Art Essays
Leon Kossoff
Sunday, October 31st, 2010 Art Essays, International Art,In a recent interview Lucian Freud expresses his exasperation that no-one seems to have noticed that Leonardo da Vinci was a really bad painter. This opinion, at first so vehement and startling, begins to make sense when one looks at Freud’s own drawings and working methods. Leonardo, the epitome of the Renaissance’s uomo universale, was […]
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, […]
David to Cézanne
Saturday, October 16th, 2010 Art Column, International Art,“It is often said that true collectors have somewhat deranged minds,” writes Louis-Antoine Prat, in a magisterial essay for the catalogue of David to Cézanne: Master Drawings from the Prat Collection. The 101 works on display at the Art Gallery of NSW form an impressive testament to the obsessions of the collector and a source […]
Australian artists tour China
Saturday, October 9th, 2010 Art Column, Australian Art, Chinese Art, General Art Essays,With each year China is exerting a greater attraction for Australian artists. This is not simply a reflection of the country’s status as this century’s coming super power, or the fact that the Australian economy is riding on the back of China’s insatiable appetite for resources. There is a pervasive energy in contemporary Chinese art […]
In the Balance
Saturday, October 2nd, 2010 Art Column, Australian Art,Can an issue be of overwhelming, global importance and not be a great subject for artists? After experiencing In the Balance: Art for a Changing World at the Museum of Contemporary Art, I’m almost inclined to write off the environmental movement as subject matter. This would be unfair, because I’m sure there have been significant […]
Chuck Close
Saturday, September 25th, 2010 Art Column, International Art,Chuck Close is celebrated as an artist who has made creative use of his disabilities, although one might say he has simply refused to be beaten by them. Struck down by a collapsed spinal artery in December 1988, he has been in a wheelchair ever since, painting with brushes strapped to his wrist. Close’s stroke […]
Valentino, Retrospective: Past/Present/Future
Saturday, September 18th, 2010 Art Column, International Art,Philosophers should make a comprehensive study of Valentino Garavani, because if he isn’t a genuinely happy man this proves human happiness is an unobtainable ideal. The great couturier retired in 2008 at the peak of his fame, adored by the world’s most glamorous and influential people. His life-style, as revealed in Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary, Valentino: […]
Slow Burn, Charles Blackman
Saturday, September 11th, 2010 Art Column, Australian Art,Hopefully it won’t be viewed as a sign of ingrained male chauvinism that I’ve taken so long to talk about Slow Burn: A century of Australian women artists from a private collection, at the S.H.Ervin Gallery. The exhibition, which is proving extremely popular, is due to run for another week. There has been a […]
Titanic
Saturday, September 4th, 2010 Art Column, International Art,This week the column remains in Melbourne, and remains, more-or-less, at the movies. After Tim Burton at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, the other big attraction in the southern capital is Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. It is a subject that has been etched on the popular imagination by its […]