The Other Side of Hope & Paul: Apostle of Christ
Friday, April 6th, 2018 Film Reviews,In pre-Enlightenment days ‘history’ was a mass of tall stories, myths and rumours. Authors were happy to recount tales of miracles and supernatural events, readers were happy to believe them. In the mid-1800s it was still scandalous when writers such as David Strauss and Ernst Renan began to challenge the historical basis of the Bible, […]
Art Basel Hong Kong 2018
Friday, April 6th, 2018 Art Column,“Oh my God, is that Wolfgang Tillmans? I just saw Jeff Koons! Look! It’s Olafur Eliasson!” In what Art Basel Hong Kong quaintly refers to as its “6th Edition”, the mania for celebrity-spotting reached new heights. I wish I could say these artists are idolised because of the superb quality of their work, but – […]
Sydney Biennale 2018 Part 2
Friday, March 30th, 2018 Art Column,Is it only me, or is there something intrinsically boring about art projects that involve community participation? I know there is a strand of thought in contemporary art that loathes the very idea of the master artist or the individual genius, believing every human being should be encouraged to harness his or her innate creativity. […]
The Death of Stalin
Friday, March 30th, 2018 Film Reviews,It’s conservatively estimated that 20 million people were murdered during Joseph Stalin’s reign.“So why were they all killed?” asks Simon Sebag Montefiore, in his devastating book, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. Nadezhda Mandelstam, who lost her poet husband, Osip, gave a succinct answer: “for nothing”. Montefiore suggests that under Stalin the supreme offence […]
Mary Magdalene
Friday, March 23rd, 2018 Film Reviews,Of all the figures in the New Testament, Mary Magdalene has been the most misunderstood. This is partly because early commentators found it hard to distinguish between Mary of Magdala, Mary of Bethany, and the ‘sinful’ woman in the Gospel of St. Luke, who anoints Jesus’s feet in Simon’s house and dries them with her […]
Sydney Biennale 2018 Part 1
Friday, March 23rd, 2018 Art Column,Few artists have dominated a Sydney Biennale as comprehensively as Ai Weiwei with his contributions to this year’s show. It’s partly because hardly any of the 70 chosen artists, or groups of artists, have a public profile in Australia, while Ai is an international art celebrity and media magnet. Two years ago the National Gallery […]
Giorgio de Chirico: Major works from the Collection of Francesco Federico Cerruti
Friday, March 16th, 2018 Art Column,Giorgio de Chirico had an irrascible reputation but never lacked self-confidence. Although recognised as one of great modern artists, de Chirico (1888-1978) was a vehement opponent of Modernism. In his eyes, Cézanne, Matisse and Modigliani were no more than “pseudo-artists”, makers of infantile daubs. “Naturally,” he writes in his Memoirs, “in order to see and […]
Human Flow
Friday, March 16th, 2018 Film Reviews,Human Flow is a relentless film about a relentless problem. There have always been refugees – people displaced from their homes by war, persecution or natural disaster – but we are living through an era when this activity has accelerated in many different parts of the world. Ai Weiwei takes us on a global tour […]
The 2018 Adelaide Biennial: Divided Worlds
Friday, March 9th, 2018 Art Column,It’s a time-honoured tradition that large museum surveys of contemporary art should have titles so vague and all-encompassing as to be effectively meaningless. Yet it may be that with Divided Worlds, Erica Green, the curator of the 2018 Adelaide Biennial, has found a title that actually feels relevant. Two decades into the 21st century the […]
The Square
Friday, March 9th, 2018 Film Reviews,As another Sydney Biennale looms one wonders why there aren’t more satires on contemporary art. The reason perhaps, is that reality routinely exceeds the wildest imaginings of the satirist. The beauty of Ruben Östlund’s The Square, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes last year, lies in its understatement. It presents one bizarre scenario after […]
