While both music and visual art require a huge amount of creative talent, they both have polarising audiences at times. The NGV Ian Potter Centre is set to break all that down and explore further afield from the visual pieces that adorn its spaces with a new music, art and conversation series call Unplugged Live: Portrait of an Artist.
Jae Laeffer from The Panics will be leading the discussion with many different musicians from Adalita to Missy Higgins. In each conversation and he intends to explore the fascinations that many Australian musicians have with the visual arts, as he explains to Philippe Perez.
I’m under the impression that you’ve been involved in musical activities at the NGV previously. Is this true?
I’ve simply performed at the gallery as well as doing some gigs in galleries in Queensland too. I’ve kept in contact with people at the NGV through that and mutual love of art. The time was right and they were looking for someone to expand the audience at the Ian Potter Centre where all the great Australian art is. They’ve got a lot going on at the main headquarters on St Kilda Rd, Melbourne so they were looking for ways to make different things happen at Federation Square.
We got talking and the idea came up to move some of the music program to there. So while I have no desire to be a band promoter or anything, I liked the idea of being able to set up a piano and play songs amongst classic Australian works. There was that picture in my mind saying “how good would it be to be surrounded by Nolan paintings?” while during performance. I thought It’d be easy to get some great people to play there because they’d feel like I do.
It’s a great place to go to spend an hour of your time singing songs. It’s awesome to just hang out there too. Apart from that it felt good for me to approach everything about the season as a musician. I don’t want to have a situation where the public go into a gallery and there’s a little PA tucked in the corner and people wondering what a particular noise was. Then it was about ways to integrate the sound and the art together and make sure it was well appreciated. It had to work well in the room as well; it did not have to be conflicting. So through some discussions, I found the idea was a simple one. There will be music lovers there and art lovers there.
There’ll be a crossover there, but for the music lovers there’ll be people talking about great art where a theme is chosen, and NGV staff will talk about history about that art. Separate to that we’ll have a performer play with the idea being that I’ll talk in a casual manner about the songs and treat the musician as someone would treat a painter. In my mind, the two are done by artists for similar reasons. It would be nice to put the musician on that pedestal surrounded by a gallery.
So apart from your performances – this is something a little more fresh for you?
Yes, that’s how I like it. This is all very fresh for me and it’s fun to talk about. It’s enjoyable to just build a branch out from what I do.
When I was a kid who left high school and went to art college and it just felt really natural when the NGV told me they want to have me come down and do something with my love of art and music. We’ll put something together. It was a bit of a dream to step into the art world in that way even though it was just on this surface level. It feels really right to me, so it’s a really exciting angle to my life and also knowing to invite other musicians that I respected, hopefully they get a buzz from it as well.
Many of the musicians come from quite diverse backgrounds. What made you want to choose to these particular artists? Were they your choice?
Yeah they were. I got free reign to talk to people. I guess I thought of musicians who were a) were good performers and b) where nice to have people who the public had heard of and were intrigued to hear them talk in a gallery. There’s also some great newer artists as well.
I just thought of people who weren’t straight story teller types but also just of an intriguing nature. By that I mean where you can tell they are serious songwriters but perhaps they have got songs where you’re intrigued as to what they’re about. It’s a no-brainer to ask Paul Dempsey to talk because he is absolutely killing it on the solo circuit but also he’s got these abstract, strange lyrics. He sings them with such passion but you sometimes think about where they come from.
I think that’s perfect in an art gallery because there’ll be an Albert Tucker painting full of skulls smashed apart and an angel coming down with a fishing rod. It’s all about just intriguing settings and talk. I want people to walk in and past some classic pieces before the talks and just visually feel right being in he gallery.
The series also aims to draw out stories and themes from the artists. What type of stories are you hoping to converse about?
For starters I’m not going to put anyone on the spot too much. Each week I’ll play it as it comes and take it as the mood suits. It’s easy to get a beginning with an artist and see where a song came from or where they were when they wrote it. Then it’ll be – through the art of conversation – us digging a bit deeper and see be inspired by the way the NGV discuss great artworks. I’m going to attempt that in some level to do all this with music.
It would also depend on the artist and the songs and of course some people can articulate it all in different ways. Obviously it’ll be different with every artist. It’ll just come down to the type of day and what’s been happening in the world. I just feel I’m excited to sit down with these people and have a cup of tea with them, so that’s how I’m going to approach it on the day.
The conversations are to be set amongst the 19th and 20th century galleries in the NGV. Why in this particular room?
Well there’ll be all these (Frederick) McCubbin paintings. I just like the idea of having it amongst classic paintings. Aesthetically I want something that can suit if you’re having a gig. But I also want something that is visually intriguing when you are in there within the spirit of the day. I also want to have a spirit of the people talking about art and the creative process. I just think it’s really cool to have a musician situated amongst stuff that’s which is considered high art. Stuff that is a little out of reach of people.
I don’t think musicians generally go into the same parties as some of the old art crowd. There is that great scene where the great painters – especially from the years gone by – are held in high regard that they are in another world, or something like that. I like the idea of sticking a musician in front of that and getting them to do their thing and proudly talking about how McCubbin painted a picture for the same reason someone writes a song. It’s putting them in a position where there is a thing of respect for what’s around them.
It also looks good and it doesn’t happen everyday. There is that feeling of it not being a normal place to not see your favourite musicians and I kind of like that.
You could argue it’s an interesting environment to see the two different crowds. The art crowds and music crowds who go to a pub converging in the one spot.
That’s what the NGV would be interested in. From the musicians’ perspective they can play the same clubs all year long and potentially pay to the same people. Everyone can get a buzz out of crossing over into other worlds without hugely compromising their situation by playing in a shopping mall. You never are going to do that but you will play in places that are held in high regard. They’re also visually pleasing.
It’s also free, there isn’t any pressure on the performers. It isn’t a crazy club gig or a launch of anything. It’s just a one-off opportunity for them to play in somewhere intriguing and talk about art. I’m sure most of them would be art lovers too.
Are the 19th & 20th century periods your favourite art periods? If not, what is?
I don’t think I have a favourite art period. I do love Australian art and grew up enjoying it. It felt right to put on some music in that space of 19th & 20th century periods. I didn’t want to feel intimidated though by art discussion when it isn’t my field. I’m more fascinated by the artists themselves and characters, you know?
I’m not an expert, but I read a lot of books and biographies of people like Albert Tucker and Sidney Nolan not because of their work but where they fit in Australian history and the way they went about their creative lives. Things like Heide where a lot of people on the fringe, like really on the fringe of society. They all led intriguing lives and had ideas that had great impact.
I couldn’t just simply say I have a favourite time. Again, another period that fascinates me are the great older painters of art. They show a great history of our country from the time of settlement. People like McCubbin like I mentioned before. I can’t really articulate but what I like about the older paintings is that it shows you the viewpoint at the time and why they’d do certain things in their paintings. Like how they would show people back in England how well they were doing. This is all about the art glamorising the situation in Australia during the late 1700s.
As the decades go by you see artists become more honest and see realism of what’s going on. There was a certain unique flavour coming in that was based on less European in influence. That’s why I like a lot of Australian art because the whole history of art in this country reflects society and the history of us visually in an evocative way.
What in your opinion are the parallels or similarities and art? Are there things that you see that fit together between the two mediums?
I guess I’ve always thought – being an occasional painter – the two artforms of music and visual art are both done for the same reason. People with the need to be creative need an outlet somehow and do it for similar reasons. Artists and musicians are probably intrigued themselves between the similarities. It’s hard to articulate what I’m trying to say, but there is a connection there.
How long have you been painting for?
More or less since art school. I was due to back to year 12 and the day before I went back I got a response from this place to attend and study art. I’ve just had a crazy urge to get on with creativity in any respect. There was no music college who would take me and at the time I had a craving there to go and paint, sculpt and do other things. I knew it wasn’t my number one thing – that was music.
It came down to a conversation to have an urge to be expressive. Whether it is painting or the music, I just happen to love music more because I was raised on it. It’s something I will always do because I’m passionate about it. Painting – not so much, but I do it occasionally and so, it’s just… I dunno. The difference between the painting and writing a song for me personally is that when you are writing a song, you can sit and watch a blank wall for a week if something wasn’t coming.
I notice that a lot of musicians also go into painting and I think the appeal of that is that you squeeze a bit of paint in front of you, and you begin. Then you get to mould this physical thing. It can be beautiful from the start and you can stop when you’ve felt that you’ve made your point. Music for me can be ugly for a while before you get to that same point.
I think there is something about that process where you are watching something move visually. That is appealing as opposed to something you can’t see. It’s not a great passion of mine and I probably do it a few months too as well.
What sets the artforms apart other than the obvious of one being an audio medium and the other being visual?
They both have a different way of impacting people. That goes back to the difference of audiences too I think. For me, music is such a great thing because it feels like such a weapon. The idea of writing a song about your feelings and then hearing it on the radio is so very powerful. It gets into people’s ears and throws the point right down to them.
There’s also stuff in the art world as well with your eyes. It subdues you with that point-throwing and people see it at galleries and try to do more research of the artist to understand where they are coming from. This is all depending on the piece of music or art. Things have different levels of message-sending and a lot of the time there is so much art and music out there where the message never gets across. I think there is always a different way to interpret the artform. The guesswork is quite a lottery and exciting thing to interpret with different people.
Some may argue that there have been many combinations of art and music. The first one that comes to my mind is the music video. Is there further development in the future to be had between audio and visual artforms? Or have we come to the end of the line in what one can achieve between the combination between music and visual art?
Interesting things are continuing to happen between the two. If we are going to talk video clips, there are more amazing feats of film put to music especially from here (in Australia). I imagine it will become more and more prevalent where people who have no money will make things from home, and making amazing things. There’ll be a lot more people working in that world when before they couldn’t do such a thing.
A lot of young people are taking advantage of that, which is great to see. I can only imagine that there would be more interesting stuff in the way of videos. The melding of the two art forms actually is growing and there are wonderful fostering of scenes and ideas happening everywhere. It’s interesting to see where other aspects of the creative industries are on the decline, where it be music sales or things like that.
—-
Unplugged Live: Portrait of an Artist is currently occurring every Sunday between 2 and 3pm at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia in Federation Square, Melbourne. Admission is free. Musicians who will be in conversation include Adalita, Paul Dempsey, Missy Higgins and Georgia Fair.
More information on the NGV website.
———-
