Tag: sculpture
White Rabbit: Big in China
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022 Art Column,It seems that everything is big in China apart from the Olympic flame. In a country in which the number of people and the staggering pace of development are overwhelming, it was surprising that the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Winter Olympics ended with two athletes placing a teensy-weensy flame into a giant-sized snowflake. I […]
Jutta Feddersen 1931 – 2021
Thursday, February 10th, 2022 Blog,Jutta Feddersen, who has died peacefully at the age of 90, belonged to a generation whose lives were permanently shaped and scarred by the Second World War. Born in 1931, in a German town called Briesen that is now part of Poland, Jutta Schley enjoyed an idyllic rural childhood. One of five children, she was […]
Hossein Valamanesh 1949 – 2021
Thursday, February 3rd, 2022 Blog,When Hossein Valamanesh arrived in Australia in 1973, Gough Whitlam was Prime Minister, Patrick White was Australian of the Year, and change was in the air. The first Biennale of Sydney was held at the Opera House, and John Kaldor brought out Gilbert & George as “the living sculptures”. James Mollison purchased Jackson Pollock’s Blue […]
Five Hundred Arhats
Tuesday, January 18th, 2022 Art Column,All Buddhists aim to achieve enlightenment but only Prince Gautama, the Buddha himself, attained Nirvana by his own efforts. Everyone else requires help – a spiritual need recognised by both major schools of Buddhism, the Hinayana (AKA. the Lesser Way) and the Mahayana (the Greater Way). The Mahayana has its bodhisattvas – enlightened beings who […]
Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro: Post-haste
Tuesday, December 14th, 2021 Art Column,Dromology, according to its inventor, French philosopher, Paul Virilio, is “the science (or logic) of speed”. The idea is that the speed at which something happens changes the nature of the phenomena, our perceptions and expectations. In warfare this once meant an army might gain an advantage through a forced march in the middle of […]
Les Sculptures Refusées 2021
Tuesday, December 14th, 2021 Art Column,Of all the art events stifled by the pandemic, Sculpture by the Sea must be among the hardest hit. Until last year the annual stroll along the shore between Bondi and Tamarama had become part of Sydney life and a reliable tourist magnet. At its peak SXS has posted attendances of more than 500,000, a […]
The NGA gives itself a birthday present
Monday, September 27th, 2021 Blog,Lest we forget, the price paid for Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles, was $1.3 million in 1973. A world record at the time, it was viewed as one of the keynote extravagances of the Whitlam government. Nevertheless, when the National Gallery of Australia opened in 1982 the painting was a major drawcard. It has since become […]
Diana: Back in Bronze
Saturday, July 17th, 2021 Blog,If the British Royal Family wished to underline their status as an antiquated institution, out of touch with the present day, they could hardly do better than commission a larger-than-life-size bronze statue of Diana, Princess of Wales. The bronze monument of The Great Man (and occasionally, Woman) is a throwback to Victorian times which implicitly […]
Patrick Hall
Friday, June 18th, 2021 Journals,A popular way of praising an Australian artist is to proclaim that his or work should be better known overseas. It’s ironic that Hobart-based artist, Patrick Hall, is probably better known overseas than he is on the other side of Bass Strait. Steven Joyce of Despard Gallery has shown Hall’s work at the renowned Chicago […]
Margel Hinder
Tuesday, March 16th, 2021 Art Column,When Margel Hinder told an interviewer in 1972 that she was “terribly thrilled by all the television towers” it may have sounded like a joke about Sydney’s suburban sprawl, but she was probably quite sincere. Hinder drew inspiration from both natural and mechanical forms, being as fascinated by a spider web as by a metal […]