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Impressive Risk-Taking: The Ideal City at the Valencia Biennial 2003
While the Venice Biennale remains the pre-eminent visual arts event on the international calendar there are now over 40 similar events that claim to be truly international. One of the newest is held in Spain and its second addition in 2003 gave us a tightly curated, human-scale celebration of ideas with some outstanding exhibitions. Developed expediently over the last five years, taking the community with them, the government is changing face and mindset of what was only ten years ago a city in the grip of chronic decay. Paul Greenaway reports.
Colin McCahon: A Question of Faith
Colin McCahon was born in 1919 in the South Island of New Zealand, in the town of Timaru, that is to say, about as far from the centres of modern art as it is possible to get. The early Italian Renaissance as much as the work of Gauguin and Picasso provided McCahon with his lead in these paintings. Raw and strange, they were greeted with puzzled and angry responses whilst at the same time these profound works secured a number of loyal and powerful supporters. McAloon looks at what was initially a slow and meandering ascent to his career and examines one of McCahon's most well known exhibitions which included 78 of McCahon's works covering the span of his career from 1946 to 1982.
Sideways Glances: South Africa, Australia and Intersections
With the showing of the BHP-Billiton collection of South African art at the RMIT Gallery in late 2002 early 2003, Australians not only saw convincing artworks, but also contemplated a culture that is both akin and alien. Synchronicities and differences in these two cultures and specific artistic experiences played out through the Intersections exhibition, with a recognition of the two nations being joined by mediating a white culture, looking upwards to Europe for inspiration and validation. Peers explores these and other parallels drawn between Australian and South African art and culture and addresses some of our own countries ongoing inequalities and historical misfortunes.
The New Brisbane
Brisbane's coming of age has been announced a number of times, most recently with millennial-expansiveness, in its claim to be the Creative City leading the Smart State. Over the past 15 years the city has spawned new enterprises, a new generation of artists, new cultural policies, new public buildings, and a new sense of grace. With an ugly past left largely unexplained, the focus is on the present and the ambitions for the city. While government and the mainstream media look to the future of the New Brisbane, it has been the role of writers, artists and a few historians to examine the past as part of the task of fully inhabiting the city. This article provides a discourse with Ross Fitzgerald about some of the above mentioned issues.
A History of Forgetting
Anderson looks at one of Brisbanes formative cultural events, The Demolition Show, an exhibition curated by John Stafford in 1986 to mark to demise of the relatively short lived Observatory artist run space and in the fact the whole city block that surrounded it. This notion of demolition is raised in this article not only in the context of this particular event but also as a way of exploring a past which has for the most part fallen through the cracks. As Anderson states: Long after the dust has settled, the perception that Brisbane has no past in visual art, no critical mass, still lingers. Yet it is far from a new issue.
Is Art Built-in Built-out? debating public art
In 1999 Art Built-in was declared public policy by the Queensland Government, mandating that two percent of all construction budgets over $250,000 across governments be allocated to the artworks equating to some $15m worth of arts projects annually. Recently the first in a series of formal debates took place to canvas opinion on results so far. The topic was that the role of the curator is essential to create great public art. Looks at the role of local artists such as Jay Younger and her collaborative partner, architect Michael Rayner as well as Wendy Mills and Jill Kinnear.
The Campfire Group
The Campfire Group is an independent cultural enterprise where Indigenous and cross-cultural perspectives provide the organising principles. This article talks briefly of Balance 1990, the first exhibition held by The Campfire Group, open to Murris and whitefellas alike with curatorial efforst by Michael Eather, Marlene Hall and Marshall Bell. The diversity of Campfire Group's projects over the past few years is testimony to its members ability to transform and reinvent artistic practices and introduce those practices to new audiences. Carrolli looks at the various projects, both local and international, which have contributed to the success of the transitional authorial figure that the Campfire Group has come to be.
Hybrid Arts, Cultural Policy and Chinese Whispers
Recently some of the individual, performance and new media artists who have been collaborating across borders in Brisbane and Queensland have networked their way out of the city and into Europe and Asia. With cross commissions and research and development for contemporary performance work there is a new and vibrant creative export. This article explores some of these artists and their international work and looks at how such collaborated efforts are contributing to a new examination of what culture actually is for a country steeped in its European heritage. Follows the practice of local performance artist Lisa ONeil and her collaborations with Keith Armstrong as well as examining The Bonemap Project initiated by artists Russell Milledge and Rebecca Youdell.
The Artists
Notable for their ability to conduct practices from Brisbane over recent years are Luke Roberts, Scott Redford, Eugene Carchesio, Leonard Brown, Sebastian de Mauro, Gordon Bennett, Joe Furlonger, and Jay Younger, who have all emerged since 1980 into the national (and several into the international) marketplace. These practice are here explored in all their diversity. Martin-Chew looks at the increase in available resources and some of the opportunities that Brisbane has to offer for young and emerging artists wanting to break into the local and international art scene. Other artists discussed include Jemima Wyman, Lisa Adams, Rod Bunter, Vernon Ah Kee, Sandra Selig, Andrea Higgins and Michael Zavros.
New Media Art in Brisbane
The investigation of New Media Art is especially relevant in a city that is hyped with the rhetoric about critical mass in the New Media and Creative Industries. Machan here attempts to redraw some lines of definition in what the term New Media Art actually means, as it is often seen as a doomed and short-lived handle. She does this through examining some of the key New Media artists (including Craig Walsh, Keith Armstrong, Tim Plaisted, Bonemap, Trish Adams, Di Ball, Grant Stevens, Jenny Fraser, Simone Hine, Alex Gillespie, Jay Younger, Adam Donovan, Andrew Kettle and Molly Hankwitz) and the difference between New Media and other visual arts as well as looking at government support and initiatives in the line of New Media Arts.
Fuelling Innovation: Starting Young
Over the last two decades, Queensland has generated an arts and innovation culture for children and youth. Brisbanes distinguished reputation in the arts for young audiences rests on several solid foundations, most developed with support from major civic organisations, cultural institutions and successive governments. To understand how critic mass for childrens participation in the arts has been achieved, this article looks at a few of the formative events such as Play and Prime held at the Queensland Art Gallery and the popularity of artists such as Yayoi Kusama and Cai Guo Qiang amongst young audiences.
Prime Two
With the redevelopment of many inner-city dwellings which in the past were alternative hot spots for the local youth, Brisbane was left with very few arts venues catering for youth-specific programs, and limited opportunities for young artists to present their work. In 2001 the Queensland Art Gallery appointed an Access and Youth Program Officer and 2003 saw Prime Two, a six-hour long celebration of youth culture for National Youth Week. The intensity of Prime Two transformed the gallery into a festive and lively venue and created an experience that was reminiscent of an adventure rather than a visit to a state institution. Featured artists include Jemima Wyman, Arryn Snowball, Anne Wallace, Brett Whiteley and James Gleeson.
Moving Beyond Pragmatism: filmmaking in Queensland
The local film production community in South-East Queensland has come a long way, and over the past decade it has been important for local filmmakers to lay claim to an authentic local production that has achieved commercial if not critical success in the box office. Ward looks at those feature films and documentaries (Blurred, Under The Radar, Getting Square and Feeling Sexy) which have contributed to the emerging critical mass of the local film industry and the current debate surrounding creative pragmatism within this fledgling sector.
'Glocal' Government: Cross Cultural Understanding
David Hinchliffe has been a Councillor with Brisbane City for 15 years. He is also a photographer and exhibiting artist with 16 exhibitions to date. His background makes him a powerful supporter of Brisbanes art scene. Artlink asked him to tap into his experience and tell us how the new Brisbane came into being and where it is headed next.
Always Remember: there is no past
This article examines Brisbanes steeped conservative polical history and looks at the radical changes which occured as a result of the early 1990s shift to a Labour goverment. As an aftermath to the anti-climax that was the 1988 World Expo, the 90s was a decade which saw the Queensland Art Gallery embark on new avenues of experimentation and a new confidence was in the air. Furthermore Hoffie addresses the ongoing lack of substantial criticism in relation to arts and cultural development as many saw this as the single most pressing problem dogging the local scene.
Great White Sharks
Holubizkys article deals with the ever present attitude that Brisbane is a city 20 years behind the times in the cultural sector and poses the question as to what this really means? Culture has become a business only within the relative scheme of things, and ahead may only be the false competitive edge and gamesmanship of regional-urban cultural ambition. Comparisons, therefore, should not be made lightly, nor benchmarks for the vitality of a cultural milieu. Discusses the works of Craig Walsh, Eugene Carchesio, Caitlin Reid and Vernon Ah Kee.
Parallel Precincts
Once depressed inner-city suburbs that were havens for students, migrants, artists and fringe communities, the high profile precincts of South Brisbane/West End and Fortitude Valley/New Farm have developed into fast-growing centres of urban residential and cultural development. The Millennium Arts Program now underway will see the expenditure of over $100 million on the development of a new Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) through the Queensland Art Gallery's Two Sites-One Visionstrategy. Heather locates the diversity of Brisbane's arts and culture scene through such new and existing precincts, establishments which mark an exciting transformation in the future of the cities art scene.
A Memory of Times Past
Australia's 'official culture', the face that government puts on to show the country to the world has changed, and although those changes were set in motion well before the events of 11 September 2001, they are only now beginning to emerge as defining forces. Mendelssohn looks at the role of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games as a celebration of Australia's diversity and one of the main catalysts for such change. However, there is a darker side to all of this celebratory glory which Mendelssohn has addressed with reference to Australia's political climate and the granting of permission to express its collective worst feelings of fear and loathing.
Refugee stories: Afghanistan & Iran
The Migrant and Workers Resource Centre (MWRC) was established in Brisbane in 1995 by a group of migrant factory workers, with the aim of providing assistance to migrant communities. Recently, the MWRC conducted an independent investigation into the condition of refugees released from detention centres and now residing in Brisbane. The MWRC coordinator and the centre's consultant psychologist, Madonna Abella, visited the homes of refugees for face-to-face interviews, assisted by an interpreter. This article presents the findings of these interviews and the individual experiences of the refugees.
Borderpanic: open channel on refuge
Borderpanic was a conference and tactical media lab hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, a seminar hosted by Metroscreen and an exhibition at the Performance Space. It was a coming together of artists, activists, cultural theorists and people of social conscience examining a world of burning borders. Many of the artworks exhibited at the Performance Space reflected in positive mode the documentation, connectivity and networking between people around the planet. Some of the artists included in these shows were Julian Burnside, Ghassan Hage, Mickey Quick, Geert Lovink, Stephen Best and Peter Lyssiotis.
The Pathos of Boat People
On 10th April 1999, a large boat carrying 60 passengers and crew who had travelled all the way from China seeking asylum arrived on the shores of the small town of Scotts Head on the mid North coast of NSW. Shayne Higson created a series of poetic images in response to this desperate attempt for freedom. These poignant photographs present the remnants of these asylum seekers, the striped plastic bags and rusting hulk which were abandoned and replaced by suits, ties and good shoes, items worn by the refugees in an attempt to fit in with the mainland surroundings.
Ambient Fears
Artlink here prints a slightly abbreviated version of Nikos Papastergiadis essay which was first delivered as a lecture in Finland on 30 September 2001. This essay covers issues surrounding the idea of the other, the enemy, and discusses some of the ramifications of the events of September 11. In november that year it was used as a companion piece to the exhibition Fallout at the Victorian College of the Arts. The Exhibition featured artists Destiny Deacon, Elizabeth Gower, Homi Vesal, Jarrad Kennedy, Justine Khamara amongst others. Nikos Papastergiadis is Deputy Director of the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne.
Fallout: Quick Response to 9/11
Fallout was a quick response exhibition that only lasted for one week. The show examined the impact on art of the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, globalisation and the refugee crisis. The thirty-seven artists who participated, each at different stages in their careers, contributed their work purely on political conviction. Many of the works in the show were quite raw, and captured this desire to re-express the shock of the violence towards the western world, but also the violent and brutal way the western world sought revenge. Sanja Pahoki and Rowan Douglas were amongst those to exhibit.
Pat Hoffie: Compassion and Anger
The element of denial ingrained in Australian society provides the basis for much of Pat Hoffie's work. The popularly constructed myths, histories and relationships that reinforce Australian society involve a certain amount of self-delusion, and Hoffie uses her work to amplify this fact. This article explores some of the political and humanitarian issues at the core of Hoffie's artistic practice, with specific reference to the 'children overboard' incident and Australia's role in the 'war against terror'.
Disorientation: Afghan War Rug, No Easy Answers
Lendon takes up the idea of cross-cultural interpretation and exchange as exemplified through the symbolism imbued in a traditional 'Afghan war rug', an item which was part of the exhibition 'The Rugs of War' held in June 2003. Through deconstructing the seemingly violent and barbaric visual imagery, Lendon is posing some important questions regarding the role of traditional artefacts and the valuing of such hand made craft once it has reached its destination in the west.
Afghanistan Unveiled: Four refugee artists from Afghanistan
Afghanistan Unveiled was an exhibition in South Australia of paintings and drawings by four refugees from Afghanistan: Ali Reza Ramzi from Western Australia, Ghulam Sakhi Hazara from Queensland, Sayed Mansoor from South Australia and Shafiq Monis from New South Wales. All of these artists have recently lived in detention and one is still in detention. The artists use art as a way to depict their lives under the Taliban regime, their flight to Australia and their experiences in Australia. The exhibition received television, radio and newspaper coverage, both locally and nationally and over 200 people attended the opening with many more viewing the exhibition over the following two weeks.
The Ballet of Nothing More
Megan Keating's installation The Ballet of Nothing More uses sources from international military and propaganda imagery in order to allude to the present state of unrest within the world. Although no particular campaign or situation is specifically referred to, the paintings and papercuts aim to evoke an awkwardness or ambivalence indicative of contemporary experience. This work is not about war or the experiences of war but people's acceptance, detachment and displacement of such issues fuelled by the media and its methods of reportage.
Viet Nam Voices: Lessons of History
Viet Name Voices was a unique exhibition, striving to give all major groups of participants the opportunity to be heard impartially, often in direct opposition to each other. The voice that is most passionate in this exhibition is that of the Viet Name veterans, who are speaking out after twenty-five years of silence. The issues raised by the unjust treatment of the veterans on their return to Australia are vividly addressed through their artworks, including the legacy of chemical defoliants such as Agent Orange, their betrayal by the Australian government, the mass media's complicity in wartime propaganda, and the enduring and unfulfilled need to honour and remember the dead.
Tasmania as Haven
Despite its troubled history, Tasmania has managed to offer quiet sanctuary for a remarkable range of peoples, natures and ideas. Much of Tasmania's political muscle has been exercised around environmental issues, backed by world heritage listing. Artists in the Haven exhibition which toured in 2003-4 each chose a biographical subject that dramatised the utopian appeal of Tasmania. Artists included Pip McManus, Geoff Parr, Patrick Collins, Anna Phillips, Jennifer Brook, Penny Carey Wells, John Vella, Helena Psotova and Judith-Rose Thomas. Each of these artists created works as tributes to various historical figures and all contain within them the thin glimmer of hope that beckons the darkened mainland above.
Terrorist Training School: PVI Collective
Contemporary performance often seems bent on escaping the theatrical frame, eroding the boundaries, and making problematic the relationship between theatre and reality. In Terrorist Training School, the Perth-based performance group PVI abandoned traditional theatrical space altogether, opting for tour buses and trams. Wilson here sets the scene for the 2002 performance and discusses the performative and prescriptive aspects of both the theatrical and real life terrorist attacks taking place in all parts of the contemporary world.
Queue Here
One of the key works in the 2002 exhibition Queue Here is by Pat Hoffie, an artist long concerned with issues of social justice. A frieze of paintings, lifted from portraits on the web of Australian Federal Members of Parliament, become, as Hoffie says, the 'horrific scared smiles of those we trusted to speak for us'. The artists featured in Queue Here (Pat Hoffie, Peter Latona, Holly Williams, Aseem Pereira, John Vella, Angelina Brazzale, Margaret Baguley, Penny Cain and Paul Gazzola) have all adopted tropes that point to the heart of the problem. If we are dealing with perceptions, then these are a truthful reading of Australia's current vision of its own culture.
A4 Refugee Project: Artists in Solidarity
The A4 Refugee Project began in July as a response to Austcare's call for participants in Refugee Week 2002. Letters, flyers and e-mails were sent to contemporary artists throughout Australia with the request to submit a work as a gesture of support for refugees. The works addressed all sorts of issues surrounding the topic of refugees: alienation, lip sewing, consumerism, wire fencing, loneliness, nationalism...and punctuating these were abstract works that allowed some breathing space. The works were donated to the James Hardie Art Archive at the State Library of Queensland and will provide a permanent document of the artistic response from the community to this issue.
The Pacific Highway Solution
Wayne Barrow provides a humorous dialogue between himself and two of his mates Boney and Dazza, the three of them on their way back to Sydney after a week of concreting. This article raises issues surrounding the problems with the construction of the Pacific Highway, the government's policies on mandatory detention and the shocking state of take away food along the way.
Our Voices: Living with Trauma
Mammad Aidani was born in the port city of Khorramshar in South-West of Iran and later born into the English language and the complexities of the Australian environment in 1982. He here writes about his ongoing struggles since fleeing his country during the Shah's regime when the war between Iran and Iraq ultimately led to the loss of his family and friends. He speaks out about the current political and humanitarian agenda in Australia and the role of creativity in providing rich human emotions as noble causes to unite people.
The Promised Land
Linda Jaivin tells an imaginative story of Moses' plight to the Promised Land, imparting an additional reading to this historical tale, one very much aligned with contemporary society and the struggles of refugees seeking asylum in Australia. The story depicts the promised land as 'a liberal democracy which respects human rights and international conventions as set out by the United Nations' with the story leading the refugees to the ultimate reality of this supposed liberated new land.
Museums For the 21st Century: Entertainments or Big Challenging Ideas?
Museums both reinforce one's views and challenge them, encouraging innovative connections we hadn't thought of before, driving us on to expanded understandings. Griffin addresses some of the controversies surrounding museums in the age of technology.
Scaling Up at ACCA
Opening in mid October 2002, the new ACCA is a purpose built complex designed by Melbourne- based architects Wood Marsh. An architectural marvel and simultaneously a contemporary art space, at last the ACCA is moving to a building that lives up to the portent of its name. Haley spoke to the new Creative Director Juliana Engberg in August of 2002.
Documenta 11 Takes On Masters of the Universe
Every five years the sleepy little German town of Kassel is invaded by the international art world. The 2002 Documenta exhibition staged here, which have traditionally played second fiddle only to the Venice Biennale, was eagerly anticipated as the first genuinely postcolonial Documenta, due in large part to the appointment of the expatriate Nigerian curator Okwui Enwezor as Artistic Director.
Cacophony + Cramp for the Sensory Bundle
Digital media provides intuitive contemporary ways for storytelling in our times. dLux media arts, based in Sydney, this year curated a selection of installation works derived from their annual d>art program, and for the first time showed it outside Sydney. The five works selected for the Adelaide exhibition were complex and esoteric: a gorgeous array of storytelling techniques which explore and exploit narrative and interactivity.
A Stitch in Time
Peter Callas' show held at Stills Gallery in 2002 Vinculum + Orison resulted from his Asialink residency in Delhi, India and comprises of digital prints on photographic paper and an artist's book. Both the scale and choice of images in this exhibition are seductive and enthralling; deceptively innocent moments in daily and century-old rituals and routines.
Uncertain Terrain
Modern physics suggests we are living within an expanding universe. We are, it seems, still moving away from our point of origin (the singularity of the Big Bang). The intersection of new physics and Buddhism provides pathways into Julia Ciccarone's landscape paintings (exhibited at Niagara Galleries in Melbourne in early 2002), elucidating the narratives and suggesting relationships between the metaphors and symbols she uses.
Small Deaths
Australian artist Kate Breakey, who now resides in Tucson, Arizona, caught up with Sarah Thomas to discuss the impact of growing up in the coastal town of Port Lincoln and the impact her childhood upbringing is having on her recent work. 'I think my childhood proximity to nature turned me into a naturalist...Growing up around animals you learn that life is complicated, survival is a struggle, death usually isn't quick or clean, and nature doesn't make any allowances for love and attachment'.
Lawrence Daws: From Mandala to Full Circle
Australian artist Lawrence Daws speaks of seven phases of his work, based on specific themes that have guided his development as an artist. There has been a gradual trend in his work from themes of archetypal symbolism and exotic portent towards the more local and personal.
Singapore Opens Up to the World - Site + Sight: First Major International Show
Using Singapore as the first 'site' for the exhibition, Site + Sight: Translating Cultures from 7 June to 26 July 2002 brought together 26 international artists from 11 countries to discuss and present artworks relating to the theme of globalisation and its cultural impact on the world.
Marine Nature in Porcelain: The Recent Work of Robin Best
Ceramic artist Robin Best became fascinated by a complex marine world which included sea-invertebrates/filter feeders like bryozoans, sea sponges and ascidians (sea squirts) during walks on the beach in her seaside suburn of Semaphore. Here Walker discusses some of Best's recent work and conceptual concerns.
Fashion Infiltrates the Galleries
Even if one's first reaction upon hearing the sound of the words 'Melbourne Fashion Festival' is not to reach for one's gun, but to condemn the dumbing down of 'culture' into Madonna or Barbie 101, bemoan the melting of the abstract expressionist/tachiste snows of yesteryear, it has unquestionably enriched the city's art experience.
Jewel Mackenzie: Gemini Paintings
Jewel Mackenzie's practice explores both the understanding and experience of the world and the history and legacies of painting. Her background in both dressmaking and in public administration has informed her project to provoke and explore the positioning of the artist within contemporary bureaucratic culture.
I Wonder Where the Public Art Went?
During the first half of 2002 the Danish champion of pedestrians, Dr. Jan Gehl and his team from GEHL Architects were commissioned to analyse the City of Adelaide in terms of its viability as a pedestrian city.
The Possibility Forum - Institutional Change and Modest Proposals
This text takes up some of the broader concerns of Tony Bond's initial questions to an Australian panel at ARCO 2002 Madrid, particularly 'can there be a benign global capitalism?' and 'how do we address the value of exchanges between artists?'.
Asia Pacific Triennial 2002 - Starry Night
When talking about non-Indo-European cultures, we are taking on board profound differences in how we arrange our worlds. The 2002 Asia Pacific Triennial endeavours to present art from these cultures through various treatments of time and space relations.
Breathing/Diving/Dreaming/Dancing to the BEAP in Perth (You Can't Buy These Emotions off the Hollywood Shelf)
Immersion was part of the Perth Biennale of Electronic Art (BEAP), a selection of some of the most important international immersive, interactive and virtual reality artworks from the last decade, created by Chris Malcolm and presented at the John Curtin Gallery.
The Generosity of a Light Touch
For the more than 15 years that the Australian organisation Experimenta Media Arts has metamorphosed through various ideological, aesthetic and technological identities, its one constant has been a passionate involvement with and championing of the new and experimental. Prototype, exhibited in Melbourne in 2002, carried on this tradition, more than living up to the title.
Love Your Work: Fremantle Arts Centre 30th Birthday
Artists together again for Fremantle Arts Centre's 30th Birthday celebrations
Matthew Collings Comes to Town
Introducting the final episode of 'This is Modern Art', his six-part television series which screened in Australia in 2000, Matthew Collings seemed ridden with apocalyptic feelings about the whole thing wrapping up. For five weeks he had come into our homes at night like kind of groovy art dad to deliver his version of the story of art from Picasso to the young British artists.
Patronage and Corporate Collections in Western Australia
While only a small percentage of national enterprises are based in the west, business leaders have a tradition of serious interest in the visual arts, with a number owning fine collections which they are prepared to share with the public. The three collections featured here all include contemporary Western Australian art - a form of patronage local artists can instantly appreciate. The associated catalogues and books produced are an enduring form of patronage which provide a much needed record of art in Western Australia.
Border Zones: An Eye on the World from Sydney
According to Chapman, the contemporary understanding of a globalised world is the result of the understanding that we all share a finite physical realm: this planet. The world is no longer understood purely in terms of geographic boundaries, but cultural ones. This article looks at some of the utopian values imparted upon some of the major cities in the western world and discusses concepts of globalism and localism as they contribute to a new perception of the world around us.
A contested place: Film and land
The importance of place depends on what it means to us, what we make of it and our understanding of how it shapes us. In 2001 in the Australian film industry there was an avalanche of films, both documentaries and features, addressing issues surrounding place in the context of the relationship between black and white Australians. Six features which Hann values for their portrayal of this relationship are One Night the Moon, Rabbit Proof Fence, The Tracker, Beneath Clouds, Kabbarli-A Film About Daisy Bates and Australian Rules.
Places Not Forgotten: In Rural South Australia
The Flinders Ranges in South Australia where Malcolm McKinnon lives is a place of diminishing population, sparse landscapes and resilient social memory. It's a place that reveals itself only over time, as the stories, names and explanations for particular places and people become gradually apparent. It's a place where most of the people of the land carry memories and maps of special places around in their heads. McKinnon's aim in writing this article is to use these places and the claims attached to them by many non-indigenous people to show that they are just as legitimate as those of indigenous people.
Postcards from Victoria: Fertility from the Air
To celebrate the Centenary of Federation, Regional Arts Victoria undertook a series of art projects across Victoria. '...such fertile ground...' unfolded in two stages during the years 1999-2000, involved twelve different locations, fourteen different artists and produced some stunning images which reflected unique aspects of the places which inspired them. Participation was open to anyone going through the local affiliate Arts Council and a local artist would be appointed the task of creating an image. Artists included Maxine Salvatore, Mark Selkrip, Jenny Munday, Ken Raff and Anton Vardy.
Float or Sink: A New Direction for Art in Regional Australia
When it comes to the interpretation of place, whether it be through the language of art, economy or social relations, we are always doing so through a culturally constructed lens and at a culturally constructed moment in time. The way we represent the land affects how we use the land and our land use in terms affects the way we represent it. Wilson looks at art that is made outside the context of the art gallery or computer screen and the ongoing categorisation and separation of institutionalised art from public art. The Artists Working in Nature movement and The Floating Land project are here used in reference.
International Artists Space Kellerberrin Australia: WA Wheatbelt Artzone
Two hours drive from Perth is the small regional town of Kellerberrin. With a population of nine hundred people and appearing just like many other municipalities in the region, the incongruity of this town lies in the presence of the grandly named International Art Space Kellerberrin Australia (IASKA), a gallery and residency centre for international contemporary artists. IASKA was established in 1998, developing from a collaboration between two wheatbelt farmers, Tony York and Donna Dransfield, and two art professionals from Perth, artist Rodney Glick and Marco Marcon. The intention behind this double displacement is to offer both artist and communities a kind of shock treatment that will force them out of their respective comfort zones and encourage the development of new ways of approaching both art practice and notions of local identity. Visiting artists have included Salvatore Falci and Cathy Barber.
Terror Australis: Fear and Loathing in Open Spaces
When European explorers first discovered Australia, it was generally referred to as Terra Australia Incognita literally translated as Unknown Southern Land. Marshall looks at the physical terrain of this equally beautiful and dramatic region of the world via a selection of prolific Australian films which give shocking portrayals of our lifestyle here in the lucky country. Terror based films such as Dead Calm, Razorback, The Cars that ate Paris and Kiss or Kill.
Making Place in an Urban Sense
Our sense of who and where we are is continually mediated by images of the wilderness and the outback, but the real home of our species is the city. Downton is an architect determined to work through processes of ecology and community and is excited by the challenges of the city. He here examines the connections between humans and nature within the domain of a civic built environment.
Material Difference
Chandler looks at the practice of Paul Johnson and Elizabeth Frith Poole, two artists who both live in the same regional area, but convey contrasting views concerning the significance of place. For Frith Poole, time spent investigating her immediate environment has led to a more profound understanding of it, while Johnson utilises materials that are claimed as belonging to specific sites or cultures to confront assumptions concerning landscape and identity.
Spirit and Place Revisited
Spirit + Place, Art in Australia 1861 to 1996, an exhibition curated by Nick Waterlow and Ross Mellick at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1996 in Sydney, is widely referred to as a landmark exhibition. The exhibition placed Indigenous Australian Art together with non-Indigenous Australian Art, as well as making honorary Australian artists of Joseph Beuys, Marina Abramovic, Christo and others. The exhibition encompassed ideas that were linked to issues involving the environment, ethnicity and human pain and pleasure, with relevance both locally and beyond these shores.
Living the Lie (of the land)
Due to the concentric nature of its revelations the exhibition The Lie of the Land deserved particular consideration in terms of the resonances that placement, grounding and the physical experience of the Australian landscape and environment can have on the issue of current art practice. Curator Carmen Grostal felt a personal and philosophical urgency behind the idea for the exhibition, with the title of the show responding to Paul Carter's text of the same name and was used as a way to enter into dialogue with the ideas raised in it.
Six Days in Boyd Country
When Arthur Boyd gifted his large Bundanon property to the nation in 1993, he imagined the creation of a place that would become a living arts centre where artists of all persuasions would come to find refreshment and renewed inspiration in the landscape. The Bundanon Artists Centre is housed in former farm buildings and has hosted writers, visual artists, musicians, choreographers and film-makers. Among the most celebrated are J.M. Coetzee, South African novelist, Peter Mumme, environmental composer and Dorothy Porter, Australian poet. Kronenberg also discusses the work of artist John R. Walker who was invited to participate as a senior-artist-in-residence in 2000.
Tjukurpa Wangapai - Story-Telling Place
In 1998 Margaret Worth was invited by a small group of Pitjantjatjara women to visit the Tjilbruke Gateway installation at Warriparinga on the banks of the Sturt River in Adelaide. Months later Worth visited the women to talk about making a place like the Tjilbruke Gateway. This article looks at Worth's role in helping to develop a built site which would signify as much as its natural environment did. In the process she learnt what was important to know about the land and developed her own understanding of place.
Your city is so ugly: Adelaide and the truth
'Your City is Ugly' was a 2002 Adelaide Fringe production devised by John Adley, Chris Barker, Julianne Pierce, Katrina Sedgwick and Daryl Watson. Page layout by Daryl Watson with text by Julianne Pierce. Architectural photographs by Daryl Watson assisted by Tim Fenton. Photographs of Madame Ivana, Vladimir and Sergei by Annette Tripodi.
On Humans and Other Animals 'Becoming' Each Other
The metaphor of becoming animal till there is no longer man or animal is becoming real with the advances in genetic tissue technology and stem cell research. Artists dealing with hands-on wet biology art practice are exploring the tangibility of such an idea. Zurr looks at issues surrounding such new technology, at the experiment which saw an ear grafted onto a mouses back, constructed in vitro (outside of the body) and the possible future for the human and animal kingdoms.
The Extra Ear (or an ear on an arm)
What characterises all of Stelarc's projects and performances is the notion of the prosthetic. The EXTRA EAR is a project Stelarc has been fostering since 1997 and the problems lie in finding the appropriate medical assistance to realise it. Constructing the EXTRA EAR would involve a number of procedures, over approximately 8-10 months. Techniques from Cosmetic, Re-constructive and Orthopaedic surgery are necessary. Here Stelarc outlines some of the essential steps in constructing the EXTRA EAR and discusses the nature of this radical project.
The Surgical Fix: Physical Capital, Self-Improvement and the Body Beautiful
Historical studies have shown that an improved physical appearance had profoundly beneficial psychological effects and behavioural outcomes. Plastic surgery became a vital tool in the 1930s, holding out the promise of removing the traces of war and eliminating prominent markers of ethnicity. In recent years the cosmetic surgery industry has grown in Australia, and as with all countries the common goal is the production of a narrowly defined culture of bodily beauty. Ryan looks at the cosmetic surgery industry and some of the artistic responses to such ideas and ideals, particularly those of artist Annabelle Collett.
Sex in the Cyborg: Julie Rrap's Overstepping
This article follows in the footsteps of Julie Rrap's Overstepping, the digital print that won the 2001 Hermann's Art Award, at a time when geneticists are close to patenting a hybrid body. This image is a snapshot merging of the developed and the evolved, it can trigger a complex mix of fear and desire at a time when flesh has become protean and everything else morphologically dubious.
Similarities, Gen-et(h)ic Boundaries, and Respect for Otherness
This article discusses a specific aspect of the human/ animal relationship and of communication in and between species. It points to a few specific experiments which have been conducted to try and bridge the gap between human and animal connectivity and relatedness. Furthermore it recognises the different ways animals and humans relate to and view the world around them, whether it be via visual, tactile, olfactory, auditory or other sensory devices.
The Theatrics of Cloning: The Recent Paintings of Juan Ford
Juan Ford's recent exhibition Clone is a series of portraits of doppelgangers trapped within neo-realistic hallucinatory environments that are rich in attributes taken from technological culture. The juxtaposition of traditional painterly portraiture with objects taken from recent technologies uncovers the sense of mystery that these new technologies provide for us. Trotter looks at Ford's practice within the context of our post-modern society, discussing relevant issues of capitalist culture as 'narcissistic' and the breakdown of a consistent personal identity within it.
Carnophilia
This text is concerned with the notion of animal and human hybridity, as examined in a historical and contemporary context through the myth of King Minos of Crete and more recently the work of artists such as Damien Hirst and John Kelly. From the shadowy overlap between species that the minotaur depicts to such contemporary models of animal/ human formation as the fictitious Spiderman, such figures of the imagination remind us of the diminishing gap between science fact and science fiction.
Sympathetic Magic: Skin and Canvas
The skin, the membrane, the corporeal envelope, the shroud, the veil - all those things that tend to separate and define appearances from either the being inside, or from the beingness outside - have provided a source of some of the most rich and persistent metaphors for Western culture. With the 20th century bringing a re-emergence of the idea of the skin as an organ rather than a boundary, notions and representations of the physical body dominated the work of last century and painting returned as an important medium for such depictions. This article looks at the metaphoric and literal relationship between skin and its various representations in contemporary art.
Animal Magnetism: Sharon Goodwin and the Eternal Romance of the Bestial
The work of Sharon Goodwin is directly influenced by the Coles Funny Picture Books which create a bizarre Victorian world where human and animal promiscuously cross over. Here people are frequently turned into animals, and the qualities of animals emerge in humans through vices of personality. Goodwin's exhibition which was held at Uplands Gallery in Melbourne, Victoria in November 2001 presented a series of portraits of bestial humans or humanised animals repainted from Cole's woodcuts. Goodwin has introduced crude lines and stitching and patching in the images to represent the frequent actualisation of plastic surgery in contemporary society.
Uglielands: The Fremantle Festival 2001
At Fremantle Arts Centre, as part of the annual Fremantle Festival in 2001, selected artists addressed the notion of fascination by and in the freak, geek and grotesque in relation to carnivals and circuses. Artists included Susan Flavell, Emma Margetts, Clare McFarlane and Nein Schwarz.
Polemic: The Undoing of Art History (Part II)
In Part I (Artlink, December 2001) the subject called Art History was challenged, using the terms art and work of art in a conventional way. Here in Part II it is argued that some of the woes of art theory can be alleviated by understanding these terms in a different way. Brook discusses the role of cultural memes in creating different kinds of historiesand the doctrine of creativity. He here concludes that it is perfectly understandable that, as metaphysical explorers, we may address works of art with little or no respect for the author's intentions. In the end, he states, it depends upon the regularities of the real world.