Art Essays
Newsletter 259
Saturday, November 3rd, 2018 Art Essays, Newsletter,This weekend I’m writing about Sculpture by the Sea, which is coming to a close at Bondi. This annual event has become a de facto arts festival in Sydney, attracting the kind of audiences that most art museums can only fantasise about. It’s never a perfect show – some years a little stronger, others a […]
Newsletter 258
Saturday, October 27th, 2018 Art Essays, Newsletter,Nick Serota was in Sydney this week, courtesy of John Kaldor, to deliver an address on art education. The former director of the Tate galleries, now head of the Arts Council, is an object lesson in leanness and austerity. There is an absolute focus with everything he says and does, with no wastage. One would […]
Newsletter 257
Saturday, October 20th, 2018 Art Essays, Newsletter,Apologies for the lateness of this week’s newsletter and posting. I’ve been in Bangkok for the city’s first-ever Biennale and – aside from an insanely busy schedule – I didn’t have a reliable Internet connection. In addition, the mail box associated with the site filled up for the umpteenth time and couldn’t be emptied. So […]
Newsletter 256
Saturday, October 13th, 2018 Art Essays, Newsletter,This newsletter is being written on a bus, speeding through the night from Busan to Gwangju. It may not sound glamorous but the Korean bus network is super efficient and ridiculously inexpensive. Note to self: next time in Korea, give the trains a miss and take only buses. I’m here to see three Biennales, and […]
Newsletter 255
Saturday, October 6th, 2018 Art Essays, Newsletter,I’m not raving about anything this week, which doesn’t mean there are no subjects worth taking on, only that I’m short of time and energy. I’m back in Sydney but the current art column is set in Austria, more particularly in Graz, a city of extraordinary contradictions. The Steirischer Herbst(Styrian Autumn) festival has been going […]
Peter Powditch: Coast – A Retrospective
Friday, April 14th, 2017 Art Column, Australian Art,Pop to Popism, held at the Art Gallery of NSW in 2014, was not a show that left glowing memories, but one work has remained lodged in my mind. Peter Powditch’s The Big Towel, which appeared in the Australian section of the exhibition, looked incredibly fresh for a painting made in 1969. Part of its […]
The National
Saturday, April 8th, 2017 Aboriginal Art, Art Column, Australian Art,One wonders if The National: New Australian Art is intended as a subtle riposte to the National Gallery of Victoria’s Melbourne Now of 2013-14. “No navel gazing here in Sydney – we’re bringing you art from all over the country.” The NGV’s bright idea may have been predicated on Melburnian self-esteem but final attendances topped […]
2013: The Best & Worst of the Visual Arts
Monday, January 6th, 2014 Art Essays, Blog,My best art experience of the year happened on the other side of the planet, in a retrospective celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edvard Munch. The show, divided between the National Gallery and the Munch Museum in Olso, revealed an unrelenting intensity of vision. It featured the most complete collection of paintings […]
Georges Braque
Saturday, October 12th, 2013 Art Column, International Art,“Painting is not an art where anything goes.” Georges Braque. In 1977 the Fraser government struck a lethal blow to Australia’s reputation as an art-collecting nation when it torpedoed the purchase of Georges Braque’s painting, Nu debout (1908) (AKA. Grand Nu). The National Gallery of Australia had a price – $1.5 million – and an […]
Australia at the Royal Academy
Saturday, September 28th, 2013 Art Column, Australian Art,Australia at the Royal Academy of Arts in London has echoes of Baz Luhrmann’s blockbuster movie of 2010. Like that overblown, incoherent concoction, the one-word title of the RA show suggests this is all you will ever need to know about Australian art. It presents itself as a definitive statement. Kathleen Soriano, Director of Exhibitions […]