Disturbance in the Gallery - The Painting of Rudolf Boelee Part 3
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DISTURBANCE
IN THE
GALLERY
The Painting of Rudolf Boelee
Part 3
Part 3 2010 -
DISTURBANCE IN THE GALLERY
The painting of Rudolf Boelee
Article & Excerpts: Greg McGee - A. P. Gaskell – Andrew Paul Wood –Sharon Murphy
Design & Commentaries: Rudolf Boelee
Publisher: Crown Lynn New Zealand Limited
© Rudolf Boelee 2013
International Exhibition 2010
Surrealism Now
Bissayo Barreto Foundation, Sant'Anna
Convent,
Coimbra, Portugal
In stark contrast, Cox's first book, Defence of Madrid, was written
immediately after he returned to England from covering the 'Battle
for Madrid' in Spain in late 1936. Still relatively new to journalism,
Cox was given the opportunity after the London News Chronicle's
correspondent in Madrid, Denis Weaver, was captured by Franco's
forces. Cox ably covered the conflict from late October to mid-
December 1936, but on his return to England found that more
senior journalists were now clambering for the opportunity.
Realising that he would not be sent back in the short term, Cox
prepared a manuscript covering the period he was in Madrid. His
eyewitness report, first published in early 1937, has become one of
the classic accounts of the Spanish Civil War. It was recently
republished in a new edition by Otago University Press on the 70th
anniversary of the battle.
Geoffrey Cox
When artist Santiago Ribeira first got in touch with me to be part of
this show, I could not really see why he would choose me. He liked
the intensity of the Exiles portraits and Geoffrey Cox having been a
correspondent in Spain during the Spanish Civil War at the height of
classic surrealism made that fit.
Persona No.9 (Jean-Louis Trintignant)
curated by Finn Fair
338 Hackney Road London E2 7 AX
2011 Christchurch
Earthquake
22 February
12:51pm
I started working on material for "Whaddarya?" during 2011.
Robyne and I were displaced from our house in Christchurch, due
to the February 22nd earthquake, and my only way to make any
work at all was with a little old Dell laptop. New Zealand was in the
midst of Rugby World Cup media hysteria, with the 'weight of
history' hanging heavily over the team and their coaches. This
made me think of all these players who came before and how they
would have reacted to this situation (in the professional era). In first
instance "Whaddarya?" was a Facebook project, because we were
continuously travelling and the only way I could gauge if there was
any interest in what I was trying to do, was through regular posts
from virtually every public library in the South Island. I like to thank
Andrew Paul Wood, Tony Carr, Eugene Huston, Johnny Lardner,
Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, Jim Wilson, David Boyce for their useful
comments, Tony Carr for giving me the script of Greg McGee's
"Foreskin's Lament" and most of all Michael Williams who gave me
the idea for this project in the first place
For a whole generation god was only twice as high as the
posts. We who know our history by itineraries – the cold
war of the ‘50s you say? Oh yes, we remember it well,
those front-row problems, Skinner and Bekker. ’59? A
mélange of O’Reilly’s creamy thighs, Jackson’s jinks, DB’s
size 13s, and a sheep-dog retrieving the ball in a cow-
paddock in Morrinsville. Froggies in ’61, Poms again in
’66 –bloody awful! – those artistes of ’68, Villepreux and
Jo Maso, a Pinetree bestriding the ‘60s with a sheep
under each arm, the Bokkies in ’73 – the ones that didn’t
come, that nevermore will come . . . there was one thing
we knew with certainty: come winter, we’d be there, on
the terrace, answering the only call that mattered –
c’mon black! . . . While the nectar flowed till you could
almost see the reflection of your youth in its dregs . .
passing . . . passing. I know the lore, I know the catechism.
- Greg McGee, Foreskin’s Lament, 1981
The whistle blew, there was a glare of
sunlight, and we were outside going out onto
the field, right out in the open. A roar from the
crowd rolled around us enveloping us. A cold
easterly breeze blew through our jerseys as
we lined up for the photographers, squinting
into the low sun. The Southern players looked
broad and compact in their black and white
jerseys. We gave three cheers and trotted out
in the middle. The turf felt fine and springy. We
spaced ourselves out. I took some deep
breaths to get charged out up with oxygen for
the first ten minutes. A Southern player dug a
hole with his heel and placed the ball. 'All right
Southern? All right Varsity?' called the referee.
Both captains nodded. He blew the whistle.
The Southern man ran up to kick. 'Thank
Christ,' I thought. 'The game at last.'
A. P. Gaskell, “The Big Game”, 1947
Rudolf Boelee’s
"Whaddarya?" (the title taken from the Greg McGee’s seminal 1981
play Foreskin’s Lament) is a series of prints celebrating that
glorious age of rugby when All Blacks played for pride, glory, and
camaraderie, and counterpoints it with the modern equivalents that
don’t quite fit the spokes model or biological tank moulds. They
were roughest of gentlemen, or the most genteel of ruffians. At
Eden Park in 1956, Peter Jones scored an extraordinary try in the
pivotal fourth test against the Springboks, the All Blacks’ first series
win over the Springboks. When asked for comment, he responded
“Ladies and gentlemen, I hope I never have to play another game
like that in my life. I’m absolutely buggered”. The New Zealand
Herald refused to print it and the recording spent the next 30 years
buried in the radio archives. In a style ultimately deriving from Andy
Warhol’s stereographic treatment of the mass image, many a
legendary moustache or cauliflower ear is immortalised in mud
brown, dried blood puce, grass green, half-time orange, lager
amber, nicotine yellow, and a palette of other assorted colours that
would not be out of place in any pub up until the gentrification of the
1980s. The effect is rather like Byzantine saints against the gold
ground of icons. Each photograph has that classic look, those tell-
tale aesthetics and semiotics familiar from many a Rugby Annual. It
is slightly unexpected to see All Blacks depicted in art this
colourfully – black, after all, is nearly synonymous with New
Zealand art through the auspices of Colin McCahon and Ralph
Hotere. How nice to see All Blacks depicted in art which is not a
grotesque pseudo-fascist/pseudo-Socialist Realist Weta Studio-
regurgitation, or the Volkswagen-like buttocks of a nude and
callipygian Anton Oliver as immortalised in oils by Simon
Richardson.
This letter is to advise of my interest and financial commitment, via
Germinal Press (part of Golden Arm Productions Pty Limited), to
produce in traditional paperback or hardcopy format the title
Whaddarya? by Rudolf Boelee. As testament of my commitment, I
have already posted Whaddarya? on my website as an e-
publication and provided to my distributors in Australia for posting
on various international e-platforms such as Amazon, Barnes &
Noble and iTunes. I believe the subject matter and the unique
treatment contained in Whaddarya? makes for a compelling
financial proposition, especially given the love for the game of rugby
in New Zealand.
Germinal Press is an independent publishing house based in
Sydney, Australia. We produce an eclectic suite of titles
ranging from rugby and Mixed Martial Arts to parenting and
horror fiction.
Regards Steve Townshend Publisher Germinal Press
Back in our house in November 2011…while
unpacking my books decided to make the
‘best book’ collages, as an ongoing poster
project for the Pug Design Store site
24 portraits
all painted
during the
second half
of
2012;
acrylic
on
hessian
on board
The idea for this project came after reading of former
Christchurch Art Gallery curator Neil Roberts predicament of
living in a perfectly good but red zoned house, was the
beginning for these works. The house is significant from a
New Zealand art historical perspective; it was designed by
sculptor designer Tom Taylor for renowned painter Bill Sutton,
who lived there from 1963 until his death in 2000. It seems
insane that this great place might just be demolished for no
good reason. The new plan for the rebuild will change
Christchurch even further, so my work is a type of mapping of
what we still have here now. Most of the artists approached, I
had known for a very long time and the majority of them have
been living and working in this neighborhood as long as I
have. Some are still in their houses/studios but others have
not been that fortunate, everyone carrying on though in their
new circumstances in one way or another. The eastside of
Christchurch has always had a proportionately larger
population of artists, including: Colin McCahon, Bill Sutton,
Rudolf Gopas, Doris Lusk, Tony Fomison, Rita Angus, Leo
Benseman. The geographical area for "EASTSIDE" is roughly
between Montreal Street / Bealey Avenue / Linwood Avenue /
Ferry Road, The project, as an exhibition, is of 24 artist
portraits, each a same size painting, 60 x 60 cm: acrylic on
hessian on board. The video footage shown with the
exhibition is from the Christchurch CBD just after the 6.3
earthquake of February 22, 2011 by Frank Film, makers of
"When a City Falls
Templar Street
Neil Roberts
Hills Road
David Mackenzie
Gloucester Street
Robyne Voyce
Woodhouse
Street
Alan McLean
Olliviers Road
Jane Zusters
Kilmore Street
Gerard Smyth
Cambridge
Terrace
Helm Ruifrok
Slater Street
Adrienne Rewi
Fleete Street
Grant Takle
Jamell Place
Kristin Hollis
North Avon Road
Keith Morant
England Street
Jonathan Smart
Bealey Avenue
Marian Maguire
Abberley
Crescent
Martin Whitworth
Edward Avenue
Marilyn Rae-
Menzies
England Street
Neil Dawson
Otley Street
Nigel Buxton
Linwood Ave
Renata Przynoga
Peterborough
Street
Philip Trusttum
Beveridge Street
Robin Neate
Main Road
Roger Hickin
Gloucester Street
Rudolf Boelee
Cashel Street
Sandra Thomson
Brittan Street
Wayne Seyb
Introduction
I go down Manchester Street: it's all there. Early sun on the Drawing
Room, John Darby Men's Wear, the bike shop on the corner of
Tuam below the old sauna parlour, the doorway to my first love's
studio, Smith's Bookshop, the Brooke Gifford Gallery over the road,
back across the collectibles shops to the barber's – the sign is out,
down past the Excelsior pub, looking over to Java for coffee and the
red dot moving sculpture. It's where I have been much of my life;
Christchurch as was. I turned half a hundred on September 3, 2010,
looking forward to the next half-century, and I now find myself
saying over and over “there was”, looking back to make sense of
the present and future. I take that walk on Google maps street view.
It's the only way, because my prim hometown has become a
disaster zone perched on the edge of the Pacific. Ironic when Greg
and I chose to stay here to bring up our late-life babes in the
sometimes-cloying safety of family and the familiar. These old street
pictures look “righter” than the new pioneer town with its
unexpected views of the Port Hills, vacant sections and containers.
My subconscious is waiting for the long-known to return, even
though I have been here for all the more than 13,000 shakes. The
hold-on-to-the-floor horrors, the leaping-away-from-the-dodgy-
chimney shimmies, the was-that-a-train-or-a-big-one-coming
rumbles, standing in St Martins almost on top of the fault on
February 22 while the earth bellowed. I know the geology, the soil
profiles, the twice-the force-of-gravity heaving of the land, the red-
dotted faultlines' slashes; but it is taking time to absorb all the
changes. I carry so many griefs for people, for places, for the
comfortable daily routines, and for the security of solid ground.
Everything -- the physical and the emotional, the intellectual and the
spiritual – has been thrown up in the air and is slowly floating down
to earth in new patterns.We all try to make sense of our new reality
every day, creating new lives, new paths. The artists - the fragile
creatives - are helping shaping the narrative of this time, living in a
buckled part of town they tell the tales past and present that will
endure for our children.The artists, the writers, the film-makers, the
photographers have real resilience: keeping the spark to make
sense of the inexplicable, the huge, and the life-changing. Our
villages remain, communities in which to live and create.
“No loss of place is trivial – in our ways, for our own loved places,
we grieve.”- Keri Hulme 2013
Why does anyone stay living in a disaster zone? I asked that
question when I read of flattened cities, war zones, natural
disasters. Now I know. This place and people are in my bones and
in my garden. Otautahi/Christchurch is where my family has the
web of blood connections that stretch across the city, from my
father's childhood home in Madras Street to my great-grandparents'
property in Allandale. From the Gladstone where I misspent my
youth to two blocks away at the hospital where I bore my children.
From The Press building in the Square where I met my beloved,
Greg Jackson, to the house in the Botanic Gardens where I played
as a child in the wild garden by the river and my close family lived
for near 30 years. From the Port Hills where my father's ashes
watch over the city to the sea where I body-boarded when carrying
my twins and out to the plains. I like the big machinery time we live
in; the way great wide spaces are being created. I am amazed by
the vastness of what had seemed like a smallish city block when it
had buildings rather than one building: another blank canvas for
creatives – property owners this time. The best, the worst, the
beautiful and the ugly are all hanging out. Possibilities and potential
that this buttoned-down city had locked away. Creating seems easy
now, though the journeys back in my head surprise, delight and
frustrate me.
Feeling the beat, Greg and I danced again at Mollett Street, at
11am in an autumn glow on the gravel replacing the old punk
warehouse. No brick-lined midnight lane to enter any more, but
warmth on our faces and thirty minutes of pure pleasure. I see
wildflowers in the wreckage, seedlings of natives trees, ducks
making their ponds in the foundations of demolished buildings. At
iconic-to-me sites the dirt underfoot set me wondering how long it
had been since that soil had seen daylight; what had happened in
that place before it was built over; what the city looked like when it
was Otautahi Pa and surrounds; what trees and vegetation were
there, what birds sang. Lots of both! says Keri. The presence of ka
manu iwi katoa was overwhelmingly loud, so much so that gathered
human voices couldn't out-sing the birds. “One of the reasons Kai
Tahu kai-karaka call so loudly is – we were attempting to out-call
the birds … the late great Irihapeti Ramsden told that one to me -
and also mentioned that Kai Tahu women would call, in relays, for
over an hour when approaching the great southern pa …. loud and
long, that's us!”
I have so many connections in the web of life here – surprisingly to
me also with the artists Rudolf has portrayed: some whose houses I
know, some I know, some I know their grandchildren and children,
some I drink tea with, some my beloved works with. Tony
Fomison’s mother Mrs Fomison lived across the road from my old
Avonside house. She grew a wonderful lemon tree that went up one
of the front verandah posts and trailed across the verandah just
below the guttering, covered in bright yellow lemons; beautiful!
Tony, who was Greg's friend as a young man, grew up in that
house and was one of the founding class at Linwood High. I now
live in the house belonging to the school's founding deputy
principal. When Greg wrote the mayor’s speech for the opening of
the Christchurch Art Gallery, he “took” Tony and Phil Clairmont to
the opening: they were the only artists mentioned by name in all the
speeches and pomp and circumstance. I admired Jane Zusters'
work in Wellington thirty years ago; Robyne Voyce and Rudolf
Boelee were the almost the first people I met when I returned to live
in Christchurch 23 years ago; I lived two doors from Doris Lusk and
saw the rooftop views she saw from her window. I love the way
Rudolf's portraits strip the subjects down to their emotional bare
bones: the strained and set faces with the creative and quake
chaos of the workrooms. They help make sense of life here
At my bedside I have a huge wood bowl, carved from “the first tree
planted on Banks Peninsula by the first missionary “. Hanging from
the kitchen door is a shillelagh; a club of knotty wood that my Great-
Uncle Huia collected from the Botanic Gardens and hung inside the
back door of the curator's residence at Rolleston Avenue for late
nights in the gardens. My children gather seaweed for our garden
from the beach where their great-great-grandparents gathered
seaweed. Their future is our shared past which we revisit, over and
again, as they and we create the new. After all, my grandmother
lived in Chester Street East for over 70 years, saying:“I still haven't
got the garden finished.”
Sharon Murphy
Previous pages; all images from the opening and closing of
“EASTSIDE” at Eastside Gallery, Linwood Community Arts Centre.
The closing of the exhibition featured the virtuoso playing of viola
player Anatoliy Zelinskyy. At present a selection of 12 0f the
EASTSIDE portraits is at the South Library, Christchurch
Following pages has images of Crown Lynn Galleries with selected
works by Robyne and me…
DISTURBANCE
IN THE
GALLERY
The End
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