Tag: Art Gallery of NSW
The Wynne Prize 2023
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023 Sydney Morning Herald 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 […]
Archibald Prize 2023
Friday, May 5th, 2023 Sydney Morning Herald 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 […]
The National 4: New Australian Art
Tuesday, April 25th, 2023 Sydney Morning Herald 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 […]
2022 and Beyond
Monday, January 2nd, 2023 Sydney Morning Herald Column,There’s been plenty to think about in 2022, including war in the Ukraine, a looming global recession and floods along the north coast, but if one had to nominate Australia’s most momentous event of the year it would have to be the change of government. Whether this was equally momentous for the visual arts remains […]
Sydney Modern Revisited
Tuesday, December 13th, 2022 Sydney Morning Herald Column,“Campus” is word of the week. It seems to be a particular favourite of Art Gallery of NSW Director, Michael Brand, who kept using the term during the Sydney Modern launch. “My vision,” he writes in the book associated with the new gallery, “has been for the Sydney Modern Project to transform the Art Gallery […]
Sydney Modern Opens at Last
Tuesday, December 6th, 2022 Sydney Morning Herald Column,According to Premier, Dominic Perrottet, Sydney’s newest cultural attraction is set to be not only the greatest gallery in Australia, but the greatest in the world. Forget about the Louvre, the Met or the Prado, here’s Sydney Modern! This informed and thoughtful opinion was largely echoed by the other speakers at the media preview, with […]
The Archibald Prize in Ten Pictures
Tuesday, June 14th, 2022 Sydney Morning Herald Column,No fewer than 816 works were entered in this year’s Archibald Prize, with 52 being selected as finalists. I should be used to it by now, but I’m still amazed that so many artists plunge in, year after year, in the forlorn hope of making it into the charmed circle that hangs at the Art […]
The Archibald Prize 2022: Blak Douglas is the winner
Saturday, May 14th, 2022 Blog,Politics is never far away from the Archibald prize, but it’s often that nebulous strain called “art politics”. This year, with the winner being announced in the middle of a federal election campaign, it was always going to be hard to keep attention focused on the aesthetics. Blak Douglas (AKA. Adam Hill), proved to be […]
The Archibald Prize 2022: A First Look
Monday, May 9th, 2022 Blog,It was predictable that after last year’s orgiastic celebrations of the Archibald Prize’s hundredth birthday, the following year would bring the hangover. But it’s not worth complaining about the quality of the 2022 exhibition, as the Archibald is never better than mediocre, with a few standouts. The dominant aspect of this year’s selection is a […]
On Commissions
Tuesday, April 12th, 2022 Sydney Morning Herald Column,As the fabulous mirage of Sydney Modern rises on the edge of the Botanic Garden, the Art Gallery of New South Wales has decided to tell us what we might see when the building opens, allegedly before Christmas. Last week the gallery announced it had commissioned nine new works, from Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Karla Dickens, Simryn […]