Tag: video art
Ultra Unreal
Tuesday, August 9th, 2022 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Things have been quiet at the Museum of Contemporary Art this year, but Ultra Unreal aims at a reboot. It’s an exhibition that pushes beyond the contemporary, drawing us into virtual realms, both futuristic and animistic. These imaginary worlds have been created by new technology and populated with supernatural beings. It all sounds breathlessly exciting. […]
White Rabbit: I Loved You
Tuesday, July 26th, 2022 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Anybody who has seen the Marriage Market in Shanghai’s People Park will never imagine the Chinese as a nation of desperate romantics. Every weekend the Market is swarming with parents eager secure an advantageous match for their son or daughter. One gets the impression that marriage is primarily an economic transaction, with love being a […]
Robert Wilson: Moving Portraits
Tuesday, July 19th, 2022 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Germany’s all-time literary giant, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, once suggested to Caspar David Friedrich he should paint landscapes that systematically depicted each type of cloud identified in a famous treatise. Friedrich, by all accounts, was horrified at the suggestion. Being atttracted by the freedom and mutability of clouds, he resisted the idea of placing them […]
White Rabbit: Big in China
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022 Sydney Morning Herald 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 […]
Doug Aitken: New Era
Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Doug Aitken, born and based in California, is one of the most globalised of all contemporary artists. He once told an intervewer that “home can be motion” and his work sets out to prove that proposition. His projects are often conceived on a grand scale, requiring teams of collaborators. He makes video, photography, sculpture, performance, […]
Thresholds
Friday, February 19th, 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Thresholds is the very model of an underground art exhibition. Between 2016-19 Julia Davis and Lisa Jones explored the subterranean spaces near St. James Station, taking photographs, shooting video and making unconventional large-scale drawings. The results of their investigations are displayed at the Tin Sheds Gallery, Sydney University. There’s an intrinsic fascination in such a […]
Biennale of Sydney 2020. Part 2
Thursday, March 26th, 2020 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Another week, another avalanche of statistics about infections and fatalities. As I write, the Biennale of Sydney, which has made heroic efforts to remain open, has just announced it will be switching to a digital platform. This is a poor substitute for the first-hand experience of works of art but it’s better than a total […]
Biennale of Sydney 2020. Part 1
Wednesday, March 18th, 2020 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Every morning in Sydney we wake to news of cancellations and closures because of the rapidly spreading coronavirus. By the time this column appears there may be few major (or minor) venues that remain open, but – following that perennial advice about keeping a cool head in a crisis – I’m going to proceed as […]
Wansolwara: One Salt Water
Saturday, February 29th, 2020 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Contemporary art’s great wave has taken its time to engulf the Pacific. The voyages of Captain Cook and other explorers may have opened up the region to European influence and the depredations of colonialism but the post-colonial era has seen a resurgence of indigenous expressions. Traditional forms and new means have combined to produce a […]
Shaun Gladwell: Pacific Undertow
Friday, July 26th, 2019 Sydney Morning Herald Column,We all have our blind spots and Shaun Gladwell (b.1972) is one of mine. For almost two decades I’ve watched people getting excited about his slow-motion videos of a figure on a skateboard, on a BMX bike, on a motorbike, on a surfboard, on a train… As someone who has never had the slightest desire […]