Tag: Art Gallery of NSW
Biennale of Sydney 2020. Part 1
Wednesday, March 18th, 2020 Art Column,Every morning in Sydney we wake to news of cancellations and closures because of the rapidly spreading coronavirus. By the time this column appears there may be few major (or minor) venues that remain open, but – following that perennial advice about keeping a cool head in a crisis – I’m going to proceed as […]
Newsletter 314
Monday, November 25th, 2019 Newsletter,Sydney felt a bit like Beijing last week with grey smoke from the bushfires hanging in the air. The difference, so I’m told, is that the air quality in Beijing is a lot better nowadays as the government have quietly but prudently responded to growing public unrest. It takes a lot to rouse the Chinese […]
Japan Supernatural
Friday, November 22nd, 2019 Art Column,Directors’ forewords in exhibition catalogues are usually perfunctory affairs but there was one line in Michael Brand’s comments in the Japan Supernatural volume that caught my eye. It was surprising to find the Art Gallery of NSW director thanking Louise Neri of Gagosian Gallery, New York, for accompanying him on a first visit to Takashi Murakami’s […]
Japan Supernatural: A First Look
Saturday, November 2nd, 2019 Blog,Curators will often describe an exhibition as a labour of love, but Japan Supernatural is more like a labour of fun. Melanie Eastburn has enjoyed working on the show for about a year-and-a-half, but has been carrying the idea around for much, much longer. Over the past few decades the Japanese fascination with ghosts, demons […]
Making Art Public: 50 Years of Kaldor Public Art Projects
Thursday, September 26th, 2019 Art Column,Scientists have disproved the old adage about lightning never striking the same place twice, and John Kaldor has confirmed their findings. In 2009 the Art Gallery of NSW hosted the exhibition 40 Years: Kaldor Public Art Projects. Today the AGNSW’s major exhibition is Making Art Public: 50 Years of Kaldor Public Art Projects. The story […]
Tracey Moffatt & Kartika Kain
Thursday, July 18th, 2019 Art Column,On a rare week when I was able to get back to the commercial galleries there were a few tempting propositions. Chief among them, Peter Godwin’s Mask, Music and Studio at Defiance at Mary Place (until 25 July) – a really tough collection of still lifes that push the boundaries of the genre, picking up […]
Archibald Prize 2019
Thursday, May 23rd, 2019 Art Column,May has been the month of miracles. This was the way our highly devout Prime Minister described his election victory, which arrived on the back of three years of dysfunctional government and a campaign devoid of policies. It was also the way Tony Costa responded to his victory in this year’s Archibald Prize, for a […]
The National 2019: New Australian Art
Thursday, April 25th, 2019 Art Column,In its second “edition”, The National: New Australian Art, is just as hard to love as its predecessor of 2017. A collaboration between the Art Gallery of NSW, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Carriageworks, the show is intended as an overview of the best and the brightest work being produced in Australia today. It’s […]
Edmund Capon 1940-2019
Friday, March 22nd, 2019 Blog,Death was certainly not in Edmund Capon’s plans when he retired as the longest-serving Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales at the end of 2011. For the following six years he kept up a busy schedule of public speaking, leading tours, and being generally open to all possibilities. When we met for […]
Heaven and Earth in Chinese Art
Friday, February 22nd, 2019 Art Column,Instead of asking: “How are you?”, the Chinese might greet you with words: “Have you eaten?” If ever one required confirmation of the Chinese love of food please note that the most famous and popular works in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, are two miraculous carvings: one of a cabbage, the other a piece of […]