Art Column
Marilyn at MAMA
Friday, February 19th, 2016 Art Column,“Men grow cold as girls grow old, and we all lose our charms in the end…” sang Marilyn Monroe in Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. Yet Marilyn would never lose her charms, cheating old age by dying at the age of 36, fixing her image forever as the glamorous blonde starlet we see in […]
Encounters
Thursday, February 11th, 2016 Art Column,‘Civilisation’ is a concept that has changed beyond recognition over the past century. To the pioneering ethnographers of the Victorian era, tribal cultures were merely stages on the way to the civilised state. Viewed as backward, impoverished and superstitious, it was accepted that such communities would wither and die as they fell under the spell […]
El Anatsui
Thursday, February 4th, 2016 Art Column,El Anatsui makes one feel there might actually be some substance in the talk of a globalised art world. The idea that artists from places other than Europe and America can be players on the contemporary scene has been around ever since Jean-Hubert Martin’s landmark exhibition, Magiciens de la Terre, held at the Centre Pompidou […]
Singapore: Art Stage & Beyond
Thursday, January 28th, 2016 Art Column,Down a long road in Singapore rows of banners announce: “The joy of success is in sharing it. Share success. Give hope.” These words might have been written by the organisers of Art Stage, now in its sixth year. At a time when the Chinese stockmarket has torpedoed the global economy one needs a serious […]
Destination Sydney
Friday, January 22nd, 2016 Art Column,Destination Sydney is an inelegant title. It may be that Australian audiences only respond to the most banal and descriptive titles but that’s no reason for making shows sound like tourism initiatives. At the risk of coming across as a snob, I can only describe it as vulgar. Complaint registered, I’m happy to record that […]
Right Here Now
Friday, January 15th, 2016 Art Column,Regional galleries: the crisis that never ends. A few weeks ago I was invited to Canberra by the Museum of Democracy at Old Parliament House to view a show called Right Here Now: A Powerful Regional Voice in our Democracy. This event, which has been put together by freelance curators, Holly Williams, Ivan Muñiz Reed […]
Tarnanthi
Thursday, January 7th, 2016 Art Column,“In the Kaurna language of the Adelaide Plains,” writes curator, Nici Cumston, “Tarnanthi means ‘to rise, come forth, spring up or appear’. It heralds the animation of new ideas and new beginnings such as the rising sun, a universal metaphor across cultures for the agency of imagination.” Tarnanthi is the title of new Festival of […]
Andy Warhol – Ai Weiwei
Thursday, January 7th, 2016 Art Column,There are ideas for exhibitions that make luminous sense – once somebody has announced them. Andy Warhol – Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria set off bells and whistles in my head when curator, Max Delaney, told me about it last year. It’s such an obvious match it seems remarkable someone in Europe […]
Grayson Perry
Thursday, December 17th, 2015 Art Column,“On the whole I make very common categories of cultural product,” says Grayson Perry, “clay vessels, textile wall hangings, framed prints, figurines.” There is, however, nothing ‘common’ about the subject matter of Perry’s work or about his public persona – unless we take the word in a pejorative sense: “Oh my God, Grayson is so […]
Tom Roberts
Thursday, December 10th, 2015 Art Column,After a winter or two of discontent the National Gallery of Australia is once again open for business. It’s not that one hasn’t been able to visit this renowned institution, it’s just that nobody seemed to be doing so. With a scandal over looted Indian art, and a James Turrell show that ran for no […]