Love Lego?

Then this is art for you!

It’s both fun and amazing. What's more—your parents will love it when you ask to go to the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) instead of Zombie Laser Tag.

There are lots of things about this exhibition that you'll love. The best part is that you aren't just 'allowed' to play in the huge pile of Lego, you're needed as part of the exhibit—to help construct an imaginary city.

And at SCAF all the Lego is white! Every single piece. You don't have to worry about securing a secret stash from your sister so that you have the right pieces to finish your project…at SCAF there's plenty of Lego for everyone.

The guy who came up with the idea of Lego as construction art is Olafur Eliasson and he comes from Denmark. Maybe he loves snow so much he only wants to work with white Lego but all the same he's started off a miniature white world in which you can add your own Lego construction.

Step in off the street and build a tall and twisty tower or snap pieces together from someone else's efforts. It's a free-for-all playground that begins as a post-apocalyptic pile of Lego and ends as a city built and created by everyone. No matter how many times something gets knocked down, someone builds it up again. It's a great demonstration about our urge to shape and create our environment.

The exhibition is called The cubic structural evolution project and the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant recently purchased the concept for it for their GOMA collection.

It's only on until 21 September so get along this weekend!

You can see more of this artists work here.

Images: Olafur Eliasson, The cubic structural evolution project, SCAF. Photo: Carole Best, 2013.

Art Market: Artspace’s Pozible Campaign

As part of their current exhibition The Financial Report, Artspace ran a successful Pozible campaign to get funding for additional talks by financial experts, academics and artists.

It was a perfect move for the contemporary art space. The Financial Report addresses the tension between art and commerce with a range of self referential works exploring cultural and capital value in the art industry. Likewise, Artspace’s Pozible campaign was a bold experiment to find out what happens when an arts organisation pursues crowd sourced financial support. By doing so, the gallery actually became a very public participant in their own exhibition.

M&G NSW sat down with Michelle Newton, Deputy Director and Caraline Douglas, Communications and Publications Coordinator to discuss the joys and risks of crowd funding.

M&G NSW: So I presume a key reason for trialing Pozible was it matched the themes of The Financial Report.

Michelle: Caraline suggested we use Pozible because of the conceptual tie-ins with The Financial Report exhibition, but we had to figure out exactly how to make it work. We can’t use Pozible to fund our core operations for two reasons. First, Pozible only supports project-based activity and second we didn’t want to give the impression that we were raising money for programs that should be covered by core funding. Therefore, the Pozible campaign was well suited for the series of talks.

M&G NSW: Do you mean that the talks fell outside what is already funded by Arts NSW?

Michelle: That’s right. These talks are something new for Artspace because they are more lateral expansions on Mark’s curatorial rationale. We invited guest speakers who are experts in their respective fields to discuss aspects of financial markets and the economy in a broad sense. These ideas fall outside everyday areas of research for most in the contemporary art sector, and that we at Artspace have little to no expertise in.

M&G NSW: What preparation did you do before embarking on your campaign?

Michelle: Much of the information is embedded on the Pozible website so we quickly understood the parameters. One of the first things we discussed was our target amount. We oscillated between $1500 and $2000. Obviously you want to set an ambitious target but you also have to be realistic. Watching other successful campaigns achieve their targets, you see how they rely on their own personal networks. Based on what we thought we could achieve through our existing social networks and media traffic we agreed $1500 was most realistic.

M&G NSW: Were you concerned about the risk?

Michelle: It’s so public and you don’t want to see the project fail. We were curious if Pozible enabled users to delete a campaign after it is launched (and if it isn’t looking promising), but you can’t.

M&G NSW: As a warning to those who think it will be easy?

Michelle: Everyone can watch the progress of your campaign. If you’re successfully engaging people then they pay attention and follow the page. Our networks started with the staff, and spread to the Board, and out to our peers and colleagues, then to our friends and even further to our social media friends. We knew we had to keep it on everybody’s radar at all times.

Caraline looked at other successful Pozible campaigns and she realised we had to have a face for the campaign, especially because we’re an organisation.

The hardest part was convincing Mark Feary, the exhibition Curator, to be that face. It wouldn’t have worked otherwise. We felt we needed a recognizable personality for the campaign to create a sense of familiarity. We wanted to catch people’s attention and make it easy to share across social media channels.

And it also meant we had to have a video. 

M&G NSW: Tell us about the video. Most of the Pozible videos are a direct address that pitches the project, right?

Caraline: We made our video a little different, especially as we’re not an individual asking for donations for a personal project. We developed a narrative structure built around the concepts of the exhibition. 

Artspace's storyboard for their Pozible video.

Michelle: In order to launch Pozible in time we needed to move quickly with the video. It was completely scripted and storyboarded. We shot it in one afternoon, guerilla style all around the city, in locations like the Australian Securities Exchange and Westfield. 

M&G NSW: Throughout the campaign did you timetable online updates?

Caraline: We staggered them. Every time we publicized the campaign we noticed we received more donations. If we let it sit dormant we wouldn’t receive any donations.

M&G NSW: What about the rewards? Do you think they helped people put money in?

Michelle: We had to be very careful what incentives we offered because of our Deductible Gift Recipient status. We can’t really offer any incentives to people who donate to Artspace. But rewards are always good incentive, so we had to think creatively about how we thanked people for their generosity.

M&G NSW: Was staff uneasy about using their personal networks to ask for money?

Michelle: Some staff members that have no history of fundraising were quite shy about posting the Pozible campaign on their Facebook page. But eventually everybody ended up supporting it completely. We encouraged staff to personally promote the campaign, as they weren’t asking for money for themselves, but for an organisation they are professionally invested in. So what ended up happening was it sat at the top of the our facebook newsfeed every time we gave it a bump.

M&G NSW: Why was it so important that the project was pushed by individual social networks rather than the organisation’s Facebook page?

Michelle: It's key to what I think Pozible achieves. The campaign created greater public awareness around the programing so the staff became agents for promoting the exhibition.

For us, the social capital was far more important than any financial success. To be frank, it’s harder to make small amounts of money than it is to fundraise for larger amounts. To make $25 requires more work than it does to make $5000.

This isn’t necessarily the situation for individual artists but for a not-for-profit organisation it is.

M&G NSW: Was it worth the hours you put in?

Michelle: I would say ‘yes’ for the publicity that it’s generated. The video and campaign presented Artspace in a playful, yet conceptual, way and that has in turn been good for our online profile.

Having said this, it’s probably something Artspace would only consider doing once very three years or so. Much of our immediate community is the artist community and when you see that you’re reaching out to this demographic you don’t want to ask them to support Artspace financially. I think organisations such as ours have to be very particular about what projects we choose because of the inherent risks, but also because they need to choose well-conceived strong themed project.

M&G NSW: So crowd sourcing isn’t a way forward for arts organisations?

Michelle: Based on our experience, not really, because we can’t use Pozible to raise funds for our for core program and we need to be strategic in garnering private support. Like all arts organisations, we have a group of stakeholders who support us on a reoccurring basis and we can’t constantly be asking them for support.

M&G NSW: What about artist run initiatives and volunteer managed organisations?

Michelle: I think there’s a lot more potential for them and we think crowdsourcing is a great resource for them to tap into.

M&G NSW: Thanks for talking with us today.

The Financial Report at Artspace featuring work by Denis Beaubois, Melanie Gilligan, Matthew Griffin, Christian Jankowski, Andrew Liversidge, Dane Mitchell and Natalie Thomas closes on 29 September 2013. 

History week: Legends of Lithgow

Pepper's Ghost used to great effect in telling the story of the Lithgow State Mine fire disaster.

Capturing the Lithgow Community, is one of the exhibitions on show during History Week which unpacks some of the little known history of Lithgow. On a recent Museums Advisors trip to the area, M&G NSW had a quick peek at some of the museums and collections in the region.

We started at the Lithgow State Mine Heritage Park and Railway, where the virtual story-telling entranced and moved us. The images and sound presentation tells a story of a fire in the mine. President, Ray Christison, confirms that most visitors shed a tear or two on hearing about the death of so many pit ponies.

Our next stop was the The Glen Museum in Portland. Developed and fostered by the late Charlie Pinch and his partner the late Valerie Risby, the collection focuses on the history of Portland and is wonderfully eclectic–one of our favourite displays being the huge range of buttons.

We stopped at the charming village of Rydal for lunch and as we strolled around it became clear that the town itself is a museum–complete with charming buildings and well-tended gardens. Rydal was named after a village in England where the poet William Wordsworth lived. His poem “The Daffodils” inspired the planting of thousands of daffodil bulbs which are the focus of the annual Daffodil Festival and are bound to be in full bloom during History Week.

The Lithgow Small Arms Factory Museum was a big surprise. While we were expecting to see lots of firearms we weren’t aware the factory manufactured a range of non-military products including sewing machines, shearing handsets, medical implements, tools, and golf clubs. This is interesting viewing for anyone–and especially so for those intrigued by old style weaponry.

This you would expect at the Small Arms Factory Museum.

This? Not so much.

From there we went to Esbank House and Museum. Built in 1842 by a local stonemason for the first industrialist in town, a Mr Thomas Brown MLA, the house is one of the oldest residences in Lithgow Valley.

Eskbank House on a delightful Spring day.

Eskbank operates as a historic home and museum and houses the one of the largest collections of Lithgow Pottery in Australia. The museum’s collection includes an example of the Black Rose of Lithgow. These smelted roses were first made in 1876 and became popular ornaments for coffins during the 1800s.

So why not take a History Week inspired trip to the valley and be surprised at some of the sites in lovely Lithgow?

Tamara Lavrencic

History Week: Sydney's murdered muse

Peacocks Florence Broadhurst wallpaper design. Courtesy of Sydney Living Museums.

To celebrate History Week 2013, the History Council of NSW selected five historical muses who attended the famous Artists’ Balls, an event held across Sydney for over five decades. 

The first of the muses showcased is Florence Broadhurst, an artist famed as much for her flamboyant life and brutal murder as her creative designs.

Both the Powerhouse Museum and the Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection (part of Sydney Living Museums) hold collections of her work, including photographs and examples of some of the 550 wallpaper designs produced between 1961 and 1977. The 'Peacocks' reproduced seen here became the signature design of Florence Broadhurst’s studio in the 1970s and is one of the most recognisable and popular of her designs. It’s been suggested that it represents the flamboyant style of the woman herself.
This eccentric and talented woman has inspired a number of books including, A life by Design: The Art and Lives of Florence Broadhurst by Siobhan O’Brien (2004) and Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret & Extraordinary Lives, by Helen O’Neill (2007).
This excerpt from the inside of the front cover of A Life by Design, gives a taste of the extraordinary life of Florence Broadhurst:

“Late on the afternoon of 15 October 1977, seventy-eight-year-old Florence Broadhurst was brutally murdered. Her killer has never been found.

But who really died that day?

Was it Bobby Broadhurst, the chanteuse of Shanghai? Or Madame Pellier, London’s Bond Street-salon owner and friend to Churchill and royalty? Perhaps Mrs Kann, married to English gentry. Or was it the world-renown wallpaper designer and socialite?

By the time Florence Broadhurst sailed into Sydney Harbour with her second husband and young son in 1949 she had long ago put aside her humble beginnings in rural Australia, instead presenting herself as an English woman escaping post-war Britain for the sunshine of the ‘promised land’. And she found it.

Dismissing the designs of the day as drab and lacking in colour, Florence set about creating original, bold, bright wallpapers, unlike anything that had been seen before. With clientele ranging from Lady McMahon to Qantas, and far-eastern hoteliers to Estee Lauder Cosmetics, Florence was soon a popular face on the Sydney social scene – and a very wealthy woman.

Today Broadhurst designs are once again gracing the walls and furnishings of hip bars and fashionable homes and boutiques from Sydney to New York, as well as the runways of Isogawa, Karen Walker and Zimmerman. Yet the mystery still remains.

Who was this at times generous, at others ferociously autocratic, and always elusive woman? And why did she die such a violent death?”

The David Jones Art Gallery on Elizabeth Street Sydney was the venue for Florence’s first solo exhibition called ‘Paintings of Australia’ and as part of their 175 anniversary celebrations, the windows of that venerable institution will feature floral art works inspired by Florence’s work for their Spring flower show. Find further information on this show, ‘The Enchanted Florence’.

Broadhurst’s designs are still popular today and examples of their use by interior designers in buildings around the world can be seen at Signature Prints website .

Tamara Lavrencic

Grumpy Cat is taking over

Many of you might have thought we were kidding when we promised last fortnight to unleash Grumpy Cat on your profile pages.

Well we weren't. And if you don't believe us you should visit the website right now.

http://mgnsw-prod.ixcsandbox.com/

Username: preview
Password: museums

We've delayed letting the website loose on the world by one week. That's one week for you to provide us images and descriptions of all the amazing things you do.

Like . . .

Albury Library/Museum who kindly provided us the video and story about their July 27 celebration of the first flight in the monoplane built by Robbins and Porter.

Their description makes me want to visit the whole town. I'm considering a bit of an excursion after we've launched the website and Albury sounds like the place to go.

Carcoar Hospital Museum who have provided some very evocative images of their 19th and 20th century medical collection. This photo of nurses at the museum in 1900 has a bit of a ghostly, ethereal feel about it (or is that my imagination running away with me). 

Gilgandra Rural Museum have added a nice exterior. Their website is pretty smart too and we've provided a couple of hyperlinks to it on their page. 

So do you want to look like this?

Or this?

You have ONE week. Email or ring Katie or Andrew:

comms@mgnsw.org.au

p: 02 9358 1760

First Flight celebrated in Albury

On 27 July 2013, Albury LibraryMuseum hung a replica of a vintage monoplane built by Robbins and Porter on the spot where the two young motor mechanics built the original in their Kiewa Street garage in 1912-13. It was 100 years to the day that the pioneering men successfully flew their invention.

The Albury and District Historical Society, with the support of the Albury Manual Activity, constructed the life-size replica of the monoplane and hung it from the ceiling of the LibraryMuseum.

Robbins and Porter

Azor Robbins and Alexander Porter learned their trade as motor mechanics at Dalgety’s Garage in Bourke Street, Melbourne. But they were not only mechanics, but inventors. In their spare time, they worked on the design and construction of a monoplane. By March 1913 the construction of the plane had been completed and the engine mounted in the fuselage.

The duo eagerly planned open-air trials; however, it was not until Sunday, 27 July 1913, in front of six witnesses, that the plane took to the air and flew for 700 yards at a height of 15–20 feet above the ground. A report of the trials was printed in the Border Morning Mail of 29 July 1913.

In their Australian built monoplane Messers Robbins and Porter, of Albury, made five successful flights on Bungowannah Park on Sunday (27 July). Although the monoplane was under complete control while in the air it could not be flown to any great height owing to the restricted area of the paddock. 

While other planes would surpass the one built by our industrious amateur aviators, today Robbins and Porter are credited with designing and building Australia’s first monoplane fitted with a flat-four aero engine – and the only one that has ever flown.

The permanently “flying” monoplane is now part of the First Flight exhibition running at the LibraryMuseum until 27 July 2014.

Find out more: www.alburycity.nsw.gov.au

Registered? Then make your profile

We have only one and a half weeks until lots of people are going to visit the website and explore your profile pages.

Unless you want them to see this:

Then we'd seriously recommend you start uploading all the evocative, enticing and beautiful images you have of your place, collections and people.

Uploading images and text to your profile page is easy. We've made a 5 minute video about it. If you have some images on hand, then it probably won't take more than 15 minutes in total.

And we are here to help.

Meanwhile . . . 

How good can you look?

This good. Jenny Summerville from Manning Valley Rock Hounds Lapidary Club Gem and Mineral Museum (phew, that's a mouthful) persevered with the content management system to upload ten images of staff at work. 

Luckily, their work is really interesting! If we showed photos of me working it would be ten pictures of a guy at a computer.

Below you can see curator, Janette Sutton collecting Triassic leaf fossils.

And did I say enticing and beautiful? Have you been to Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery? It's in the best location in the world - a gallery right next to sparkling waters and a rolling, grassy park. 

In these two screenshots you can see Lake Mac's slideshow shift from the bird's eye view to absolute detail:

The second image shows how integral school programs were to LMCAG's 2010-2011 project in partnership with the Aboriginal Reference Group, creating a significant possum skin cloak with the local Aboriginal community.

And last but by no means least, we head to the Tweed River Art Gallery showcasing the planned Margaret Olley Art Centre, now in construction.

You have until the end of August. By then we will have a website crammed with your stories, activities and experiences.

Do it today.