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Lynette Walworth
Lynette Wallworth is driven by a passion to explore the natural world, to capture human stories, to explore the past and evoke memory and experience. As a media artist, she strives and succeeds to achieve an emotional and powerful connection between her images and her viewer.
Daniel Crooks
Daniel Crooks is a digital media artist interested in distorting what is familiar to us and offering it back as a study in how we experience time and place. His digital manipulation of everyday materials and landscapes such as trains, trams and the passages of pedestrians across public spaces transform the work into a vibrant palette of colours and textures. Crooks is an artist who creates moving images that engage the viewer beyond and beneath the surface of the screen.
Anne and Gordon Samstag, Museum of Art
This article previews the new Anne and Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, opened on 11 October 2007, which is discussed as a significant addition to art exhibition spaces in Adelaide in terms of scale, capacity and technology. This museum, designed by multi-award winning Melbourne architect John Wardle, is a public space in which artwork, in its selection, hanging, and experience, cannot ignore the active engagement of visitors. The Samstag Museum of Art plays a part in extending the role of museums into new categories of cultural industries, and the complicated relations between leisure, knowledge and libidinal economies.
Pippin Drysdale; Design, Craft and the Smart Syndrome
Pippin Drysdale Lines of Site By Ted Snell Fremantle Arts Centre Press 2007 174pp rrp $45 Recently published in Perth with support from Arts WA is an incisive monograph on West Australian ceramist Pippin Drysdale by Ted Snell. Snell has written a substantial book of five chapters, dividing Drysdales artistic evolution into four eras. Through in-depth engagement with particular vessels or series Snell traces her increasing mastery of the allusive and abstract power of the ceramic medium. Smart Works Design and the Handmade Edited by Grace Cochrane Powerhouse Publishing 192pp rrp $35.95 This publication is in many respects an exemplary book of an exemplary exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum and is about design that reflects the values of the handmade. With 40 individuals and groups represented across the categories of jewellery and metalwork, ceramics, glass and resin, fashion and textiles, and furniture this publication encompasses a truly diverse range of approaches from totally hand-crafted to high-tech manufacture.
Thresholds of Tolerance
Thresholds of Tolerance ANU School of Art Gallery, Canberra 10 May - 5 June 2007
Freestyle: New Australian Design
Freestyle: new Australian design for living Curator: Brian Parkes QUT Art Museum, Brisbane 1 June - 22 July 2007
A Constructed World
Increase Your Uncertainty A Constructed World Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne 2 June - 26 July 2007
Eternal Beautiful Now
Eternal Beautiful Now Curator: Tania Doropoulos Sherman Galleries, Sydney 10 - 26 May 2007
New Deities
New Deities: art and the cult of celebrity Curator: Catherine Wolfhagen Devonport Regional Art Gallery, Tasmania 30 June - 29 July 2007
Snap Freeze
Snap Freeze Curator: Jenna Blyth Tarrawarra Museum of Art, Healesville, Victoria 20 May - 11 November 2007
Bridget Currie, James Dodd, Louise Haselton, Laura Wills
parkside nomadic group moves inland 4 winter : Laura Wills Project Space, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia 1 June - 8 July 2007 Years without Magic: Louise Haselton & Bridget Currie SASA Gallery, UNISA, Adelaide 12 June - 6 July 2007 Speakeasy: James Dodd Experimental Art Foundation 13 July - 18 August 2007
Matt Hunt
Cause I see the Light Surrounding You, so Dont Be Afraid Matthew Hunt Turner Galleries, Perth 1 - 30 June 2007
Editorial
Richard Tipping looks at the role of text and language from an historical and contemporary context, covering areas of interest such as recent technological advancements, graffiti culture and going as far back as 46,000 years to briefly discuss some of the oldest found examples of Indigenous cave art in the south of Australia. Along the way he looks to medieval and ancient Phoenician developments, Clement Greenbergs promotion of painting as a purely optical experience, one in which text has no place except as another kind of surface, the role of Dada in claiming the relationship between word and image and discusses other important figures such as Duchamp, Brancusi, Stephane Mallarme, Christopher Brennan, Picasso, Braque, Kurt Schwitters, Charles Olson, Alex Selenitsch, Allan Riddell, Rosalie Gascoigne and many others.
The virus and the oracle: words as signs
Jane Goodall explores the notion of text and the word as a kind of virus, something William Burroughs considers a parasitic organism , especially as is the case in contemporary visual and semantic culture. Words act as signifiers for semioticians, but their visual presence in art makes them work as spatial indicators, suggesting that they contain directions or instructions. Here Goodall poses the potential of words in revealing something else about themselves: a secret yearning not to give orders but rather to be oracles, channelling strange truths from who knows what sources. Artists discussed include: Suzann Victor, Susie Lingham, Joseph Ng, Tony Schwensen, Samuel Beckett, Cheo Chai-Hiang, Redza Piyadasa, Heather Ellyard, Barbara Campbell.
Fluxus and after
Fluxus is a phenomenon that defies ready classification. This article highlights some of the printed and published matter that Fluxus inspired, starting with Maciunas-directed productions, those of Dick Higgins and other examples of individuals working in Australia today. A common factor in the instances of all Fluxus activity is a passion for improvisation and experimentation, a conscious elevation of the mundane and over-looked, often an active zeal in the face of disturbing political events, and not least, a stress on producing unusual and visually arresting statements. Australian artists following the Fluxus tradition here discussed include Michael Phillips, Madonna Staunton, Alex Selenitsch and Richard Tipping.
In black & white: text in Indigenous Queensland art
Timothy Morrell examines the significance of words within the context of Australian Indigenous art subsequent to the efforts of colonisation in neutralising indigenous identity through assimilation. The point is made through this article that: Words give artists the opportunity to be more direct than they usually are with images . Morrell uses the case of a handful of Queensland based indigenous artists such as Gordon Bennett, Richard Bell, Ah Kee, Fiona Foley and Vanessa Fisher.
Playing with art & language: some personal memories
Peter Hill chooses here to examine a personal interest in the marriage of text and image in contemporary art. From the inextricable links between text and image made through magazine and advertising media to the mix of graffiti and gravitas achieved through the works of Jean Michael Basquiat, this article covers a wide range of avenues and artists paramount to this investigation. Other key figures mentioned include Joseph Kosuth, John A. Walker, Ed Ruscha, Peter Burgess, Bruce McLean, Lawrence Weiner, Douglas Gordon, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and Thyrza Nicholas Goodeve.
Words and things
Concrete Poetry is both a form and an attitude to poetry that emphasises the visual and material elements of letters and thus words in relation to their meaning. 'Words and Things' is a project Patrick Jones set out to produce to represent concrete poetry and text-based art in Australia. A project that took him four years and that has attempted to dissolve the traditional form boundaries between art and poetry. The material considerations of 'Words and Things', both environmental and aesthetic, lead the reader into a work that is more like a sequence of short films than a standard book. Contributors to the book included Richard Tipping, Aleks Danko, Alex Selenitsch, Peter Tyndall, Geoffrey Baxter, Peter OMara, Jeff Stewart and Marie Sierra.
Walking with letters: Michael Parekowhai, John Reynolds, John Pule
This article looks at the recent works of New Zealand artists Michael Parekowhai, John Pule and John Reynolds to explore notions of identity through text and image relations. Parekowhais sculptural piece The Indefinite Article spells out I AM HE in an ironic critique of Colin McCahon and goes further through wordplay to cement a link between the word, identity and the complexities of translation. Reynolds Cloud comprised of nearly 7,000 white canvases transcribed with words from Harry Orsmans Oxford Dictionary of New Zealand English and acts to illuminate New Zealands separate identity and regional diversity within a worldwide community of English speakers. Stories of migration, of dispossession, of alienation characterise the work of John Pule. Similar to Parekowhai and Reynolds, Pule deploys words to multiply meanings and confound interpretation or translation.
Words, words, words: Mike Brown, Ruark Lewis, Rose Nolan
On its own, a word points to both the sentence that it might end up in, and also to the thought that precedes it. This zone between thought and convention allows artists to foreground qualities that are normally ignored in linguistic acts. Alex Selenitsch looks at a number of post WW2 tendencies or art movements which have made use of words: Action Painting, Graffiti, Concrete Art, Conceptual Art, Fluxus and Pop Art. Selenitsch uses the examples of Mike Brown, Rose Nolan and Ruark Lewis to highlight specific functions of the word, whether it be the morphing of word and image into one, the iconic and formal aspects of words or the relationship between visual and aural language.
Sacred texts
Books hold a privileged place in our society as keepers of knowledge, spiritual truth and cultural heritage. Melinda Rankin examines the role of books in artistic practice and the robust relationship that exists between artist and book via a willingness to challenge some of the apparent conventions of structure and content. Simryn Gill, Ken Orchard, Alex Selenitsch and Gerard Genette are artists whose practice is deeply entrenched in the seemingly offensive act of fiddling with these sacred texts . For these artists, the slicing, tearing and unpicking of books is not an act of violence or irreverence. In subverting the original narrative to their own purpose, they reconsecrate the text into artworks creating contemporary objects of veneration and desire.
Text-art and interactive reading
James Stuart explores the spatial and interactive aspects of text-based artworks, leaping off the page and into the textual practices of Peter Lyssiotis and Franz Ehmann. Lyssiotis is a writer and photomedia/collage artist and creates books that generally combine his own artworks and writings in collaborations with others. Among the most impressive of his projects is the recent A Gardener at Midnight: Journey into the Holy Lands, developed as part of a Creative Fellowship at the State Library of Victoria in 2003 which is of particular focus in this text. Brisbane-based/Australian-born Ehmann is concerned with the physical reading environment of the gallery and in turn deploys a multi-disciplinary approach to the physical space and temporal duration of his exhibitions. Via the works of these two practitioners Staurt here wishes to posit the very real sense of bodily and not just intellectual interaction with language that reading entails.
Word as Image: Islamic calligraphy in contemporary art
In the broadest terms calligraphy can be seen as a prescriptive form of drawing and in this liberated sense an artist is free to investigate its role as both message and ornament. This article looks at the nature of Islamic calligraphy via the works of two very different artists working in Australia today Iranian born Hossein Valamanesh and Naeem Rana of Pakistan. With the significance of language and the written word in Islamic culture it is hardly surprising that visual artists have in recent decades turned to it as the source of cultural and political potency.
Review: Visible Language magazine on Fluxus
Review of two special issues of Visible Language magazine Vol 39 no 3 'Fluxus and Legacy' (2005) and Vol 40 no 1 'Fluxus after Fluxus' (2006), guest- edited by Ken Friedman and Owen Smith. The publications evaluate the ongoing life of Fluxus as an idea including what Nicolas Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics owes to it. Fluxus 'scores' by Alison Knowles, Yoko Ono, and Vuc Cosic.
Unreadable Writing
This brief article offers insight into a form of writing or drawing that Henri Michaux has termed asemic and which is the subject of interest for Tim Gaze, editor of Asemic magazine, published in Adelaide. As stated by Michaux Most people make asemic writing at some time, possibly when testing a new pen. They tend to have no fixed meaning. Their meaning is open . To explore the nature of asemic writing visit http://www. typisart.com.
A new alphabet? Guan Wei goes bush
A project coordinated by 24HR Art in Darwin brought artists of Chinese, European and Japanese origin to the township of Injalak in Gunbalanya, Western Arnhem Land. Ashley Crawford looks at the time Chinese-born, Sydney-based artist Guan Wei spent with three members of the local community and the stories he learnt to accompany the ancient rock art of this region. Subsequent to discovering the similarities between Indigenous Australian and Chinese visual narratives, Wei wanted to use the images as an alphabet to tell the story of his own encounters and experiences with the people and the landscape of Gunbalanya.
The book, the poet, the artist and the breakthrough
As a container of information in text form, the book is designed in a linear fashion to move the reader along line by line. Many artists seek to break this convention and direct the reader/viewer into a more exploratory realm, as is true of the work of Jan Davis. This article leads the reader (in a somewhat linear sense) through Davis seven-volume artist book simply titled SOLOMON a journey developed out of the artists concern with the operation of space in visual imagery and her interest in writing.
Emily Floyd against herself
Emily Floyd is attracted to texts that focus on identity and place and that offer new ways of thinking about these issues in the light of globalisation and post-colonialism. She is interested in the malleability of language and its connection to knowledge and power. The process Floyd employs to produce her numerous large-scale wooden letters mirrors the anxiety and obsessions with the various novels they are referencing Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment, Kafkas The Trial and Camus The Outsider. Sarah Tutton looks at Floyds practice, calling particular attention to her recent installation works its because I talk too much that I do nothing, Gen-existential Crisis and Compulsory for young intellectuals.
Skywriting
The idea of four-dimensional sculpture proposed by the Dimensionalist Manifesto of 1936 has found its realisation through the continuing use of skywriting as a medium in contemporary art. Here Richard Tipping briefly discusses the phenomenon looking at artists Mary Lou Pavlovic and Guy Warren who produced works in association with major public, sporting and political events within Australia. Tipping also raises the question of how such a temporal practice as this is to be considered within the realm of contemporary art.
Gwangju Biennale, South Korea
2006 marked the 6th Gwangju Biennale: Fever Variations in South Korea. Stephanie Britton sets the scene for what she describes as having been generous and daring, though not grand or pretentious and never (that kiss of death) magisterial. This event saw a definite shift from an international focus to look more intently at Asian preoccupations of the recent past as played out in the minds and hands of artists. Some of the simple headings at the recent Biennale were Myth and Fantasy; Nature and Body; Trace of Mind; Past in Present, as a way to initiate dialogue and illuminate the stories of how Asian artists began to work within an international context. Some of the artists showcased were Xu Bing (China), Kim Jong-ku (Korea), Miwa Yanagi (Japan) and Lee Sookyung (Korea).
Vivienne Binns survey at TMAG, curator: Merryn Gates
The Tasmanian School of Art in collaboration with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery have created an exhibition focused on the phenomenon of the solo survey, using the work of Vivienne Binns to open a space for conversation about the personal aspirations of the artist and the broader role of curator and institution. Through the complex layering of this exhibition the artist and curator entice the viewer to engage more directly with the trials and joys of the artist's struggle. By engaging a museum-style presentation, Vivienne Binns becomes a contextual display marking milestones, thoughts, actions, protests, interactions, people, places, discisions and emotional responses that accumulate to give meaning to current choices.
Glory, glory, glory curated by Elizabeth Gertsakis
Melbourne public culture, curator/artist Elizabeth Gertsakis assembled a visual arts project around the life and work of early twentieth century Melbourne entrepreneur, sports and entertainment manager John Wren1871-1953. Artmaking, curating, presentation and display in a broad not narrowly discipline-centric definition are explored and unpicked. His world is, as Gertsakis argues, a constructed, directed one of effect and presentation within which Wren emerges as exemplar and victim in a process of image creation and narrative spinning that is central to social life in a media age.
Tom Muller > Gold Standard Art
This article discusses the artistic practice of Tom Muller - one concerned with both elegance of appearance and versatility of application. It is argued here that his astringent imagery is surely the art of our times not only in terms of its subject matter but its ease of distribution. Two works closely examined are Mullers 2006 piece 'Gold Card' in which the artist offered an edition of 24 carat gold credit cards and 'World Passport' (2000 present), considered to be two of Mullers most accomplished works because of the tension between their formalist pleasures and their real time operation.
APT5
5th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT5) Queensland Art Gallery Gallery of Modern Art Brisbane 2 December - 27 May 2007
APT5
5th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT5) Queensland Art Gallery Gallery of Modern Art Brisbane 2 December - 27 May 2007
The Other APT
Raw Space Galleries
99 Melbourne St, South Brisbane
28 November 2006 - 23 January 2007
99 Melbourne St, South Brisbane
28 November 2006 - 23 January 2007
Northcliffe Sculpture Walk
The Southern Forest Sculpture Walk Northcliffe, Western Australia Permanent artworks, launched 25 November 2006
Michael Callaghan: a survey
Michael Callaghan: A survey 1967 -2006 1 December 2006 - 21 January 2007 Manly Art Gallery 2 - 24 March 2007 Tin Sheds, University of Sydney 5 May- 24 June 2007 Wollongong City Gallery
RAPT
Rapt! 20 Contemporary Artists from Japan Nobuya Hoki, Tomoaki Ishihara, Yuki Kimura Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) Clayton, Victoria 6 Sept - 18 November 2006
Rodney Glick/Lynette Voevedin
24Hr Panoramas Rodney Glick and Lynnette Voevodin Curator: Gary Dufour Art Gallery of Western Australia Perth 16 November 2006 - 21 January 2007
Anton Hart
Thenatureofthings Anton Hart South Australian School of Art Gallery Adelaide 2 November - 23 November 2006
Hiraki Sawa
Hiraki Sawa New Media Gallery, Level 3 National Gallery of Victoria International Melbourne 7 July - 3 December 2006
Keeping the Wanjinas Fresh
Keeping the Wanjinas Fresh by Valda Blundell and Danny Woolagoodja Fremantle Arts Centre Press 2005, RRP $35
Picturing Climate Change
CSIRO science writer Simon Torok summarises the facts about how global warming is affecting every one of us in Australia. The marks of climate change, so far, are less tangible and Torok proposes that it is the challenge for art and science to help people see it. Torok initiated a project during his time in England which aimed at bringing art and climate science together through the use of objects and images to visualise our future climate and in turn provoke a strong emotional response amongst audiences.
Overtaken by Glaciers: The State of Eco-Architecture
Downton and Prelgauskas are advocates for ecological architecture and urbanism and through this article explore a little of what is happening in Australian architecture and compare overseas experiences. Australian progress in the art of ecological living has been fairly slow and although it hasnt matured yet, this article is optimistic in its exploration of some of the encouraging signs. What is missing they say is sufficient enlightened clients and a culture that is ecologically attuned to the artful songs of the biosphere.
Chris Mulhearn: Stand of Trees
Chris Mulhearn is an Adelaide-based artist who breathes the world around him. Where some artists make work in the bush, others like Mulhearn bring elements of those places into the heart of the world of constructed reality, the art gallery, and successfully. His work is recycling to die for.
Black Death: Species Extinction in WA
After 25 years of living in Victoria, Gregory Pryors rediscovery of and new found appreciation for the Australian landscape came about due to his relocating to Perth. Subsequent to this profound experience whereby he felt he was viewing the Australian landscape for both the first and last time, Pryor set out to create a body of work which entailed around 200 detailed drawings made from the Western Australian Museums archives. Through detailed examinations of individual flowers and specimens, Pryor was able to metaphorically travel across a huge amount of Australia and locate specific relationships between these flowers and the lands ancient human inhabitants.
Wetland (as in Disneyland)
In his 2004 gallery installation Wetland, Michael Harkin used the familiar imagery of rainwater tanks and the gentle notes and timbres of water whooshing and gurgling to highlight to audiences the consequences of turning on the tap or flushing a toilet within the area covered by the local water authority. Harkin has based this project on some of the important issues surrounding water commoditifaction and consumtion as well as being developed within a framework based on the ideas of theorist Jean Baudrillard.
Sweet Revenge: An Interview with Ken Yonetani
Ken Yonetani is an artist born and raised in Japan, and now practising in Sydney. Much of his recent work explores the intersections between consumption, desire, and human impact on our environs. He talks here with Julia Yonetani, who, apart from being Kens partner, is a lecturer, translator and writer on art, history, and things Japanese. This interview was conducted in Japanese and translated into English by Julia.
Stepping Lightly: The Art of Melissa Hirch
Byron Bay-based fibre artist Melissa Hirsch is the first artist to achieve climate neutrality through her involvement with Climate Friendly, a goverment-accredited Australian company which allows businesses and individuals to calculate the climate impact of their energy use. As a result she plans to promote her climate neutral art to corporate clients seeking a more eco-friendly image. Environmental sustainability was the impetus in Hirschs choice of career and has been the guiding force in the trajectory of her development as an artist; to produce art in nature, with nature, about nature.
Artists' Footprints (Sustain ability labelling and artworks! What's that?)
Smith offers some suggestions for those interested in the ecological (and social) sustainability of an art work and introduces the notion of EarthLabel as a way of making artworks ecologically and socially accountable - and maybe even more marketable. For more information visit: www.myfootprint.org
Framing The Colour of Infestation: the work of Liz Woods
Liz Wood is a landscape installation artist whose work over the years has included covering rocks with wallpaper and embellishing tree trunks with roses. In July 2005 Woods was selected to be a part of Farming with Mary, a collaborative project which took place along the Mary River in four agricultural communities near Gympie in Queensland. In the case of Woods large-scale works in the landscape, their ephemeral existence has the advantage of avoiding a harmful environmental impact, whilst the visual impact is clearly assertive.
Bowerbirds and the Art of Ian Hamilton
Ian Hamilton has approached some of the ideas surrounding sexual and asexual reproduction amongst organisms from a different perspective to those of biologists in his ongoing artistic studies. Hamilton began his work on bowerbirds when he was an Artist-in-Residence at Griffith University in 1976 during a visit to OReillys national park south of Brisbane where he filmed and videotaped Satin Bowerbirds as they worked upon their bowers. He has drawn many parallels between the creative processes of Bowerbirds and artists and over the years the ongoing extinction of these birds has come to be a symbolic representation and reminder of the harsh ramifications of human activity on the natural world. Hamilton is based in Adelaide in South Australia.
Remediation as art with Gavin Malone
For a decade the art practice of Gavin Malone has been concerned with ecological rehabilitation and cultural interpretation. A former grazing property and thus a degraded ecosystem, the 185 ha property belonging to fellow artist Greg Johns overlooking the plains of the River Murray, has been transformed into what Malone suggests is not just a sculpture park with a Landcare project but actually reconceptualises art as ecology.
From the River to the Source: Lloyd Godman's Ecological Explorations
Lloyd Goldman's twin careers of serious and successful organic gardener and practising artist of great creative energy converge in new and constantly surprising ways to make art about the ecological concerns that underly his gardening. Over almost three decades his art has widened out from relatively traditional landscape photography to include elements of performance, audience participation art and multimedia installation to explore the tensions between electronic consumer society and the ecosystem.
A Torn Parchment: The Murray Darling Palimpsest
Since European settlement the Murray Darling district has been a major site for irrigation and has been established as an important agricultural centre. In 1956 a valuable collection of late nineteenth and early twentieth century art was bequeathed to the city and a new gallery was built to display it. Over the years the Mildura Sculpture Prize has progressed to become a non-competitive event and in 1973 for the first time, environment was the theme. With the launch of Mildura Palimpsest, Mildura once again emerged as a central location for experimental art that tackled ecological issues.
TeATR'ePROUVeTe: Social Ecology in French Villages
Jean Bojko is the founder of TeATRePROUVeTe, a project created in response to a desire for a socially inclusive cultural event to be held in the Shire of Nievre in regional France in 2000. Bojko came up with the idea of marrying the 32 smallest villages of the shire with thirty-two artists. The aim was to get the villagers to see their own potential and to build a network with others. The event involved mock burials which took place in the local cemeteries as well as numerous events focused on environmental viability and sustainability as a way to symbolically reinforce the transition of these individuals from craftsmen to members of common life.
EcoTV: A South Australian Experiment
As part of the 2005 Adelaide Film Festival, the inaugural EcoTVC competition for a 30-second television commercial was held to create greater public awareness of key environmental issues. The winner was Peter Miller, a 22-year-old superannuation administrator and writer whose entry showed people hopping around dressed ridiculously as endangered native animals. The commercial ended with the slogan Youll appreciate the real thing...once theyre gone , together with a final shot of a Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby as an example of the real thing that could become extinct.
Drawing on the Earth: Bronwyn Wright's 'Running Dog'
Photographer Bronwyn Wright has been visiting the local swamp lands northeast of Darwin with her dogs for about fifteen years. Her latest artwork at The Swamp draws on her knowledge of this piece of land and on her Spatial Sciences (GIS and Remote Sensing) studies at Charles Darwin University. It is a geoglyph, an earth drawing of a dog that is ecological because it treads lightly on the earth by using only human footprints to make marks that are visible from space.
Drought and Art: 10% and Falling
On 2 July 2005 Goulburn Regional Art Gallery held a community forum to discuss the water crisis in the region. The all-important forum only happened because of art, or more specifically because Goulburn Regional Art Gallery had organised the exhibition Water Works of 16 regional artists works about water sustainability and survival. Gallery director Jennifer Lamb tells the hair-raising story of a town learning to do without water and the role of artists in coming to terms with this.
John Dahlsen: Plastic Arts
John Dalsens work, utilising found plastic beach rubbish, is seen as environmental art. Art debates aside, he has collected mountains of rubbish and transformed it into artworks that really do captivate people. Recognition of his collecting has been made by the Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World campaigns by naming Dahlsen as their official artist. Through the material he finds Dahlsen depicts various landscapes and the multitude of objects create a dialogue about our use, and abuse, of the environment.
Performance art and Plastic Bags in the Pacific
The scourge of non-recyclable waste devastating the precious land of the Pacific Islands has become a new subject matter for some of the local performers. A play put on in front of the newly built Parliament House on the tiny Pacific island of Tuvalu marked the islands transition to becoming the worlds first plastic shopping bag free country. Campbell looks at some of the ecological and economic crisis in the South Pacific Islands in the year that was declared The Year of Action Against Waste and the methods which are employed to assist with the educating of such issues.
The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize Under Scrutiny
Osborne examines and questions the validity of the South Australian Museums Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize in terms of its proposed intentions which lie in the educating of issues concerning Australias natural heritage and ecology. With a prize pool of $85,000 in total the event certainly offers incentive to artists and attracts many of the countries most prolific artists but in turn fails to provide any intrinsic value in terms of art or natural history. As Osborne concludes neither sales, nor attendance figures are sufficient to justify the museum devoting its space, resources and prestige to this ill-conceived event.
Ecology Network
Free soil http://www.free-soil.org is an international collaboration of artists, activist, researchers and gardeners who take a participatory role in the transformation of our environment. Founded in 2005 by Amy Franceschini (USA) Stijn Schiffeleers (Belgium), Nis Romer (Denmark) and Joni Taylor (Australia), it aims to foster discourse, develop projects and give support for art practices that reflect and often change the urban and natural landscape by working on issues such as sustainability, environmental art and greening cities.
Finsbury Green Printing - The Story of the First Carbon Neutral Printer in Australia
Finsbury is the only printing company in Australia to successfully establish an environmental printing brand, and over the years their environmental credentials have become so strong that they can legitimately call everything they do green. They are also the only commercial printing company in Australia to volunteer for the Federal Goverments Greenhouse Challenge Plus to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This article looks at some of the developing methods and strategies Finsbury Green Printing are dedicated to year after year in an attempt to become as environmentally sustainable as possible.
Red Shoe Delivery Service
Melbourne International Arts Festival George Adams Gallery, the Arts Centre and various locations around Melbourne 7 - 22 October 2005
White Noise
Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), Melbourne 17 August - 23 October 2005 Curated by Mike Stubbs
Space Between Words: A Collection of Subjective Narratives
Queensland Centre for Photography 17 September 16 October 2005
South Australian School of Art International Drawing Conference: Drawing is Everything
South Australian School of Art International Drawing Conference Drawing is Everything Adelaide 4 September - 9 October 2005 Ruth Hadlow: Patternbook South Australian School of Art Gallery Dialecticaline Prospect Gallery Drawing is a Verb Adelaide Central Gallery2
Trudi Brinckman: White Plastic Cup
Trudi Brinckman: White Plastic Cup Kelly's Garden Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart 24 - August - 30 September 2005
Adam Cullen: Maintaining the Rage
Adam Cullen: Maintaining the Rage Kaliman Gallery, Sydney 1 - 24 September 2005
Flux2: New Art from Western Australia
Flux2: New Art from Western Australia Brendan Van Hek, Ben Sullivan, Bennett Miller, Helen Smith, Pilar Mata Dupont and Tarryn Gill Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth 18 September - November 2005
National Sculpture Prize and Exhibition 2005
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 15 July - 9 October 2005
Brook Andrew: Hope & Peace
Stills Gallery, Sydney, 3 August - 3 September 2005 Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi, Melbourne, 5 July - 7 August 2005 Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide, 23 November - 18 December 2005
The Sounds of Silence
Through traditional method, an explicit residue of manual labour, and a constructed subject, Ricky Swallows wooden work suggests a past tense, which leads the viewer backwards through the material history of the work. The Defining aspects of Swallows approach are distinctly framed in the western tradition of the artisan and the language of figuration.
The Art of Outsourcing
While our romantic inheritance imagines artists working in isolation, this is changing. Increasingly, successful artists are working with teams of technicians who contribute precious amounts of skill, time and experience to the final work. Harvey looks at the relationships between artists, apprentices and their creations within the realm of tactile, three-dimensional art and some of the apparent concerns associated.
It's Not You, It's Me - I Just Don't, You Know, Think We're Compatible
"It should go without saying that our responses to the handmade, the mass-produced and techno gadgetry are principally structured within and by fantasy worlds . Cook explores peoples relationships to objects in a world that is perpetually developing and enhancing itself materially, or so it seems.
I Came to Japan Because of the Chopstick
Timms' account of a personal journey through Japan and South Korea and the traditional history of fine pottery crafts that accounts for a large degree of Eastern culture. He here explores the distinctions and connections between Eastern and Western material culture as exemplified through the life and role of the chopstick.
Getting Off Your Face With a Destructive Character
Christian Capurros Another Misspent Portrait of Etienne de Silhouette documents the act of erasure over a period of five years, with the artist asking family, friends, artists and others to each erase a page from the male fashion rag Vogue Hommes. Each rubber was asked to record how long it took them to rub out their page, the results were then tallied.
The Darkroom in the Age of Post-Film Photography
In both amateur and professional photography the few multinational corporations that control the industry have collectively marshalled their marketing strategies to capitalise on recent advances in digital technology. Jolly looks at the shifting photographic trends, their viability and the increasing loss of intimate image-making.
Pixel Perfect: The Craft of Photography in the Age of Digital Reproduction.
Walkling proclaims that something is being mourned that has to do with the physical object and its associated labour, in the meantime the distinction between amateur and professional photographer is lessening as this particular creative niche is becoming more automated.
Australian Drawing Now: Labouring Lightly
The on again/off again love affair between drawing and contemporary art practice seems to have been going on ad nauseam. From the sixties through to the present day, ongoing tensions between the apparent values of traditional and conceptual art have resulted in much of today's appreciation for the reworking of both aesthetics in what has become a new labour of love.