Tag: landscape
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 […]
6 Artists, 7 Days: The AWC Newhaven Exhibition
Thursday, September 20th, 2018 Art Column,Cute kittens and puppies have been used to sell all sorts of products, but the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) is testing whether small marsupials can sell contemporary art. Check out the AWC website and you’ll find pictures of the Mala, AKA. the Rufus Hare-wallaby, a miniature fur-ball with dark eyes, big ears, whiskers and tiny […]
William Robinson: Genesis
Friday, August 31st, 2018 Art Column,And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. Perhaps the strangest part in these famous words from the Book of Genesis is the emphasis on the word “was”. It makes God sounds like an audio […]
Li Huayi: Fantasies on Paper and Enchantments in Gold
Thursday, August 2nd, 2018 Blog,Fantasies on Paper and Enchantments in Gold is a title that western audiences might view ironically, as a deliberately florid, over-the-top tease. For this we may thank an artist such as Jeff Koons, who has blurred the line between kitsch and fine art so successfully it’s no longer possible to draw the sharp distinctions that […]
Salon des Refusés 2018
Friday, June 29th, 2018 Art Column,After the Trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW have plucked the choicest morsels from the Archibald and Wynne buffet, it’s left to the Salon des Refusés to clean up the leftovers. This time there was less to choose from, as the Incredible Expanding Archibald Prize had swelled to 59 finalists, removing many good options […]
Fred Williams in the You Yangs
Thursday, September 21st, 2017 Art Column,Last year the Geelong Art Gallery held an exemplary survey of Arthur Streeton’s paintings made in Victoria’s Western Districts from 1920-32. The exhibition was a swansong for retiring director, Geoffrey Edwards. This year the gallery has marked the arrival of new director, Jason Smith, with a show of comparable importance: Fred Williams in the You […]
Salon des Refusés 2017
Thursday, August 3rd, 2017 Art Column,Every year I nurture a dim fantasy of a Salon des Refusés bristling with masterpieces rejected from the Archibald and Wynne Prizes by the Trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW. Every year I relinquish this thought almost as soon as I step into the S.H.Ervin Gallery. The Refusés was a great idea when it […]
John Olsen: The You Beaut Country
Friday, October 7th, 2016 Art Column,John Olsen has always been larger-than-life – a quality that has fostered both adulation and irritation. In the 1950s when he was still searching for a direction, Olsen did some thinking about the nature of art. “If it’s not a game there’s something wrong,” he concluded. According to his biographer, Darleen Bungey, this would become […]
Marion Borgelt & Paul Selwood
Saturday, September 17th, 2016 Art Column,Ever since mayor, Jeff McCloy, decided that Newcastle Art Gallery couldn’t afford a renovation and didn’t need a director, the place has been as lively as a wet weekend in Miami. This has been a disaster for one of Australia’s leading regional galleries. Perhaps only Ballarat and Bendigo could claim to have more important collections, […]
David Hockney
Thursday, August 4th, 2016 Blog,“Los Angeles is an acquired taste,” says David Hockney, although he admits he fell for the city on his very first visit in 1964. After growing up in Yorkshire, Hockney was excited by the “eroticism” of L.A. It was like nothing he’d seen or imagined. To a young, gay artist from Britain’s gloomy north it […]