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Living palely
The Stoics may have taken rationality too far in their resolute minimisation of all feeling. Are emotions no more than disturbances in the logical landscape? What of Pascal’s ‘the heart has its reasons that reason is not acquainted with’? Perhaps the rationality/emotion divide is overdrawn, risking battle lines forming around pure opposites never found in real life examples. Yet the issue has bite, relevance to intimate features of our life: our friendships, our sense of safety in the world, how much we give of ourselves and give up of ourselves to our working life and the living texture of what it feels like to be us: fugitive, or having the ‘warm antiquity of self’.
Speed of dark: Boris Eldagsen
Artist Boris Eldagsen and writer Robert Cook are both looking down the barrel of forty. Cook is fascinated by other members of his exact generation. In his words: 'They are alternative selves, part of my body. Mid-life is hard life, the life as lived not the life not lived, the other path, the no stepping back.' Cook and Boris did not meet.
Strange bedfellows
Why write or think about the work of Patricia Piccinini and Richard Billingham together? Because the work of each of them elicits a visceral response, a response characterised by emotion and gut feeling. Because the border between humans and animals and the relationships between us are examined by both Piccinini and Billingham in a manner that emphasises our relatedness. These are intensely moral artworks with a strong documentary flavour that ask us questions about responsibility and connection that go to the very heart of our lives.http://www.artlink.com.au/admin/article_edit.cfm?id=3280
Notes on melancholy and anxiety in the works of Sanja Pahoki
The artworks of Sanja Pahoki walk a zigzag between melancholy and its contemporary cousin, anxiety. Curator and writer Hannah Mathews interviewed Sanja Pahoki about her recent work while thinking about Daniel Birnbaum's comment about the relationship between melancholy and the arts: "The idea of the melancholic as someone not only passive and depressed but also creative is the basis for the Renaissance idea of the genius – the dialectic between darkness and light, destruction and creation."
Astra and the ventilation hypothesis
Astra Howard’s 'Action Research/Performances' necessarily require participation by members of the public. This makes them unpredictable. Astra’s presence is not about entertainment. It is not a show. There is no star. There is no attempt to expose any individual. There are simply sincere attempts to understand them. Astra acknowledges and responds sincerely to one of our deepest and most affective human needs – our need for emotional expression. Our need to have our voice heard. Our need to vent.
William Kentridge between chance and a programme
Pat Hoffie interviewed William Kentridge on the phone to 'draw' out some of his ideas about drawing and art. His work remains committed to a sense of the tactile, and to the slow grainy effort of drawing. In his words: ‘I would repeat my trust in the contingent, the inauthentic, the whim, the practical, as strategies for finding meaning. I would repeat my mistrust in the worth of Good Ideas.'
Personal Political Emotional
Artist Megan Evans was for some years the partner of Aboriginal activist and artist Les Griggs who suicided in 1993. Fifteen years later she has begun to write his story - a story of reconciliation with herself and her country, through a relationship that undid her and put her back together again.
Ann Newmarch: Opening Pandora's box
In 2007 Ann Newmarch was represented in 'WACK, Art and the Feminist Revolution', a major exhibition in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Newmarch embraced feminism in the early 1970s. Her art practice manifests the view that all representation is political. Her new work, reiterates a position that she adopted in 1972 : "I try to get onto the page visual images that combine to make memory: past memories incorporated in new sensations and new images related back to past experience. Contemplation ...of our environment that recalls other times, places and relationships."
The Second Life of Pye: Daniel Jay Mounsey
Social media is the new buzz word and trend - like it or not. Daniel Jay Mounsey is ahead of the pack in having Pyewacket Kazyanenko as his well-established alter-ego in Second Life, AND collaborating and performing online through an avatar with Stelarc and others, AND(!) performing onstage live as anime character Hell Girl. Curator and writer Charity Bramwell interviewed all she could find of him.
Art and occupation: Raeda Saadeh
Raeda Saadeh is a Palestinian artist who was born in Umm Al-Fahem, a Muslim village (now a city) in the northern region of Haifa. She completed art studies at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, where she now lives. Her questioning of the forces of both political occupation of the Palestinian territories, and personal occupation by traditional cultural and social expectations, have inspired her to focus on her own body with performance and photography.
Choosing who will keep the stories strong
In early 2006, the renowned Liyagauwumirr painter Mickey Durrng Garrawurra died in his home on Milingimbi. For many years, Durrng (1940-2006) and his brother Tony Dhanyala (1935-2004) were the only people authorised to paint the Liyagauwumirr’s most important clan designs. Before his death, however, Durrng made the seemingly unorthodox decision to pass this knowledge and authority to his sister Ruth Nalmakarra (b.1954) and her family. What followed was a flowering of tradition, as Nalmakarra and her sisters used this broadened authority to instigate a cultural revival that united their community around these ancient designs.
Inside Sydney's new Outsider art centre
Outsider Art is enjoying increasing attention in Australia. STOARC – the Self-Taught and Outsider Art Research Collection – at the University of Sydney opened its public face at Callan Park Gallery in March 2009.
Len Lye: An Artist in Perpetual Motion
Len Lye: An Artist in Perpetual Motion Curators: Alessio Cavallaro and Tyler Cann ACMI, Melbourne 16 July – 11 October 2009
53rd Venice Biennale: Making Worlds
53rd Venice Biennale: Making Worlds Bantin Duniyan, Hacer Mundos Director: Daniel Birnbaum 7 June – 22 November 2009
Reconstruction Works: Paul Caporn
Reconstruction Works: Paul Caporn Turner Galleries, Perth 17 April – 16 May 2009
Nobody Likes a Show Off: Richard Lewer
Nobody Likes a Show Off: Richard Lewer Curator: Kirrily Hammond Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne 1 July – 5 September 2009
Not Absolute
Not Absolute Curator: Janice Lally Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide 24 July – 27 September 2009
SRL: Stigma Research Laboratory
SRL: Stigma Research Laboratory Philippa Steele, John Vella, Scot Cotterell Moonah Arts Centre 8 May – 21 May 2009
A New Truth to Materials
A New Truth to Materials Boxcopy (Miles Hall, Chris Handran, Chloe Cogle, and Ross Manning) Curator: Raymonde Rajkowski Level 3 Metro Arts, Brisbane April 30 - May 30 2009
Drifting in My Own Land: Nalda Searles
Drifting in My Own Land: Nalda Searles John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University of Technology, Perth Touring Australia 2009 – 2013 19 June - 30 August 2009
Integration Assimilation and a Fair Go For All: Khaled Sabsabi
Integration Assimilation and a Fair Go For All: Khaled Sabsabi Gallery 4A, Sydney 13 June – 25 July 2009
Upturns, Props and Portals: Bec Stevens
Upturns, Props and Portals: Bec Stevens Curator: Sean Kelly Kelly’s Garden Curated Projects Series 1 Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart 5 June – 3 July 2009
Oh that I were where I would be
Oh that I were where I would be Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane 10 June – 4 July 2009
Transforming East and West dialogues
Haema Sivanesan, Curator and Executive Director of SAVAC ( South Asian Visual Arts Centre) in Toronto Canada, analyses the current situation of Asian contemporary art by looking at work that is not only cross-cultural but concerned with bridging cultures and being a form of social action rather than simply engaging with commodity culture.
Collapsing the Bilateral: creating consciousness
The Long March Project founded by Lu Jie is an ongoing art project that began with a philosophical evaluation of the complex role and meaning of art and selfhood, in all its political, economic, cultural, and social guises. It is critical that new opportunities are found for artistic reciprocity that exist beyond the presumed centres of art validation (ie. America and Europe). The Long March directs the gaze of Chinese cultural producers to re-assess how art can be a tool through which ideas of making – self, thought, object – can be critically empowered and conceived.
China welcomes Australian ceramics
Potter and Head of Ceramics at ANU School of Art Janet de Boos writes about her journeys to China since 1996 and her current collaborations in bone china tableware. She writes : 'Rather than just a place where we can appropriate techniques and technologies and source cheap labour, China becomes a place for Australians to work and research collaboratively with fellow artists.'
Resuscitation through paper
On a residency at the Taipei Artists Village in Taiwan in 2007 Gregory Pryor researched a plant from which tongcao or pith paper was traditionally made. The complex collaborative journey to find the plant and the way its pith is removed forms a celebratory echo to his previous work Black Solander 2005 about endangered plants in Western Australia.
Hired hands: the Filipino collaborations of David Griggs
Neil Fettling asks; 'Why does an Australian-based artist like David Griggs, living and working in the first world, have such strong connections with a third world community, and how do these linkages affect his work?' and answers this question through an analysis of Griggs' recent art as well as comparing it to the work of Pat Hoffie and Wim Delvoye.
Jelek in East Timor
*(jelek means ugly in Indonesian) Artist Ruth Hadlow lives and works in East Timor. Her thoughts about it question notions of beauty and ugliness.
Contemporary Art in the Hermit Kingdom
Artists who have created fascinating works within the DMZ (Korean Demilitarized Zones) include the Spanish artist Santiago Sierra, the Italian artist Armin Linke and the Australian artist Lyndal Jones.
New climate for an old world: Paul Carter's Nearamnew
Paul Carter's Nearamnew, a public art work which is embedded in the 7,500 square metres of paving at Federation Square, asks for multiple, inclusive and open-ended responses.
Old Gods new lives: Exhibiting traditional Cook Islander art
In late 2008, the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) established its first Pacific Arts department. From the opening of the controversial Musée du quai Branly in Paris in 2006, to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s creation of permanent new galleries for Oceanic art in 2007, there has been an international surge of interest in Pacific art, accompanied by hot debate surrounding exhibition protocols. Among the many works exhibited at these institutions are rare carvings of traditional gods from the Cook Islands: works that are still of great cultural significance to many Islanders today. Jacqui Durrant asked artists, curators and cultural professionals in the largest of the Cook Islands, Rarotonga, their opinions as to how images of their ‘old gods’ might be best exhibited, to see what a Western art gallery might take on board.
Bilum breakout: fashion, artworld, national pride
In the past decade bilum fashion has really taken off in Papua New Guinea and is now getting wider exposure through a few PNG gallery and designer websites like Pasifik Nau and Lava Lava Innovations. Since the late 1990s, local trendsetters of high fashion, including Cathy Kata and Florence Jaukae, have made a name for their original bilum outfits.
An Unlandscape of words and painting: from Meenamatta to paradise
This article explores new territory opened up by a cross-cultural collaboration between Indigenous poet Jim Everett and visual artist Jonathan Kimberley.
Threads, traces and legacies of the mission
Artist Kylie Waters works with the history of her own family and the way it is embedded in South Australian history. Specifically she explores the space between negative and positive evaluations of Lutheran missions in Central and South Australia.
Island improvisations: Nathan Gray
In 2008 Nathan Gray spent two months on Itaparica, a Brazilian island in the Bahia region, as part of an exchange initiated by The South Project Inc. At the end of the year the exhibition Tudo Que Acho was held to show the work created and produced as a result of the residency. The title in English means ‘everything I think’. In Portuguese the phrase also denotes discovery, as ‘to think’ and ‘to find’ signify the same act. Tudo Que Acho: Nathan Gray was shown 4 – 20 December 2008 at The Narrows, Melbourne.
Talking about my g-g-g-generation: Mark Siebert
Mark Siebert: Forever 27 is at the Experimental Art Foundation, 15 May – 13 June 2009.
The sound of many hands clapping: Ten Days on the Island
Ten days on the island 24 March - 5 April 2009
Nam Bang!
NAM BANG! Curator: Boitran Huynh-Beattie Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre 4 April - 21 June 2009
Yellow Vest Syndrome
The Yellow Vest Syndrome: recent West Australian art Curator: Jasmin Stephens Fremantle Arts Centre 31 January – 29 March 2009
The China Project
The China Project: Three Decades; William Yang; Zhang Xiaogang GOMA, Brisbane 28 March – 28 June 2009
Artroom5
Three artists – in the world: Anne Kay, Irmina Van Niele, Sera Waters artroom5, Adelaide 4 – 21 March 2009
Paul Zika
Paul Zika: Home and Away – reconstructing artifice Curator: Philip Watkins Carnegie Gallery, Hobart 26 March – 3 May 2009
The Enchanted Forest
The enchanted forest: new gothic storytellers Curator: Jazmina Cininas Geelong Gallery, 12 April - 9 June 2008; Bendigo Art Gallery, 19 July – 17 August 2008; Shepparton Art Gallery, 1 November – 14 December 2008; Latrobe Regional Gallery, 21 February – 19 April 2009; Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery, 1 May – 7 June 2009; Dubbo Regional Gallery , 4 July – 13 September 2009; Tweed River Art Gallery, 1 October – 15 November 2009
Temperature
Temperature 2 : New Queensland Art Museum of Brisbane 6 February – 8 June 2009 Curator: Frank McBride
Anne Ferran
Anne Ferran: The Ground, The Air Curator: Craig Judd Wollongong City Art Gallery 21 March - 17 May 2009
Caitlin Yardley
spill, the insistent body Caitlin Yardley 6 March – Sunday 12 April 2009 Heathcote Museum and Gallery, WA
Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood Curator: Victor Medrano Inflight ARI, Hobart 11 April - 2 May 2009
Gosia Wlodarczak
Gosia Wlodarczak: Conversation Helen Maxwell Gallery, ACT 22 February – 28 March 2009
The Secret Life of Plants
A Secret Life of Plants Curator: Andrew Gaynor Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts 4 April – 17 May 2009 Fremantle Arts Centre 30 May – 19 July 2009
What would you do?
A number of practising artists were invited to respond to a scenario in which a local council asked them to organise an exhibition featuring local artists from a sister city in a third world country. It seems a noble gesture, but one fraught with potential missteps. How would they proceed?
NAVA Now
Timothy Morrell provides the reader with a keen description in relation to the role that the art organisation NAVA (National Association for the Visual Arts) has within Australia's government but also the empowerment they claim to provide practicing artists. Morrell also includes some insight towards the rights of the common artworker by presenting some examples as to where they stand within Australian society but also how they operate in co-relation with the governments guidelines and in particular the controversial portrayal of nudity in art. A conclusive article articulating the importance of government organisations such as NAVA, Morrell provides an insightful discussion towards the role of the artist within Australian society but also the co-operation needed from the government to enable a sufficient means of expression from artists.
Daniel Crooks: the future of the past
An edited version of a lecture by Laurence Simmons, Associate Professor in the Department of Film, Television and Media Studies at the University of Auckland, given in association with Daniel Crooks' exhibition everywhere instantly curated by Justin Paton at the Christchurch Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu in 2008. Simmons links Crooks' work to Walter Benjamin's Angel of History and the experiments of Etienne-Jules Marey, the inventor of chronophotography.
dreamTime
An analysis of Aboriginal conceptions of time and its similarity to the ideas of modern physics, science fiction, and those of artists such as Monet, Cézanne, Picasso, Breton, Klein and Richter, and philosophers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Benjamin, Deleuze and Derrida. They too have sought to feel and know spacetime in the pressing and intimate way that Aborigines do.
Atomic Clock: microtime of the molecular and good old-fashioned molar beer
The responses of digital artists David Haines, Jon Hunter and Pete Newman to the molecular scale on which our world is now micromanaged are contrasted with the work of the late Jon Wah whose work stopped time with a saddhu-like discipline of the will. Jon Wah died in August 2008, aged 27. A posthumous retrospective was held for him at Serial Space, Chippendale, Sydney, 8-18 December 2008.
About visual imagery, intuition, and teleportation
Melentie Pandilovski's article is adapted from a paper he gave at the ISEA conference in Singapore in 2008. He writes about interactions between the arts, science and technology through looking at the work of British artist Lei Cox's work Teleportation Experiment.
Joe Felber: Moments of time
Joe Felber's art practice is interdisciplinary and acquisitive, absorbing, assembling, composing and de-composing, playing and re-playing elements from a vast collection of fragments collected across the world in cities and art galleries.
OK with my decay: Encounters with chronology
Susan Milne, Izabela Pluta, Annie Hogan and Hannah Bertram work with the idea of the theatre of decline set within the grounds of the domestic environment.
Time and motion studies: Twin strategies
Gabriella and Silvana Mangano undertake their art as a shared style of communication between siblings. Now showing at MUMA (Monash University Museum of Art) their collaborative work embraces intimacy and repetition in performance, drawing, video, sound and installation.
Contemporary Australia: Optimism
Contemporary Australia: Optimism Curatorial Manager: Julie Ewington Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), Brisbane 15 November 2008 22 February 2009
Crystalline signs of the small and poetic
In Audrey Lams Under Development (2007), two detectives investigating a murder seek answers in an ominous, half-built structure. Close attention to the lush, inky compositions reveals the frozen temporality of a Brisbane landmark: the film records the historic erection of the Gallery of Modern Art.
Ghost in the backyard
Using the work of two current Antipodean artists, Amy-Jo Jory and David Pledger, Melbourne-based Kate Sandford explores the place of suburbia in our consciousness and the way that even though real suburbia has changed, some representations of it have stayed the same.
Jeffrey Smart: The question of portraiture
Jeffrey Smart: the question of portraiture, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, 4 March - 13 April, 2009.
Avoiding myth and message: Australian artists and the literary world
avoiding myth and message: Australia artist and the literary world, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 7 April 12 July 2009, curator: Glenn Barkley.
Enduring duration
Two video artists William Mansfield and William Lamson whose recent works pay homage to the 'poetics of the banal' and the history of durational practice.
Keep your eyes on the prize: Hold on, Aboriginal art competitions, ethical dilemmas and mining companies
In this article Djon Mundine poses a prolific and detailed insight into the world of art in relation to what art is, how can it be judged and as a re-occurring theme, the alleged honesty in contemporary art. Mundine predominately focuses on Aboriginal art and the political, ethical and criterial implications modern society imposes on it. That is to say what can be deemed an honest work of art that expresses the artists intentions but also allows the artwork to speak for itself. Mundine talks about indigenous artwork and how it was viewed by the original colinisers of Australia. Particularly how the colinisers set down criteria towards what a valuable artwork was. Further elaborating on competitions whereby artworks are judged in accordance to rules that pose more questions in relation to what an honest or pure artwork is. Mundine cites several quotations that portray interesting examples that reinforce his argument towards modern day criticism and objectivity. The final message being to what extent can any one person be declared appropriated to criticising artwork and judging its authenticity, quality and honesty. Mundine states that we should only hope for honesty in today's artwork irrespective of its outside marketed criticism. All in all Mundine presents the reader with an insightful article that will leave you questioning the integrity of today's critical approach to fine art.
On talking walls
Recent sound and electronic media work by two Tasmanian artists Scot Cotterell and Matt Warren remaster images and sounds from older technology to make a past-present present.
Life and times: Eternal wake in three chapters
Life. Death. Thereafter was at Silvershot Gallery in Melbourne from 16 September 29 November 2008. Melbourne-based curator Mark Feary produced a relatively new exhibition model, three separate, distinct, but thematically entwined shows, running end to end for eighteen days each showing the work of Kate Just, Steve Carr, Patricia Piccinini, Paolo Canevari, Rob McLeish, Ronnie van Hout, Jesper Just, Jason Greig, Sally Blenheim and Blair Trethowan.
Patricia Piccinini: Related Individuals
Patricia Piccinini: Related Individuals Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney 12 November 6 December 2008
Discord: Art from MONA
Discord: Art from MONA Curator: Nicole Durling 9 January 1 February 2009 Salamanca Arts Centre and various locations
Rosalie Gascoigne
Rosalie Gascoigne The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia 19 December 2008 15 March 2009 Curator: Kelly Gelatly
Open Air: Portraits in the landscape
Open Air: Portraits in the landscape Curators: Wally Caruana, Michael Desmond, Andrew Sayers National Portrait Gallery (NPG) 4 December 2008 1 March 2009
Silver Artrage 25
Silver Artrage 25 Curators: Andrew Gaynor, Marcus Canning Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) 18 October 21 November 2008
Gooch's Utopia: collected works from the Central Desert
Goochs Utopia: collected works from the Central Desert Curator: Fiona Salmon Flinders University Art Museum 3 October 23 November 2008 Riddoch Art Gallery 5 December 2008 8 February 2009
Lockhart River 'Old Girls'
Lockhart River Old Girls Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane 26 November 20 December 2008
Girls, Girls, Girls
Girls, Girls, Girls Carlton Hotel, Melbourne Curators: Lyndal Walker, Nat Thomas 23 October 8 November 2008
Better Places
Better Places Curator: Melissa Keys Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) 4 December 2008 1 February 2009
The Christmas Tree Bucket: Trent Parke's Family Album
The Christmas Tree Bucket: Trent Parkes Family Album Australian Centre for Photography 21 November 2008 24 January 2009
Brook's way with kinds, categories and memes
The Awful Truth About What Art Is by Donald Brook, published by Artlink 2008 RRP $38.50 Reviewed by Lucas Ihlein The Awful Truth About What Art Is can be ordered online at www.artlink.com.au
Catherine David's Transmission
Renowned French curator Catherine David visited Auckland to judge the Walters Prize; she awarded the $50,000 prize to Peter Robinson. John Hurrell artist, curator and blogger of NZ art reviews and critical discussion site eyeCONTACT spoke to Catherine about her curating of the Lyon Biennial which touches down in late 2009, and the relationship between artists and curators.
Curators, creators and catalysts
Marcus Westbury, former director of Noise, Next Wave, TINA (This Is Not Art) festivals, and writer and presenter of Not Quite Art on ABC TV, writes about the need for art to get away from reflecting too hard on gatekeepers and their requirements. He looks at the Biennale of Sydney at Cockatoo Island, the Next Wave's The Containers Village and the Melbourne Laneways projects as good examples of stepping outside the cube. He concludes that: 'Artists are best to invest their energy in finding their audiences and their communities.'