A wonderful energy, a wonderful artist, a wonderful human being – sadly missed!
Marcus
Published on April 23, 2014
Interview filmed on the occasion of the solo exhibition Space and Gravity by Mari Funaki at Klimt02 Gallery in Barcelona in February 2008. The artist talks about her work, the process of work: drawing, breaking predictability, her gallery and steel and black concept.
Here’s my pick of the eleven best exhibitions in Melbourne for 2010 that featured on the Art Blart: art and cultural memory archive (in no particular order). Enjoy!
Marcus
Jenny Holzer (American, b. 1950)
Right Hand (Palm Rolled)
2007
Oil on linen
80 x 62 in (203.2 x 157.5cm)
Text: U.S. government document
The reason that you must visit this exhibition is the last body of work. Working with declassified documents that relate to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Holzer’s Redaction paintings address the elemental force that is man’s (in)humanity to man (in the study of literature, redaction is a form of editing in which multiple source texts are combined (redacted) and subjected to minor alteration to make them into a single work) … I left the exhibition feeling shell-shocked after experiencing intimacy with an evil that leaves few traces. In the consciences of the perpetrators? In the hearts of the living! Oh, how I wish to see the day when the human race will truly evolve beyond. We live in hope and the work of Jenny Holzer reminds us to be vigilant, to speak out, to have courage in the face of the unconscionable.
This exhibition produced in me an elation, a sense of exalted happiness, a smile on my dial that was with me the rest of the day. The installation features elegantly naive cardboard cityscape dioramas teeming with wondrous, whimsical mythological animals that traverse pond and undulating road. This bestiary of animals, minerals and vegetables (bestiaries were made popular in the Middle Ages in illustrated volumes that described various animals, birds and even rocks) is totally delightful … What really stands out is the presence of these objects, their joyousness. The technical and conceptual never get in the way of good art. The Surrealist imagining of a new world order (the destruction of traditional taxonomies) takes place while balanced on one foot. The morphogenesis of these creatures, as they build one upon another, turns the world upside down … Through their metamorphosed presence in a carnivalesque world that is both weird and the wonderful, Moore’s creatures invite us to look at ourselves and our landscape more kindly, more openly and with a greater generosity of spirit.
Tom Moore (Australian, b. 1971)
Birdboat with passenger with a vengeance (left) and Robot Island (right)
2010 and 2009
What can one say about work that is so confronting, poignant and beautiful – except to say that it is almost unbearable to look at this work without being emotionally charged, to wonder at the vicissitudes of human life, of events beyond one’s control.
The exhibition tells the story of the massacre of 300,000 people in the city of Nanjing in Jiangsu, China by Japanese troops in December, 1937 in what was to become known as the Nanjing Massacre. It also tells the story of a group of foreigners led by German businessman John Rabe and American missionary Minnie Vautrin who set up a “safety zone” to protect the lives of at least 250,000 Chinese citizens. The work is conceptually and aesthetically well resolved, the layering within the work creating a holistic narrative that engulfs and enfolds the viewer – holding them in the shock of brutality, the poignancy of poetry and the (non)sublimation of the human spirit to the will of others.
Simply, this is the best exhibition that I have seen in Melbourne so far this year.
John Young (Australian, b. 1956)
Flower Market (Nanjing 1936) #1
2010
digital print and oil on Belgian linen
240 x 331cm
image courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery
John Young (Australian, b. 1956)
Safety Zone
2010
60 works, digital prints on photographic paper and chalk on blackboard-painted archival cotton paper
Installation shot, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne
Image courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery
Kiko Gianocca (Swiss, b. 1974)
Man & dog
Found image, resin, silver
2009
A beautiful exhibition of objects by Swiss/Italian artist Kiko Gianocca at Gallery Funaki, Melbourne, one full of delicate resonances and remembrances.
Glass vessels with internal funnels filled with the gold detritus of disassembled objects, found pendants: Horse, Anchor, Four leaf clover, Swan, Hammer & sickle … Brooches of gloss and matt black resin plates. On the reverse images exposed like a photographic plate, found images solidified in resin.
The front: the depths of the universe, navigating the dazzling darkness
The back: memories, forgotten, then remade, worn like a secret against the beating chest. Only the wearer knows!
As Kiki Gianocca asks, “I am not sure if I grasp the memories that sometimes come to mind. I start to think they hold me instead of me holding them.”
The photographs invite us to share not only the mapping of the surface of the skin and the mapping of place and identity but the sharing of inner light, the light of the imaginary as well – and in this observation the images become unstable, open to reinterpretation. The distance between viewer and subject is transcended through an innate understanding of inner and outer light. The photographs seduce, meaning, literally, to be led astray … I found myself looking at the photographs again and again for small nuances, the detail of hairs on the head, the imagining of what the person was thinking about with their eyes closed: their future, their fears, their hopes, the ‘active imagination as a means to visualise sustainable futures’ (Orr, 2010) …
In the imagination of the darkness that lies behind these children’s closed eyes is the commonality of all places, a shared humanity of memory, of dreams. These photographs testify to our presence and ask us to decide how we feel about our life, our place and the relation to that (un)placeness where we must all, eventually, return.
Jill Orr (Australian, b. 1952)
Jacinta
2009
These are such fun assemblages, the created mis en scenes so magical and hilarious, guffaw inducing even, that they are entirely delightful.
There is so much to like here – the inventiveness, the freshness of the work, the insight into the use of images in contemporary culture. Still photographs of this work do not do it justice. I came away from the gallery uplifted, smiling, happy – and that is a wonderful thing to happen.
Ian Burns (Australian, b. 1964)
15 hours v.4
2010
Found object kinetic sculpture, live video and audio
Image courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery
Julia deVille (Australian, b. 1982)
Nevermore
2010
This is an excellent exhibition by Julia deVille at Sophie Gannon Gallery in Richmond … This exhibition shows a commendable sense of restraint, a beautiful rise and fall in the work as you walk around the gallery space with the exhibits displayed on different types and heights of stand and a greater thematic development of the conceptual ideas within the work. There are some exquisite pieces.
In these pieces there is a simplification of the noise of the earlier works and in this simplification a conversant intensification of the layering of the conceptual ideas. Playful and witty the layers can be peeled back to reveal the poetry of de Sade, the stories of Greek mythology and the amplification of life force that is at the heart of these works. Good stuff.
Mari Funaki (born Japan 1950, arrived Australia 1979, died 2010)
Object
2008
Heat-coloured mild steel
36 x 47.5 x 14.5cm
Collection of Johannes Hartfuss & Fabian Jungbeck, Melbourne
© The Estate of Mari Funaki
Quiet, precise works. Forms of insect-like legs and proboscises. They balance, seeming to almost teeter on the edge – but the objects are incredibly grounded at the same time. As you walk into the darkened gallery and observe these creatures you feel this pull – lightness and weight. Fantastic!
And so it came to pass in silence, for these works are still, quiet and have a quality of the presence of the inexpressible. Funaki achieves these incredible silences through being true to her self and her style through an expression of her endearing will. While Mari may no longer be amongst us as expressions of her will the silences of these objects will be forever with us.
When looking at art, one of the best experiences for me is gaining the sense that something is open before you, that wasn’t open before. I don’t mean accessible, I mean open like making a clearing in the jungle, or being able to see further up a road, or just further on. And also like an open marketplace – where there were always good trades. There is the feeling that if you put in a certain amount of honesty, then you would get something back that made some room for you in front – some room that would allow you to look forward, and maybe even walk into that space. Seeing Jerrems work gives you that feeling.
Carol Jerrems (Australian, 1949-1980)
Mark and Flappers
1975
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Gift of James Mollison, 1994
© Ken Jerrems & the Estate of Lance Jerrems
John Davis (Australia 1936-99)
(Spotted fish)
1989
Twigs, cotton thread, calico, bituminous paint
55 x 145 x 30cm
Private collection, Melbourne
© Penelope Davis & Martin Davis. Administered by VISCOPY, Australia
This is a superlative survey exhibition of the work of John Davis at NGV Australia, Melbourne.
In the mature work you can comment on the fish as ‘travellers’ or ‘nomads’, “a metaphor for people and the way we move around the world.” You can observe the caging, wrapping and bandaging of these fish as a metaphor for the hurt we humans impose on ourselves and the world around us. You can admire the craftsmanship and delicacy of the constructions, the use of found objects, thread, twigs, driftwood and calico and note the ironic use of bituminous paint in relation to the environment, “a sticky tar-like form of petroleum that is so thick and heavy,” of dark and brooding colour.
This is all well and true. But I have a feeling when looking at this work that here was a wise and old spirit, one who possessed knowledge and learning … a human being who attained a state of grace in his life and in his work.
Fiona Tan (Indonesian, b. 1966)
Tilt
2002
DVD
courtesy of the artist, Frith Street Gallery London
I never usually review group exhibitions but this is an exception to the rule. I have seen this exhibition three times and every time it has grown on me, every time I have found new things to explore, to contemplate, to enjoy. It is a fabulous exhibition, sometimes uplifting, sometimes deeply moving but never less than engaging – challenging our perception of life. The exhibition proceeds chronologically from birth to death. I comment on a few of my favourite works below but the whole is really the sum of the parts: go, see and take your time to inhale these works – the effort is well rewarded. The space becomes like a dark, fetishistic sauna with it’s nooks and crannies of videos and artwork. Make sure you investigate them all!
Mari Funaki (born Japan 1950, arrived Australia 1979, died 2010)
Object
2008
Heat-coloured mild steel
20.0 x 28.0 x 5.0cm
Collection of Raphy Star, Melbourne
© The Estate of Mari Funaki
Mari Funaki (born Japan 1950, arrived Australia 1979, died 2010)
Container
2008
heat-coloured mild steel
(a–c) 21.3 x 40.5 x 8.5cm (overall)
Private collection, Melbourne
© The Estate of Mari Funaki
Mari Funaki (born Japan 1950, arrived Australia 1979, died 2010)
Container
2008
heat-coloured mild steel
4.8 x 16.0 x 15.5cm
Private Collection, Melbourne
© The Estate of Mari Funaki
Mari Funaki (born Japan 1950, arrived Australia 1979, died 2010)
Object
2008
heat-coloured mild steel
20.0 x 28.0 x 5.0cm
Collection of Raphy Star, Melbourne
© The Estate of Mari Funaki
Let us drop away all interpretation and look at the thing in itself.
The literal feeling of standing before these objects.
Form
Balance
Colour
Surface
Precision
Will
Style
Silence
Quiet, precise works. Forms of insect-like legs and proboscises. They balance, seeming to almost teeter on the edge – but the objects are incredibly grounded at the same time. As you walk into the darkened gallery and observe these creatures you feel this pull – lightness and weight. Fantastic!
The surfaces, sublime matt grey colour and precision of their manufacture add to this sense of the ineffable. These are not mere renderings of content, but expressions of things that cannot be said.
Sontag observes, “Art is the objectifying of the will in a thing or performance, and the provoking or arousing of the will … Style is the principle of decision in a work of art, the signature of the artist’s will.”1
Sontag insightfully notes, “The most potent elements in a work of art are, often, its silences.”2
And so it came to pass in silence, for these works are still, quiet and have a quality of the presence of the inexpressible.
Funaki achieves these incredible silences through being true to her self and her style through an expression of her endearing will.
While Mari may no longer be amongst us as expressions of her will the silences of these objects will be forever with us.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Sontag, Susan. “On Style,” in Against Interpretation and Other Essays. New York: Delta Book, 1966, pp. 31-32.
2/ Ibid., p. 36.
.
Many thanxk to Alison Murray, Jemma Altmeier and The National Gallery of Victoria for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All individual photographs of work by Jeremy Dillon.
Mari Funaki: Objects installation shots on opening night at NGV Australia
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan
Opening 6 August, the National Gallery of Victoria will present Mari Funaki: Objects, an exhibition showcasing a range of sculptural objects by the renowned contemporary jeweller and metalsmith, Mari Funaki (1950-2010).
This exhibition will present a selection of Funaki’s distinctive objects, dating from the late 1990s to 2010 including four recent large scale sculptures. The artist was working on the exhibition right up until the time of her recent death.
Jane Devery, Acting Curator, Contemporary Art, NGV said: “It was a great privilege to work with Mari Funaki on this exhibition. She possessed a clarity of vision and a capacity for ongoing invention that is rare among artists. Funaki produced some of the most captivating works in the field of contemporary jewellery and metalwork. Her unique geometric objects, meticulously constructed from blackened mild-steel, stemmed from a desire to express the world around her.”
“Funaki was interested in the expressive and associative capacities of her objects, creating forms that might stir our imaginations or trigger something from our memories. It has been particularly thrilling to see her extend these concerns in large scale works,” said Ms Devery. In 1979 Funaki left her home in Japan for Melbourne where she pursued her creative ambitions, enrolling in Gold and Silversmithing at RMIT in the late 1980s. At RMIT she studied under the prominent jewellers Marian Hosking, Robert Baines and Carlier Makigawa.
In 1995, Mari Funaki established Gallery Funaki in Melbourne’s CBD which remains Australia’s most important space dedicated to contemporary jewellery. Throughout her career she exhibited widely within Australia and overseas and won many awards, twice winning the prestigious Herbert Hoffman prize in Munich. In 2007 she was awarded an Australian Council Emeritus Award for her work as an artist and for her success in promoting Australian and international contemporary jewellery.
Frances Lindsay, Deputy Director, NGV said: “The NGV is delighted to exhibit many never-before-seen works by such an innovative and celebrated Melbourne artist. The exquisite objects assembled in this exhibition allow us to appreciate Mari Funaki’s remarkable artistic achievements.”
Mari Funaki: Objects will be on display at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square from 6 August to 24 October, 2010. The exhibition will be open from 10am-5pm. Closed Mondays. Entry is free.
Press release from the National Gallery of Victoria website
Mari Funaki (born Japan 1950, arrived Australia 1979, died 2010)
Object
2008
Heat-coloured mild steel
36.0 x 47.5 x 14.5cm
Collection of Johannes Hartfuss & Fabian Jungbeck, Melbourne
© The Estate of Mari Funaki
Mari Funaki (born Japan 1950, arrived Australia 1979, died 2010)
Container
2006
Heat-coloured mild steel
26.0 x 8.5 x 6.0cm
Collection of Peter and Jennifer McMahon, Melbourne
© The Estate of Mari Funaki
Mari Funaki (born Japan 1950, arrived Australia 1979, died 2010)
Object
2010
Heat-coloured mild steel
30.0 x 19.0 x 20.5cm
Collection of the Estate of Mari Funaki, Melbourne
© The Estate of Mari Funaki
Mari Funaki (born Japan 1950, arrived Australia 1979, died 2010)
Object
2010
heat-coloured mild steel
45.0 x 52.0 3.5cm
Collection of the Estate of Mari Funaki, Melbourne
© The Estate of Mari Funaki
Mari Funaki (born Japan 1950, arrived Australia 1979, died 2010)
Object
2010
heat-coloured mild steel
12.0 x 44.0 x 14.0cm
Collection of the Estate of Mari Funaki, Melbourne
© The Estate of Mari Funaki
The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia
Federation Square
Corner of Russell and
Flinders Streets, Melbourne
Opening hours:
Daily 10am – 5pm
It is with great sadness that I hear of the passing of Mari Funaki on the 13th May 2010.
I met Mari many times and she was always wonderfully generous with her energy, knowledge and enthusiasm. She was an amazing artist, I loved her work especially the stunning anamorphic black bracelets and the fact that she used photography of Bernd and Hiller Becher as part of her inspiration. My conversation with Mari in 2006 and photographs of her work can be found on the Notes from a Conversation with Mari Funaki posting.
Vale Mari Funaki
“A memorial will be held on Tuesday June 1st, 2010 at 11.00am in THE GREAT HALL of the National Gallery of Victoria, International.
Please RSVP to Katie Scott at galleryfunaki@iinet.net.au or phone 9662 9446 if you wish to attend (affirmative responses only please). Everybody is welcome to celebrate the life of this extraordinary artist, gallery director and friend.”
Mari Funaki outside Gallery Funaki
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Mari Funaki (Australian, 1950-2010)
Bracelet 1 from Space between
2005-2006
Heat-coloured mild steel
Mari Funaki (Australian, 1950-2010)
Bracelet 2 from Space between
2005-2006
Heat-coloured mild steel
Mari Funaki is one of Australia’s leading jewellers. This exhibition celebrates her considerable achievements between 1992 and the present day. Her first major show in a state gallery, it includes nearly fifty works and will be the first time Perth audiences have seen her work in such depth. Many of these are new works produced especially for this show.
The exhibition will focus on rings, containers and bracelets. These forms have been the core of her practice, the foundation of her intricate material experimentations. Her sheer intensity of focus has seen her hone these forms into objects of extreme power and beauty. Funaki’s is no simple beauty, however. It is sharp, complicated. There is always a sense of danger in her work, as the spindly legs of her insect-like containers support unlikely, unwieldy torsos, and as her rings and bracelets cultivate miniature monoliths that play with scale and weight in fascinating ways.
This exhibition will frame these unique objects in such a way as to acknowledge Funaki’s ability to work with space and matter to form entrancing works that adorn the imagination in the same they adorn the body.
Text from the Art Gallery of Western Australia website [Online] Cited 10/08/2009 no longer available online
Mari Funaki (Australian, 1950-2010)
Bracelet 3 from Space between
2005-2006
Heat-coloured mild steel
Mari Funaki (Australian, 1950-2010)
Bracelet 4 from Space between
2005-2006
Heat-coloured mild steel
Mari Funaki’s initial response comes from the environment – the response is part random, part constructed idea.
Funaki likes the ‘animated’ response from the viewer – allowing them to make their own associations with the work and their own meaning. The making of the work doesn’t emerge out of nothing but through the development of ideas over a long period of time.
Mari starts with a flat drawing – this approach comes from an Eastern perspective in the history of art making i.e. screens, woodcuts and scrolls. Initially when starting with the idea Mari is mentally thinking in two dimensions – then drawing out onto paper in two dimensions the ideas.
When actually making the work Mari then starts working and thinking in three dimensions – starting with a base piece of metal and working physically and intuitively around the object, to form a construction that evidences her feelings about what she wants to create. She likes the aesthetic beauty but uneasy aspect of a dead insect for example (like the Louise Bourgeois Maman spider outside the Guggenheim in Bilbao).
Now collaborating with architect Nonda Kotsalidis, Mari is working to produce her sculptural objects on a larger scale, up to 6 metres high. She needs the objects to have an emotional and physical impact on the viewer – both beautiful and threatening at one and the same time. How will her objects translate to a larger scale? Very well I think.
Funaki likes the physical distortion of space – and she likes telling a story to the viewer. She is working on a building where the facade is really strongly geometric and then she is embedding an emotion into the front of the building – constructing a narrative – constructing an emotional response with the viewer and establishing a relationship with the building. Here she is working from photographs of the space, her own recognition and remembrance of that space. She is having to work physically in 3D from the beginning for the first time, but still uses drawings to sketch out her ideas.
Several of Funaki’s pieces in the Cecily and Colin Rigg Contemporary Design Award (2006) at the NGV Federation Square were inspired by the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Their photographs of factories and gasworks, specifically the facades of such buildings (see image below), were the jumping off point for the development of the objects (the bracelets). Funaki takes the front of these buildings, a 3D structure ‘in reality’ but pictorially imaged on a 2D plane, and then twists and distorts their structure back into a 3D environment. The facades move up and around, as though a body is twisting around its own axis, pirouetting around an invisible central spine.
Each piece is created and then the next one is created in relation to the previous, or to each other. Each individual piece has its own character and relation to each other. They are never variations of the same piece with small differences – each is a separate but fully (in)formed entity.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Bernd and Hiller Becher (German, 1931-2007 and 1934-2015)
Water Towers
1980
Gelatin silver prints
“Black. Sharp, shifting contours. Familiar and alien. Confident, expressive and agile, it is easy to take the existence of these works for granted – and it is hard enough to trace in one’s mind the physical evolution back through heat colouring, sandblasting, soldering, assembling and cutting, to unremarkable, thin sheets of mild steel – let alone comprehend their conception and resolution.
They inhabit space in a way that is difficult to describe – the edge between each object and the space that encloses it is shockingly sudden.
How can something human-made be so insanely artificial and natural at the same time? It must be no accident that I described them as articulate – ambiguous and wide ranging in the breadth of associations and allusions, they can tell you everything and nothing at the same time.”
Sally Marsland, 2006
Text from the Gallery Funaki website [Online] Cited 10/08/2009 no longer available online
Mari Funaki (Australian, 1950-2010)
Bracelet 5 from Space between
2005-2006
Heat-coloured mild steel
Mari Funaki (Australian, 1950-2010)
Bracelet 6 from Space between
2005-2006
Heat-coloured mild steel
Art Gallery of Western Australia
Perth Cultural Centre
Perth WA 6000
Opening hours:
Wednesday – Monday 10am – 5pm
Closed Tuesdays.
Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive 
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