A French Honour

Brian * Emile * and Gene Sherman

Gene Sherman owns the up-market Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation Gallery in Paddington. Now for the second time she has been honoured by the French government for her contribution to the arts and culture presented at a small cocktail party as our snap above shows.
Pinning on the medal is France's Ambassador to Australia, His Excellency Monsieur Christophe Lecourtier.

And watching were some proud family members - husband Brian and son Emile. Brian Sherman who sold his investment company for $$mega-millions now concentrates on his charity Voiceless started by he and his daughter Ondine which raises awareness of animals suffering in factory farming and the kangaroo industry in Australia.
 Emile Sherman is probably best known as the producer of the 2011 Academy Award winning film The King's Speech. Currently he's working on several TV series : Love Nina and Codes of Conduct, a science fiction film How To Talk to Girls at Parties starring Nicole Kidman and a re-make of the Lynda la Plante Widows starring Viola Davis.
And if you haven't been to the wonderful Sherman Gallery you'll find it at 16-29 Goodhope Street, just off Five Ways in Paddington.

Speaking Up For The Voiceless

Ondine Sherman & Sarah Ferguson

When the ABC TV's  Four Corners program screened A Bloody Business in March this year the political and public backlash was deafening. The images of the cruel treatment Australian cattle received in Indonesian abattoirs generated overwhelming public outcry and the temporary suspension of the trade with Indonesia.

The reaction was just what the organisation Voiceless, the animal protection institute would expect as they attempt to get the message across of how unethically animals are treated by humans. But Voiceless don't preach, they just present the evidence and allow you to decide.

Sadly the evidence overwhelmingly proves that we humans are unnecessarily cruel to other life forms that we share the planet with. And it doesn't have to be that way.

Gemma Davis & Jessica Gomez

Voiceless is the brainchild of the well known Sydney family of Shermans and in particularly Ondine Sherman who discovered at an early age, that the meat she was eating came from an animal,. She turned Vegan and gradually the entire family, dad Brian, mother Jean and brother Emile Sherman followed suit. (Everyone knows Emile Sherman now-ever since he stepped up to the stage at the 2011 Academy Awards to accept an Oscar for his production of The King's Speech.)

Caroline & Emile Sherman

In their third year, the  Voiceless Awards are handed out to those who  have advanced the cause to end animal suffering, overseen by a judging panel chaired by Nobel Prize Laureate J M Coetze.

This year at the Blue Hotel in Woolloomooloo the reporter on A Bloody Business Sarah Ferguson and producer Michael Doyle won $5,000 in the broadcast category of the Voiceless Media Prize. Other winners: Christine Jackman for her article, The claws come out  in the Weekend Australian Magazine, broadcaster Caro Meldrum-Hanna for “Bad Egg” which aired on 7.30 NSW about the Australian Egg Corporation on its proposal to allow 20,000 hens per hectare and Cheryl Balfour for a series of articles about the Eden Park kangaroo cull published in the Whittlesea Leader between December 2010 and October 2011.
A Bloody Business can be viewed here (VIEWER WARNING: Contains images which
may distress some viewers)
 The Voiceless website is here and contains a lot of evidence and information on cruelty to animals. 

Christian The Lion Hits Hollywood

 Ace Bourke & friend Christine at the Sherman

Ace, Christian $ John

One half of the Christian The Lion duo-Anthony 'Ace' Bourke has confirmed that the famous saga about Christian, the Harrods bought lion that was raised in a Kings Road, Chelsea furniture shop is to be made into a Hollywood film.

Ace was talking at the Sherman Gallery at the exhibition of Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Lê. 

In 1969 he and Australian born social writer John Rendall purchased Christian and raised him in their shop Sophisticat, eventually returning him to Africa under the care of the famous conservationist of Born Free fame George Adamson.

Bourke and Rendell returned a year later to see how Christian was faring and the grainy film of Christian bounding down a hill to hug both John and Ace became a YouTube hit  (with over 30 million views) when put to the song I'll Always Love You. It lead to a  publishing deal and a world wide tour on TV interview shows including Oprah Winfrey.
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Brian Sherman & Dinh Q. Lê

Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation's current exhibition Erasure, is a newly commissioned work by Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Lê – an interactive sculptural and video installation that draws on recent debates in Australia concerning refugees and asylum seekers.

The darkened gallery space is dominated by a floor-to-ceiling moving image of an 18th century tall ship beached on an isolated coastline slowly being consumed by flames. The gallery floor is strewn with small islands of debris – discarded clothing and wooden fragments. Amid the destruction are thousands of small black and white photographs – self-portraits, family and passport photos – which Dinh spent years buying in second-hand stores in the hope of finding his own family’s pictures.

To date the Shermans have now sponsored 11 similar artists to the tune of $100,000 each. The exhibition runs until the 11th September 2011, Wednesday to Saturday 11 am – 5 pm
16–20 Goodhope Street, Paddington
Sydney NSW 2021 Australia
Phone +61 (0)2 9331 1112

# a short film of Dinh's installation :

'Extremists' We Like

Brian Sherman & daughter Ondine with a friendly Kangaroo
courtesy Voiceless

The billionaire Brian Sherman last week hit back at the Shooters & Fisher's Party MP Robert Borsack who claimed in the NSW Parliament on May 11th that Sherman's Voiceless was an "extremist animal rights group".

On it's website Voiceless says: “Voiceless will bring the institutionalised suffering of animals to the forefront of Australia’s agenda; ensuring that animal protection is the next great social justice movement.” 

 Borsack says that Voiceless was one of many 'extremist' groups attempting to buy credibility at Universities and other teaching bodies. Sherman is a well known philanthropist who donates millions of dollars with no strings attached to education bodies throughout Australia.

He is also a dedicated animal right's activist and a vegan who wears or uses no animal products that have been produced through animal suffering.

The Shooters and Fishers Party with just 2 state MPs also thinks The Greens are an extremist party despite The Greens now holding the balance of power federally with 9 senators, 5 NSW upper house MPs and one in the lower house.

MP Robert Borsack & the elephant he shot in 2008
 www.wildhunts.co.nz

Borsack who proudly tells anyone who will listen of how he slaughtered an elephant while on safari in Zimbabwe in 2008 basically wants everyone to be free to blast away at any living creature while rampaging through state forests in 4 wheel drives.

Brian Sherman started Voiceless with his daughter Ondine in 2004 to raise awareness of the suffering of animals.

It's fair to say the writer AA Gill who is in town at present wouldn't have received an invite to the fundraiser  Sherman hosted last week-Voices of Art 2: An Evening Of Art For Animals. AA Gill infamously shot a baboon last year because he wanted to see how it felt to kill.

And who were amongst the extremists at the Voiceless fundraiser ?. Noted Japanese designer Akira Isogawa, prominent artist Adam Chang, one of the world's most respected neurosurgeons, the brilliant Dr  Charlie Teo (Isogawa and Teo are Voiceless board members) Brian's son Emile Sherman who just picked up an Oscar at the Academy Awards in  Hollywood for his production- The King's Voice  ( he thanked his mother & father from the stage) Emile's mum Gene who runs the superb Sherman Gallery in Paddington and Lord Mayor Clover Moore and Edmund Capon, director of the NSW Art Gallery.

Don't miss tonight's Australian Story Hearts Of Gold: 23rd May 2011, 8pm which features the prodigiously talented Sherman family and their great passion for animals.
You can catch the show later on the ABC's Iview.

Will Oscar Be Kind to Emile ?




Emile Sherman (second left) collects a Bafta for The Kings Speech

 

While the hopes of locals are centred on Geoffrey Rush and Jackie Weaver at today's Academy Awards event, one family is hoping The King's Speech comes up trumps for their boy.

Emile Sherman produced the film and was behind a number of Australian films many of which sank from the box office without trace. While Rabbit Proof Fence did well in the European markets, others like $9.99, Candy, The Kings of Mykonos went straight to video after a short theatrical release.

The disastrous The Night We Called it A Day which starred Dennis Hopper as Frank Sinatra and was based on a real life incidence when Cranky Franky was holed up in a Sydney hotel unable to leave after unions put a blanket ban on his movements when he publicly insulted female journalists, was a major box office bomb.

Sherman is the son of noted Sydney philanthropists Brian and Gene Sherman and Emile runs his production office out of mum Gene's Sherman art gallery in Paddington.



Emile's parents- Gene & Brian Sherman



The family are all vegetarians, a trend begun by sister Ondine when she discovered at age 8 that meat came from animals. She refused point blank  to ever eat it again and the family soon followed suit.

Brian Sherman who sold his Equitlink, the biggest private investment company in Australia for billions of dollars  in 2000 now concentrates on charitable ventures and in particular animal causes. He donates millions of dollars to Animal Liberation.

Brian, Gene and Ondine will be watching this morning to see if Emile makes that winning walk to the Oscar's stage.

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Stop Press : the whoops of joy emanating from the Sherman Galleries in Paddington could be heard from streets away this afternoon as a small family gathering watched the Academy Awards  as Emile Sherman proudly collected an Oscar for The King's Speech.

5 Australians collected Oscars and it's a toss up whether director Tom Hooper should be regarded as one-he collected an award for Best Film with The King's Speech -he's a dual citizen with an Australian mother -who, as in the tale he recounted at the ceremoney was the inspiration behind the film.

Panto Dame Returns !

We all said her self imposed exile wouldn't last. The smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd, the applause-the insults. The rotten fruit hurled. How could she resist ?

 Madame Arcati has announced she is receiving visitors again over the Yuletide period (and hopefully longer).

 How fitting that the silly season is almost upon us and someone will entertain while the hacks of Fleet Street churn out their daily drivel (eagerly read by us ). At last we will have some balance.

Still censored by Google, but that just makes her seem like a very naughty girl..

Go here and read.

Oh, and Madame's long term fiancee,  Molly Parkin's autobiography Welcome To Mollywood is to be published shortly as well.

 

Journalist, artist and Soho fixture there is no-one else quite like Molly around anymore. This book is a must read.                                                      

                                         

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Gene & Brian Sherman



An ill-wind is blowing over a $500,000 donation to University of NSW College of Fine Arts.

Given by noted philanthropists Brian & Gene Sherman, the gift was to establish a gallery in honour of the British born arts curator Nick Waterlow, murdered a year ago just 2 days after we reported he had attended the opening of an exhibition of ex-Oz Magazine artist Martin Sharp's works.

Student Representative Council president, Osman Faruqi, has said :''students are concerned by what this deal means for the integrity and reputation of a public institution like UNSW,'' 

"''The reputation risk posed to the university far outweighs any financial benefit gained. Students want to see quality education placed before private interests."

The Shermans are one of Sydney's most high profile couples in the art's community. Brian's Equitilink company is the largest private funds management company in Australia. He also dabbles on the stock exchange and was reported to have picked up $45M in one deal during a morning in 2002. Both the Shermans support a number of charities.

The Natural History museum in Sydney near Hyde Park has been revived via the Sherman's donations and in Brian's role as the president of the Australian Museum trust, it's governing body.

Committed vegetarians for nearly 30 years, both Sherman's are active animal right's activists and fund studies on how to end factory farming of poultry and pigs.

The Student body needs to do a re-think here.

The pair emigrated from South Africa a long time ago when they were broke. No-one knows what the Shermans are worth-possibly a $$billion or two-but the only demand from Brian & Gene when donating is for another phone call when extra funds are required.