tv moore: with love & squalor education...

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TV Moore: With Love & SqualorEducation Kit

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Curatorial RationaleTV Moore’s exhibition at the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, With Love & Squalor, marks the artist’s first major solo exhibition in Melbourne. The ex-hibition is a result of an invitation from ACCA’s former Artistic Director Juliana Engberg, to develop a new body of work to be presented across all of ACCA’s galleries. With Love & Squalor is part of ACCA’s annual Influential Australian Artist program, and brings together a combination of TV Moore’s recent and new works.

In this exhibition TV Moore presents a wide range of work and focuses on animation as a central theme. Using exhibition design as a sculptural medium, Moore has transformed ACCA’s galleries into ‘a unique, tactile and immersive environment.’(TV Moore) By altering the space architecturally, Moore creates a holistic and all consuming installation. These architectural interventions include building new entrances, walls and an archway that the viewer can walk through. Moore has also applied architectural finishes to the gallery spaces such as tiling, foam soundproofing, carpeting, and bright paint finishes to the walls, floors and ceilings.

Included in this exhibition are Moore’s unique photographic paintings, as well as several video, animation and sound works. TV Moore has approached the entirety of ACCA’s gallery spaces as one installation, and considers all artworks as connected to each other. Colour and sound bleed from space to space, and whilst viewing one work, the viewer cannot escape the surrounding works. TV Moore describes this process as a ‘holistic approach to exhibition making’, and says that he is not interested in manipulating a specific response from the viewer. Instead Moore presents an immersive and unique environ-ment where meaning is open-ended and nothing is impossible.

Biography

The Saturday Paper, August 27 2015.

Timothy Vernon Moore, better known as TV Moore, was born in Canberra, Australia, in 1974. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Sydney Col-lege of the Arts, University of Sydney, and in 2006 completed a Masters of Fine Art at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Los Angeles, USA.

TV Moore has been exhibiting nationally and internationally since 1997, and has held recent exhibitions at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney; and STATION Gallery, Melbourne. In 2014 Moore presented a major retrospective titled TV Moore’s Rum Jungle at Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW. TV Moore has participated in numerous group exhibitions such as the 19th Biennale of Syd-ney: You Imagine What You Desire, 2014; Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2013: and High Tide: Currents in Contemporary Australian Art, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, and Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (2006).

TV Moore lives and works between Sydney, Australia and New York, USA.


Artist PracticeAs an artist, TV Moore has been described as having ‘an inquisitive mind that internally debates some of the big issues, like mass media and cultural his-tory.’ (http://www.manuscriptdaily.com/2014/07/introducing-tv-moore/)

Inspiration and Ideas

TV Moore’s work is driven by constant experimentation and uses a wide range of materials. From painting, photography and installation, to film, animation and performance, TV Moore creates immersive and visceral environments that engage all of the viewer’s senses. Moore is interested in what he calls the ‘archeology of technology’. Often using extremely time-consuming and out-dated techniques such as hand-drawn cell animation, Moore fuses old and new technologies, creating hybrid psychedelic landscapes where the lines are blurred between the real and the unreal.

Aesthetically, materially and conceptually Moore’s work is overpowering and intoxicating. Bright fluorescent smears and sprays of paint collide, and appro-priated YouTube footage and animated video are overlaid on each other. Using lurid colours and bold gesture, Moore completely transforms the spaces he works with.

Exhibition Design

Exhibition design plays an important role in TV Moore’s work, and he often architecturally alters exhibition spaces by building walls and adding rooms. As well as structurally changing the gallery spaces he works with, Moore often applies architectural finishes such as brightly colored tiling, carpet and paint to the floor and walls of the gallery.

High culture, low culture, technology and the Internet

TV Moore’s practice mashes together high culture and pop culture, whilst referencing and paying homage to art history and iconic animation. Borrow-ing from movements in Art History such as abstract expressionism and sur-realism, Moore’s practice is interested in technology and media consumption across high and low culture. Figures like Pablo Picasso and the iconic Austra-lian artist Iain Fairweather crop up in various works, and the voices of Looney Tunes and Disney are never far away.

‘Have you ever woken from a dream where you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not?” (TV Moore). TV Moore wants the experience of his exhibition to be like this.

Art History

Art History heavily influences TV Moore’s practice, and whilst viewing Moore’s work there are many names from the history of art that spring to mind. Some of the obvious ones are Willem De Kooning, Frank Stella, Mark Rothko and Pablo Picasso.

Moore’s bold use of colour and gesture reference particular movements from modernism, but also have strong links to Outsider Art. Both his videos and his photographic paintings are expressionistic, and possess a conscious naivety. His deliberate use of art historical figures such as Picasso, in his on-screen nar-ratives, sets up a clear dialogue with the history of art.

Video and Animation

TV Moore is well known for his video work, which fuses original foot-age and animation as well as appropriated found media such as movie soundtracks and YouTube footage. By layering and combining these differ-ent elements, Moore is able to create vivid, theatrical and claustrophobic landscapes in which various characters, real, imagined and cartoon, interact.


FLOORPLAN 1. Existence, 20092. Vin-ish, 20153. Tripasso in Wackyland, 20144. YOU, 20155. Snake Pit, 20156. The Dreamer, 20157. CCM, 20158. When cats dream of everything, 20159. The Way Things Grow, 201410. Frat Self SUN SPACE, 2015

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Explore TV Moore: With Love & Squalor with one of ACCA’s FREE Education Programs visit:https://www.accaonline.org.au/learn/school-programs


KEY ARTWORKS

Vin-ish, 2015three-channel video animation with soundCourtesy the artist; Station Gallery, Melbourne; and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney

Vin-ish is a new work by TV Moore, commissioned by ACCA especially for the exhibition With Love & Squalor. The work is a video of a digitally animated man dancing, crying and sleepwalking. Presented on a 3 screens, the central figure appears to be modeled on Vin Diesel the American actor, but being digi-tally animated, the figure has an artificial or machine-like quality. With a lush pink backdrop, Vin-ish presents an intimate encounter with a highly recogni-sable masculine figure in pop culture.

Vin-ish references a work made by Bas Jan Ader, the Dutch conceptual artist made in 1970 –1971 titled I’m Too Sad to Tell You. This work is a mixed-media artwork that includes a silent film, photographs and a postcard, all relating to the artist crying for an unknown reason.

Vin-ish is made using digital animation techniques that create a tactile, ges-tural and sculptural experience for visitors. TV Moore has made a number of these animations where he constructs digital figures using computer software. These avatars appear life-like yet are also strange, plastic and artificial - the fig-ures are reminiscent of a computer game, The Sims. This reference to gaming and virtual worlds relates to Moore’s interest in immersive and tactile environ-ments, inspiring emotional responses in viewers.

The title of this work, Vin-ish, is a play on words, which references Vin Diesel himself. By adding –ish to Vin, Moore adds an element of doubt to whether this figure is actually Vin Diesel.

Most noted for his role in the Fast and the Furious movies, Vin Diesel’s ultra masculine persona becomes fractured in Vin-ish as visitors share an intimate encounter with him crying, dancing and sleepwalking. The pairing of a mascu-line icon with the intimate act of crying questions gender stereotypes. In this work Moore takes a hyper-masculine figure from the media that most of us would be familiar with, and makes him vulnerable. TV Moore often uses male characters and voices in his videos, animations and sound works, and it is possible to see these various male portraits as self-portraits.


Tripasso in Wackyland, 2014video animation with sound8.34 minsCourtesy the artist; Station Gallery, Melbourne; and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney

In ACCA’s largest gallery space there is a monumentally-sized projection of TV Moore’s video Tripasso in Wackyland. Presented on a loop, the video is a mash-up of 1930s-style cartoon animations, against a backdrop of constantly moving and changing appropriated YouTube and television footage. This foot-age includes basketball games, explosions, volcanoes erupting, underwater creatures, and domestic cats jumping fences. All of this is set to a ‘very seri-ous piece of booming orchestral music a la Walt Disney’s Fantasia.’ (TV Moore Rum Jungle review – lurid images in search of authenticity, http://www.the-guardian.com/artanddesign/australia-culture-blog/2014/apr/10/tv-moore-rum-jungle-review-campbelltown-arts-centre)

Tripasso in Wackyland is a brightly coloured and psychedelic collision of a range of cultural references from art history to pop culture. The animation overlaid and interacting with the collaged footage, makes for a jarring sensory experience. The work is a reference to and appropriation of the Looney Tunes short film Porky in Wackyland from 1938, but Moore has replaced Porky Pig with Pablo Picasso.

In a sequence of otherworldly events that could only happen in a cartoon, Picasso runs from and tries to escape the characters from one of his most famous works, Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon. The cartoon forms of the women from his painting appear large and imposing and threaten Picasso. This video can be seen as a portrait of Picasso haunted by his own artwork, and running away from his own self.

Other characters that are present include a Dodo bird, which features in the original Porky in Wackyland, as well as Garfield and various other cartoon characters. TV Moore has described the exhibition at large, as being a ‘Domes-tic Disneyland’, and there is certainly a domestic feel to the exhibition, with the gallery’s carpeted floors and tiling.

The way that Tripasso in Wackyland has been installed is crucial to the work. The projection takes up the whole of the back wall, so that when the viewer enters the space they are immediately confronted and overpowered by the screen. The floor is carpeted in a rich bright red, and the walls are painted a lurid yellow. Along the edges of the ceiling there are deep red fluros, casting a sunset-like glow over the walls. Although there is actually nothing physical in the space, the gallery feels completely full.


The Way Things Grow, 2014video animation with sound Courtesy the artist; Station Gallery, Melbourne; and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney

This hand-drawn cell animation captures a 3-minute extract of the Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss’ 1987 video, The Way Things Go. Fischli and Weiss’ work is a sequence of everyday objects assembled so that once set in motion they create an endless chain reaction, and the video goes for nearly 30 minutes. The Way Things Go incorporates materials such as car tyres, planks of wood, paint, ladders, old shoes and gasoline. TV Moore has appro-priated The Way Things Go, and recreated a segment of it using hand-drawn cell animation. In Moore’s animation he pays particular attention to details in the background, such as cracks and smudges on the walls and power points, recreating the broader environment of the film. TV Moore has titled his video The Way Things Grow.

The use of hand-drawn cell animation within TV Moore’s practice extends on his interest in the expressive potential of the moving image. The drawing-like quality to the animation is seductive and transfixing, and we can see the shad-ing and sketchy lines. This kind of animation is an outdated technology and creates a feeling of nostalgia, reminding us of the cartoons we all watched as children.

By recreating Fischli and Weiss’ seminal work in hand-drawn cell animation, TV Moore asks us to question and consider the work anew. Animation slows the work down, but also takes out the element of risk that was so present in the original video. Hand-drawn cell animation is an incredibly labour inten-sive technique, and when viewing this work the question of futility is raised. What is the point of recreating this artwork in animation? How does animation change the artwork?

The soundtrack that TV Moore has set to The Way Things Grow is a sample of an Enya song, Only Time. In pairing his animation with this soundtrack, there is a feeling of tranquility and hypnosis in the gallery space. As viewers we are fixated on this beautiful drawn and constantly moving chain reaction, and the soundtrack similarly mesmerizes and uplifts.

The Way Things Grow alludes to the way we think about our world, the things around us, our lives and events, suggesting that all these things are a series of chain reactions – we can participate or not, but they will happen regardless. Nothing is ever fixed or static.


When Cats Dream of Everything, 201533 minute sound loopCourtesy the artist; Station Gallery, Melbourne; and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney

One of the first things noticed when walking into TV Moore’s With Love & Squalor at ACCA is the overwhelming sounds of the exhibition. As the viewer enters the gallery spaces, they are met with a barrage of different and compet-ing audio components to the various video works. Sound seeps and bleeds from space to space. It is inescapable.

When Cats Dream of Everything is a new sound work by TV Moore, especially commissioned for With Love & Squalor. It is presented in the same gallery as Moore’s photographic paintings, and the gallery space has been tiled from floor to ceiling with small bright blue square tiles. When Cats Dream of Every-thing consists of a computerized voice that lists off a collection of stories, lists, trending topics, twitter poems and Internet speak. Moore has collected these phrases, sentences, words and hash tags from various sources, and they are a combination of real and imagined. The voice is consistently loud, and the tiled walls seem to make it bounce and reverberate through the space.

The voice is familiar from applications such as Siri on the iphone, however it is also a bit unsettling and sinister. Some of the things said are also quite absurd and comic. Perhaps this voice with its endless stream of information is a Siri gone haywire. Moore’s use of a robotic, non-human voice continues his interest in the Internet, media and technology. The familiarity of the automated voice makes us question do machines have feelings?


Photographic Paintings, 2015The Dreamer, 2015Cibachrome in unique frame170 x 135 cmCourtesy the artist and Station Gallery, Melbourne

YOU, 2015Cibachrome in unique frame130 x 110 cmCourtesy the artist and Station Gallery, Melbourne Snake Pit, 2015Cibachrome in unique frame110 x 85 cmCourtesy the artist and Station Gallery, Melbourne CCM, 2015Cibachrome in unique frame117 x 90cmCourtesy the artist and Station Gallery, Melbourne

In 2011 TV Moore started making what he calls photographic paintings. These are large-scale high-resolution cibachrome photographs of gestural paintings that have been digitally manipulated. Cibachrome is a type of analog photog-raphy where handmade photographic prints are made directly from colour slide film. These photographic prints make use of advanced printing tech-niques and often include collaged and digital elements.

With their gestural brush strokes and bold sprays of garish color, these paint-ings work to destabilize the viewer. Moore presents these works in bright custom painted frames, and the bright blue tiled wall on which they are presented, extend the paintings beyond their frames prolonging this sense of destabilization.

The surfaces of these hybrid works are technically flat, however because of this, the frenzied brush strokes and collage elements inside the frames allude to expansiveness. These paintings appear as portals to another realm, a realm of disembodied eyes and lips amongst muddied paint smears. These photo-graphic paintings have been described as having a ‘light box aesthetic with depths and hollows that can be glimpsed beyond the painted surface.’ (Just Brimming with Abstract Notions, Elizabeth Fortescue, Daily Telegraph, 2012). TV Moore has said that these works are a ‘mash-up of painting, collage, scan-ning, copying and photography.’

TV Moore begins these photo paintings with finger painting, directly using his hand dipped in paint and smearing it over a surface. When this is done he photographs the painting and then uses digital software to edit and alter the images. Slowly the artist’s hand is further and further removed from the artwork, and the process becomes more and more digitized. The end result is a work that explicitly refers to the artist’s hand and body, in the gesture of the paint, however there is no element of the artist’s hand physically present. The photo paintings are completely flat and digital.

In the same gallery, When Cats Dream of Everything, is playing. The computer-ized voice seems to be coming from a parallel virtual world, perhaps the same world that is caught behind the Perspex in Moore’s photo paintings. The body and humans are referred to but not physically present in the sound work as well. The voice is automated and has no physical presence - it is a machine.


Frat Self SUN SPACE, 2015video animation with sound Courtesy the artist; Station Gallery, Melbourne; and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney

Frat Self SUN SPACE is a newly-commissioned work for TV Moore’s exhibi-tion at ACCA, and explores the phenomenon of the “selfie”. Cast against the backdrop of real-time sunsets and vast landscapes, TV Moore has created an-other Sims-like digital avatar using computer software. Moore has described the character in this video as a ‘Freddie Prince Junior frat boy lookalike who is caught in a vortex of “selfies”.’ Slowed down, he is forever taking pictures of himself.

The avatar stands in the one position, occasionally moving his head to a differ-ent angle or lifting his hand to his chin in a thoughtful pose, constantly taking “selfies”. This work examines the control that the subject has in framing them-selves today, with the proliferation of smart phones.

The background shifts from sublime but clichéd landscapes, and sunsets, to a flat pink background with floating “selfie” sticks. The selfie sticks are almost weapon-like, and are portrayed as quite aggressive instruments.

Frat Self SUN SPACE comments on our contemporary internet age, and explores our consumption of media and how it affects our feelings towards ourselves and others.


Curriculum links

VCE STUDIO ART

Unit 2, Area of study 2Ideas and Styles in artworksSelect one artwork in the exhibition TV Moore: With Love & Squalor. Pay par-ticular attention to the way the artwork is displayed (eg. lighting, wall colour, flooring, room floorplan). Analyse this artwork, discussing how art elements and principles have been used to create aesthetic qualities and communicate ideas.

TV Moore is influenced and inspired by art of the past as well as current culture. Analyse his work Tripasso in Wackyland and his inspiration for it: Picasso and Picasso’s, Les Demoiselles d’Avingnon.

TV Moore’s work The Way Things Grow is inspired by and appropriated from Fischli and Weiss’ seminal 1987 work The Way Things Go. View both works and analyse how TV Moore has appropriated their work.

Explore TV Moore’s sound work, When Cats Dream of Everything. Analyse how TV Moore uses sound and the surrounding gallery space to create aesthetic qualities and communicate ideas.

TV Moore’s work appropriates images and video footage from pop culture and art history. Appropriation is a technique artists have used for a long time. The Way Things Grow draws directly from an existing artwork The Way Things Go 1987 by Peter Fischli and David Weiss. Examine the implications that may arise from the use of another artists’ work. In your examination consider ideas relat-ing to originality and integrity of the artist and artwork, copyright law, licensing agreements and the rights of artists.

Unit 3, Area of Study 3Professional art practices and stylesTV Moore’s artistic style is diverse. View the exhibition TV Moore: With Love & Squalor and note down any particular findings or thoughts related to style. Research TV Moore and informed by this discuss the following questions: How would you describe Moore’s style? What are the key characteristics of Moore’s practice? Using specific artwork examples, discuss the stylistic qualities.

Unit 4, Area of Study 3Art Industry Contexts The artist TV Moore played an integral role in the design and curation of his exhibition TV Moore: With Love & Squalor, particularly in relation to the wall colours, lighting and floorplan. All these considerations were designed by him to trigger a response. What have your responses been whilst exploring the exhibition? Use this exhibition as a case study to consider how galleries and artists work together to realise and install exhibitions.

ACCA’s exhibition marketing and promotion appears in a variety of places in-cluding Advertising posters at public transport stops (eg. Flinders Street Train), community radio advertisements (3RRR), social media (facebook, twitter and instagram), online cultural journals (Art Guide, Broadsheet and Time Out) and exhibition reviews (the Age, the Guardian etc). Search for some examples of TV Moore: With Love & Squalor exhibition advertising and promotion and col-late all this material together into a ‘scrapbook’ of evidence.

VCE ART

Unit 2, Area of Study 1: Art and culture How does the cultural background of the viewer influence the interpretation of TV Moore’s artworks?

Unit 3, Area of Study 2: Investigation & Interpretation through artmaking Inspired by TV Moore’s practice, explore your own cultural and interactive (social, online) world, by creating a series of works that involve observations, images or notes of online platforms you intersect with or mass media you con-sume. Experiment with recording these observations through video, sound, photography and mixed media. Reflect on the ways in which you have used visual language to comment on the qualities of your ‘online’ environment.

Unit 3, Area of Study 2: Investigation and interpretation through artmaking Explore the exhibition With Love & Squalor, select two artworks to analyse with reference to the Analytical Frameworks. In your analysis discuss TV Moore’s choice of presentation, subject matter, materials and techniques and how theychallenge or reflect artistic and social traditions. How does the physi-cal placement and setting of each artwork affect its interpretation.


Unit 4, Area of Study 1: Discussing and debating artWrite a response to how TV Moore’s artistic practice challenges the traditional notions of artmaking and the role of the artist in contemporary society.

SECONDARY

EXPLORING & RESPONDING Levels 7 – 10

TV Moore’s work The Way Things Grow is inspired by and appropriated from Fischli and Weiss’ seminal 1987 work The Way Things Go. View The Way Things Go and compare and contrast both works, thinking particularly about how real life objects compared to animation, change your perception of the chain reaction.

The spaces in TV Moore’s exhibition With Love & Squalor are colourful and vibrant. After viewing the exhibition identify and discuss how the colours and spaces made you feel and impacted on your viewing of the artworks.

Explore TV Moore’s sound work, When Cats Dream of Everything. Discuss how sound can be used to make artworks and create atmospheres.

TV Moore inspires us to broaden our ideas of what an artwork can be. TV Moore is really interested in exhibition design as a medium similar to painting, photography or sculpture. Discuss how TV Moore has used exhibition design in his exhibition at ACCA, With Love & Squalor, and to what effect.

CREATING & MAKING Levels 7 – 10

Inspired by The Way Things Grow, research animation and animation tech-niques and create your own Zoetrope.

Make a Chain reaction inspired by the ways things grow, using a variety of found and sourced materials of your choice.

Inspired by TV Moore’s photographic paintings, look at abstract expressionism and surrealism as movements in art history. Try creating you own photograph-ic painting by making a painting, then scan your painting and use Photoshop to cut, paste and collage images found online or of yourself.

PRIMARY

EXPLORING & RESPONDING Levels P – 6

Look at the way the figure moves and acts in Vin-ish. Does his movement remind you of something you have seen before, write these down? Can you explain why the man is upset?

CREATING & MAKING Levels P – 6

Looking at TV Moore’s photographic paintings, make a photographic painting of your own. Make a painting and take a photograph of it, print the photograph out and collage different materials onto your photograph. Think about the composition of you artwork, where you want to put things and why.

FURTHER READING

Representing gallery: Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney & STATION, Melbourne

http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/67/TV_Moore/

TV Moore: Rum Jungle review – lurid images in search of authenticity

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/australia-culture-blog/2014/apr/10/tv-moore-rum-jungle-review-campbelltown-arts-centre

Manuscript, 2015, ‘Introducing: TV Moore’

http://www.manuscriptdaily.com/2014/07/introducing-tv-moore/

Biennale of Sydney artists TV Moore and Stuart Ringholt in conversation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipFaeizBH8U

Visual Arts Hub, 2014, ‘TV Moore’s Rum Jungle’

http://visual.artshub.com.au/news-article/reviews/visual-arts/gina-fairley/tv-moores-rum-jungle-243170

Scanlines, Media Art in Australia since the 1960s, ‘TV Moore’

http://www.scanlines.net/person/tv-moore

Art and Australia, 2014, ‘Selected Exhibition: TV Moore: Rum Jungle’

http://www.artandaustralia.com/news/reviews-commentary/tv-moore-rum-jungle

ACCA’s FREE education programs are available for Primary, Secondary and Tertiary groups between 10am – 4pm from Monday to Friday.Maximum 25 students per group for THINK and MAKE programs.Bookings are required for both guided and self-guided School and Tertiary groups.

10am – 5pm Tuesday – Friday12pm – 5pm Weekends & Public Holidays (except Good Friday & Christmas Day) Monday by appointment

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSEducation Resource written and compiled by Georgina Glanville, Artist Educator and Alyce Neal, Casual Educator, ACCA15 August – 27 September 2015.TERMS OF USEThis Education Resource has been produced by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art to provide information and classroom support material for school visits to the exhibition TV Moore: With Love & Squalor. The reproduction and communication of this resource is permitted for educational purposes only.

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