Tag: contemporary art
Ann Thomson & Ian Gentle
Saturday, February 3rd, 2024 Art Column,Reaching the age of 90 and remaining young is reason enough for us to celebrate Ann Thomson, but for Terence Maloon, curator of the artist’s survey at the S.H. Ervin Gallery, it’s not just a sentimental occasion. He argues forcefully that Thomson’s work “has never stood still, never lost its momentum or intensity, and has […]
Tacita Dean
Friday, January 26th, 2024 Art Column,It’s odd to think Tacita Dean was once lumped in with that motley group known as the YBAs – or Young British Artists. She had the mixed fortune of emerging at the same time as such headline-seekers as Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, and the Chapman Brothers, who saw notoreity as the superhighway to success in […]
Jonathan Jones & Imants Tillers
Friday, January 19th, 2024 Art Column,“We promised at the election that we would preserve the Wran legacy and keep the Powerhouse open. We are doing just that,” said NSW Arts Minister, John Graham, in a press release of 2 September, last year. In direct contradiction of that election promise, the Minns government is now planning to close the Powerhouse […]
Elmgreen & Dragset
Friday, December 22nd, 2023 Blog,Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset met in a Copenhagen nightclub in 1994. Elmgreen, a Dane, was writing and performing poetry, while Dragset, a Norwegian, was involved in the theatre. Somehow, they decided to combine forces and make art. (“It’s can be good not to learn how to do things in a ‘correct’ way,” says Dragset.) […]
Miwatj Yolngu: Sunrise People
Friday, December 22nd, 2023 Art Column,Yolngu country, in the gulf of Carpentaria, draws its identity from the everlasting rendezvous of salt water and fresh water. The same daily drama takes place in the Shoalhaven, in a vast estuary near Nowra. As with Yirrkala, where the Yolngu live, Bundanon, the property gifted to the nation by Arthur Boyd and his family, […]
Jordan Wolfson: Body Sculpture
Sunday, December 10th, 2023 Blog,Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Jordan Wolfson’s Body Sculpture goes through an elaborate range of gestures in a half hour cycle, from the sexually suggestive to the suicidal. The National Gallery of Australia has invested $6.67 million in this work and waited five-and-a-half years for it to be delivered. Conscious of the magnitude of the gamble […]
John R. Walker: Journeys and Return
Wednesday, December 6th, 2023 Art Column,“Inspiration” is a word we use in the most casual fashion, but it originally meant being under the direct influence of God. For the artist, John R. Walker, it has retained that significance. As a practising Christian, Walker believes there are paintings that are divinely inspired, the breath of God having touched something in the […]
Hoda Afshar
Monday, November 6th, 2023 Art Column,For an artist to see their work on the walls of a museum today, it may not be sufficient to have talent. Hoda Afshar – whose mid-career survey, A Curve is a Broken Line, has miraculously materialised at the Art Gallery of NSW in a year which has been a desert for exhibitions – shows […]
Sculpture by the Sea 2023
Wednesday, October 25th, 2023 Art Column,As a looming El Nino system promises a hot, dry summer, Sculpture by the Seahas once again demonstrated its magical powers as a bringer of rain. Threatened by droughts and bushfires, perhaps we should abandon the unreliable science of meteorology and organise outdoor sculpture exhibitions in the driest parts of the country. Last week, as […]
Aboriginal Art returns to NYC (Starring Steve Martin)
Saturday, October 14th, 2023 Blog,When Andy Warhol said: “the best museum is Bloomingdale’s,” he was anticipating a day when art was seen as just another commodity, like a kettle or a toaster. Last month the famous showroom windows at Bloomingdale’s on 59thSt. Manhattan, displayed kettles, toasters and expresso machines covered in the distinctive patterns of Western Desert painting. It […]