Slim Barrie knew Georgia O’Keefe. Or did he? Everything is true in Slim Barrie’s world. It’s the viewer who makes the connections. See the outcomes in his sculptures, reliefs, furniture and drawings at ArtWranglers for the two weeks following the opening this Friday from 5.00pm. Slim’s show will be open from ten to five on Saturday and Sunday 9th and 10th and 16th and 17th August, and by appointment in between.

There are things at Lakes Entrance that only Slim Barrie can see. Like the little-known Lakes Entrance Monster.

Slim Barrie will be showing sculptures, reliefs, furniture and drawings at ArtWranglers for the two weeks following the opening this Friday from 5.00pm. Slim’s show will be open from ten to five on Saturday and Sunday 9th and 10th and 16th and 17th August, and by appointment in between.

We now realise that this diminutive “monument” has been in the centre of Canberra for nearly a year. Would you believe we first posted this as a Public Artefact in August last year! This Ode to Marcel Duchamp is the clearly the readymade solution to the Monument dilemma. ArtWranglers has nominated it for heritage listing, and no doubt it will be registered on the National Estate as THE Northbourne Monument. See our previous Open Letter to the Chief Minister on the issue…

Well, actually, it’s a small miracle nobody has tripped on it and sued the A.C.T. Government for enough $$$ to build the big one… But as we’ve often noted, it’s a no-man’s land between the Melbourne and Sydney buildings.

In relation to the missing Million Dollar Monument, our spies in the corridors of power tell us the short-list has been reduced to three, there’s a miniscule additional fee provided for resubmission of the contenders’ proposals, and guess what? The new due date is October 1st. So we’re unlikely to hear anything before the election! No controversies in October, please!

Read Roberta Smith hacking into the new crop of visual arts graduates in New York (“How Soon Is Now?” at the Bronx Museum of the Arts) in the NYT: “…Conceptual Art and especially the theories it inspired can leave young artists with no sense of how to make an artwork that holds together as an experience. You can sense the lack of connection to either materials or self in their statements, which appear on the wall labels beside the work. They mix overblown, one-size-fits-all artspeak with quite a bit of wishful thinking about their work’s impact, as if they could control the meaning or effect of their work. Different artists claim that their efforts “contend with codes of power, authority, race and class,” “question man-made constructs,” “challenge the anthropological categorizations of early photography” or “reveal the latent power of the public’s collective intelligence.”

And there’s a Bob Hawke as well! (What is she thinking?) In addition to portraiture, Slim Barrie will be showing sculptures, reliefs, furniture and drawings at ArtWranglers for the two weeks following the opening this Friday from 5.00pm. Slim’s show will be open from ten to five on Saturday and Sunday 9th and 10th and 16th and 17th August, and by appointment in between. Early birds get their worms!!!

Max Allen sends us this great piece of weekend reading from the pen of Holland Cotter in the NYT on the subject of what may be discovered in a trashed Ad Reinhardt painting. Enjoy! “Imageless: The Scientific Study and Experimental Treatment of an Ad Reinhardt Black Painting” at the Guggenheim Museum, until Sept. 14.

Do any of our readers have one of Charlie’s “event” drawings, from 2006, like this one? ArtWranglers is trying to trace them all… Diary note: Charlie’s next show opens at ArtWranglers on October 3…

Who’s surprised that Charlie was awarded a $10,000 starters grant in the round just out? Congratulations Charlie!

Art Deco is in the air. At least at the National Gallery of Victoria. But Art Deco is not usually associated with the kind of post-revolutionary architecture (or nomadic rugs for that matter) that you see here.

Dedicated readers will not be surprised to see several themes developing here (neo-constructivism, pavilions, carpets). So click here to see the French artist Michel Aubry’s construction in homage to these Torgsektor sales kiosks by Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov, (1890-1974) at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes, Paris 1925.

We have not been able to trace the details of the carpets on sale, but oh! wouldn’t you love to engage Dr Who in a bit of time travel? Now go to Michel’s home page to see how he integrates Afghan war carpets into his installations, which culminate in videos carrying a strongly anti-militaristic theme.

To celebrate our first anniversary (August 1) ArtWranglers is publishing a readymade.

“Le monde de l’art a la langue fourchue” is an instrument guaranteed to exorcize the evils of the art world. It is published in an unlimited edition, subject to supply and demand…