International Art
Sculpture By the Sea in Denmark
Saturday, August 1st, 2009 Australian Art, International Art,There was considerable trepidation leading up to the international launch of Sculpture by Sea in the Danish city of Aarhus. This prodigiously popular show, which has occupied the Sydney heads, from Bondi to Tamarama every year since 1997, had never previously been seen outside of Australia. Although the exhibitions at Bondi, and more recently at […]
Peter Godwin
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 Australian Art, International Art,In a 1990 article in the New Yorker, Dan Hofstadter described the School of London artists – notably R.B.Kitaj, Leon Kossoff and Dennis Creffield, as “dungeon masters”.[i] An accomplished exercise in cultural anthropology, this piece helped introduce American audiences to an eccentric tribe of painters that seemed to revel in dinginess and squalor. These artists […]
Tehran
Sunday, March 1st, 2009 International Art,“The East looks to itself,” wrote Gertrude Bell in her book, Persian Pictures, “it knows nothing of the greater world of which you are a citizen, asks nothing of you and your civilisation.” In the era of globalisation one can only smile at those Orientalist sentiments that impressed Bell’s readers with their profundity in 1894. […]
Ai Weiwei
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 Chinese Art, International Art,Ai Weiwei has spent the past decade swimming against a tide that now looks more like a tsunami. Born in 1957, he spent his youth in the remote province of Xingjian, where his father, the poet Ai Qing, had been sent for re-education. The family was not allowed to return to Beijing until 1975, when […]
William Kentridge
Thursday, May 1st, 2008 International Art,William Kentridge was born and bred in Johannesburg, and has continued to reside in South Africa while the world clamours for his work. One of the reasons for Kentridge’s exceptional popularity is the way he unites aspects of cultural experience that are often seen as irreconcilable. His work is both international and intensely localised. He […]
Hu Ming
Sunday, July 1st, 2007 Chinese Art, International Art,“In order to build a great socialist society,” wrote Mao, in his little red book, “it is of the utmost importance to arouse the broad masses of women to join in productive activity.” If we consider the erotic overtones of the English word “arouse”, Chairman Mao’s vision of women’s role sets the scene for Hu […]
Venice
Friday, July 1st, 2005 International Art,For three days in summer, every other year, an unruly crowd of artists, critics, curators, dealers and collectors descends on Venice for the opening of the Biennale – the world’s premier contemporary art event. The networking and partying goes on at a furious pace, as the art luminaries separate the stars from the also-rans, deciding […]
Andy Warhol
Tuesday, March 1st, 2005 International Art,What happens when art history has run its course? What happens when every last innovation has been tried and tried again? One answer is that the business of art becomes the art of business. This distinction was pioneered by Andy Warhol (1928-1987), who was talking about “business art” in the 1970s – a decade in […]
Shen Shaomin: Bones of Contention
Friday, August 6th, 2004 Chinese Art, International Art,Monstrous bones have been turning up throughout the course of civilization, but it was not until 1842 that the British anatomist, Sir Richard Owen, coined the word “dinosaur” – bringing together the Greek words deinos (meaning ‘marvellous’ or ‘terrible’) and sauros (‘lizard’). The “dragon bones” found in Sichuan 2,000 years ago, as described by the […]
Modern Painting in 15 Easy Pieces: The past 100 years
Friday, August 15th, 2003 General Art Essays, International Art,All definitions of modern art are bound to end in failure, but that has not prevented artists and writers from making the attempt. In fact, one might see the entire twentieth century as an unbroken sequence of definitions and re-definitions, with each movement taking its cue from an earlier one, but striving to surpass and […]