General Art Essays
Robert Hughes, 1938 – 2012
Sunday, August 19th, 2012 Australian Art, Blog, General Art Essays, International Art,When Robert Hughes died last week, I spent much of the day on the telephone. Inevitably, the passing of this great, controversial figure was a media event of the first order. Among the mass of small comments I had to produce, the Sydney Morning Herald asked for a quick 500 words. The following day the […]
Growing up with Goannas
Saturday, June 23rd, 2012 Australian Art, Blog, General Art Essays,A few months ago I advised a friend not to labour over her blog, but to write smaller, more spontaneous pieces and publish more frequently. Unfortunately, it seems I’m completely incapable of following my own good advice. The perennial gap between theory and practice – or should that be good intentions and reality? – has begun […]
Euan Macleod: The Shadow Line
Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012 Art Essays, Australian Art, General Art Essays,Euan Macleod may be a landscape painter but it often seems as if the physical world is not his principle focus. Although he may stand for hours painting en plein air; although his pictures may reflect the recognisable features of a particular place, Macleod’s true subject is to be found within his own mind. The […]
The Clock, Marking Time
Saturday, May 12th, 2012 Art Column, Art Essays, Australian Art, General Art Essays, Uncategorized,Switzerland gave us the cuckoo clock, and Swiss-American artist, Christian Marclay, has created the most preposterous time-piece in the history of art. The Clock is such a unique artifact it defies all but the most impressionistic responses. This is obvious from Zadie Smith’s essay in the brochure published for the work’s showing at the Museum […]
Last Days
Friday, March 16th, 2012 Art Essays, Australian Art, Blog, General Art Essays,“Hurry, hurry, last days!” Margaret Olley used to say, when she felt the pinch of old age. Her final show, completed in fairy tale fashion on the day she died, reveals an artist who knew she did not have much time left. The paintings in the exhibition, The Inner Sanctum, hosted by Philip Bacon in […]
Sunset over Cottesloe
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012 Art Essays, Australian Art, Blog, General Art Essays,As half of the Sydney art world celebrated the launch of Art Month, and the other half clinked glasses at a valedictory show of Margaret Olley’s work, I was on Cottesloe Beach watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean. It was the eighth incarnation of Sculpture by the Sea in Western Australia, and I […]
Parallel Collisions: The 2012 Adelaide Biennial
Saturday, March 10th, 2012 Aboriginal Art, Art Column, Art Essays, Australian Art, General Art Essays, International Art,“We love language,” confessed the curators of Parallel Collisions: the 12th Adelaide Biennial. This may not sound controversial – for the purposes of communication it’s very useful. It was only as I read through the boxed, brick-heavy catalogue for this exhibition that I began to feel Natasha Bullock and Alexie Glass-Kantor may love language not […]
Fred Sandback; Wim Delvoye; Abstract Canvas; Philip King
Saturday, February 18th, 2012 Art Column, Art Essays, Australian Art, General Art Essays, International Art,Over the years Andrew Jensen has edged his way north, starting in Christchurch, moving to Wellington, on to Auckland, and last year crossing national lines and arriving in Sydney. What makes the Jensen Gallery unusual is that the exhibition program consists of 70-80 per cent international art – the kind of art we normally only […]
Matisse: Drawing Life
Saturday, December 17th, 2011 Art Column, Art Essays, General Art Essays, International Art,Henri Matisse was almost certainly the finest colourist in modern art but the bulk of his work contained no colour at all. Although the mention of his name conjures up thoughts of The Red Studio, The Joy of Life, or perhaps the kaleidoscopic Woman with a Hat, over the course of a long career Matisse […]
Picasso – In Living Colour
Thursday, December 15th, 2011 Art Column, Art Essays, General Art Essays, International Art,Pablo Picasso never travelled to Australia. He never even visited the United States, where his reputation as the leading artist of the twentieth century was set in stone. It’s a different story for those works Picasso loved best, which have recently been seen in Madrid, Helsinki, Moscow and St. Petersburg; before crossing the Atlantic, to […]