City of Plenty: Sarah Goffman March 2015 ‘Confronting materialistic culture and making work about it, using it, as ready-mades and re-configuring it into the City of Plenty exhibition, is not a static interaction, it involves donations (and donaters), and most importantly, recipients.’ Sarah Goffman

This power point includes images of Sarah Goffman’s artwork, excerpts from her artist’s statements and from critical writing about her art practice and the exhibitions she has been part of.

Visual Arts Stage 5 and 6

Classroom Presentation PowerPoint

Art History and Art Criticism Outcomes

Stage 5 Outcomes 5.7 - 5.10

Preliminary Course Outcomes P7 – P10

HSC Outcomes H7 – H10

Plastici – Sarah Goffman 2015, Penrith Regional Gallery (installation detail)

Goffman’s artist practice is: • part of the tradition of transforming found

objects into art.

• part of the tradition of socially engaged and relational art.

• concerned with the aesthetic qualities of discarded mass produced objects.

Practice: Art Criticism and History

Playing with wild flora: the practice of Sarah Goffman Dr Brigid Magner RMIT University Excerpts from essay published in exhibition booklet

Plastici, 2012, Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest

Goffman turns junk into aesthetically intriguing objects, yet they remain largely useless in a utilitarian sense. Goffman is particularly interested in the ways in which waste has assumed a certain monumentality, in terms of the space it occupies on the planet. When we are using things up and then throwing them out, we often forget that they continue to accumulate beyond our line of sight. We may have replaced an item such as a broken toaster but the old one will go on to occupy space elsewhere.

Plastici – Sarah Goffman, 2015, Penrith Regional Gallery (installation detail)

In Goffman’s artist practice, she: • recycles and rejuvenates plastic, discarded objects and

everyday materials.

• is engaged with the difference between mass-produced, consumed and discarded objects VERSUS the process of collecting and transforming similar such objects.

• painted empty drink bottles black and then drew onto them with pencil and gold marker pens.

Practice: Art Criticism and History

Playing with wild flora: the practice of Sarah Goffman Dr Brigid Magner RMIT University Excerpts from essay published in exhibition booklet

Plastici, 2012, Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest

In a consumer waste culture, once coveted items soon become thrown away and forgotten ‘stuff’. Sarah Goffman’s practice recycles and rejuvenates plastic, discarded objects and materials with an energy that infuses consumer waste with new life and meaning. The production of the original objects - quickly mass-produced, consumed and discarded - stands in stark contrast to the length of time Goffman dedicates to the process of collecting, transforming and installing.

For the lacquerware each object had to be painted black and then drawn over painstakingly with pencil and gold marker pens to create a lavish effect. As Goffman enthuses: ‘The blackened bottles seem very luxurious and sexy, so shiny like the Mercedes ads.’

Plastic Arts, Sarah Goffman 2009 PET bottles, enamel paint and permanent marker Photos: Mike Myers

In Goffman’s artist practice, she: • appropriates the aesthetics of traditional Chinese Blue

and White porcelain painting applied to recycled plastic containers, marrying high and low art forms.

Practice: Art Criticism and History

Sarah Goffman: Forgery and Uttering in Blue and White

Bec Dean

excerpts from article in Runway magazine, 2009

Considering on the one hand ancient vases and on the other, plastic utilitarian vessels, I began thinking about the everyday oriental ‘Willow’ pattern plates that are displayed in many British and Australian homes. The versions my mother owned were made in the pottery factory in Stoke-on-Trent where her relatives worked. Indeed, while the love-story it depicts is (supposedly) Chinese in origin, the pattern was designed in Europe and mass-produced for a middle-class market.

(The introduction of underglaze painting in cobalt blue on white porcelain was perfected by Chinese artisans of the 14th Century)

Using blue permanent marker, Goffman decorates ‘the surface of her juice-bottle vases, paper plates and yoghurt pots… restoring a kind of individual artistry and care to the pre-industrial copy, marrying it with post-industrial waste.’

http://www.artroom5.com.au/downloads/runway15_Goffman.pdf

Wabi-sabi Tea as part of Microparks, Sydney Festival curated by The Performance Space 2013 Photo: Lucy Parakhina

Goffman sets up a performance based on: • a Japanese tea ceremony

• the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi

• three simple realties:

Nothing lasts Nothing is finished Nothing is perfect

Practice: Art Criticism and History

Festival Micro Perks Felicity Clark Excerpt from article in Realtime 113

Black billy tea and Iced VoVos topped with whipped cream from a spray can were the special treat at Sarah Goffman’s Wabi-Sabi Afternoon Tea. The Japanese aesthetic concept of wabi-sabi celebrates beauty in impermanence and imperfection. It nurtures that which is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect. Plonked down on a makeshift milk-crate pouffe, a sort of Aussie farmer’s wife dressed in a kimono made of Australiana tea-towels, conversed with afternoon tea guests.

Sarah Goffman, Watercolour painting of $100 not (titled I paid $90 to exhibit $100), 2014

Discussion Question: Why do you think Sarah Goffman made a drawing of a $100 note?

Make sure you consider Sarah Goffman’s art practice, in particular City of Plenty, when you answer this question.

Independent Research Task Research Sarah Goffman’s art practice and apply the Conceptual Framework to Occupy Sydney 2012, presented at Artspace as part of Everything Falls Apart, curator Mark Feary, Photo: Silversalt, (installation detail) To see Goffman creating Occupy 2012, view https://vimeo.com/44225552

Conceptual Framework – agencies in the art world