Tag: painting
Francis Bacon
Saturday, November 24th, 2012 Art Column,I love the dregs. Francis Bacon. If Francis Bacon had a theme song, it might be the Kinks’ I’m Not Like Everybody Else. Yet by his own reckoning, Bacon’s perverse, hedonistic lifestyle – with its heavy drinking, gambling and sadomasochistic sex – should not be considered the key to his painting. In a 1975 book […]
Francis Bacon: A preview
Friday, November 16th, 2012 Art Column,Sydney turned on a rainy day for the opening of the exhibition, Francis Bacon: Five Decades, at the Art Gallery of NSW. This was appropriate for an artist who spent his life in London, a city famed for its fog and drizzle. Inside the gallery, thoughts of England were quickly dispelled by the bright light […]
Jeffrey Smart: Master of Stillness
Saturday, November 10th, 2012 Art Column,Over the years I’ve met two distinct types of person born and raised in Adelaide. The first believe Adelaide is the finest city on earth and could not imagine living anywhere else. The second claim to have never been there in their lives. Although he is not an out-and-out Adelaide denier, for as long as […]
Ken Whisson: As If
Saturday, October 6th, 2012 Art Column,Ken Whisson says he has always enjoyed being “outside of the awful mainstream”, but it may be that he is about to redefine what is mainstream and what is marginal. Ken Whisson: As If at the Museum of Contemporary Art, is the most fascinating retrospective since the National Gallery of Australia’s George Lambert survey of […]
Archibald Prize 2012
Saturday, March 31st, 2012 Art Column, Art Essays, Australian Art,At that dreaded time of year when the Archibald Prize rolls around, the Trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW strap on their armour and prepare to be criticised, condemned, lampooned and humiliated. Admittedly they often bring this fate on themselves by their choice of a show or a winner. The only difference this time […]
Mike Parr, Denise Green, Art Month
Saturday, March 24th, 2012 Art Column, Art Essays, Australian Art,Three weeks in, Art Month keeps rolling. The wine is still being sipped, the eager crowds scramble from one gallery to the next; the chatter is relentless. There’s always something else to say about Art, even if each new pronouncement tends to contradict the previous one. The unresolved issue hanging over this collective love-in for […]
Fred Sandback; Wim Delvoye; Abstract Canvas; Philip King
Saturday, February 18th, 2012 Art Column, Art Essays, Australian Art, General Art Essays, International Art,Over the years Andrew Jensen has edged his way north, starting in Christchurch, moving to Wellington, on to Auckland, and last year crossing national lines and arriving in Sydney. What makes the Jensen Gallery unusual is that the exhibition program consists of 70-80 per cent international art – the kind of art we normally only […]
Geoff Dyer, Stephen Bird, Etsuko Fukaya, Joanna Braithwaite
Saturday, February 11th, 2012 Art Column, Art Essays, Australian Art,When Thoreau wrote: “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”, he probably wasn’t thinking about art dealers. Yet the phrase springs to mind when one considers the sluggishness of the commercial art scene over the past couple of years. While the art market weathered the GFC better than was generally expected, an extended […]
Hats and James Fardoulys
Saturday, April 24th, 2010 Art Column,Lewis Carroll cannot take complete credit for the expression: “as mad as a hatter”. Even before he created the most famous tea party in world literature, hatters had quite a reputation. The mercury compounds used in 19th century hat making induced a range of symptoms including trembling fits and mood swings. It is unlikely that […]
Nicholas Harding Jeff Mincham
Saturday, January 30th, 2010 Art Column,Paintings may greet the viewer with grand attitudes or ugly looks, but most of them know their limitations. We find ourselves staring at an arrangement of colours and forms on a flat surface that provides an imaginary window onto the world – nature seen through a temperament, to use Zola’s formulation. Having become accustomed to […]