Year: 2013
One week in Darwin
Saturday, August 17th, 2013 Art Column,Darwin will always be a frontier town, but at this time of year it is the most cultured place in Australia. Enjoying a brief window of perfect dry season weather, the Darwin Festival has become a keenly anticipated event, with a lively mix of local and international acts. Because the Northern Territory is the heartland […]
The Bling Ring & Beyond the Hills
Saturday, August 10th, 2013 Film Reviews, Uncategorized,Sofia Coppola says she didn’t grow up in Hollywood and has never been a part of the subculture she anatomises in The Bling Ring. Yet Coppola, who has been in the film industry since birth, may be the perfect director to explore a notorious crime spree in which celebrities’ homes were burglarised by a group […]
Kevin Connor, Ricky Swallow & 'Found'
Saturday, August 10th, 2013 Art Column,Kevin Connor’s paintings aren’t pretty but they are attractive, having the peculiar magnetism of anything done with no thought of an audience or a peer group. This only begins to seem like a virtue when one thinks of all the art made as part of a career strategy, or by those who want to be […]
The World's End & Greetings From Tim Buckley
Saturday, August 3rd, 2013 Film Reviews,There could hardly be a better setting for a movie called The World’s End, than a provincial English town. Regardless of the picturesque, ‘ye olde’ touches, many of those who spent their childhood in these soulless hamlets have fled like refugees from a scene of social disaster. It may not be entirely coincidental that director, […]
Peter Rushforth
Saturday, August 3rd, 2013 Art Column,Pottery today is in a paradoxical position. Alongside the wraparound videos, sculptural installations and performance works favoured by the contemporary art museums it seems decidedly unsexy. Yet stand in a gallery in front of a great pot and it is hard to think of anything more sensual, more engaging, more reflective of the human hand […]
Hollywood Costume
Saturday, July 27th, 2013 Art Column,In Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, a turning point arrives through a change of costume. James Stewart, playing the damaged cop, Scottie, sees a girl who closely resembles the dead woman who haunts his thoughts. That woman, Madeleine, is on Scottie’s conscience and in his heart. In Judy, a shop girl from Kansas, he recognises Madeleine’s double […]
Behind the Candelabra & What's in a Name?
Saturday, July 27th, 2013 Film Reviews,It is almost impossible to explain Liberace to anyone under thirty. A walking Christmas tree decked out in rhinestones, sequins, furs and ostrich feathers, with a bouffant wig the size of Uluru, Liberace had millions of fans who never suspected he was gay. When newspapers dared make such slanderous accusations he sued them and won. […]
Only God Forgives & Reality
Saturday, July 20th, 2013 Film Reviews,“Time to meet the devil,” says Billy to his brother, Julian, before setting out for a big night on the town in old Bangkok. Billy, who runs a kick-boxing franchise and deals drugs, has unusual tastes in entertainment. We meet him next in a bordello staring at a group of girls, but feeling disappointed because […]
Sydney Moderns
Saturday, July 20th, 2013 Art Column,When an artist calls a work A Painted Picture of the Universe it means he’s thinking big. It’s rather a grand title for a small abstraction, even if it did take Roy De Maistre 14 years to complete this cosmological fantasy. De Maistre (1894-1968) is one of the central figures in Sydney Moderns: Art for […]
The Dance of Shiva
Saturday, July 13th, 2013 Blog,How truly ‘public’ are our public galleries? The recent scandal over the millions of dollars paid by the National Gallery of Australia to the crooked art dealer, Subash Kapoor, has demonstrated a complete lack of transparency in the way our flagship art institution spends the money it receives from taxpapers and wealthy donors. When James […]