The Epona group visited the Mike Kelley exhibition in Amsterdam and had a lively discussion. We were impressed by the variety of media used: drawing, painting, sculpture, performance, video, writing, etc. We discussed the work called More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid from 1987, a mess of used rag dolls, animals and blankets strewn across a canvas. The group had many questions: Why do we like it? Why is this art? What is the pathos in this fictional childhood work? The work Pay for Your Pleasure, a gallery of portraits of poets, philosophers and artists with at the end a painting created by a convicted Dutch criminal, -who we did not know-, was subject to critique. Why not use the original, often French or German language for these quotes? And writing Rim Baud as two words is unforgivable. We surely did not like the pornographic themes, but some of us would like to have the work with found pearls above our sofa. The biologists among us asked whether the artist had realized that in his bird’s cage, referring to Catholicism with a small gate for the hard way and a large one for the easy way, for real birds both are easy, since the small gate is used by small birds. Our discussions went on for days by email.

Art Gallery O-68 shows work of Australian artists: Edward Blitner, Maringka Burton, Mary Charles, Millre Coulthard, Nellie Coulthard, Barbara Derose, Aaron Hayden, Pansy Hicks, Neta Knapp, Michael Mongoo, Rita Rolley, Emma Singer, Rene Sundown, Doris Teamay, Beryl Walsh, Louise Whiskey, Kaylene Whiskey en Karen Wright van 28 oktober t/m 25 november.

Openingsspeech by Prof. Dr. John de Jong, liguist,15.30h, 28 October.

These artists live and ork in th desert area of Western Australia, Northern Territory en South Australia. Originally, these works were made in sand, the soil, on rocks. They are means of communication, to tell each other about travel, family nd landscape, very abstract, “dreamings”, ceremonies, stories in the sand. Only sinc the 70-ties of the last century aboriginal artists started to ork ith acryl on canvas, taught to them by art teacher Geoffrey Bardon vergelijkbare. Many musea and people with private collections started to buy the orks and some aboriginal prople from the community did not agree since deep secrets of their culture and beliefs lie in the works.