INVURT

Around this time last year, we did our first snapshot of some of the cool sites that we read on a frequent basis that deal with Australian and New Zealand art and other creative endeavours. Every day our editor, Facter, reads through a mountain of blogs and websites, looking for cool events, exhibitions and artists to speak to – it takes a lot of time and effort, mostly because there are so many great sites out there that follow Oz & NZ art – but its completely worth it!

Last year our roundup included such sites as Dont Sleep Magazine, Nothing To Nobody, Melbourne Art & Culture Critic, Everfresh, Nice Produce, Kompound, Just Another Agency, ArtistsWA, This Life, Design Federation, the sadly missed We Make Stuff Good and the ever inspirational weAREtheIMAGEmakers.

Again, this is not a top of the top, nor an indication that if its not in this list then its not the best! There are just way too many sites out there for that we read through, and each one of them offers something different. Instead, this is just a small collection of some of the sites we’ve come across in the last year or so that have piqued our interest, and we thought we’d share them with you..

So, a huge thankyou to all the blogs from our list last year, and to all of our recent favourites listed here. Without all of your amazing efforts in documenting all of this cool shit, our day to day reading here at Invurt would be all the poorer …

Six Years Later Magazine – launching this year, Six Years Later is a fantastic print magazine, but their blog is also pretty damn cool. You should take a look at both, they’re equally worth the read.

Land Of Sunshine – well, you know him either from here with his monthly Top 10s, or from his awesome blog, Land Of Sunshine – in terms of coverage of Melbourne street art, Dean Sunshine is the man. With a wide range of collections, events and snaps from visiting artists, this is one of our definite go to blogs to check out whats been going up on the street.

T-Squat – These guys go from strength to strength. Editor and resident photographer James Watkins has a great eye for the eclectic, and though they cover everything from music to sports and everything in between, they also do great coverage on both established and emerging artists from around the globe. It’s a one stop feast.

Curvy – We love girls, and we love girls doing art, and we love girls writing about girls doing art … okay, you get the drift! Curvy celebrates all that is feminine and creative, and their blog is absolutely fantastic. With a great crew of bloggers behind the keyboard, and with plenty of inspiriting work pumping through the site, we head to Curvy on a regular basis.

Artygraffarti – new kid on the block, Arygraffarti, is really starting to get up there. With regular, frequent posts from his wandering around both Melbourne and other cities (when he gets there) this is a mint little low brow look at new stuff thats appearing. He also has a bit of event info on there of stuff happening around Melbourne, and its well worth adding to your reader feed.

Chasing Ghosts – these guys have been off on a sojourn around the globe for a while, but they’ve now settled back in Melbourne and have begun documenting and putting up great photosets on their bog as well as on flickr. With great attention to detail and a wonderful eye for not only the artwork, but its positioning and surrounding environment, these guys have it down.

Acclaim Mag – after a major site redesign sometime last year or so, Acclaims online presence and quality of content matches its print version. With everything street, urban, music and fashion related, if you’re into your all round street lifestyle, this is where you should be checking regularly – a great aussie based mag that we love!

Strutten – we adore this collective! Having only launched earlier this year, Strutten already have a loyal following, and we go to them for art and design related news up in Queensland. They have a great bunch of people posting, who are all collective artists themselves, and they also delve into the cafe and music culture. They love the city of Brisbane, and they’re great champions of what’s going on there. <3

The Opening Hours – The Opening Hours has their finger on the pulse up in Sydney, and more besides – both the photos and coverage of events is superb – this is our kinda blog!!

Disassociated – John Lampard does an amazing job at tracking events across the country, across all genres of art, with the Australian Art Show List. There’s also some great blogs posts on there outside of the event stuff, following film and other creative industry stuff – its very much worth a read.

Street Arse – of course, lots of love for the crews over in NZ, and Street Arse is our favourite. Shows, news and bits and pieces galore from the New Zealand street art scene.

Wellington Wall Street – and, still on the NZ tip, representing Wellington street art, heaps of great pics of work springing up in the city.

Stupidkrap – though a little quiet lately on the news front, Stupidkrap is a great site full of awesome content. Not only that, but their online store has a huge range of artwork and prints from all across Australia.

Dangerfork – speaking of prints and all things inked, another newcomer, Dankgerfork, has been carving a niche for itself down here in Melbourne. We can see these guys going a long way, and their recent popup store in Collingwood is a great testament to the quality of their work. Check back here often for all kinds of limited edition works from a bunch of wicked artists.

Project4000 – Have spent some time growing up in the Far North, we love anything coming out of Queensland, and Project 4000, along with Strutten, is our lifeline to what’s going on up there in Brisvegas. They follow a lot of streetwear orientated news, but their art and event coverage is also pretty cool and they have a bit on Brisbane street art here and there.

Philthosophy – this site maintains a running list of all the art happens in Melbourne, listed out per date. Theres a lot there, and she covers as much of it as possible in the lists – its a handy reference if you want to check out the creative life in the ‘burn!

Knock Knock Magazine – a relative newcomer, this magazine is already busting out with its first issue and looks set for a really bright future. We love it already!

Ironlak – well, this one is a no-brainer, really – just follow their blog, alright?

Special Mentions – International Blogs We Love

We do read a hell of a lot of international blogs as well, and though we don’t cover international stuff, well, we don’t need to – there are so many great places that do that already. These are just some of our favourites …

• Arrested Motion
• VNA Magazine
• UnUrth
• Juxtapoz
• Fecal Face
• Urban Artcore
• Hooked Blog
• Vandalog
• High Fructose
• Wooster Collective

We hope you enjoy all of these blogs and websites as much as we do, and, if they have a facebook page, show them your support by liking them and following their efforts!!

We’ll be doing this roundup on a quarterly basis now, so if you have any sites you’d like us to check out that you think we’d love, just let us know.

Invurt wouldn’t be anything without the rest of the web and arts community – we spend at least an hour or two every day going through a wide range of feeds and sites, checking for news and seeing what’s happening. Probably half the event stuff we post up is composed of things we find through either gallery blogs or these ones, the other half is stuff we get mailed to us. That said, irrespective of the news they contain, we read these sites because they generally have a great mix of awesome to them, and we can get our fix of art-goodness from reading them all – and, if we see something relevant, we post it up as well. Link-backs are a hard and fast rule, if we see it on a site, we link back to them and give back a bit of support – if we can help drive even just a bit more traffic back to them, or get a few more people to a show that they’ve posted up, then we’re happy.

We wont call it a top 10 of 2010, theres more than that – and, also,  there are other blogs out there that are just as great that we’ll get to in the next part. I haven’t included galleries, and I haven’t included sites that cross too many different categories  with their posts (like the larger magazines etc), and, no international sites. We also think that the term “blog” in reference to a lot of these sites is a little outdated, many of them are so much more than what such a simple connotation presents – we probably wouldn’t even call Invurt a blog, we guess its more of a webzine, or whatever the hell you want to call it.

Anyways – these are just a portion of the blogs that we love – and this is a bit of a thanks to all of them for their hard work in providing us with a great read throughout the week …

Melbourne Art & Culture Critic – updated fairly regularly, and its been going for some time now – Mark Holsworth is a really nice guy, and has a lot of history in the area of writing about art, as well as creating it himself. His articles span the gamut of Melbourne art, but he does have a particular penchant for urban and street art related stuff – and, agree with his opinion or not, his posts are insightful, thought provoking and often also carry a bit of historical information along with them, which I love.

Nothing To Nobody – we talked to Jo Jette from Nothing To Nobody not long ago, and we think what they’re doing with their magazine is great – but, they also have a great blog up and running which covers a whole bunch of different cultural related stuff – not just art – and has some cool info on board.

Everfresh – what can we say about Everfresh? Prolific, talented and dedicated. Their blog spans the gamut of their activities, as well as news and info on what their friends are up to. I particularly enjoy it for their posts while any of them are travelling, as well as all the work they’re doing out in the streets.

Nice Produce – Nice things for nice people; thats their motto – and Nice Produce is chock full of nice things. They have a bunch of artists contributing blog entries to the site, and also cover a lot of events that they or their friends are involved with – they’re also a great online store that you can get a range of different artwork and related products as well. Its a really cool collective, and its another religious read for us – props.

Kompound – when we started out Invurt, we wanted to keep it simple, there are far too many “all over the place” blogs online that just didn’t really have an aim – then we saw Kompound, and liked what we saw. Theres a bunch of candid photography, a bit of events and music, a lot of street art, a  few videos – all those things we sometimes dislike about other blogs are all the things that we love about Kompound – it just works.

Just Another Agency – The girls at the agency are pretty cool, and are doing some cool things to help promote a whole slew of talent, but, their site doesn’t just go into the whole agency aspect of things – they also have an awesome blog attached to it that often has a lot of great info, cool little articles and its a really worthwhile read for both local and international artist info.

ArtistsWA – this site has been around for a few years and was started by a couple of friends of mine. It went through a bit of a quiet period for a while there, but its being updated much more frequently these days by Perth artist Flaunt – lots of new artist information going up, as well as events of a like-minded nature from back at my Westralian homeland.

Images to Live By – for a little more cerebral read into street art – this is noted Melbourne street art writer and researcher Alisons Youngs blog. She’s a pretty busy lady, so the blog isn’t updated every day, but when it is you can always be assured that the content will pique your interest and give your brain something to think about – and you should read through the archives for some great articles.

This Life – another example of an all-rounder that is pretty cool. This Life is a fun read, and with a few people posting on it the content is varied, but not too over the top in terms of the whole “Lookit this youtube video I saw and this one and this one!” nah – its chilled, laid back, and it also has some great interviews on it – notably, we love the interviews with tattooists/artists they’ve been doing lately.

Design Federation – supportive, funky, fun and informative – all attributes that DF excel at, and which has made their site one of the stopping points for Oz creatives. It covers a wide range of design news, from mainstream to the more underground, and its a great.

We Make Stuff Good – Its been a little quieter than usual on the WMSG front in the last few months, but from what we hear it may just be the calm before the storm. One of the coolest sites that looks at the creative subculture in Melbourne, there are some really great articles and interviews in its archives – and, hopefully, many more to come in the future.

weAREtheIMAGEmakers – we’ve sung praise for WATIM before, for good reason. Beastman started WATIM way back in 2005, the news section has a great listing of coming events, and every issue released just builds on each one before. There is an amazing archive of work and artist interviews throughout all 23 parts of this ongoing zine, and as soon as we read one, we cant wait for the next.

Special Mentions

Street Arse – we’re hopefully looking at  NZ events and artists come early next year, and this is one of my favourite NZ blogs right now (Askew Ones blog is also rather awesome). Street Arse has been going for quite some time, and gives a really good over view of things and artwork thats happening around NZ. Check it out.

Io9 - okay. So its not local. I lied when I sad there were no international sites. Its not even art (though it does have an amazing art category) – but io9, Gizmodo and Lifehacker we read religiously. It has some amazing fkn articles, its eclectic, and its one of our favourite sites on the web – everyone should read it – and this is my post, so like, its listed. What-thafuk-ever =P

If you have any other suggestions for great blogs we can check out, just drop us a note in the comments – we’d love to check them out – if we haven’t seen them already and they aren’t going to be in the next part, that is …

Melbourne

• Ghostpatrol had his solo exhibition Warps Points and Seed Vault save points open last night. Melbourne Art & Culture Critic has a short review of the exhibition here – I checked it out when it seemed to be at its most busy, some wonderful work in there – looking forward to seeing it when its a little quieter. We did a really cool interview with the man himself here.
• Nicole Tattersalls solo exhibition, “Patchworked” opens tonight – I saw a couple of her pieces when I was picking up some of the work left over from my show last night, and it looks great! Also check out the interview we did with her.
• Paradise Hills opens their door for the first time tonight, with their group exhibition “The Grass Is Always Greener”  opening up tonight in Richmond
• A new print gallery, Signed & Numbered opened up in Prahran this week, featuring work from a whole slew of our favorite artists. I’ll be checking it out over the weekend to see what its all about – but in the meantime Design Federation did a cool little piece on it the other day – they also sell their prints online.
• Of course last, but certainly not least – Semi Permanent started today! (If only I could have got the day off this 9-5er, alas) – and in grand style, we have the Just Another Group show – the official SP Melbourne exhibition opening tonight. Yesterday we did a great interview with Toby and Melika from Just Another Agency, the brains behind the show, so have a read, and get on down tonight for a great show – seeya there!

Other news and cool shiz

• Everfresh have some great pics up from their Sydney book launch – looks like a fun night was had by all.
• Some cool pics up also of Twoone and Thomas Jacksons Sydney show, the Absence of Man
• The Melbourne Sweet Streets festival is looking for volunteers to help them out over the duration of the festival – check out the info here. One of the items on the program for the festival is a Stencil Class for Secondary teachers – a great avenue for anyone wanting to help educate students about the greatness that is stencil art.
• This Life put up a great interview with Eleven & Co, loving the calligraphic styles of his work.
• We Make Stuff Good keep bringing out the Semi Permanent info goods with an interview with Leif Podhajsky  – this was the first exposure I’ve had to his work, and it was a great introduction – someone I’ll now be keeping an eye on.
• Its been on a bunch of blogs, but I saw it first at The Opening Hours – Brisbane City Council in all its glory decided to completely buff an amazing legal wall done by Anthony Lister – well done BCC, I’m loving the whole retro Sir Joh era policies! Yay to supporting culture and the arts! :|
• Okay, so I love rockets – and so does Lauren Orchowski, she went around the US taking photos of all those old 50s and 60s rocket ship playgrounds and produced a book of photographs, called “Rocket Science” from all her shots – some fine urban decay of these cool rusting ships.

Thats about it, fairly quiet this week in the rest of Oz, but if I’ve missed anything please let me know – and, as always, if you have any news or events you want us to cover, please just send us a message.

Ez.

Its been a busy week all round, with my exhibition opening as well as a large number of show announcements and events – I thought I’d try to get a bit more regular with the weekly wraps & roundups, as well as link to a few cool things I’ve seen during the week…

So heres all the stuff thats ‘a happenin … and frak, theres a lot going on at the moment!

Melbourne

• Tonights opening is in the form of Exhibit A, a great collection of street artists plying their crafted works at Collingwoods The Projects art space. I’ll be heading to this one after work for sure.
• Ghostpatrol has another solo show coming up next week, Warp Points & Seed Vault Save Points,  at No Vacancy next Thursday – I’ve seen some of the previews, and the work is second to none – this is a show you cant miss – and we just posted up this interview with the man himself, so check it out.
• Jae Copps solo show My Illusions Architect is still running at Gorker Gallery until the 19th September – I had a chance to wander through there the other day and loved it. We did a really great interview with him as well.
• Semi-Permanent Melbourne is on next week, and if you haven’t got your tickets already best get in there and purchase them. They have an opening show next Wednesday that is free for all, at the GPO in the Bourke Street Mall, starting around 6pm.
• A new gallery in Prahran opens up next Thursday in the form of Signed & Numbered – so glad we are getting more stuff on the southside, and it has a fine range of artists on display.
• My first solo show, Inhabited Times, had an awesome opening, and its still running until September 16th. This Sunday, September 12th, I’ll be at the At Large Gallery from 12pm til 6pm, doing some drawing, giving away a few sketches maybe, and chatting to whoever comes in. Come drop by and check it out, and if you have any questions about the blog or anything else, feel free to come spin some shit with me.

I’ll get to next Fridays openings next Friday, coz I’m pretty sure thats enough for anyones brain right now …

Sydney

• Everfresh have their Sydney Black Book Launch tonight at Ambush Gallery– if its anything like how the launch here looked last Friday, its going to be a very cool show. I got my copy of the book this week, and damn it is one fine publication, full to the hilt with some amazing work and a great run down on the crew and what they’ve been up to the past few years. If you’re in Sydney, get to the show or go buy the book.
• Twoone and Thomas Jackson open their new show, The Absence of Man at China Heights gallery, a show looking at the power of nature in, obviously, the absence of man.
• Ears opens his Warpaint exhibition tomorrow night at the cool new Lo-fi Collective gallery in Darlinghurst – so it looks like a fun weekend of art in Sydney
• Alas as last week was a such busy one, I missed putting up a notice about the Collected Thoughts Exhibition in Paddington – it runs until the 22nd of September, and has some wonderful artists in it, so check it out.

Brisbane

• Shida & Georg Whelan have their duo show opening tonight, Nec Spe Nec Metu at Nine Lives Gallery – looks dandy as hell – great to see all this stuff happening in brisvegas!

Other news and cool shiz

Heres some cool stuff I’ve seen this week in my meanderings across the web …

• The guys and girls at We Make Stuff Good put up some really cool interviews with Wooden Toys Timba Smits and Beastman, who will both be at Semi Permanent next weekend. Loved them!
• At Large Gallery just got in a good supply of new Ironlak, so, you know, if you need some paint and are in Northcote, you can grab that while you’re checking out the shows they’re putting on ..
• The Opening Hours has some cool pics up of the opening for Dont Go Into The Attic at Lofi gallery
• This Life has some great pics from the Everfresh Black Book opening last Friday night
• I also loved this teaser video that Callum Preston did for the EF Black book.
• Myers in Melbourne has an awesome installation piece from Merda up as part of the Basement project– I’ve been following its construction & progress over the past few months, and damn it looks grand all finished – a total labour of love. This video of the project by Duro Cubrilo is also very cool.
• Cant really go past my favorite international vid this week from Brazils Os Gemeos. Loved it to bits.

….*breath* .. see, told you – so frakin much going on lately … forgive me if I’ve missed anything!

So take it easy, and have a good weekend yo.

We love robots, and anything to do with robots. Thankfully, Sekure D also loves robots as much as we do, and is paying homage to them in his latest exhibition at Hogan Gallery. Having shown his art the world round, from the US to London to NZ, Robots > Humans is Sekure Ds third solo show. Incorporating everything from playful robotic illustration and wet-work, to sneaker design, it looks right up our alley.

"The year is 2322 and the robots, no longer reliant on their solar heart panels, have taken over the world, exterminating all but a few humans whom are kept for research and as pets. After a century spent completing their foremost objective they are now left, bereft of meaning; a regrettable shortcoming of Artificial Intelligence. Seeking something greater, ‘Codename Unknown’ and the rest of the Robotic Allegiance have turned to the daily activities of humans in conjunction with bubble mining to maintain their energy levels and fulfil their needs."

Who: Sekure D
What: Robots > Humans
Where: Hogan Gallery, 310 Smith Street, Collingwood
When: Opening Friday 4th June @ 6pm, Exhibition runs from 1st of June til 15th.

Via We Make Stuff Good, via Sekure Ds website.

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Its ladies month in the Burn-city scene, and next up on the ranks after this weeks My Girls exhibition is a tie in event from the crew over at Sketch City, Ladys Love Sketch City. Looks to be an awesome-fun gig.

“Sketch city is a regular event celebrating Melbourne’s amazing creativity, where we invite the public to our warehouse in Northcote where you can meet other artists, network and paint, draw and collaborate on any surface in the place. We invite feature street artists to come paint up the walls and demo their styles, alongside bands, DJs, dancers and any other creative concepts we find happening in this great city.

We will be celebrating Melbourne’s female creatives by bringing them together for a day of music, art, dance and film. See live painting by Melbourne’s best female artists and musicians with their unique blend of interactive live art and hip hop. For the funnest creative experience ever check out the film by Joske and theFemale Breakers, while loading up on comps, giveaways and all the art materials and wall space you’ll ever need!! This event is all ages until 7PM with big kids only after that to party on all night.”

Who: Poise, Joske, Isis, Sear, Inkle, Mishap, Miss Riz, Nicole Tattersall, Maria Rozalia Finna, Snookie and Montassj
Music: Mz Rizk, Cutluce, Taka Co, MC Pash, Toasters Boutique, Lotus, Muma Doesa and Joske
What: ‘Ladies Luv’ Sketch City
Where: Dazzleland Studios, 25 Eastment St, Northcote
When: 13 March @ 4pm onwards

Also, keep an eye out in the next week or so for an interview with the Sketch City crew …  and why not take a look at the event page on facebook and Sketch Citys website whilst you’re waiting ..

Via We Make Stuff Good

As far as collectives go, the crew at We Make Stuff Good have all the talent required in order to make their mark upon the Burn-city art frontier. Numbering over thirty individuals locally, nationally and internationally, many involved also crosshatch their membership with other luminous entities such as Sketch City, Melbourne Tours and Dont Ban The Can, to name a few.  Given this composition of deviceful minds, from all walks of the creative path, the crew at WMSG are at the top of the game, and contribute more than their fair share of passion to the cities flourishing scene.

Drawing upon that talent and energy, five of the women involved with WMSG have embarked upon a mission to promote both their own creative outputs, as well as WMSG as a whole, in a celebration of the strength of their female members. From amongst that contingent, Ania Stuff, Cammy Stuff, Krystal Stuff, Rachee Stuff and Verona stuff are all poised to unleash their work on the public, with a much anticipated tie in with the launch of the WMSG store as well as a tie-in event presented by Sketch City the following week.

Invurt recently had the opportunity to catch up WMSG’s Cammy Stuff, Krystal Stuff and Rachee Stuff to talk about art, their upcoming exhibition, and all things made good and proper.

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So after having been online for a year, and having only posted articles up from all the archives, I’ve decided its time to start writing new material in this blog, and actually using it for the purpose it was originally intended – to act as a conduit for looking at music and art here in Australia and around the world ..

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Sounds like the girls from over at We Make Stuff Good (who are totally rad), are putting together an event to celebrate the opening of their new online store – these girls have done some very cool stuff recently,  so get down and support them in their endeavours if you can :)

“The girls from We Make Stuff Good have been behind recent street art and cultural events such as Don’t Ban the Can, We Make Stuff Good Street Art and Bar Tours,  Sketch City and street art exhibitions at the We Make Stuff Good Gallery in Berlin.

Who: Rachee Stuff, Krystal Stuff, Cammy Stuff, Verona Stuff, Ania Stuff
What: Gallery Opening Night of ‘My Girls’
Where: Dazzleland Studios 25 Eastment St, Northcote. Tram line 86, stop 31.
When: March 5 2010, 6pm. Works also on display at the ‘Ladies Luv’ Sketch City March 13, 4pm.”

Via We Make Stuff Good