The Leichhardt Council vs The Shelf Life of Iraq

This week on Art and Mayhem I interviewed Toby Leon, the arts project officer for the Wall 2 Wall Mural project.
For all the details about how to enter (due 22 Sept) check out
http://www.lmc.nsw.gov.au/about/08/

Fascinating to note, too, is this amazing study on art vs graffiti by the nsw government:
http://www.graffiti.nsw.gov.au/cpd/graffiti.nsf/pages/graffiti_art
not to mention this debate raging in the newspaper last week:
http://radar.smh.com.au/archives/2006/08/cutting_edge.html

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And we did a shout out to the Shelf Life exhibition at Mop Projects, opening on Thursday 31 August 6-8pm, 617 Elizabeth Street Redfern

Shelf Life
Ron Adams, Lionel Bawden, Drew Bickford, Cash Brown,
Adam Cullen, Samantha Edwards, Sarah Goffman, Prudence Murphy, Elvis Richardson, Kate Rohde, Kurt Schranzer
Curated by
Daniel Mudie Cunningham

The ‘shelf life’ of a product refers to the amount of time it can be stored before it spoils or becomes obsolete. Generally the ‘shelf’ in question is a retail space allotted for the display of consumer goods. Shelves, then, are temporal zones that see items coming and going according to highs and lows in consumer demand: when we want the product it gets restocked, when we don’t, it goes to waste. These ideas provide a rich source of meaning for artists when the conventions of use and display, as it relates to art practice, are considered.

Simply speaking: shelves speak to the things we collect, promote display and status, thereby elevating the very ‘thingness’ of our things. When, conversely, the whims of fashion, taste and novelty wear thin, that same shelved stuff lies dormant and abandoned, left to collect dust. As mnemonic devices, objects shelved are meaningful only because they’re attached to memories that risk being eventually forgotten. And forgotten is what often happens to objects filed away, shelved out of sight. As an exhibition featuring new work by eleven contemporary artists, Shelf Life engages with the lives of shelves, the shelves of life, life on the shelf, shelf life.
http://www.mop.org.au

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And finally, we plugged the film 500 Miles to Babylon which is on at Sydney tonight, 302 Cleveland St Surry Hills, 730pm... A rare chance to see this daring documentary about Iraq by American filmmaker David Martinez. For more info go to http://officialsydney.com/

Over and out... Lucazoid