Dispatch Review respectfully acknowledges the Whadjuk people as the traditional owners and custodians of the lands upon which we live, work and enjoy. We pay deep respect to Elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
Reviews:
- An invitation to dance, by Sam Beard.
- We Talk, We Discuss: An Interview with Taring Padi by Max Vickery.
- AGWA x PrideFEST by Felicity Bean.
- Tim Meakins, Body Mould by Sam Beard.
- Nick FitzPatrick, Hero Image by Francis Russell.
- Jacob Kotzee, Arrangements by Dan Glover.
- Hollow Icons: Desmond Mah at Mossenson by Darren Jorgensen.
- Pilgrimage: An interview with Vedika Rampal.
- The UnAustralian: Doubling Double Nation – An interview with Rex Butler.
- Negative Criticism: A Year of Dispatch Review by Tara Heffernan.
- Custodians as Reverse Monument by Darren Jorgensen.
- End of History – LWAG by Francis Russell.
- Hatched Dispatched 2024 by Dan Glover, Jess van Heerden, Nalinie See & Sam Beard.
- David Bromfield: A critic at large and ‘Where did the artists go?’
- Me, Also Me by Sam Beard.
- Paper Trails Between Lion and Swan by Sam Beard.
- Ceramically Speaking by Ben Yaxley.
- The Strelley Mob by Sam Harper.
- Rone: The Mighty Success by Leslie Thompson.
- Paper Trails: An interview with Yeo Chee Kiong by Sam Beard.
- Power 100 by Dispatch Review.
- Foresight & Fiction by Ben Yaxley.
- Twin Peaks Was 30 by Matthew Taggart.
- Breaking News: It’s Rone! by Sam Beard.
- Look, looking at Anna Park by Amelia Birch.
- The Fan by Francis Russell.
- Follower, Leader by Maraya Takoniatis.
- Wanneroo Warholamania by Sam Beard.
- Death Metal Summer by Sam Beard.
- Players, Places: Reprised, Renewed, Reviewed by Aimee Dodds.
- Scholtz: Two Worlds Apart by Corderoy, Fisher, Flaherty, Wilson, Fletcher, Jorgensen, & Glover.
- Partial Sightings by Sam Beard.
- True! Crime. by Aimee Dodds.
- The Human Condition by Rex Butler.
- Light Event by Sam Beard.
- Rejoinder: Archival / Activism by Max Vickery.
- Access and Denial in The Purple Shall Govern by Jess van Heerden.
- 4Spells by Sam Beard.
- Abstract art, DMT capitalism and the ugliness of David Attwood’s paintings
by Darren Jorgensen. - Unearthing new epistemologies of extraction by Samuel Beilby.
- Seek Wisdom by Max Vickery.
- Something for Everyone by Sam Beard.
- Violent Sludge by Aimee Dodds.
- State of Abstraction by Francis Russell.
- Double Histories: Special Issue, with texts by Ian McLean, Terry Smith, and Darren Jorgensen & Sam Beard.
- Six Missing Shows by Sam Beard.
- What We Memorialise by Max Vickery.
- At the End of the Land by Amelia Birch.
- The beautiful is useful by Sam Beard.
- ām / ammā / mā maram by Zali Morgan.
- Making Ground, Breaking Ground by Maraya Takoniatis.
- Art as Asset by Sam Beard.
- Cactus Malpractice by Aimee Dodds.
- Sweet sweet pea by Sam Beard.
- COBRA by Francis Russell.
- PICA Barn by Sam Beard .
- Gallery Hotel Metro by Aimee Dodds.
- A Stroll Through the Sacred, Profane, and Bizarre by Samuel Beilby.
- Filling in the Gaps at Spacingout by Maraya Takoniatis.
- Disneyland Cosmoplitanism by Sam Beard.
- Discovering Revenue by Anonymous.
- Uncomfortable Borrowing by Jess van Heerden.
- It’s Not That Strange by Stirling Kain.
- Hatched Dispatched 2023 by Sam Beard & Aimee Dodds.
- Fuck the Class System by Jess van Heerden, Jacinta Posik, Darren Jorgensen, et al.
- Wild About Nothing by Sam Beard.
- Paranoiac, Peripatetic: Pet Projects by Aimee Dodds.
- An Odd Moment for Women’s Art by Maraya Takoniatis.
- Transmutations by Sam Beard.
- The Post-Vandal by Sam Beard.
- Art Thugs and Humbugs by Max Vickery.
- Disneyland, Paris, Ardross and the artworld by Darren Jorgensen.
- Bizarrely, A Biennale by Aimee Dodds.
- Venus in Tullamarine by Sam Beard.
- Weird Rituals by Sam Beard.
- Random Cube by Francis Russell.
- Yeah, Nah, Rockpool by Aimee Dodds.
- Towards a Blind Horizon by Kieron Broadhurst.
- Being Realistic by Sam Beard.
Today, The Art Gallery of Western Australia formally announced its winter blockbuster exhibition for 2024. No, it’s not an Impressionist survey, international touring show, nor big name retrospective, but a large-scale indulgence into the work of public art darling, Rone. Melbourne-based muralist Tyrone Wright, known as Rone, is renowned for transforming disused or overlooked locations with his signature commercial “big head” portraits. He had previously described the female subjects of his large-scale, fashion-ad-style murals as anonymous “Jane Does”. More recently, they have been modelled on Sydney-based fashion model, Teresa Oman, Rone’s “long-time collaborator and muse”.
I can imagine the planning meeting now: a room full of recently wowed Rone fans, hearts still palpitating from witnessing the muralist’s 2022-23 Flinders Street Station exhibition. Talk turns to what venue best matches Rone’s penchant for underappreciated, abandoned, underutilised, or unorthodox locations, and, naturally, AGWA springs to mind! In fairness, the exhibition will be mounted in parts of AGWA’s Centenary Galleries that have remained locked up for years. Yet, it is hard to imagine the back end of AGWA culminating in a “Freo Woolstores” moment, which was so pivotal to last year’s Fremantle Biennale. So, what can we expect from Rone? A quote from a recent op-ed in The Guardian about the recent Melbourne installation, TIME • RONE, helps to illustrate:
Often in muted tones, these “big head” murals are stock and trade for Rone, as is the case for many publicly funded muralists. The mural/installations are a saccharin recipe of steampunk-esque aesthetics and fashion illustrations. It is the soft serve variety of visual art that requires no thought to consume: creamy, easy to slurp up, and certainly bad for you.
There will certainly be more to AGWA’s show than just murals of models if the Flinders spectacle is anything to go by. Picture this: a strange labyrinth of books, papers, wine stains, European furniture, opulent and eccentric accoutrements, a few “big head” murals for good measure, and a sense of quirky luxuriousness. I doubt any of AGWA’s curators will be putting their names to this show, based on the press material released thus far. If the immense public cost and return (on ticket sales, merch, and foot traffic) at the Flinders show is any indicator, Rone's AGWA exhibition will be touted as a “people pleaser”—but acts of self gratification can often end up rubbing many the wrong way.
It won’t be long before we know more about what to expect from AGWA’s endeavour with Rone, least of all because of the inevitable Instagram advertising that will soon roll out. Of course, it is unfair to pass any judgement until witnessing it for oneself. Yet, it is impossible to resist speculating whether Rone will be AGWA’s worst exhibition to date, an unlikely winter hit, or, most unnervingly, both. Why so worrying? Because, as Giles Fielke remarked in a review in Memo, the success of TIME • RONE reveals “[...] the power of nostalgia. It is why Make America Great Again worked. It is dangerous.”[2] It is this uncritical nostalgia—mawkish and hazardous—that forms a perfect concoction to atrophy the mind.
Find out more at www.time-rone-agwa.com.
Footnotes:
1. Sian Cain, Rone takes over Flinders Street Station’s hidden ballroom: ‘It’s my biggest project yet’, 27 October 2022. https://amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/oct/27/rone-takes-over-flinders-street-stations-hidden-ballroom-its-my-biggest-project-yet
2. Giles Fielke, TIME•RONE, 4 February 2023. https://www.memoreview.net/reviews/timerone-by-giles-fielke
Image credit: RONE, The Glasshouse. Courtesy RONE.
I can imagine the planning meeting now: a room full of recently wowed Rone fans, hearts still palpitating from witnessing the muralist’s 2022-23 Flinders Street Station exhibition. Talk turns to what venue best matches Rone’s penchant for underappreciated, abandoned, underutilised, or unorthodox locations, and, naturally, AGWA springs to mind! In fairness, the exhibition will be mounted in parts of AGWA’s Centenary Galleries that have remained locked up for years. Yet, it is hard to imagine the back end of AGWA culminating in a “Freo Woolstores” moment, which was so pivotal to last year’s Fremantle Biennale. So, what can we expect from Rone? A quote from a recent op-ed in The Guardian about the recent Melbourne installation, TIME • RONE, helps to illustrate:
Rone specifically paints women’s faces as an answer to the “aggressive masculinity” he saw while painting on the streets two decades ago: “I decided to do the opposite and I felt this defiant strength in something so fragile.” These days, there are plenty of Rone copycats on the streets, which is a reason why he wanted to go big on the rest of the details in Time. “It’s very safe, it’s very consumable, to paint a portrait on the street,” he says. “I was getting a lot of offers from communities to come and paint a mural of a local, stuff like that. And it was great fun, but I realised that I was just doing the same thing in every town. It didn’t feel like my art any more.” [1]
Often in muted tones, these “big head” murals are stock and trade for Rone, as is the case for many publicly funded muralists. The mural/installations are a saccharin recipe of steampunk-esque aesthetics and fashion illustrations. It is the soft serve variety of visual art that requires no thought to consume: creamy, easy to slurp up, and certainly bad for you.
There will certainly be more to AGWA’s show than just murals of models if the Flinders spectacle is anything to go by. Picture this: a strange labyrinth of books, papers, wine stains, European furniture, opulent and eccentric accoutrements, a few “big head” murals for good measure, and a sense of quirky luxuriousness. I doubt any of AGWA’s curators will be putting their names to this show, based on the press material released thus far. If the immense public cost and return (on ticket sales, merch, and foot traffic) at the Flinders show is any indicator, Rone's AGWA exhibition will be touted as a “people pleaser”—but acts of self gratification can often end up rubbing many the wrong way.
It won’t be long before we know more about what to expect from AGWA’s endeavour with Rone, least of all because of the inevitable Instagram advertising that will soon roll out. Of course, it is unfair to pass any judgement until witnessing it for oneself. Yet, it is impossible to resist speculating whether Rone will be AGWA’s worst exhibition to date, an unlikely winter hit, or, most unnervingly, both. Why so worrying? Because, as Giles Fielke remarked in a review in Memo, the success of TIME • RONE reveals “[...] the power of nostalgia. It is why Make America Great Again worked. It is dangerous.”[2] It is this uncritical nostalgia—mawkish and hazardous—that forms a perfect concoction to atrophy the mind.
Find out more at www.time-rone-agwa.com.
Footnotes:
1. Sian Cain, Rone takes over Flinders Street Station’s hidden ballroom: ‘It’s my biggest project yet’, 27 October 2022. https://amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/oct/27/rone-takes-over-flinders-street-stations-hidden-ballroom-its-my-biggest-project-yet
2. Giles Fielke, TIME•RONE, 4 February 2023. https://www.memoreview.net/reviews/timerone-by-giles-fielke
Image credit: RONE, The Glasshouse. Courtesy RONE.