When art goes to the movies: The Expendables

You're a despotic-slash-murderous General looking for a hobby, what will you go for? Golf? Big game hunting? Live-ammo-paint ball? All of the above? For General Garza of the tiny country of 'Vilena' the obvious choice was easel painting. The brush wielding General is one of a number of unpleasant characters thrown together by Sly Stallone in his writer-director action pic The Expendables. And we're not talking run-of-the-mill despot here, the General is so unpleasant that his daughter teams up with Sly, Jet, Jason and  Steve to topple him. 

And so it is, with his kingdom falling down around him, (spoiler: this and the previous comma have been included to annoy the Minister of Culture and Heritage) the General takes comfort in dabbing away on his latest canvas until an even bigger villain (Munroe) spits out, “Your daughter paints too. This is how it starts.”

But wait, that painting style the General has adopted looks familiar. Yes, Sly has popped one of his own works onto the big screen. The general was faking it.

Other art-like projects in the movie include Mickey Rourke’s character ‘painting’ an acoustic guitar. You can read Lory Lockwood’s account of how it was in fact she who dollied up the instrument basing her imagery on Sly’s wife’s tats. Nice.

Images: Top, what’s that you’re painting General?. Middle, um if you could step aside. Bottom, kinda Stallone-like isn’t it?

Room service

Imagine for a moment that John Key has to pop down to Dunedin for a couple of days. He’s taking his wife and they'll stay in the best hotel the city can offer. So what’s front-of-mind for the staffers organising the trip South? We know. Arranging for some great works of art to hang in their hotel room. Quick!  Call the Minister of Culture and Heritage (on second thoughts don’t bother, he’ll fill the place with Piera McCarthur #cheapshot #butwelldeserved). Hang on a moment. It was all a dream. An impossible dream.

But not impossible in Dallas back in November 1963 as you'd see if you visited the Amon Carter Museum. For the exhibition Hotel Texas the Museum has reassembled the works selected for the Kennedy’s suite 850 in Hotel Texas, Fort Worth. It was there they stayed the night before President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas . The President's room featured the more masculine oriented works by Thomas Eakins, Marsden Hartley and Charles M. Russell but ironically the couple didn’t get the ‘theming.’ The President slept in what was intended to be his wife’s room with Van Gogh's Road with Peasant Shouldering a Spade.
 
Images: Top, Hotel Texas November 1963. Bottom left the 'President's room' showing Thomas Eakins' famous painting Swimming and Charles M. Russell's Lost in a Snowstorm and bottom right the suite's living room featuring Lyonel Feininger's Manhattan II, Franz Kline's Study for Accent Grave and Spirit bird by Morris Graves. (source: Guardian)

In the shadows

We’ve mentioned the interests of the current Minister of Arts Culture and Heritage often enough so, post Labour's Shadow Cabinet shuffle, here’s a look at their new line up art-wise. The good news is that both the Shadow spokesperson (Grant Robertson who has often been tipped as a potential PM) and one of the Associates are ranked high. Grant Robinson is number 2 as Deputy leader and the Associate Jacinda Ardern is ranked at 4. The other Associate is Darien Fenton who is ranked at 16. So far as interests go Robertson is positioned in his Labour Party profile as “a keen sports fan, particularly cricket, rugby and the mighty Wellington Phoenix. He is also a fan of New Zealand music and literature, and loves cooking and movies.” Fenton and Ardern’s Labour Party profiles makes no mention of the arts at all although Fenton was once a music teacher and claims some early experience with film. As to the Labour Party's arts policy – well you try and find it on their website we couldn’t. But here it is on The Big Idea. Thanks CNZ.

Image: from top right to left Grant Robertson, Jacinda Ardern and Darien Fenton

Gloomy bears

“I have tried to come up with a selection that feels good, or conveys a sense of joy. It is an antidote, perhaps, to the gloominess associated with New Zealand art…”

Edward Hanfling in Two hundred and forty years of New Zealand painting.

“There is too much gloomy art in New Zealand.”

Chris Findlayson, Minister of the Arts, Culture and Heritage

"New Zealand. Like a play by Strindberg with music by Mantovani."

Comedian Barry Humphries (thanks V)