Newsletter
Newsletter 306
Monday, September 30th, 2019 Newsletter,What a humiliating week to be an Australian! As world leaders attended an all-important Climate Change session at the United Nations, Scummo was in Ohio admiring a McDonalds drive-thru. Previously he had distinguished himself by his craven, fawning attitude to Donald Trump. “Blockade Iran? Yessir!” “Would you like me to talk tough on China Mr. […]
Newsletter 305
Monday, September 23rd, 2019 Newsletter,As you read this newsletter I’m at the Mt. Zero-Taravale wildlife sanctuary, near Townsville, well out of range of Internet and mobile phone communications. This means I’m filing a hasty newsletter before I get on the plane. Mt. Zero is a property owned and managed by the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, one of this country’s leading […]
Newsletter 304
Monday, September 16th, 2019 Newsletter,It’s Sydney Contemporary week, so I’ll spare you the long raves about politics or arts policies. The art fair is bracing for its biggest year ever. It remains to be seen whether or not it achieves that goal but by the time of writing it was off to a flying start. Sophie Gannon and Jan […]
Newsletter 303
Monday, September 9th, 2019 Newsletter,After much argy-bargy it seems the Art Gallery of NSW has finally found a builder for Sydney Modern. Having taken so many years to raise the necessary funds, even after reducing the proposed cost by roughly $100 million to $344 million, we’re on the verge of seeing some action. The last obstacle may have been […]
Newsletter 302
Monday, September 2nd, 2019 Newsletter,This week I’m writing about Basquiat’s Defacement: The Untold Story at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. It’s a relatively small show, but one that raises more questions than any other display I saw during a week’s visit to the USA. To start with, would any of Australia’s public art museums host an […]
Newsletter 301
Monday, August 26th, 2019 Newsletter,Back from New York, where one of my biggest surprises was coming across works by Pippin Drysdale and Kirsten Coelho in the Chatsworth exhibition at Sotheby’s. I’ve mentioned this briefly in the current art column, which looks at the show,An Idea Needing to be Made: Contemporary Ceramics, at Heide Museum of Modern Art. It was […]
Newsletter 300
Tuesday, August 20th, 2019 Newsletter,I’m in New York doing my preliminaries for the National Gallery of Victoria’s summer show on Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The cult of both artists remains incredibly strong, with imagery and merchandise on display over the city – on T-shirts, baseball caps, shoes, socks, jackets and tote bags. On Madison Avenue I walked past […]
Newsletter 299
Monday, August 12th, 2019 Newsletter,My run of extreme work has continued unabated this week, with one unintended consequence – namely the sorry fact that I missed filing the art column by a couple of hours. I was unaware of the draconian deadlines that now apply for the chronically short-staffed weekend supplement. On a four & a half hour flight […]
Newsletter 298
Monday, August 5th, 2019 Newsletter,Sorry for the delayed posting this week but every so often deadlines and commitments get on top and my normal routines are thrown into mild chaos. This week I was writing pretty much non-stop, then had to fly to Melbourne for an in-conversation with Bill Henson at Monash Gallery of Art on Thursday night. It […]
Newsletter 297
Monday, July 29th, 2019 Newsletter,Gladys’s gang has never been notable for transparency or accountability, but with re-election this tendency looks set to descend to a whole new level. In response to a detailed Parliamentary Inquiry into Museums and Galleries that was more than two-and-a half years in the making, Arts Minister, Don Harwin, wrote off the six recommendations in […]