Art Column
Lee Lee-nam & Robert Motherwell
Saturday, September 13th, 2014 Art Column,French art historian, Daniel Arasse, hopes an audience might be able to stand in front of one masterpiece for at least five minutes. It doesn’t sound a big ask, but spend time in a gallery and watch how long people linger in front of even the most famous works of art. Five minutes would be […]
Annette Messager
Saturday, September 6th, 2014 Art Column,Annette Messager was born in the French provinces to a family of atheists who took a particular pleasure in the local Catholic church. Her father favoured the architecture, while Annette liked the stained glass windows. This biographical tidbit takes on significance when one considers the nature of Messager’s work, which draws freely on the iconography […]
Mooi Indie
Saturday, August 30th, 2014 Art Column,Countries in the throes of social change always produce the most exciting contemporary art. This has been true of China for the past two decades, and it is one of the less recognised outcomes of South Korea’s economic miracle. On the other hand, in places like Australia or Scandinavia – well represented in this year’s […]
Melbourne Art Fair 2014
Saturday, August 23rd, 2014 Art Column,Art dealers in Australia have an image problem. Every time a high profile art fraud comes to court, as in the recent case of a dud Albert Tucker painting, there is a mass of lurid publicity. We hear shocking stories about the prevalence of fakes, shady dealers, unreliable auction practices and double-dipping art consultants. It […]
Saltwater Country
Saturday, August 16th, 2014 Art Column,‘Country’ is the most fundamental concept in the Aboriginal lexicon, but also the most misunderstood. The indigenous feeling for country is far more spiritual than sentimental. It’s a distinction that’s scarcely comprehensible to those of us who believe identity consists of what we make of ourselves, regardless of our place of origin. The Hollywood version […]
Salon des Refusés 2014
Saturday, August 9th, 2014 Art Column,So much has already been written about Sydney’s $9.3 million public sculpture proposals that I’m in two minds whether to comment or leave it alone. Nevertheless, it’s an issue that won’t go away. It’s depressing that the very idea of a city council spending money on art brings out the philistine in a large proportion […]
Tabaimo
Saturday, August 2nd, 2014 Art Column,It would be fascinating to try and understand why some cultures are fixated on one artform more than others. The period we call the Golden Age in the Netherlands, which spanned the 17th century, produced one of history’s greatest flowerings of the visual arts but little in the way of notable literature or music. Britain, […]
Harvest
Saturday, July 26th, 2014 Art Column,In the latest issue of The Art Newspaper, the front page story is about international über-curator, Germano Celant, who is organising an exhibition for Milan’s Expo 2015 on the relationship between art and food. “Ho hum,” you think, but the truly startling fact is Celant’s fee of €750,000 (AUD$ 1,079,840). At 2-3 times the annual […]
Archibald Prize 2014
Saturday, July 19th, 2014 Art Column,Imagine if the Archibald Prize banned all portraits that relied on photographs. The number of entries would drop from 884 to something less than 100, while the exhibition would be dominated by amateurs and unknown artists. Even the subjects would be strangers to most viewers because it’s unlikely that anyone mildly famous could spare the […]
Theatre of Dreams, Theatre of Play
Saturday, July 12th, 2014 Art Column,We’ve become accustomed to the idea that various species of animal are in danger of extinction and need to be preserved, but cultural forms are subject to analogous pressures. Commercial logic dictates that a species of theatre or performance will exist only when there is a paying audience. Many traditional forms owe their longevity to […]