Tag: contemporary art
Perth Festival Art Exhibitions
Friday, March 4th, 2016 Art Column,It’s often said that the Perth art scene suffers by its isolation, but nowadays the pain doesn’t seem too intense. In the arts the high point of every year is the Perth International Arts Festival. Of all the festivals that take place in cities around the country, Perth has the best and most dynamic visual […]
Manifesto
Thursday, February 25th, 2016 Art Column,If we accept its Latin origins, the word “manifesto” denotes something that is obvious or clearly seen. It is, therefore, an irony that most manifestos are poetic, elliptical, idealistic, and often downright absurd. The great age of the manifesto was the first half of the twentieth century, as Modernism overturned the stale conventions of western […]
El Anatsui non-lunch
Thursday, February 4th, 2016 Blog,For an artist acclaimed as a ground-breaking pioneer for an entire continent, El Anatsui is amazingly laid-back. It may be because international fame and fortune didn’t arrive until 2004, when he was already 60 years old. It may be because he hails from a part of the world in which time is not always snapping […]
El Anatsui
Thursday, February 4th, 2016 Art Column,El Anatsui makes one feel there might actually be some substance in the talk of a globalised art world. The idea that artists from places other than Europe and America can be players on the contemporary scene has been around ever since Jean-Hubert Martin’s landmark exhibition, Magiciens de la Terre, held at the Centre Pompidou […]
Andy Warhol – Ai Weiwei
Thursday, January 7th, 2016 Art Column,There are ideas for exhibitions that make luminous sense – once somebody has announced them. Andy Warhol – Ai Weiwei at the National Gallery of Victoria set off bells and whistles in my head when curator, Max Delaney, told me about it last year. It’s such an obvious match it seems remarkable someone in Europe […]
Grayson Perry
Thursday, December 17th, 2015 Art Column,“On the whole I make very common categories of cultural product,” says Grayson Perry, “clay vessels, textile wall hangings, framed prints, figurines.” There is, however, nothing ‘common’ about the subject matter of Perry’s work or about his public persona – unless we take the word in a pejorative sense: “Oh my God, Grayson is so […]
Gilbert & George
Friday, December 4th, 2015 Art Column,In the Victorian era the English were masters of the world, known for imperial glory and the strength of their civil institutions. But what are the English known for today? According to English doctor, Theodore Dalrymple: “for their militant vulgarity, their lack of restraint, their arrogant loudness, their ferocious and determined drunkenness, their antisocial egotism, […]
White Rabbit: Paradi$e Bitch
Friday, October 23rd, 2015 Art Column,Every new show at White Rabbit is supposedly “the best yet”. How could it be otherwise? No art museum, public or private, likes to take a backward step. This time, however, I’m inclined to agree. There’s something very complete and confident about the exhibition, Paradi$e Bitch. In a display of mostly new acquisitions, we get […]
Aleks Danko and Haines & Hinterding
Saturday, August 29th, 2015 Art Column,There are many exhibitions that must have been fun for the artist but leave viewers in a state of mild perplexity. The Museum of Contemporary Art has two such shows at the moment – shows that can be broadly appreciated, but not loved. Energies, the survey by David Haines and Joyce Hinterding, is almost over, […]
Go East: The Gene & Brian Sherman Contemporary Art Collection
Saturday, July 11th, 2015 Art Column,Public galleries have always cultivated good relations with private collectors, but lately those ties have taken on a new importance. This is partly a result of governments wanting to palm off the responsibility for arts funding onto private sources. The logic is perfectly cynical: when spending cuts are required the arts are seen as a […]