songs that changed the world and influenced the weather
Often, maybe too often, words are really all that we have. The words fall under a roster of facts, clues, anomalies and intellectual debris. As for the rest it is all used and abused for specific purposes. Silence! Too much said, way too much. Enough.
image: Gallery installation view, 2010
The seams that hold together a number of visual and textual parts have come undone. Reading influences the next line of this sticky emotional experience. Song lines of our urban world are punctured by sound, spaces green and concrete and reflected in glass. The word has it, overcast with gusty winds and possible showers with sunny periods. Well rehearsed the word on the street. Talk back radio has doubled its effect with TV and out of a car stereo Lou Reed sings:
I was thinking of some kind of whacked out syncopation
That would help improve this song
Some knock'em down rhythm
That would help it move along
Some rhyme of pure perfection
A beat so hard and strong
If I can't get it right this time
Will a next time come along
Why can't I be good?
The moment has past into another moment. Time and distance are endlessly repeated in the longing for experience, any kind of emotional and felt knowledge.
Some selected words on phenomenological appearances. These words relate to the mash up on art and recent thoughts while crossing Europe by train. Due to the ash cloud from Iceland all travel by air was prevented. Thoughts differ between the transportation mode while being stationary and moving. Thinking and walking comes easy.
Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents. Italo Calvino
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. Samuel Beckett
image: Gallery installation view, 2010
From there he must have seen it all, the plain, the sea, and then these self-same hills, that some call mountains, indigo in places in the evening light, their serried ranges crowding to the skyline, cloven with hidden valleys that the eye divines from sudden shifts of colour and then from other signs for which there are no words, nor even thoughts. Three novels, from Molloy, p. 9 and 10, Samuel Beckett
People always want answers, but only liars have answers. Politicians have answers. Art should ask questions. Michael Haneke
This is ongoing, obviously as long as time allows. The title Songs that changed the world and influenced the weather is a framework, a scheme, a question and outright critique. Then again, this work can be ontological, atheistic, psychological and pragmatic; a way to make an artwork where fiction and function deals with reality via absurdity.
Enough.
Look and understand; these are the sticky emotions of experience.
left: songs that changed the world and influenced the weather (We Share), 2010
right: songs that changed the world and influenced the weather (I Ate), 2010
bosca pen on 3 sheets of paper behind beeswax, 61.8 x 42cm each
FRANZ EHMANN
Biography
1963
Born Graz, Austria
1988-91
BA Fine Art, Northern Territory University, Darwin (Charles Darwin University)
1990/91
Exhibition co-ordinator, 24 Hour ART, Darwin
1996
Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove campus, Brisbane
1996/97
Director, Whitebox Gallery, Brisbane
1996-01
Board of directors, Eyeline publishing, Brisbane
1997
Masterclass with Alison Knowles, New York artist
1997-05
Director, Soapbox Gallery, Brisbane
1999
Lecturer, media studies/sculpture, Queensland College of Art, Brisbane
Solo Exhibitions since 2001
2010
10 songs that changed the world and influenced the weather, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
Cheap Philosophies, Schwartz Gallery, London
2009
Yes we can, Galerie Lisi Hämmerle, Bregenz, Austria
2008
Relentless (without beginning nor end), BBK Galerie, Augsburg, Germany
Maximum acceleration, Conny Dietzschold Multiple Box, Sydney
2007
Aftermath, Artspace Sydney, artist residency and exhibition, Sydney
Maximum acceleration, Ryan Renshaw Gallery, Brisbane
ARC Biennial, Queensland University Technology Art Museum, Brisbane
2005
Questioning the questions of this world, Ryan Renshaw Gallery, Brisbane
Questioning the questions of this world, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
Speaking the world into existence, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
Speaking the world into existence, Artspace Mackay, Qld
2004
Where is my mind, Soapbox Gallery, Brisbane
Speaking the world into existence, Esa Jäske Gallery, Sydney
Speaking the world into existence, Soapbox Gallery, Brisbane
2003
Through the mouth, into your existence, Soapbox Gallery, Brisbane
Thinkthank, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
Where is my mind, Soapbox Gallery, Brisbane
2002
Love at the end of a days work, Soapbox Gallery, Brisbane
2001
Eveningmeal with 6 o’clock news, Soapbox Gallery, Brisbane
Open Panorama (milk, honey, wax, theories, politics, assumptions + words), Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
Almost there (again...), Casula Powerhouse, Sydney
Group Exhibitions since 2001
2009
In der schönen neuen Welt, Koloni, Dresden, Germany
2008
Vienna Biennale, Vienna, Austria
Plan B, Kleine Altstadt Galerie, Dachau, Germany
In der schönen neuen Welt, Dachauer Wasserturm, Dachau, Germany
2007
Little white door show, Ryan Renshaw Gallery, Brisbane
Artist makes video, art rage survey 1994 – 1998, Dell Gallery, Brisbane
2006
December group show, Ryan Renshaw Gallery, Brisbane
Artlanguage - every publishable place, The Cross Art Project, Sydney
Painting, John Gordon Gallery, Coffs Harbour, NSW
2005
Art Language, Poetry Festival, Nowra, NSW
This is love, Umbrella Studios, Townsville, Qld
Thing, Rocketart, Newcastle, NSW
2004
This is love, Rocketart, Newcastle, NSW
This is love, 24HR ART, Darwin
2003
This is love, Yarra Sculpture Gallery, Melbourne
2001
Parallax, Umbrella Studios, Townsville
Collections
Artbank, NSW, Australia
State collection of Vorarlberg, Austria
