I confess to a feeling of great affection for Mary MacKillop (1842 - 1909), vernacular culture and kitsch, and great enthusiasm for the idea of an Australian Vatican - an extravagant museum which is also a major site of pilgrimage.
Monash University Gallery presented Fashion, Decor, Interiors, curated by Natalie King 7 June - 15 July 1995, high-lighting aspects of advertising, mass production and architectural design through the work of Lyndal Walker, Tony Clark and Stephen Bram -- extracts from the exhibition catalogue.
Australians have a natural thirst for objects of grand scale, however ridiculous their theme or location or context. From big sandfly, big axe to big oyster and beyond, we are the big desert island that experiences big wets and big dries, little wonder someone made a Big Tap to remind us...we are big drinkers.
That these same institutions have never seriously attempted to digest the great crafty, feminine art of traditional cake decoration is more regrettable. Icons, after all, are as valued as the most avant-garde compostion if made of oil paint and gold leaf on wood. When future generations visit our hallowed aesthetic halls, let them meet cake!
Our affection for kitsch is a benign form of aesthetic hypocrisy. My generation, give or take 15 years, adores kitsch. We want to have some badness; it's fun: you laugh both at your dismay for an object and your perplexity over the delight that it brings. In a broad cultural sense, my generation is kitschophilic; and this means, I suppose, not that we love the kitschy object with innocence but that we love the contempt which the kitschy object arouses.
Since 1829, the inhabitants of the western third of Australia have identified more closely with the black swan than the kangaroo. The swan was and is to be found on a wide range of items from buildings to letterheads and furry toys. It crosses class boundaries...
Exhibition review Active Agents: Aids Art in Australia
Anthony Babicci, Bronwyn Bancroft, Simon Carver, Eddie Hackenberg, Ian Hartley, Leonore Lancaster, David McDiarmid, Ross Moore, Marcus O'Donnell, Scott Redford, Celia Roach, Gary Shinfield, Jackie Stockdale, Andrew Thomas-Clark, Hiram To, Julia Topliss, John Turner, David Urquart
Curators Jill Bennett and John Turner
University Gallery, University of Tasmania, Launceston
11 May - 9 June 1995