On Artist Websites.

My old webpage was serious, it was business, it was boring, it wasn’t me. It was like winding up a clockwork drumming toy, drowning it in bubble-wrap, and placing it in a four ring binder. How is anyone ever going to hear it there?

So I set about re-imagining the whole thing. I identified my goals for my new site quickly: I wanted to build a platform - not a monument, I wanted to create a place where I could be myself, I wanted something that would make people I have never met excited about my work, and I wanted the pictures to be really big. Because I make pictures.

Here’s a little look at my new attitude towards artist sites, in the hope that it may help you - dear reader - to learn from my past mistakes…

1. BUILD A PLATFORM NOT A MONUMENT.

Every year at art school we were assigned a new studio. Each studio had a big pin-board. In theory this space was a large slate of potential - to be filled with inspiration, test prints, contact sheets, and various other testaments to the creative process. They were intended to be dynamic spaces, whatever we were working on was supposed to take shape on these boards. In reality most of us just put up some crap territorially in our first week and left it there until we had to take it down at the end of the year. We’d fill the boards entirely, and then be too afraid to stick up something new. 

This is how my original web page felt. Like a solid impenetrable lump of web page. It became psychologically daunting to break that lump, it was stressful to add anything new to it. My webpage felt complete whilst the career that it was attempting to represent was only just getting started. My webpage was stifling my artistic output! Needless to say this wasn’t good.

2. CREATE SOMEWHERE YOU CAN BE YOURSELF.

The old site didn’t reflect my personality, it was too serious. Where’s the fun in that? By ensuring that my new website reflects my honest personality I have been able to create a platform conducive to being myself. Which creates an environment in which I have the opportunity to do the best things I possibly can.

I’ve learned from experience that when you create something you’re genuinely excited about that same excitement comes out through the work, leaps across the room, enters the viewer through their eyeballs and excites them! Excitement is contagious! It makes a great gift! Being yourself is easy, it’s natural, it’s YOU.

I guess it’s like that age old thing about being yourself to impress the girl…

3. CREATE SOMETHING THAT WILL EXCITE PEOPLE WHO HAVE NEVER MET YOU.

On our beautiful planet there are several billion more people who have never heard of you than people who have. Many of these people will absolutely love your work - if they ever get to see it. So work on that.

4 . MAKE THE PICTURES REALLY BIG.

This is so obvious but artists seem institutionally afraid to do it! WHY!? Seriously… The bigger the pictures the better the experience of looking at them is going to be! Artists are in the business of creating great viewing experiences. If someone has come to your website it means they’re interested in you and your work - what an honour! What an opportunity! You’ve got to make sure these people get to see your work in the best possible light.

Also there’s a technical imperative for providing the biggest possible pictures, technology advances at an unmatchable rate, what is considered ‘high definition’ today will be teeny-weeny in no time at all.

5. AS FAR AS THE VIEWER IS CONCERNED, THE ART ON YOUR WEBSITE IS YOUR ART.

The potential audience for your website is far larger than the number of people who will go out in winter, get on a train, and walk to a physical gallery to see your work. The images that you put online will be the only way that the majority of people will see your work. In this way those images are the work. So make sure the work looks great. 

Every picture that you hold back is a picture that will hardly ever be seen. When you deface your work with a watermark that watermark becomes a part of the work, whether you like it or not. 

Don’t give your viewers a hard time, give them a good time. Give people the opportunity to enjoy your work to its fullest potential. Make your website great. Seriously.

Dodos: Reviewed! Verdict: 'Pube Tingling'!

Nick Tapscott writing for The Melbourne Arts Club has posted a really entertaining review of First & Last. There are a couple of thrilling thoughts regarding my work The Descent of the Dodo.

Firstly this:

‘What struck me when I walked into that room was a tiny stuffed toy dodo that chilled me to my pubes. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, or on my pubes, but for some reason the darkest places of my sub-conscience started growling with recognition and violent imagery, like I once had a nightmare about this friendly looking bird. Weird.’

Then this:

‘The next works featured the chilling bird I had seen when I walked in and again it made my unmentionables freeze with shuddering cold. The piece was aesthetically beautiful and superbly crafted as a series of photographs told the story of the fate of the Dodo, but with a twist (They escape to outer space). I was fascinated, mostly because of the images of grinding meat and bloodied fangs that popped into my head every time my eyeballs crossed their purpled plushing plumage. It was seriously freaking me the fuck out, so I moved on to the other room.’

And in summary:

‘So over-all a pretty sweet show.’

So, wow! Meat grinders, bloodied fangs, pubes! … None of which were at the forefront of my mind whilst creating the work, all of which are awesome reactions. It never ceases to excite me how once you set work free it takes on a life of its own! Superb! 

The bird in question:

So… if you haven’t seen the show yet get down to the Counihan Gallery in Brunswick before the 24th of June. It’s worth it. I promise!

Déjà Vu Dodo Show At The Counihan Gallery.

In what some are calling ‘A transparent attempt to sell out the edition.’, Max Piantoni is remounting his 2011 work ‘The Descent of the Dodo: Part One’ at the Counihan Gallery in the Brunswick Town Hall.

This is not new work. This is certainly not The Descent of the Dodo: Part Two. Which is fast shaping up to be the Duke Nukem Forever of the Melbourne art scene. The prints aren’t different sizes… (for editions sake!) and Max has resisted all urges to ‘George Lucas the crap out of them’. They are, however, shiny new prints and Max has found a great Leonardo da Vinci quote to introduce the work.

Also, unlike the last dodo show, this one couldn’t be easier to find! 

The work will be presented as part of ‘First and Last’ a stunning show that ruminates on life, progress, death and other stuff featuring Max’s fellow Brunswick Arts comittee members. Jenna Corcoran, Alister Karl, Carmen Reid, Adele Smith, Ive Sorocuk, and John Stevens.

Max says: “If you missed the work last time because you were in Europe, or if you’d like some free wine - or if you’re a good friend of mine - I’ll see you there!”

First & Last:

The Counihan Gallery
233 Sydney Road, Brunswick, Victoria

Opening bash (you’re invited!)
Thursday 24th May
6 - 8pm

Runs
24th May - 24th June
Wednesday to Saturday 11am - 5pm
Sunday 1 - 5pm
Closed Monday and Tuesday.

Facebook event.

A Glowing Review: Neon Salon at Dudspace

Perhaps the most exciting things are those with the greatest potential to fail. Melbourne’s newest gallery Dudspace is tucked away in a corridor formerly used only to access the Kings ARI toilets. The space may be small, but a failure it is not.

Dudspace’s inaugural exhibition ‘Neon Salon’ drew attendance - per square foot - that rivaled, perhaps even surpassed, that of the Louvre. However turnout was not all there was to love for the visiting francophile, as attendees were invited to bask in a Salon hang. And bask they did, the entirely neon show provided more than enough illumination to fill the small space.

Works by Sanja Pahoki, Kiron Robinson, Simon Zoric, Kristin Mciver, and Jose Domingues looked great and were afforded substantial extra intensity as admiring them from a distance was completely out of the question. So it was backs against the wall, neon burning beyond your field of view, and a whole lot of fun.

Dudspace, succeeds as a space and does so with class. Not only does it encourage visitors to interact with the work, but it invites them to undertake an intimate dialogue with each other that can sometimes be vacant from contemporary art spaces.

Directors Lyndal May Stewart and Madé Spencer-Castle bill the space as “Great Art, Shit Space”. Say what you like, what was once a corridor is now a legitimate venue, and Melbourne is better for it.

Neon Salon runs until April 28th at
Dudspace: Lvl 1/171 King St, Melbourne

‘Just what is Max attempting to do?’

Due to the scope and considerable scale of my current project ‘Wonder’ - and a desire not to spoil the surprise - I won’t be able to show you any specifics of what I am working on for a while. Instead I have prepared this diagram to assure you, dear reader, that the dead air by no means signifies that I have given up work, and to vaguely answer the question ‘Just what is Max attempting to do?’.