CASHMERE IF YOU CAN: 2010

C.I.U.C. S-4

TROCADERO Art Space

Level 1, 119 Hopkins St,

Footscray, Victoria.

Dates: 20 Oct - 6 Nov 2010

Artists:

SARAH crowEST

KRISTEN PHILLIPS

FEDERICO JONI

JAMIE BOYS

This year Sarah CrowEST was performatively initiated on opening night 23 October via the Cashmerie Sacred Initiation (C.S.I.) and thus became the fourth member of the group, joining her colleagues, Kristen Phillips, Federico Joni and Jamie Boys in contending for their own piece of success. C.I.U.C. S-4 (yrs 22-28) was bigger and better than previous shows – the opening night antics were pitched higher than before, the artworks were crasser, more desperate in tone, and more diverse. Channelling, debauched limousine rides, art fame/failure and a fragrance launch was all on offer.

The Initiation Ceremony featured the electronic noise band KNOB, who played up a storm, developing a mysterious dramatic backdrop to the performance.

Electronic noise band KNOB

Sarah crowEST For this exhibition crowEST proposes to channel a successful, young, male, New York artist who she admires for his capacity to tread lightly upon the earth and probe the mystery and malleability of experience. Gedi Sibony has a talent for making materials levitate although sometimes, using peripheral vision works best. An artwork, seen out of the corner of an eye, can spark curiosity and raise suspicion. CrowEST cannot promise that her work will look anything like his because where he is poetic and spare, she is mute and lumpen and where his arrangements are barely there, hers are dense and almost always too much. We will see how far crowEST can drift in his direction. She has aspirations.

Kristen Phillips Art Drive: As a way to mark the “beginning of her artistic maturity”, emerging artist Kristen Phillips has filmed herself and her artist friends getting drunk in a stretch hummer limousine. In Art Drive, they set off into the sunset to enjoy their art star life, if only for 3 hours. Obscenity and excess is the main driver for this work, as is made evident in the gaudy interior of the H2 Hummer limo, which features a full bar, wireless Karaoke and a disco floor complete with twinkle lasers and strobe lights. Here we may feel we are entering the fantasy world of bling culture, but in a version where chunky gold medallions are replaced by mini versions of Marcel Duchamp’s iconic urinal readymade.

Phillips is interested in celebrating the actual or, indeed, readymade reality of your average struggling artist by humorously capturing them in the position of their antithesis; an art star rolling in the obscenity of an oil guzzler.

Federico Joni Is a project that artist Jonas Ropponen has been working on for the past four years. As a pseudonym, Federico Joni has provided an outlet for alternative artistic expression for the artist. The moniker is derived from a highly skilled and charismatic, Italian art forger from the early 20th century - Icilio Federico Joni, but the resemblance stops there. Ropponen’s Joni is an unwitting connoisseur of trash and bad art. Found objects, cut-outs from gossip magazines and bird droppings have been utilised over the past few years in making his work. This year Federico Joni presents some of the worst paintings you’ll ever encounter. Painting onto found corrugated cardboard with his left hand and using the cheapest of paints, the colour blind artist explores his profound insights into impending apocalypse, disappointments with Australian politics, the Death of God and general bitterness at the art world for non-recognition of his genius.

Jamie Boys This year sees the release of the long awaited cologne, ASPIRE by C.I.U.C. A fragrance created by Jamie Boys that aims at the discerning gentleman who has it all and wants more. Presented as a promotion stand with looping adverts and sample bottles, Boys explores the seductive powers and influential strategies of corporate logo branding used by advertising companies to market a way of life. By using the cinematic formula’s of well known fashion designers to create fragrance commercials, Boys examines the delusional perception of beauty and power associated with status.