Richard Grayson

Lecture Notes:

• 1998 Curator, AEAF

• Series of oil paintings, "Things I Don't Understand" - How do we build understandings? How do we build worlds? - Concepts of the real
• Text in the canvas - explorations of space - receding into background, angles of placement

• Currently - contemporary art something for incredibly rich people to buy
• Something that you buy - consume the idea that art can change the world

• The Current Inability to construct a Viable Alternative to Global Capitalism - red, greeny black textured background 
• Ways of the World's End - Christ Scientists, Zeta talk - end of the world only exists in language
• Spiralling texts of prophesies - disappearance into a void
• David Berg - leader of The Family (Children of God) - book of Revelation mixed with Science Fiction
• Anti-Christ

• World's In Collision - time of counter-culture - 1960s and 70s
• Benedict Drew - analogue and digital, post-it notes and projectors
• Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige - Artist film makers - refuse to show films in art galleries, show them instead in cinemas - CACSA in Parkside, carpet of a stamp commemorating first Lebanese rocket in space
• Susan Hiller, Channels - transmits voices from archive of people's near-death experiences, analogue technology
• Paul Laffoley - trained as architect and classicist - employed by Andy Warhol to watch television between midnight and 6am - hours of snow effect. Ideas of mapping? Possibilities of progress and transcendence (in robots!)
• Ra di Martino - abandoned Star Wars sets in North Africa - being pillaged by locals e.g. to build goat shelters - archaeology
• Katie Paterson - travelling lunar rock - "Second Moon", very small moon in very small orbit
• Fred Tomaselli - painter - layers of resin - luminosity - makes work out of his hobbies: bird watching, drugs, music - "interventions" using front page of New York Times
• Artur Zmijewski - noise of political and social motion - simultaneously played demonstrations and protests

Richard Grayson, Negative Space (Things I don't Understand), 2000, oil on canvas, 203 x 168 cm

Richard Grayson, Negative Space (Things I don't Understand), 2000, oil on canvas, 203 x 168 cm

Richard Grayson, Ways the World Ends (Zeta Talk), 2002, acrylic on canvas

Richard Grayson, Ways the World Ends (Rasputin), 2002, acrylic on canvas

This week for Artist Speak we were visited by Richard Grayson, the curator of the currently showing World's In Collision  exhibition across several venues around Adelaide. I loved that Grayson showed us photos of what to expect in the exhibition, but more than that I was curious to see images of his own artistic practice. I found it very useful to hear that the inspiration for a lot of his work is apocalyptic sources, such as Christ Scientists and Zeta talk. Grayson has worked a lot in the past with text in his art, which is something I am similarly curious about trying this semester. I love how he investigates ideas of the space of the canvas by attempting 3D effects with the text. I think it is important to have this extra element to the painting to prevent the eye from skipping over the work because it is boring and completely flat. I also like that it appears he often includes some background texture, such as scumbling a lighter colour over a darker one, which contrasts nicely with the precision of the text. I have worked with text in painting before, but I think it will be important for me to adapt these elements into my own work to add visual interest and prevent the work from looking too "designed".