Humanist Transhumanist 2009 the exhibition
The original 2009 publication Humanist Transhumanist was launched, or rather, was intended to be launched, on the opening of the exhibition of the same name which was held at what had been advertised as an "art gallery" in Melbourne.
This "exhibition" turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. Exhibitions bring artists and their work to the public. The AGAA for instance describes the obligations of a gallery as "represent[ing] the work as fully as possible and to best advantage and not to undermine the value of the work"; and further informs that "The gallery should not require the artist to constent to something that would infinge his/her moral rights [and] The gallery must not ... do anything that would compromise the integrity of the work ." The AGAA further advises that the duty of a gallery is to promote an artist's reputation. The 2009 "exhibition" however became nothing other than the denigration of the integrity of our art and artistic intent and was a vitriolic attack on our honur and reputation, rahter than its promotion. This 2009 disaster resulted in on-going legal difficulties with the "gallery" that has cost us around one million dollars, which includes the loss of our art studios and home and has effectively destroyed us as artists having destroyed our capacity to practice our art which is more than producing drawings or digital photomontages and involves exhibiting the art created. During the 2009 exhibition opening the "gallery" owner/director, Robert Raymond Cripps, who, as he has come to admit, knew nothing about art, art history, art theory, took exception to elements of what was written in the publication (from which printed extracts were pinned next to the paintings they were associated with) and ordered us out of the exhibition that we had paid for in advance. Cripps even took exception to the Greek words written in Greek script (such as χάος & χάσμα) that were used in the titles and explanations of some works that were on show, apparently on the grounds that "not everyone's Greek". Ever since the 2009 exhibition, this same Robert Cripps has caused us continual grief whereby the protracted legal hearings eventually resulted in the aforementioned loss of our home, studios and reputations. At one stage in 2011 Australian telco Telstra disconnected us from the internet completely on the basis of demands made by Cripps' legal counsel. On our being dsiconnected from the internet by Telstra someone, during the cover of the disconnection, hijacked the domains vakras.com and leeanneart.com. Though we eventually recovered our domain names, the registrar, Melbourne IT, who had permitted the hijacking refused to explain how or why they had allowed it to happen. (More on the domain hijacking can be read on www.cyberrefugee.com ) We have petitioned the Human Rights Commission in Geneva over the actions by Cripps that were facilitated by the Australian judiciary all the way to this country's highest court. This petition to Geneva can be found at www.redlegvartists.com An account of the outrageous actions by the "gallery" owner can be found on our websites: Edited by Demetrios Vakras March 2020. The artists' art can be found on their websites: |
