Archive for the 'Guest Curator' Category

Guest Curator- Deb Mostert: tin toys inspire art

Published on April 9, 2010 by Erika Taylor in Guest Curator. 5 Comments Tags: art, deb mostert, tin toys.

Collection: Powerhouse Museum

My name is Deb Mostert and I am a visual artist working in Brisbane. My art practice involves me using vintage and veteran toys and household objects as subject matter and finding collectors who are willing to let me ‘play’ with their toys is always exciting. Last year I received an RADF (Regional Arts Development Fund) grant for concept development which enabled me to visit the Powerhouse Museum to view the collection of vintage toys.

Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Tin-Penguin-and-Tin-Turkey-24-x-48-oil-on-plywood-450x219.jpg

I worked with the curator of Transport and Toys, Margaret Simpson, looking through the toys which languished in storage but very rarely ever see the light of day! Margaret allowed me to have a few toys out at a time and as I wasn’t allowed to touch anything myself, I directed her to move them (with the white gloves on!) In this way we set up quite a few scenarios and ‘conversations’ between toys, hinting at narrative and enjoying the potential stories that could emerge, which I then photographed and painted back in my Brisbane studio.

Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Narratives were in fact plentiful and the potential for stories endless when the static objects were put into relationship with each other. The objects taken from museum storage and played with came into a new existence. Without the interaction they ceased to really exist beyond being merely a record, a sample of what had been.

It struck me how much this is like our lives. We all have a kind of quirky charm begging for animation and interrelation. All the allure, history, and value are meaningless without the spark of interaction. It drew me back to words that animate my life:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” Without love our lives are static, our narratives limited and our stories are stifled. In painting these scenes, animating the inert through story, perhaps you’ll sense my hope that there is a way back to reconnect with love at its source.

Additionally, these works represent a continuing desire to look for paradoxes. These paintings show emptied items… forgotten and passed over objects…yet they also show the wear of service, of play, they hold memory and they startle us with recognition. They are at once both sacred and banal. They are painted to look real but they are obviously not. They are worthless to some and at the same time precious to a collector.

Collection: Powerhouse Museum

The works can be read in many different ways as the objects become reflectors of the experiences of the viewer. My works aim to reveal the narratives that can lurk beneath the humble surfaces of plastic, porcelain and tin.

I painted 21 works on plywood, to allow the humility of the toys to be explored. I also made 7 larger oil on canvas paintings. The entire show can be viewed at here.

Collection: Powerhouse Museum

I really enjoyed my (all too brief) time in the collection store and must thank Margaret for her patience in setting things up for me which enabled me to access a truly delightful collection.

Deb Mostert

Editors note:
You can see the following toys in our collection
The Pig
The Turkey
The ‘tut tut’ car

Guest Curator: Maduncle Cliff: Steampunk part 2

Published on February 17, 2010 by Erika Taylor in Guest Curator. 0 Comments Tags: brass, cliff overton, devices, Guest Curator, steampunk.

The Museum was recently visited by artist, tinkerer, and ‘Steampunk’, Cliff Overton, who runs the ‘Antipodean Steampunk Adventures’ blog, and is currently exhibiting some of his works at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford as part of their ‘Steampunk’ exhibition. This is part two of an interview with Cliff, part one can be found here.

Can you give us any hints about upcoming devices you are working on?

as to what I am working on – well, I am committed to a series of ‘specific devices’ now and I am up to number 4A. This one will be an ‘aural investigation’ device that may have a practical application once completed.

Device currently under construction.

So Cliff, we see you are exhibiting pieces in the ‘Steampunk’ exhibition at the Museum of the History of Science, in Oxford, what is the ‘Steampunk’ community like in Australia?

The steampunk community in Australia is very strong and growing. I know of groups In Brisbane, sydney and Meblourne who regularly meet for formal events (such as cruises on Sydney Harbour) or for informal events such as group visits to flea markets).

I am working with some other steampunk enthusiasts on an event in Melbourne in May called ‘steampump’ which brings invention, fashion, music, science and pugulism together for one evening!

Call me biased, but I think that Melbourne is the natural home of steampunk in Australia (won’t that comment start an debate) because of the very Victorian era feel that the city has with the old streets and buildings.

Apple’s newest gadget the ‘ipad’ was just announced, and will most likely neatly slot into a world that is filled with sleek, shiny, plastic gadgets and technology. In this day and age why do you think steampunk, and the scene that surrounds it, is growing in popularity?

the very fact that Apple have released yet another innocuous white plastic device is the very reason Steampunk will thrive. Now I need to go in to the lab and build the timber and brass ‘Wpad’!

Many thanks to Cliff Overton for this interview and the use of his images

Guest Curator – Maduncle Cliff, Steampunk part 1

Published on February 8, 2010 by Erika Taylor in Guest Curator. 0 Comments Tags: steampunk.

Hi Cliff, would you tell us a little about this ‘Steampunk’ business, what it means to you, and how you got interested in it?

Well – Steampunk found me really, in that a dear friend of mine showed me a website with a picture of a computer keyboard made from old typewriter keys (google Datamancer for more). I looked at that and thought, ‘that looks like the sort of things I build for the fun of it’ so I guess I was doing Steampunk stuff before I knew about Steampunk. I have always collected parts of old things and then tried to put them together in new ways.

A lot of this was my rebellion against my chosen proffession at the time – that of an Industrial Designer. Everything I did professionally had to look new and sleek and hi tech – wheras my art using found objects was very ‘function followed form’ based and more ad-hoc in design outcome.

One of my first builds – circa 1997 (I still have it).

So I did more research on Steampunk via the web, got on some forums, made some friends, met up with a few local devotees at a flea market in Camberwell and things have snowballed from there.

I needed a moniker – so I returned to my past as an industrial designer and re-adpoted the name ‘maduncle’ given to me by a shop owner who was selling some of my furniture many years ago.

I think a big part of the steampunk subculture is around having a steampunk persona you can develop. I am modelling myself on the Victorian scientist/inventor philanthropist type. Although I am yet to get myself a genuine vintage collapsable silk topper that fits. (big hint here – got any spares in storage?)

Although I do have an Etsy site and I do sell some of my work, I am not in it as a business. It is more of a ‘show and tell’ exercise, and then I pass on the finished item at a reasonable cost to an admirer. The greatest compliment is getting commissioned work, that shows the growing interest in the Steampunk style as a medium for other products.

My first commission – the ‘Damnation PS3′ for the launch of the computer game of the same name. 2008.

I would like to see a ‘proper’ exhibition of Steampunk art here in Australia – a lot of the work in Europe and the USA is stunning.

Right now I am making a new series of objects called ‘Specific Devices’ inspired by my visit to the Powerhouse Museum. Some of them will look old and purposeful, without anyone (including me) knowing their real purpose. Others will have a real use (such as the examinerscope I built recently).

Q. So what did you find in the Museum’s collection that inspired you?

Collection; Powerhouse Museum

The absolute ‘oh how I wish I could sneak you out past the guards and take you home’ stand out item was the Babbage difference engine component on display.
Photography by Powerhouse Museum © all rights reserved

That was a very ‘steampunk moment’ for me. I would love to build a complete one – I have seen a working Meccano one so it can’t be that difficult…

Other than that, all of the old scientific devices on display (well – all the brass ones) and of course the steampowered section. The old brass devices did inspire me to make my first ‘specific device’.

What is particularly intertesting for my wife Tanya and I is that we did not know there was a real Strasbourg clock, let alone a replica in the Powerhouse, and we will be in Strasbourg in September. So we are already planning a special visit to the life size clock, now we have seen the model.

To Be Continued……..

Archive for the 'Guest Curator' Category

Guest Curator- Deb Mostert: tin toys inspire art

Guest Curator: Maduncle Cliff: Steampunk part 2

Guest Curator – Maduncle Cliff, Steampunk part 1

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