Tag: aboriginal art
Richard Bell: You Can Go Now
Tuesday, October 19th, 2021 Art Column,There was a time when every contemporary artist claimed their work was “subversive”, as if a boring painting or video might bring down global capitalism. Paradoxically, this feat was to be accomplished by selling works to museums and wealthy collectors for high prices, enabling the rebellious artist to enjoy all the benefits of a system […]
Indigenous Art: Where are we going?
Friday, June 18th, 2021 Journals,“Aboriginal artists say that it is difficult to find any Aboriginal art that is devoid of spiritual meaning. Art is their culture, their work, their worship, their history. A painting is a chronicle of their country, a map of myths, a memoir of the great spirit ancestors of the Dreamtime. And their paintings are inextricably […]
The National 2021
Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 Art Column,Conceived as “a celebration of contemporary Australian art”, The National has been a strange beast ever since its inception in 2017. One of the problems of this event – a biennial collaboration between the Art Gallery of NSW, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Carriageworks – is that it has occasionally seemed to be a […]
Papunya Tula: 50 Years 1971-2021
Tuesday, March 30th, 2021 Art Column,After 50 years the Papunya Tula Art Movement has carved out a deep niche in Australian art history, but the settlement itself was a desolate place born from a long history of misunderstandings and misguided policies. The one and only time I visited Papunya, roughly 240 kms north-west of Alice Springs, it was almost deserted. […]
Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, Michael Bell, Solomon Kammer
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021 Art Column,It’s rare to step into an exhibition and feel bowled over, but this was the case with Nyapanyapa Yunupingu’s exhibition, The Little Things, at Roslyn Oxley9. Over the past decade Nyapanyapa has been a shooting star in the indigenous art firmament but with this body of work she has moved onto another plane. It’s tempting […]
Just Not Australian
Tuesday, December 8th, 2020 Art Column,Just Not Australian made its debut at Artspace early last year but will be touring ten regional galleries in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia until October, 2022. I caught the show at the Wollongong Art Gallery where it may be seen over the holiday period. The longevity of the tour suggests this is […]
Michael Zavros, Gunybi Ganambarr, Li Jin
Tuesday, November 10th, 2020 Art Column,Michael Zavros is a very 21st century artist. Known for a fastidious, hyperreal style of painting and a preoccupation with fashion and luxury goods, he would have been anathema in those days when the avant-garde strove to make art that was not a marketable commodity. Marketability is Zavros’s great and abiding theme, although he comes […]
The Wynne Prize 2020
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020 Art Column,A visitor to the Art Gallery of NSW has written to me, saying that after living through last year’s horror bushfires on the south coast, he was surprised at the lack of fire paintings in the Wynne Prize. He was also disappointed that the Salon des Refusés seemed to ignore the bushfire crisis, although it […]
Endeavour Voyage
Tuesday, September 29th, 2020 Art Column,In the Bicentenary celebrations of 1970 Captain Cook was hailed as the discoverer of Australia. At primary school we received a special booklet telling us about the great navigator and his achievements. There were commemorative coins, badges and postage stamps. Every form of sporting competition had its dedication to Cook – from surf life-saving to […]
Biennale of Sydney 2020. Part 2
Thursday, March 26th, 2020 Art Column,Another week, another avalanche of statistics about infections and fatalities. As I write, the Biennale of Sydney, which has made heroic efforts to remain open, has just announced it will be switching to a digital platform. This is a poor substitute for the first-hand experience of works of art but it’s better than a total […]