Art Column
The National 4: New Australian Art
Tuesday, April 25th, 2023 Art Column,Surveys of contemporary art are rarely smooth, coherent affairs and The National 4: Australian Art Now is no exception. In her catalogue essay, Jennifer Higgie tries to answer the unanswerable question: “What is Australian contemporary art?” and comes up with a long list of contradictory propositions. It’s not exactly revelatory, but it makes the point […]
Fantastic Forms at Bundanon
Tuesday, April 11th, 2023 Art Column,When Bundanon received $2.4 million in the federal budget it was widely viewed as an endorsement of this rural arts oasis, gifted to the nation by Arthur and Yvonne Boyd in 1993. The unspoken reason for the grant was sheer survival: like so many institutions under the Morrison government, Bundanon, located in bushland near Nowra, […]
The Return of Hong Kong
Tuesday, April 4th, 2023 Art Column,Roll the clock back four years to 2019. In Hong Kong, Art Basel was consolidating the island’s reputation as the heart of the international art market in Asia. The gargantuan West Kowloon Cultural District was starting to emerge but was still largely a building site. The world’s leading commercial galleries were opening branches, hoping to […]
William & Jonathan Delafield Cook, Luke Sciberras, David Collins, Danelle Bergstrom
Tuesday, March 28th, 2023 Art Column,William Delafield Cook (1936-2015) was the perfect expatriate artist. He left Australia in the late 1950s, and would spend most of his life in London, where he blended in smoothly with the British art scene. His paintings, however, returned perpetually to Australia. In this, he was like Sidney Nolan, although their work was poles apart. […]
Art Dubai 2023
Tuesday, March 21st, 2023 Art Column,Introducing the 16th edition of Art Dubai, Artistic Director, Pablo del Val, spoke about an art fair dedicated to ‘the Global South’. This new-old concept term has been around for decades but has gained momentum recently, as a way of dividing the developing world from its developed counterpart. At first, I thought this was a […]
Idris Murphy
Tuesday, March 14th, 2023 Art Column,In this country some of our greatest artists, such as Drysdale and Dobell, faced a long struggle for institutional recognition, followed by a rush of success when everyone jumped on the bandwagon. In recent years there’s been a different pattern, with younger artists singled out as fashionable stars whose work is collected early by all […]
Peter Booth
Tuesday, March 7th, 2023 Art Column,There can be few exhibitions in Australia that have shocked viewers as thoroughly as Peter Booth’s show at Melbourne’s Pinacotheca Gallery in late 1977. The most telling comparison might be with American painter, Philip Guston, whose 1970 show at Marlborough Galleries, New York, was greeted with scorn by leading critics, including Robert Hughes. In both […]
Braving Time: Contemporary Art in Queer Australia
Saturday, February 25th, 2023 Art Column,Art has never been short of queer things but it’s beginning to seem as if “queer” is the new word for “avant-garde”. Not long ago, artists would proudly proclaim their avant-garde credentials, identifying themselves as part of a small, élite group pushing back the boundaries of art. Nowadays, that cutting-edge brigade all seem to be […]
Laurence Edwards: A Gathering of Uncertainties
Tuesday, February 21st, 2023 Art Column, Other Writing,Laurence Edwards might not be a familiar name to local audiences, but he is one of the leading sculptors in Britain today. It may come as a surprise to find a show by a major British artist when most public galleries are tempering their overseas ambitions. They’ll tell you that revenue is down, the cost […]
White Rabbit: Shuo Shu
Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 Art Column,In pre-literate societies the storyteller had everyone’s attention. The role grew in importance as communities became more cultivated, with public recitations being valued as forms of education and entertainment. The ancient Greeks, for instance, had their rhapsodes who would recite Homer to enthusiastic audiences. The Chinese have a long tradition of public storytelling, often accompanied […]