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Tag: Art Gallery of NSW

Art Column

Lesley Dumbrell: Thrum

Saturday, August 31st, 2024 Art Column,

Patrick Heron, one of Britain’s most prominent abstract artists, told me he lost his job as art critic at The New Statesman for writing too much about “space”. It may have bored the readers rigid, but for Heron, space was a colossally exciting topic. It probably takes an artist to understand the thrill of seeing […]

Art Column

Alphonse Mucha: Spirit of Art Nouveau

Saturday, July 13th, 2024 Art Column,

It’s sheer coincidence the Art Gallery of NSW is hosting Alphonse Mucha: Sprit of Art Nouveau while the National Gallery of Australia is showing Gauguin’s World: Tōna Iho, Tōna Ao. Mucha and Gauguin were friends in Paris during that period we call the Belle Époque, but it would be difficult to imagine two more different […]

Art Column

Salon des Refusés 2024

Sunday, June 30th, 2024 Art Column,

This year, it’s the proud boast of the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW, that “for the first time there are more works by Aboriginal artists than non-Aboriginal artists.” Surely it’s entirely inappropriate to celebrate a preponderance of one group over another when it’s the artists’ work, not their ethnicity that is being […]

Art Column

Archibald Prize 2024

Tuesday, June 18th, 2024 Art Column,

In Dante’s Inferno there are nine circles of Hell, each reserved for a different kind of sinner. The lustful get thrown about by storms, the gluttonous wallow in icy slush, heretics are trapped in flaming tombs… But try as I might, I’ve never been able to locate the particular niche in which the sinner is […]

Blog

Laura Jones is the Winner

Saturday, June 8th, 2024 Blog,

This year’s Archibald Prize announcement will remain etched in my memory for the peculiar way one of the speakers pronounced the name of the venue. Forget about “Naala Badu”, from now on I shall always think of the place as the Art Gallery of Nudist Whales. The other striking memory will be director, Michael Brand, […]

Art Column

2024 Biennale of Sydney: Ten Thousand Suns

Saturday, March 16th, 2024 Art Column,

Ten Thousand Suns may be the most joyous theme we’ve ever had for a Sydney Biennale. Whether we think of the Pharoah Akhenaten trashing the entire pantheon of Egyptian deities in favour of the Sun God, Aton, or the last words of J.M.W. Turner, who allegedly muttered “the sun is God”, it’s axiomatic that the […]

Art Column

Louise Bourgeois

Monday, December 11th, 2023 Art Column,

It’s only taken a year, but Sydney Modern is hosting its first genuine exhibition. Until now, all we’ve had in this much-hyped building are rearrangements of the permanent collection, but Louise Bourgeois: Has the Day Invaded the Night or Has the Night Invaded the Day? is a most elaborate first venture. Australia has seen Bourgeois’s […]

Art Column

Hoda Afshar

Monday, November 6th, 2023 Art Column,

For an artist to see their work on the walls of a museum today, it may not be sufficient to have talent. Hoda Afshar – whose mid-career survey, A Curve is a Broken Line, has miraculously materialised at the Art Gallery of NSW in a year which has been a desert for exhibitions – shows […]

Art Column

The Wynne Prize 2023

Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023 Art Column,

Although the Wynne Prize for landscape (and very occasionally, figurative sculpture) is twenty years older than the Archibald Prize, the portrait show gets all the headlines. It seems local audiences agree with Clement Greenberg, the champion of late modern Abstraction, who said landscape was “overrated”. Not being an Aussie, he did not proceed to transfer […]

Art Column

Archibald Prize 2023

Friday, May 5th, 2023 Art Column,

Of all the Archibald Prizes I’ve seen and reviewed, this year’s version is the most difficult to pick. it’s usually easy to spot the winner within five minutes – even when, as is often the case, it may not be the best picture. This year I confess myself bamboozled. One feels a certain sympathy for […]