Tag: Art Gallery of NSW
Renaissance to Goya
Saturday, September 21st, 2013 Art Column,Illustrious artists such as Velásquez, Zurbarán, Ribera, Tiepolo and Goya are advertised on a sign at the entrance to Renaissance to Goya at the Art Gallery of NSW. Unfortunately they are hidden in a long roll call of names that will be largely unknown to the general public. Not many Australian art lovers are hanging […]
Sydney Moderns
Saturday, July 20th, 2013 Art Column,When an artist calls a work A Painted Picture of the Universe it means he’s thinking big. It’s rather a grand title for a small abstraction, even if it did take Roy De Maistre 14 years to complete this cosmological fantasy. De Maistre (1894-1968) is one of the central figures in Sydney Moderns: Art for […]
Anne Landa Award 2013: The Space Between Us
Saturday, June 29th, 2013 Art Column,There must be a name for the sense of anxiety generated by an exhibition of new media art. Neomediaphobia? It’s a bit cumbersome. Even if the syndrome has yet to be titled its effects are very real. Having just taken twenty people into an exhibition of Contemporary Norwegian Video Art in Oslo, I’m in a […]
The Archibald Prize 2013: A Review
Saturday, March 23rd, 2013 Art Column,This column comes from Japan, where like a character in a horror story pursued by an implacable nemesis, I’m writing about… the Archibald Prize! This venerable portrait competition is an Australian institution that is simply incomprehensible to the rest of the world. To outsiders the popularity of the prize, and of portraiture in general, is […]
The Archibald Prize 2013: A Comment
Friday, March 22nd, 2013 Art Column,This year’s Archibald throws up one nagging question: “What’s that animal Hugo Weaving is holding?” Perhaps it’s something the special effects crew from the Matrix movies dreamt up. According to the news reports, Del Kathryn Barton, says the indefinable creature “demonstrates facets of the actor’s personality” – an explanation that raises more questions than it […]
The Art Gallery of NSW: The Master Plan Revealed
Wednesday, March 6th, 2013 Blog,Mention a “Master Plan” and people start thinking about Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies. Yesterday that role was shared between Steven Lowy, President of Trustees, and Director, Michael Brand, as they unveiled their wicked new vision for the Art Gallery of NSW. Lowy gave us the bad news about the existing gallery – […]
Francis Bacon
Saturday, November 24th, 2012 Art Column,I love the dregs. Francis Bacon. If Francis Bacon had a theme song, it might be the Kinks’ I’m Not Like Everybody Else. Yet by his own reckoning, Bacon’s perverse, hedonistic lifestyle – with its heavy drinking, gambling and sadomasochistic sex – should not be considered the key to his painting. In a 1975 book […]
Kamisaka Sekka & Hiroshige
Saturday, July 21st, 2012 Art Column, Art Essays, International Art,Art in Japan has been through all the same upheavals as art in the west, but no other country has managed to retain so much of its own distinctive character. The defining characteristics include a respect for tradition that shines through even in a critical or satirical mode; a love of beauty and craftsmanship; and […]
AGNSW: A new hang
Saturday, June 23rd, 2012 Art Column, Art Essays, Australian Art, International Art,A new hang of a gallery’s permanent collection was once a routine affair, but nowadays it has taken on the status of an event. This is partly because the rising costs of doing exhibitions combined with the dwindling budgets of public galleries have forced all institutions to draw more heavily on the works they already […]
Australian Symbolism
Saturday, May 19th, 2012 Art Column, Art Essays, Australian Art,There are moments in art history that are fascinating to contemplate but irredeemably minor. This pretty much sums up Australian Symbolism, which plays a supporting role to Impressionist landscape and those paintings of a broadly nationalist persuasion that dominated art in this country in the decades leading up to the First World War. Symbolism in […]