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2024 Biennale of Sydney: Ten Thousand Suns
March 16, 2024Ten Thousand Suns may be the most joyous theme we’ve ever had for a Sydney Biennale. Whether we think of the Pharoah Akhenaten trashing the entire pantheon of Egyptian deities in favour of the Sun God, Aton, or the last words of J.M.W. Turner, who allegedly muttered “the sun is God”, it’s axiomatic that the […]
Sydney Morning Herald ColumnWhite Rabbit: A Blueprint for Ruins
March 2, 2024On a first visit to Suzhou, years ago, I was looking forward to seeing this city of historic canals and gardens. Arriving at night, I wasn’t prepared for the long approach to the CBD, down a boulevard lined with massive buildings, or the skyscrapers that dominated the skyline. I wasn’t prepared, but I should have […]
Sydney Morning Herald ColumnFairy Tales in Art and Film
February 24, 2024Most fairy tales were written for adults. When Charles Perrault (1628-1703) was compiling the stories we know today as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Puss in Boots, the very idea of “childhood” was relatively new. Or so we understand from French historian, Philippe Ariès, whose influential book Centuries of Childhood (1960), has dominated our […]
Sydney Morning Herald ColumnIn Our Time: Four Decades of Art from China and Beyond. The Geoff Raby Collection
February 17, 2024Many who have lived and worked in China over the past 30 years, have stories about the painting they could have bought for a few hundred dollars that is now worth hundreds of thousands. Geoff Raby, who was Australia’s ambassador to China from 2007-2011, had more opportunities than most, inhabiting a social circle that extended […]
Sydney Morning Herald ColumnNGV Triennial 3
February 10, 2024Over the past decade I’ve had so many positive things to say about the National Gallery of Victoria that I get accused of favouritism. My response to such charges is very simple: Put in the work and reap the rewards. The NGV owes its success to a busy, dynamic exhibitions program and an unwavering focus […]
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Blog March 23, 2024Heavenly Beings
If you’ve been looking for an excuse to immediately fly down to Hobart, look no further. Of all the shows I regret seeing late in the day, and all those that most urgently need to travel to other venues, Heavenly Beings: Icons of the Orthodox Christian World at David Walsh’s Museum of Old and New […]
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Io Capitano
March 22, 2024Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano is the kind of film everyone should see before making hasty statements about borders and refugees. The film begins in Dakar, Senegal, following two teenage boys who set out for a new life in Europe. Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and his cousin, Moussa (Moustapha Fall), are not victims of war or natural […]
Film ReviewsAmerican Fiction
March 15, 2024It’s difficult to satirise the United States today, as reality keeps going places fiction fears to tread. Wind back the clock ten years, and nobody could have predicted the proto-fascist excesses of the Trump era, in which every form of bigotry now seems to be a vote-winner. Hardly less alarming is the collapse of so-called […]
Film ReviewsAcademy Awards 2024
March 9, 2024Over the past couple of years, I’ve found myself wildly out of step when it comes to picking winners at the annual Academy Awards. Naturally I’m convinced it’s the world, not me, that keeps getting it wrong. My mistake has been to try and nominate the best film, when it would have been smarter to […]
Film ReviewsSubtraction
March 1, 2024When I have to choose between two new releases the crucial consideration is often which movie has the best chance of reaching a wide audience. I thought initially that Ethan Coen’s Drive Away Dolls would be a bigger crowd pleaser than Mani Haghighi’s Subtraction, but after watching both features, I’m not so sure. At their […]
Jacobus Capone
February 22, 2024In 2007, at the age of 21, Jacobus Capone took a scoop of water from the Indian Ocean, walked across Australia, and emptied it in the Pacific. The journey took five-and-a-half months and killed off any relationship he ever had with his native country. “That was my last university project,” he recalls. “I was very […]
BlogMakoto Azuma
February 16, 2024Makoto Azuma is the Indiana Jones of florists. He has fired flowers into the stratosphere and plunged them to the bottom of the ocean. One of his favourite tactics is to preserve specimens at their moment of maximum beauty, in blocks of clear resin, which is how visitors to this year’s NGV Triennial at the […]
BlogElmgreen & Dragset
December 22, 2023Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset met in a Copenhagen nightclub in 1994. Elmgreen, a Dane, was writing and performing poetry, while Dragset, a Norwegian, was involved in the theatre. Somehow, they decided to combine forces and make art. (“It’s can be good not to learn how to do things in a ‘correct’ way,” says Dragset.) […]
BlogJordan Wolfson: Body Sculpture
December 10, 2023Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Jordan Wolfson’s Body Sculpture goes through an elaborate range of gestures in a half hour cycle, from the sexually suggestive to the suicidal. The National Gallery of Australia has invested $6.67 million in this work and waited five-and-a-half years for it to be delivered. Conscious of the magnitude of the gamble […]
John McDonald
For over thirty years he has been one of Australia’s best-known critics. He writes a weekly art column for the Sydney Morning Herald, a weekly film column for the Australian Financial Review, and contributes to a wide range of local and international publications.
Jeffrey Smart, ‘The Bather, Bondi’ (1962)
June 16, 2023JEFFREY SMART (1921-2013) The Bather, Bondi 1962 oil on board 49.0 x 72.0 cm signed lower left: JEFFREY SMART Provenance: South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne, 1962 Jean Parker (formerly Ramsey), Melbourne Estate of the above Amanda Addams Auctions, Melbourne, 13 April 2008, lot 285 Private collection, Melbourne Exhibited: Jeffrey Smart, South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne,11-24 November 1962, cat.7 […]
JournalsJohn Olsen, ‘Lake Alexandrina and Dirt Roads’ (1997-98)
JOHN OLSEN Lake Alexandrina and Dirt Roads 1997-98 oil on canvas 199.0 x 183.0 cm signed and dated lower right: John/ Olsen/ 97-98 signed and inscribed verso: Dirt Roads & Lake John/ Olsen Provenance: Savill Galleries, Sydney Private collection, Melbourne Exhibited: John Olsen: Recent Work 1995-1998, Olsen Carr Art Dealers, Sydney, 7-25 April 1998, cat.13 (illus. […]
JournalsJeffrey Smart: ‘Petrol Station’ (1975)
March 10, 2023JEFFREY SMART Petrol Station 1975 oil on canvas on board 34.5 x 39.5 cm signed lower left: JEFFREY SMART Provenance: South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne (label attached verso) Private collection, Melbourne Leonard Joel, Melbourne, 4 November 1981, lot 25 Private collection, Melbourne Exhibited: (Probably) Jeffrey Smart, South Yarra Gallery, Melbourne, 3 April 1975 (Or) Jeffrey Smart, South […]