Invite.

Wire.

I’ve had to cut out the coffee lately, oh I miss it though. The studio has been cool in this unseasonal hotness (although apparently one must never attribute general weather events to climate change, one must be conservative even when one can see with one’s own eyes that the climate is going fucking haywire). The days just aren’t long enough. The pleasures are great! Draw out every moment, pleasure mending, cutting, and fashioning every bamboo stick gently stuck, interlocked. Grooves lovingly milled. Foil rolled into balls. Flickering lights noted and recorded. I operate in miniature while generally lamenting the giant global shit storm. I would never, ever claim to be interested in beauty. Who has time for beauty? Such a shit of a word. I’ve recently been thinking about a life long commitment to art. Step back? I’ve been thinking about how people in universities theorise about the social purpose of art. Why don’t they just reach out to people instead?

Time to update.

I don’t want to comment too much on this issue, but I feel a great sense of shame in relation to  Australia’s attitude to asylum seekers. I was in Super Savers a couple of days ago, when I heard the news item that a boat full of Sri Lankan people had sunk. It really made my stomach sink. It was followed up with weather, advertising and then a song by John Lennon. How strange and fucked up.

As for the government’s continual mistreatment of needy and displaced people, it makes me fucking sick. Grow some political courage, Australia.

Balls.

I love these little quantities of foil. This particular ball, I rolled using the foil from a block of chocolate. I also love chocolate.

Submissions:

Do you have a ball of foil lying around the house somewhere? Why don’t you send it to me?

All shapes and sizes welcome.

Send to:

Charlie Sofo

107 Helen St.

Northcote VIC 3070

Australia.

Foil is a precious material, lets treasure it together.

Flashing lights.

On my ride home I was thinking about flashing lights and in my head I was trying to list all the reasons for, and the possible meanings of flashing lights.  Here is what I came up with:

please come into our restaurant
slow your car down to 40 km per hour
your battery is nearly dead
your engine is overheating
a house is being burgled
a train is coming
there is a mountain here
this is an aeroplane
this is a radio tower
your printer has run out of ink
there are bargains in this store
make way for an ambulance, police or fire engine
this car will make a turn
you are at rave party
don’t smoke
you are running out of fuel
you have won or lost on a pokie machine
you have won or lost on a TV game show
you have found a structural beam
next customer please
this fluorescent light is dying
this human heart has stopped
your mobile phone is operational
road work ahead
it’s Christmas
this camera will automatically take a photo
remember to remove your cash and card from this ATM machine
you have stolen a tagged item from a department store
this automatic toilet is occupied
this automatic toilet is going to self clean
this building is on fire.

Information.

Currently I’m in a show at Black and Blue Gallery in Redfern, Sydney.

Sept 25 – October 10
Curated by Joel Mu & Toby Chapman
Soft Glue – Charlie Sofo & Mary MacDougall

Black & Blue gallery.

And then shortly after that it will show at Rearview, in m-elbourne.

Thanks.

Past events, A discussion.

I have an archive of images of my work, and for the most part they’ve been useful. Although something must be said for enjoying the moment, without trying to document it all the time. A lot of artists are obsessed with documentation. It can be great and it can be a malaise. Let’s work with it.

Here are few images of works that I’ve made (some quite old!)- that are concerned with books. I don’t see books as symbols. As I’ve probably already spoken about, I like libraries and I still have a passion for reading. There’s already so much written material that exists, it would seem completely unnecessary to read a new book ever. Books don’t have to be current, because they are both the medium and content of history. Provenance. We haven’t superseded book culture, rather we live with their echoes and contain them in our new environments.  I guess our new technology contains the forms of all the older technologies and has become an enormous conglomeration of forms. We have to live with the deafening roar of information. So let me be brief;

Books, 2005, 11 books, flashing LED light.

I made this piece 4 years ago. I cut one continuous hole through 11 books – right to the last page of the last book. I installed a flashing light that illuminated The End.

Library Hairs, 2008, hairs collected from library books, PVA, cardboard.67 x 66 cm

In 2008 I became interested in using geometric forms, as vessels for materials. This piece is a circle, square and triangle drawn with hairs collected from inside library books. I find it lovely how books can record the trace of their readers. I’ve often noticed how my own hair has fallen into my book as I’m reading it. I’m still quite interested in using the library as place to make work.

Boys, 2007, 40 books.

This is an ongoing collection of Boy related books. It really came out of spending time in op-shops. You find these sorts of books all the time. When I see all those Boy books together, I find the colours quite cutesy and sickening – it’s the aesthetics of innocence maybe. And nostalgia. (Aside: A lot of gay men refer to each other as boys. I don’t know if I identify as being a boy or a man and it feels weird saying I’m attracted to either boys or men. I find boyishness attractive. There’s that small window of time when you’re regarded as a boy. A flowering. I think it’s a vulnerable time and that’s partly why it’s attractive. But then I think it’s really possible to be boyish all your life. Maybe it’s innocence. I guess innocence must be re-learned and practiced consciously [Nietzsche]).

Dog Ears, 2007.

I made this book in the public library. I found and photocopied dog-eared pages from books. I’m always interested when I find parts in books that are singled out, pages that are marked (when I read the “Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe, I found that almost every paragraph was underlined. The whole book seemed like a collection of great quotes) It was also a strategy to make a new book by finding significant parts in others. A mash up. It was a nice morning exercise, searching through those books.

Two people 2006, 1.2m x .3m

Me and Dan performed the images in this book.

The text read:

Two people in a sleeping bag, Two people lying in long grass, Two people (one obscured by the other), Two people under a blue picnic table, Two people in mid air, Two people in the shower, Two people in pitch dark.

I’ve just finished a new book, which I will share once I take some photos. There’s something that I can’t articulate about my art, but it has something to do with longing. Even more so in my new work. I can’t put my finger on it, it’s the action, the material, the residue. Some people say it’s abstract, I think it’s about longing.

Say the word longing very slowly. Draw it out. Loonngggiiinggg.

It rained hard this evening,  it sounded quite amazing on the warehouse roof. It’s tin – a thin skin. A piece of wood fell on top of one of my artworks today. It nearly ruined it, but it’s ok. I pushed a whole lot of spaghetti into a yellow wooden chopping board. I’m almost there I hope. I didn’t expect this project to take this long, but it has.

Return to the body.

Recently I was reminded of a poem – by Allen Ginsberg . It’s a good one, I remember reading it in my teens.

Song – By Allen Ginsberg

If you’re looking for something and you can’t find it at first, it’s perfectly ok to keep looking. I’m being very general here, but I think there is something very valid in pursuing a particular desire. I want to be formless. If you’re like me and you’re working away at something in a room somewhere, then persistence is important. I want I want. The other hilarious thing is: specificity is also important. In art I really try to be specific. Materials especially. Specific. I want to connect with other humans, of course. But I’m always doing it in a round-about way. I am addicted to casual encounters. I hate organising to meet up, I really just want to be in the same place at the same time (at the core of it that’s what I think community is- being close to other people). I want to hang around. I want to walk down the street aimlessly. I want to see your routines. Sure, I love materials, but I also love other people. I love seeing animals too: that nice cat, those birds, that tree, that razor-wire. Eventually chaos conspires to put me in the right place at the right time.