Tag: Museum of Contemporary Art
Janet Laurence: After Nature
Thursday, March 21st, 2019 Sydney Morning Herald Column,“What need has nature of thought, of care?” asked Confucius in the 5thC. BCE. “Plenty” is the answer he’d receive today, as we struggle with the effects of global warming, deforrestation, salination, loss of species and habitat. In the so-called ‘Anthropocene’ era nature needs all the help it can get. Having worked so dilgently to […]
David Goldblatt: Photographs 1948-2018
Friday, November 23rd, 2018 Sydney Morning Herald Column,“I was never interested in making propaganda for anybody,” said David Goldblatt, “and didn’t allow my photos to be used that way.” It’s an important point because even Goldblatt’s admirers tend to see him as a political photographer who drew global attention to the injustices of Apartheid. As this landmark retrospective at the Museum of […]
Sun Xun
Friday, September 7th, 2018 Sydney Morning Herald Column,It may be a legacy of those heroic efforts Chairman Mao demanded at the time of the Great Leap Forward, or perhaps it’s mainly down to pressure of competition, but the Chinese art scene has the most stupendous work ethic. Go to any exhibition at the White Rabbit Gallery and there will always be one […]
John Mawurndjul: I Am the Old and the New
Friday, July 27th, 2018 Sydney Morning Herald Column,This year’s best exhibition title is: John Mawurndjul: I Am the Old and the New. A landmark retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the show demonstrates the paradox of bark painting: as one of the oldest forms of artistic expression and something completely new. This was inconceivable to the organisers of the Cologne Art […]
Sun Xun: Shapeshifter
Friday, July 13th, 2018 Blog,“Whenever I find people putting a tag on my work I try to prove it untrue,” says Sun Xun. “I take pride in the fact that no-one can catch me. I will change the medium of my work or the style of my work. I’ll aim to be different every time, so that nobody can […]
John Mawurndjul: Bark Maestro
Friday, June 22nd, 2018 Blog,Here’s an art trivia question: “Who was the first Australian artist to be given a retrospective at two major European museums?” Answer: John Mawurndjul of western Arnhem Land, who in 2005-06 had his work shown at the Museum Tinguely in Basel, and the Sprengel Museum in Hannover. If you don’t remember seeing the exhibition when […]
Pipilotti Rist: Sip My Ocean
Friday, December 8th, 2017 Sydney Morning Herald Column,“I will always be grateful to popular culture,” Pipilotti Rist told an interviewer in 2001. As a recent video clip by Beyoncé shows, popular culture should also be grateful to her. Pipilotti Rist: Sip my Ocean, at the Museum of Contemporary Art reveals the many and various ways this remarkable Swiss multi-media artist embraces popular […]
Hilarie Mais
Saturday, September 30th, 2017 Sydney Morning Herald Column,One could hardly imagine a greater contrast between exhibitions than the current offerings at the Museum of Contemporary Art. On level two viewers can sample the shapeless paintings of Jenny Watson, structured only by virtue of the artist’s whims. On the entrance level there is a single large gallery devoted to the work of Hilarie […]
Jenny Watson
Friday, September 8th, 2017 Sydney Morning Herald Column,One imagines teachers at the Julian Ashton Art School sending their pupils across the road to the Museum of Contemporary Art, to see Jenny Watson: The Fabric of Fantasy. For the traditionally-minded it’s an object lesson in how not to make art. If there are any cynics among those students, they might say: “…nevertheless, it […]
Tatsuo Miyajima
Friday, January 27th, 2017 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Tatsuo Miyajima is the kind of artist who stands out, even in the largest of exhibitions. My first glimpse of his work came at the 1988 Venice Biennale where his Sea of Time was the most talked-about piece on display. Amidst all the derivative and nondescript stuff that inhabits the specially curated component of the […]