Tag: sculpture
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, […]
Art Stage Jakarta
Friday, August 12th, 2016 Art Column,For over a decade Indonesia has been the worst-kept secret in contemporary art. The wave has been building and breaking since 1998 when the repressive reign of President Suharto came to an end. Yet the origins of the movement go much further back, before the fragile roots of democracy could take hold. In the past […]
Degas
Thursday, July 28th, 2016 Art Column,Degas had a dread of publicity and an intense dislike of journalists. “Those people trap you in your bed,” he grumbled, “strip off your shirt, corner you in the street, and when you complain, they say: ‘You belong to the public.’” Almost a hundred years after his death, Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (1834-1917) has become public property […]
Tang
Friday, June 10th, 2016 Art Column,Mention the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE) and I think of Robert Van Gulik’s character, Judge Dee – the Sherlock Holmes of ancient China. Di Renjie (c.630-c.700) was a real magistrate of the Tang period but became the fictionalised hero of a series of detective stories set in those times. The inspiration came from a story […]
William Yaxley & Edwin Wilson
Thursday, April 14th, 2016 Art Column,This job entails constant requests to open exhibitions but most are politely declined. So it was rare for me, last week, to undertake openings on successive nights in two different parts of the country. The first was a survey by Edwin Wilson at that proudly unfashionable venue, the Royal Art Society, Lavender Bay. The second […]
Perth Festival Art Exhibitions
Friday, March 4th, 2016 Art Column,It’s often said that the Perth art scene suffers by its isolation, but nowadays the pain doesn’t seem too intense. In the arts the high point of every year is the Perth International Arts Festival. Of all the festivals that take place in cities around the country, Perth has the best and most dynamic visual […]
El Anatsui
Thursday, February 4th, 2016 Art Column,El Anatsui makes one feel there might actually be some substance in the talk of a globalised art world. The idea that artists from places other than Europe and America can be players on the contemporary scene has been around ever since Jean-Hubert Martin’s landmark exhibition, Magiciens de la Terre, held at the Centre Pompidou […]
Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2015
Saturday, August 22nd, 2015 Art Column,In the courtyard of the Satoyama Museum, in Tokamachi City, a mountain has been born. Covered in dense forest, with clouds of mist and even a waterfall, the towering monolith sits in a shallow pool of water. The courtyard is surrounded by a ring of helicopters, battleships, submarines and patrol boats – 100 small models […]
Anzac Shows, New Zealand
Saturday, May 2nd, 2015 Art Column,Australia is allegedly spending $325 million on the commemoration of the First World War. This figure, we are told, is more than twice what the British have allocated, and 20 times the budget for events in New Zealand. Some will see this is a waste of money at a time when the government is preaching […]