Sylvia Martin

'Late afternoon. An isolated lagoon, water glassy, teeming with birdlife--black swans, ducks, a pelican. Sunset begins to tint the sky. I point the camera at the water to catch the clouds reflected there just as a solitary duck swims into view. Everything in the photograph is familiar yet the effect is entirely strange. The duck is swimming across the sky...' The reflections in Sky Swimming can be read as meditations on the enigmas of love, family, ageing, memory, home and belonging. At its heart is a mudbrick house built by two women on an ancient lava flow in the Warrumbungle Mountains, circling back to a childhood filled with music in Melbourne and an early career in the theatre. It fans out across the world to a family mystery in The Netherlands of the 1950s and a friendship in Montreal in the 1990s. Reflections on the process of writing feminist biography are included and the women from Martin's biographies thread their way through the narrative alongside the people who have helped shape her life, often in unexpected directions.

Reflections on Auto/biography, People and Place

Sky Swimming

Beate Ermacora

Mit Pop und Land Art, Arte Povera und den Vertretern der Anti-Form wie etwa Robert Morris hat die Gegenwartskunst seit den 1960er Jahren der überkommenen Ovid’schen Materialvorstellung, nämlich »Über den Stoff noch siegte die Kunst±, ein Schnippchen geschlagen. Vom Material ausgehend werden aus Handlungen und Konzepten Kunst, die vor allem auch eine gewissen Eigendynamik auszeichnet. So ist das Material maßgeblich für die Form bestimmend und gibt Auskunft über den Entstehungsprozess der Kunst. Nun wendet sich die Kunst einer in den 1970er Jahren geborenen jungen Künstlergeneration erneut dem Material und der Handfertigung zu, um so die unmittelbare Wahrnehmung zurückzuerobern. Jetzt fungiert beides als Bedeutungsträger, bekommt Werte zugesprochen, die mitunter einer kollektiven gesellschaftlichen Verankerung entsprechen. Kein Wunder, dass hier alchemistische Strategien zitiert, die Transformation von Stoffen betont, die Geste bewussten Zeigens in raumgreifenden Inszenierungen die Präsenz des Werkes explizit überzeichnen wollen. Das Handwerk hat Vorrang vor Medialität und Netzwerken, Anschlüsse zu Design und Architektur werden so auf ganz anderer Ebene gesucht. Die beteiligten Künstlerinen wie Künstler dieser wegweisenden Ausstellung in Krefeld und Innsbruck sind: Lara Alamarcegui (*1972), Michael Beutler (*1976), Karla Black (*1972), Berta Fischer (*1973), Theaster Gates (*1973), Ane Mette Hol, Jessica Jackson Hutchins (*1971), David Jablonowski (*1982), Markus Kastieß (*1971), Alicja Kwade (*1979), Marie Lund (*1976) und Oscar Tuazon (*1975).00Exhibition: Kunstmuseen Krefeld - Haus Lange / Haus Esters, Germany (6.4.-10.8.2014) / Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, Austria (6.12.2014-15.2.2015).

Living in the material world

Aileen Palmer - poet, translator, political activist, adventurer - was the daughter of two writers prominent in Australian literature in the first half of the twentieth century. Vance and Nettie Palmer were well known as novelists, poets, critics and journalists, and Nettie suspected that their eldest would grow up with 'ink in her veins'. Aileen certainly inherited her parents' talents, publishing poetry, translating the work of Ho Chi Minh, and recording what she referred to as 'semi-fictional bits of egocentric writing'. She also absorbed their interest in leftist politics, joining the Communist Party at university. This, combined with her bravery, led to participation in the Spanish Civil War and the ambulance service in London during World War II. The return to Australia was not easy, and Aileen never successfully reintegrated into civilian life. In Ink in Her Veins Sylvia Martin paints an honest and moving portrait in which we see a talented woman slowly brought down by war, family expectations, and psychiatric illness and the sometimes cruel 'treatments' common in the 20th century. [Subject: Literary Criticism, Biography]

The Troubled Life of Aileen Palmer

Ink in Her Veins

"Moving pictures -- Balkan Baroque / Marina Abramovic -- 3 adaptation studies (1. Blindfolded catching) / Vito Acconci -- Talo/The house / Eija-Liisa Ahtila -- Electric earth / Doug Aitken -- Homeward : bound / Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé -- Mother + father / Candice Breitz -- Sept visions fugitives / Robert Cahen -- Three transitions / Peter Campus -- The Bordeaux piece / David Claerbout -- Journey into fear / Stan Douglas -- Schnitte. Elemente der Anschauung / Valie Export -- Lock again / Yang Fudong -- Sturm / Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster -- Twenty four hour psycho / Douglas Gordon -- Video piece for two glass office buildings / Dan Graham -- Incidence of catastrophe / Gary Hill -- Impressions / Nan Hoover -- Les incivils / Pierre Huyghe -- Jones Beach piece / Joan Jonas -- Bossy burger / Paul McCarthy -- Again & again / Bjørn Melhus -- Dispersion room / Aernout Mik -- Anthro/Socio / Bruce Nauman -- Fervor / Shirin Neshat -- The idea of Africa / Marcel Odenbach -- Getaway # 2 / Tony Oursler -- Global groove / Nam June Paik -- I'm not the girl who misses much / Pipilotti Rist -- Born to be sold : Martha Rosler reads the strange case of Baby SM / Martha Rosler -- Intervista, finding the words / Anri Sala -- Mouth to mouth / Smith/Stewart -- May you live in interesting times / Fiona Tan -- Home / Steina and Woody Vasulka -- I do not know what it is I am like / Bill Viola -- Broad Street / Gillian Wearing.". -- Library of Congress.

Sylvia Martin

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