Tag: contemporary art
Art Stage Jakarta 2017
Friday, August 25th, 2017 Art Column,Two moments from the week of Art Stage Jakarta 2017 will stay lodged in my mind: the would-be ‘glittering occasion’ of the inaugural Indonesian Art Award, and a performance by Melati Suryodarmo in which she spent three hours in a blank cubicle, grunting, groaning and spitting ink at the walls. Indonesian art today lies somewhere […]
Mad Love
Saturday, July 22nd, 2017 Art Column,Although we live in a world in which the ugliest forms of nationalism seem to be making a comeback there is one partial antidote: cultural exchange. As we become progressively more familiar with the art, music, film, fashion and cuisine of another country, the fear and suspicion of the Other is diminished. Japan, for instance, […]
Farewell Stills
Saturday, July 15th, 2017 Blog,Twenty-six years is a long time to be running a commercial gallery, let alone a gallery specialising in photography. When Kathy Freedman and her partners close Stills Gallery in mid-July, it will spell the end of a long adventure in convincing Sydney audiences that photography is art. Stills began life in a Paddington terrace house […]
Kader Attia
Saturday, July 1st, 2017 Art Column,If ever an artist were attuned to the temper of our times it is Kader Attia (b.1970). Following a successful showing in Documenta 13 in 2012, this French-Algerian creator of multimedia installations and videos has since become one of the most sought-after artists in the world. The piece that made such a powerful impression was […]
Art Basel 2017 & Documenta 14
Thursday, June 22nd, 2017 Art Column,Contemporary art can be a punishing obsession for its true believers but rarely do the art die-hards get the chance to attend four major events during a single visit to Europe. The Venice Biennale, which has been running since the second week in May, has now been joined by a uniquely bifurcated version of Documenta, […]
Eurovisions
Wednesday, June 14th, 2017 Art Column,This year’s Financial Review Rich List reveals that Australia today has no fewer than 60 billionaires. For an economy in perpetual crisis, demanding sacrifices from the lowest wage earners, things are obviously working well for some people. Looking at this list it’s remarkable how few of our billionaires do anything at all for the arts. […]
Venice Biennale 2017 – Viva Arte Viva
Friday, May 19th, 2017 Art Column,Ask people to name the most romantic city in the world, and Venice is usually at the top of the list – but there are dissenters. D.H. Lawrence said Venice was green, slippery and abhorrent, and he didn’t even have to contend with the crowds in the Giardini and Arsenale during the opening days of […]
Magic Mike: Michael Zavros
Friday, May 5th, 2017 Art Column,Any artist who paints with the quasi-photographic precision of Michael Zavros will always find admirers. After being subjected to more than a century of Modernist de-skilling the public is still turned to putty by virtuoso displays of technique, preferring the artist who can “really paint” to the one whose genius has to be explained by […]
Danny Goldberg …or the perils of philanthropy
Friday, May 5th, 2017 Blog,Danny Goldberg is the only Australian to appear in Artnews’s annual list of the world’s top 200 collectors of contemporary art. His modern harbourside home in Sydney’s eastern suburbs is crowded with works by figures such as David Hammons, Rudolf Stingel, Urs Fischer, Danh Vo, and other high-priced superstars you’ve probably never heard of. The […]
White Rabbit: The Dark Matters
Saturday, April 29th, 2017 Art Column,Contemporary culture puts a premium on instant gratification but ancient Chinese thinkers found the greatest value in the contemplation of eternal things. This was brought home to me by Tang Nannan’s Dao-inspired, wide-screen video, Billenium Waves (2015) at the White Rabbit Gallery. It’s nothing more than a four-minute close-up of waves lapping under a dark […]