Presented by Xavier Tboy

De Luxe

Review by Gabriella Loo

Late on a Monday I rushed into De Luxe, having already downed my own delicious dinner, hopeful for one more delight for the night. A few minutes late, the venue’s compactness attracted attention to my arrival. Xavier Toby welcomed my partner and I as we quickly located a seat at the back. He asked me, “What have you been up to tonight?” I simply replied, “Burritos”. “Is that something to do with sex? Well it is now!” This shallow, cheap gag foreshadowed everything to come.

The Dinner Party recounts a dreaded sit-down dinner with four of Xavier’s “friends”, each one a stereotype of suburban middle-class Australia, represented by different bottles of alcohol. Expensive-looking five dollar wine symbolised a real estate agent; a French champagne bottle with blu-tack breasts the classy lawyer wife of the real estate agent; and a bag of cask wine for the unintelligent, overweight woman. It was disappointing to watch this unusual concept tarnished by degrading and misogynistic humour that no one found funny.

Within the half-full De Luxe, a few intoxicated people supported Toby’s routine with unreasonably loud laughter, giving him room for impromptu banter with his only fans in the room. I have reason to believe there was a plotted “laugher” at the back of the venue, but even he eventually stopped as he came to realise Toby’s one-too-many cheap shot jokes were simply not worth mustering up a meagre chuckle for. I started to find his startling outbursts of overenthusiastic laughter funnier than the lame jokes.

From gags about bogans in concentration camps to mistaken one night stands with transvestites, the whole night was hopelessly cringe-worthy. My feelings were a mix of embarrassment for Toby and contempt for his values. The Dinner Party with Xavier Toby was amateur comedy, and not at all reflective of the inventiveness of his previous work at Fringe World.

The Dinner Party with Xavier Toby runs until Sunday February 14 at De Luxe. Tickets available here.

4 Stars

Connections Nightclub

Review: Gabriella Loo

A masked white rabbit draped in lace emerges from the shadows. Behind her, a feather-necked pig-man holds a cold metallic blade to her shoulder. Pencils at the ready.

This is the most innocent scene you’ll see at Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School: El Bizarro Showcase, where Circus Carnis model for art amateurs and pros alike. Attendees are warned: Fringe World’s official UV Ratings do not lie. This show is sizzling hot, and the temperature only climbs from here for Dr Sketchy’s Valentine’s Day show, where it’s Elle Diablo’s turn to pose for the brave and curious among us.

Dr Sketchy’s is a thrilling combination of burlesque, cabaret and traditional life drawing. Founded in 2005 in a Brooklyn dive bar, this globally recognised drawing movement is the inventive product of art school dropouts Molly Crabapple and A.V. Phibes. Since the sad demise of iconic venue The Bakery, Dr Sketchy’s Perth branch has continued to shift across the city’s multiple venues. However, for El Bizarro, Connections Nightclub fostered a fittingly intimate atmosphere.

The show is divided into two sections consisting of several drawing opportunities (poses from the models between one and 15 minutes) and a circus performance. As an ‘Anti-Art School’, the audience isn’t taught how to draw, and there’s no hawkeyed art teacher hovering over shoulders armed with critiques. Instead the audience is encouraged to enjoy the performers’ talents and scribble away as freely as they please. Due to the very minimal guidance, it’s advisable that absolute beginners practice some quick sketching prior to the show, just to get the artistic gears moving.

As for the costumes and music, there’s an extravagant sense of nostalgia for 1950s rockabilly gothic, which lends the room a palpable level of energy. In fact, its sharp contrast with the orderly environments of traditional life drawing classes — with its politely unadorned figures and dainty classical poses — facilitates bold and adventurous sketching from the participants. Circus Carnis duo Jade and Todd, WA local performance artists, consistently had our undivided attention, their fusion of circus freak show and burlesque inducing squeals of fascination.

Without spoiling the fun, you should be warned that this is a challenging watch for those sensitive to play-piercing. In contrast, the emcee was highly affable, and provided comic relief amongst the some of the show’s most intense moments. She added a personable human touch to an otherwise confronting (and relatively obscure) night.

Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School: El Bizarro Showcase is indeed an electrifyingly fresh Fringe spectacle that you get to translate from eye to paper and take home with you, giving Perth’s creatives the opportunity to experience something very out of the ordinary.

Dr Sketchy’s Anti Art School: El Bizarro Showcase tickets are highly limited, and not for the faint of heart. BYO Art supplies. Available here.

Art Gallery of Western Australia 

24th January 2016

Review by Gabriella Loo

Treasure Ships: Art in the Age of Spices is the first and most extensive historical exhibition of its kind in Australia. Presented by the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), it explores the cross-cultural and artistic exchange between Asia and Europe throughout the spice trade dating from the 15th to 19th century. Touching on the Portuguese acquisition of India, the Dutch infiltration of Indonesia, Japan’s first commercial engagements with the West, and the Makassan trade with Northern Australia, the exhibition showcases an array of invaluable artworks produced in the height of discovery and maritime exploration.

Curators James Bennett and Russell Kelty took over three years to completely assemble the more than 250 internationally-sourced rare artworks featured in Treasure Ships. The fruit of their labours is evident in the exhibition’s complex presentation of historical and religious craftsmanship, which encompasses textiles, ceramics, paintings, furniture, prints and engravings.

Eschewing uniformity, the rich multitude of the collection’s objects succeeds in capturing a vibrant and tumultuous cross-continental period in history. It also offers opportunities to compare works which must have at the time circulated in overlapping economies of trade, yet show different reactions to outside cultural forces. For instance,the work ‘Archery contest (Toshiya) at Sanjusangendo’ (1750) is a unique Japanese painting which combines traditional techniques with the European “invention” of perspective. In contrast, ‘Dutch Trading Ship in Japanese Waters’(1870), is a painting that reflects a nostalgic scene and suggests a yearning for Japan’s secluded past. These two paintings illustrate alternative attitudes towards Western encounters over time.

The exhibition does raise the grim thought that through exploitation and economic empire, the unique identities of Eastern art are commodified so as to be understood by Western society. Yet at the same time, the collection works to consolidate the fragmented cultural identity of Eastern art; emphasizing the progressive virtues of sharing aesthetic influences and craftsmanship.

In some ways, the collection would easily be at home in a museum. However,context of the art gallery reaffirms such historical and religious objects as pertinent artworks, and enables a unique understanding of them as products from a time when foreign worlds mingled, and the globalization truly began.

Treasure Ships lets Perth crowds step outside the hustle and bustle of Fringe and become immersed in an ages-old conversation between Eastern and Western art. Allow a couple of hours to at least graze the surface of this one – you’re in for a visual treat.

Treasure Ships: Art in The Age of Spices runs until the 31^st of January 2016. Tickets available at the Art Gallery of Western Australia and on the Fringe World website.