Australian Art
Mary Tonkin
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 Australian Art,At first glance Mary Tonkin’s new paintings make one think of the scorched and blackened residues after a bush fire has roared through a forest, but here appearances may be deceiving. The area of the Dandenongs where she has her studio on a family property has its share of scorched trees and undergrowth, but this […]
Justin O’Brien
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011 Art Column, Australian Art,Thinking of Justin O’Brien my memory flies back to a day in Rome when I was taking “Justin’s tour” with his old friend and fellow expatriate, Jeffrey Smart. As we approached the church of Sant’Agostino, which contains works by Caravaggio and Raphael, we were met with a blast of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue. A funeral […]
21st Century
Saturday, January 8th, 2011 Art Column, Australian Art, International Art,In 1942 Peggy Guggenheim opened her Art of this Century gallery in New York, designed by the Austrian architect, Frederick Kiesler. The gallery’s Abstract Room featured paintings suspended in mid-air. A Surrealist Room had concave walls, from which pictures were cantilevered on wooden joints made from sawn-off baseball bats. In a Kinetic Room the viewer […]
Peggy Guggenheim
Saturday, January 1st, 2011 Art Column, Australian Art, International Art,Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) was one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated art collectors but she belonged to a relatively “poor” branch of an illustrious family. Her grandfather, Simon, had arrived in the United States in 1847 as a penniless Jewish migrant from Switzerland. So astutely did those early Guggenheims manage their affairs that by World […]
James Guppy
Saturday, December 18th, 2010 Art Column, Australian Art,This has been a forgettable year for the commercial galleries. Not only are sales down, even attendances have been disappointing. It is as though people don’t trust themselves to visit galleries in case they are tempted to spend money. Art dealing, after all, is a glorified form of retail, and the economists are telling us […]
Euan Macleod & Garry Shead
Saturday, November 20th, 2010 Art Column, Australian Art,You may not have noticed any banners in the streets or sixteen-page colour supplements, but November is Euan Macleod Month. This popular New Zealand-born artist is the subject of a survey exhibition called Surface Tension, at the S.H.Ervin Gallery, and a new Piper Press monograph by fellow kiwi, Gregory O’Brien. Accordingly, the month is filling […]
Shen Jiawei: From Mao to Now
Saturday, November 13th, 2010 Art Column, Australian Art, Chinese Art,It’s a sign of our ignorance about China that the term “Cultural Revolution” is used so promiscuously in the mass media. Art exhibitions, fashion shows, almost anything may be described by this catchphrase, which obviously seems ‘cool’ to a lot of people. But as Mao Zedong famously said: “a revolution is not a tea party.” […]
Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2010
Saturday, November 6th, 2010 Art Column, Australian Art, International Art, Uncategorized,In one of her detective stories Dorothy Sayers wisely observes: “For some reason, the word ‘artistic’ produces the most alarming reactions in those who know anything about art.” As such, it would be inadequate and belittling to describe Sculpture by the Sea as one of Sydney’s most eagerly awaited ‘artistic’ events. This annual sculpture-fest is an […]
Leon Kossoff, Ben Quilty and James Powditch
Saturday, October 30th, 2010 Art Column, Australian Art, International Art,Looking at recent reports on the Paris art fair, FIAC, it was morbidly interesting to learn about the most eye-catching works and the prices they fetched. For instance, Barry X Ball’s Sleeping Hermaphrodite – a black marble quotation of a famous Roman sculpture, went for US$ 623,000. A bronze sculpture by Paul McCarthy, with the […]
National Gallery of Australia: A New Extension
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010 Aboriginal Art, Art Column, Australian Art, General Art Essays,Nobody in Australia is more experienced in the ways of gallery building than Andrew Andersons, the chief architect of the new wing at the National Gallery of Australia. Although he is a super professional, Andersons has often been criticised by other architects who find his buildings prosaic, deficient in detail and artistry. To be fair, […]