did I get to do the cover, but I also did inside the cover, as well the back of the CD, the actual CD itself, and even the bit underneath the CD!)

The album, put out under the name Grayling, is titled Crocodiles and Other People, and I've been listening to it on repeat, non stop, for the last three weeks. I love it so much. Nelson is really, really good.

Although I can't show you the album art just yet, I can show you this sneak peak image which features a detail of my painting that appears on the cover. 
Actually, here's one more little sneak peak, featuring another detail from the cover, as well as incorporating one of my all time favourite things in the world; using a pairs of eyes to function as a double o.

Also, not only did I get to design the CD, but amazingly, a song that I wrote the lyrics for is actually featuring on it!

You might remember the song, I've mentioned it on this blog before, but so basically on March 18, 2011, I watched the channel ten six o'clock news, and then I wrote a poem about it.

Here's the song.

The track on the album has been re-recorded and is a bit more up tempo than this version, at first I liked the old one a lot better but this new one is definitely growing on me. It's fun to compare the two.

But so yeah, a song I wrote will be available, (on iTunes and everything), on an actual produced and mastered album, presented amongst a handful of really incredible songs by a musician I love, and I got to design the album cover. How cool is that?! 

I'll keep you posted on the progress of Crocodiles and Other People, but in the meantime I really just wanted to mention that it's coming soon.

But anyway, yeah, to finish off this blog post here's a photo of Nels and I taken out the front after one of his gigs. 

We were doing our best to look like super cool rockstar icons so naturally we got our hands on a couple of cigarettes.

Thanks heaps for reading. See you later, alligator!



(If you're reading this relatively close to when I've put this up, I'll be sitting The Kenneth Biennale at TCB Gallery from 12-6 tomorrow, Thursday, June 13, so if you're in the area please drop in and say hi!)

It's been gnarly

Hey thanks so much to everyone that made it to any of the Kenneth Biennale openings last week. I hope you liked the work and had a great time :)

That's all I wanted to say really.

I'll write heaps more about it about it really, really soon but for now I'm busy trying to multitask between writing a thesis and helping my Dad build a carport. 

The show's are all still on for a couple of weeks, please come say hi if you get the chance. 

But yeah, thank you again :)

Take a seat

Hey, I took my favourite Lisa Radford painting on the train this morning. 

The painting's called Furniture painting (582 Woodbridge Estate via Arthur Boyd reserve), it's acrylic on board, 34 x 24cm, and was painted in 2012.

Come see this painting, and heaps other great work, at Rearview Gallery tonight, as part of the third and final Kenneth Biennale opening. 

The opening's from 7-9pm. This sentence is a link to the facebook event.

Oh and remember, like TCB, the first 50 people there get a free Bertie Beetle show bag, so if you don't like art, maybe you'll come for the chocolate and lollies.

If you can't make the opening though the show runs until June 28.

I've got so much more to write but it's just gonna have to wait a little bit longer. 

It's been a huge week, I'm tired, but I've just finished the floor sheet and so yeah, hopefully see you tonight!

Bertie Beeting around the bush

Hey pal, hope you're doing good. 

Back in April I went to Sydney with my buddy Alex, here we are at the airport. (That's Jack Johnsons dad sitting down behind us).

While in Sydney we went to the Sydney Royal Easter Show. Amongst all the fun of being there, I also found time to complete my lifelong dream of buying 100 Bertie Beetle Showbags. 

It cost me exactly two hundred dollars, but for a life long dream that's pretty cheap.

I packed as lightly for this trip as I would have packed if I'd just been going down to the shops, but even still, sharing the weight between Al and I, we only just managed to get the show bags onto the plane. 

100 Bertie Beetle bags weighs a lot more than I was expecting, and was hard work lugging them around Kings Cross trying to find a backpackers. And then the next day as we went about the city, and then later the airport. The bags were heavy, but not nearly heavy enough to crush my spirits.

But so anyway, I've only brought that up so that I can say this; finally, tomorrow, (Wednesday, June 5), is the big day of the Kenneth Biennale TCB opening. 

So yeah, if you're near Melbourne tomorrow night, or probably tonight when you're reading this, please come check it out, say hi and have a drink with us at TCB, (located at 1/12 Warratah Place).  

The opening starts at 6pm and goes to 8pm, but don't be too late if you can help it because, to make this show as good as a Royal Show, if you're one of the first fifty people you'll get a free Bertie Beetle show bag. 

Click on this sentence to read a thorough write up on the TCB website.

Or click on this sentence to read an interview with Amy and I on The Thousands website.

Anyway, really hope to see you tomorrow. 

It's been such hard work but I think the show's really good and I really, really hope you get a chance to see it. 

Ok, that's enough, it's 11.55 and I haven't had dinner yet. I sure would love a Bertie, but my dream was only to experience the thrill of buying them, I'll save the eating them for you. 

Night at the TCB

Hey pal, so at lunch time today I went to the two performances at Margaret Lawrence Gallery that I talked about in yesterdays post.

They were awesome.

Here's a drawing I did of Legendary Hearts during their set.

I showed it to one of the guys in the group after, the one that works the mix board, he laughed and said I captured his slouch exactly.

The rest of the day I've been installing the Kenneth Biennale at TCB Gallery. 

It's mostly just been me with this whole gallery to myself, shuffling about from room to room trying to layout an exhibition. I've been singing a lot of Paul Kelly loudly with TCB's trusty echo as my backup singer. It's been a busy day but now my eyes are sore and I'm tired and it's time to stop. 

I feel about as sleepy as this guy I drew on the train this morning.

Anyway, it's 11.30 and rather than go through the hour and a half journey it would take me to get home, just secretly between you and me, I'm sleeping here.

I brought in a pillow and a sleeping bag and I dragged the gallery heater into gallery one. 

I haven't seen that Ben Stiller movie, Night at the Museum, but I'm sure it's exactly what tonight'll be like.

Don't worry, the sleeping bag and pillow won't be in the exhibition. 

I'm not sleeping here for art or anything like that, I'm just taking full advantage of the amount of money it costs to hire a gallery. Plus I'm just staying here for fun.

Well, that's what I thought, but actually it's a little cold and a little noisy and a little lonely and the floor is really, really hard. 

Ha, but I don't mind, I've stayed in plenty of backpackers with much worse conditions.

Ok, well, I'm gonna go on youtube. Thank you for reading. Oh and so remember this TCB show opens on Wednesday, (June 5), from 6-8. Hope you can make it!

Night.

Kenneth Biennale

Hi! 

(Pinch, punch, first day of the month).

So ok, just quickly, well as quickly as I can, here’s some news about a thing my pal Amy and I are putting on next week. Actually, technically it opened yesterday, I should've written about this sooner.

Basically it all started when I realised that Venice rhymes with Kenneth. Well, if you mumble when you’re saying it and you have a bit of a lisp like I do. 

The rest is pretty obvious really, once you realise that your name rhymes with Venice the logical next step is to put on a biennale. 

So that's what's happening, the Kenneth Biennale.

(Ha, just incase I didn't explain that properly, Kenneth Biennale is a pun on Venice Biennale). 

If you’re reading this blog then you’re probably at least vaguely interested in art, and so I’m guessing you’ve probably heard of The Venice Biennale. It doesn't matter if you haven't though, the Venice Biennale is essentially just a great big art festival that occurs, as the name suggests, in Venice, once every two years.

The other day I painted the Kenneth Biennale logo, here it is.

I must confess it does pay a slight tribute to the Venice Biennale logo, the one big difference being that the Kenneth Biennale lion has no wings.

The Kenneth Biennale will be held simultaneously across two Melbourne artist run spaces; TCB and Rearview Gallery, with both openings happening this week on Wednesday and Friday. (June 5th and 7th). 

Kenneth Biennale also has its own pavilion within the Third/Fourth Melbourne artist-facilated Biennial, curated by Chris L.G Hill at the Margaret Lawrence Gallery. I'm pretty excited to talk about the pavilion but I'll save that for later, in the meantime though the show opened yesterday and runs until June 23, so go check it out! 

Here is your invite for that.

It's only from talking with friends while doing this that I've realised just how many people haven't heard of the Venice Biennale, I guess it's only really something you hear about if you're into art. So in hindsight maybe the Venice Biennale wasn't the best event to base a show on, no matter how great the pun is.

It'd be better if it was something everybody's heard of, like Woodstock. I think Wayne got it right when he put on Waynestock in Waynes World 2. 

I can just picture Wayne now, having a great big laugh at my expense.

There's a lot of things about this show that scare me, a lot, but my biggest fear I think is that surely some people will say that it's arrogant to call it the Kenneth Biennale. I hope they understand that it's really just meant to be fun.

I just like puns, and sadly this pun was too good to pass up on. 

If only Kenneth rhymed with sausage sizzle, that would've been a lot easier, but unfortunately for me it rhymes with Venice.

But so ok, here's the list of all the artists exhibiting in the Kenneth Biennale.

Amy May Stuart, Caleb Shea, Charlie Sofo, Chelsea Hopper, Christina Hayes, Chris O'Brien, Christine Pittock, Christo Crocker, Chris L.G Hill, Chris Clarke, Christopher Scuito, Daniel Peter Petersen, Darren Munce, Elizabeth Gower, Henry Jock Walker, Jack Hooper-Bell, Jessie Hall, Jimmy Nuttall, Jon Campbell, Kenny Pittock, Lisa Radford, Lucina Lane, Minna Gilligan, Nellie Reinhard, Nick Ryrie, Thomas Better, Toby Pola, Tom Polo, Tristan DaRoza.

So yeah, as you can see there's a lot of really incredible artists involved and I think the show's are going to be really good.

(The other thing I need to mention is that there is obviously a lot of other really great artists we would've loved to invite to participate in this thing if we'd had a little more time and space.)

For all the exact details on times and locations, this sentence is a link to the facebook event. It's the first facebook event I've ever written. Please click attending.

I guess that’s enough about this for now, I’ll talk a lot more about the ideas behind the show and all the other stuff very soon, but this morning I guess I just wanted to officially announce on this blog the existence of the Kenneth Biennale, and also to officially invite you to please come to the openings this Wednesday and Friday night.

Ok, great, let me know if you have any questions, thanks heaps for reading, hope to see you next week!