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John Berger
May 28, 2020Art criticism today occupies one of the lower branches on the tree of literature. Most of the writing that passes under that label consists of snippets of recycled press releases, empty jargon, servile puffs and received opinions. The genre is so debased that artists, dealers and curators have begun to see reviews as advertisements. Anything […]
Sydney Morning Herald Column
Art and Propaganda
May 21, 2020“All art is propaganda…” wrote George Orwell. “On the other hand, not all propaganda is art.” He was talking about Charles Dickens, but I thought of this line when watching the new Netflix series, Hollywood, which sets out to overturn the racist and homophobic attitudes of the movie business in the late 1940s. As “art” […]
Sydney Morning Herald Column
Solitude
May 15, 2020A successful artist needs more than talent. There has to be a taste – perhaps a need – for solitude. The movies portray artists as great Bohemians who carouse in bars and cafés, have fierce arguments about art and embark on passionate, doomed love affairs, but this is only what they do in their spare […]
Sydney Morning Herald Column
After the Black Death
May 7, 2020It may be a symptom of morbid curiosity but the coronavirus lockdown has generated a new interest in novels such as Albert Camus’s The Plague, and movies such as Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion. Both are speculative fictions that draw on our knowledge of the causes and behaviour of an epidemic. It’s commonplace to talk about all […]
Sydney Morning Herald Column
Venus Betrayed: Édouard Vuillard
April 30, 2020At the end of the Modernist era it became increasingly taboo to interpret an artist’s work in relation to his or her biography. Only the formal qualities of a piece were deemed relevant, with information about the artist’s life being mere gossip. The irony of course is that there are now numerous biographies and memoirs […]
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Sydney Morning Herald Column
June 5, 2020
Some Mysterious Process
When an art museum celebrates 50 years of its own collecting with an exhibition called Some Mysterious Process, it doesn’t suggest a highly developed sense of irony. One might imagine such a show would stress the insights and knowledge of the curators, the strategic planning involved in tracking and purchasing key works. To say it’s […]
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Mrs. America
It takes a moment before one recognises those first four notes in the jazzy theme music for Mrs. America. It’s a ‘switched-on’ version of Beethoven’s Fifth – in the composer’s own famous words: “the sound of fate knocking on the door.” But for whom does it knock? Is it for Phyllis Schlafly, the formidable conservative […]
Film Reviews
The Great
May 28, 2020With films based on actual people it’s always tempting to take a peek at the historical record. Fictional characters will invariably be created and genuine ones omitted, myths will be treated as facts. No-one can resist adding a dash – or a bucketload – of romance to prosaic reality. In the case of The Great […]
Film Reviews
For Sama
May 21, 2020“We never thought the world would let this happen,” says Waad Al-Kateab, early into For Sama, a documentary she has co-directed with Edward Watts. Working as an independent journalist, Waad recorded the progress of the Syrian civil war in the city of Aleppo as the euphoria of rebellion gave way to mounting despair. The film […]
Film Reviews
Hollywood
May 15, 2020Hollywood. The title says it all: big, brassy, and full of false promises. Although generations of movie-makers have felt compelled to pore over the industry’s dirty secrets there’s never been anything quite like the new Netflix series by Ian Brennan and Ryan Murphy. Please don’t take that as an endorsement. A typical Hollywood saga is […]
Frank Watters 1934 – 2020
May 28, 2020Frank Watters, who has died at the age of 86, was not only a pillar of the Sydney gallery scene for more than 50 years, he was a truly humane personality in a business that breeds sharks. Although he adored gossip and had a wicked wit, Frank held fast to his own standards. He was […]
Blog
Tales from the Woods
April 17, 2020From Goya’s The Third of May, 1808 (1814) to Picasso’s Guernica (1937), to countless, politically correct projects by contemporary artists, the modern era has used art as a megaphone for speaking the truth to power. Yet it remains hard to think of a single instance when a work of so-called ‘political art’ has had any […]
Blog
Films of the Decade 2010-2019
December 19, 2019Looking back over the past decade I was struck by the total disconnect between the highest-grossing films of the year and – for want of a better word – films of quality. Inevitably, the biggest box office hits are superhero movies, kids’ films, or franchises such as Harry Potter, James Bond or Star Wars. It’s […]
Blog
Matisse & Picasso: A First Look
It must have been tempting to call this exhibition Matisse v. Picasso, a bit like Batman v. Superman. The Australian public responds well to healthy competition, as demonstrated by the perennial mania for art prizes. Instead the National Gallery of Australia settled on the more dignified Matisse & Picasso as the title of its summer […]
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.
Terror Nullius
March 8, 2019Satire invites us to become conspirators in a joke made at someone else’s expense. As the usual targets are figures of power and authority it’s reasonable to assume the invitation will be accepted. The satirist adopts the Robin Hood position – defending the powerless against the few who seek to impose their will upon the […]
Artist Profile
Signature Art Prize 2018
March 7, 2019This year, for the fourth iteration of the Prize, 15 finalists were chosen from a field of 113 artists spread throughout the Asia-Pacific and – for the first time – Singapore’s cultural efflorescence over the past decade has been a source of wonder even to the Singaporeans themselves, who are forever celebrating their own progress. […]
Artist Profile
The Tarnished Prizes
No nation on earth can match Australia’s enduring love of art prizes. It reflects our obsession with sport (which is something we can do as well as anybody), allied with the perennial Cultural Cringe (the sense that we suffer from a lack of Old Masters and ruined temples). The Cringe was named by A.A.Phillips in […]