Upping the Ante: SALA'99.Leter to the Editor

Describes the nature of SALA South Australian Living Artists Week to celebrate the talent and imagination of SA artists and aims to promote widespread recognition of their achievements by exposing their work to new audiences. There were 50 venues, 28 of which were outside the metropolitan area.

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One Pole Too Many? Learning to Speak the Language of a Successful Australian Arts Practitioner

Discusses the exhibition 'Diaphanous' at Span Galleries curated by Kirsten Rann, deconstructing and challenging the notion of multicultural artist.

Juliette Peers

Thin Red Pocket Lining: A Note on the Value of University Art Schools

As it rushes headlong towards the stock exchange, lining its tattered pockets by devilishly offering students the educational stock of the deepest desire, university art schools shed its role under modernity of defining and transmitting cultural value. Mammon replaces machismo in the squeezing of art. And yet....?

Ian North

How the Tail Now Wags the Dog

One would have to be a marketing executive, or just extremely sanguine, to see much that is good in the current system for funding teaching and research in our universities. This is not to claim that the Dawkins reforms replaced something wonderful or fair. But we now have a system that is actively promoting mediocrity ona a national, even international scale. Let me explain, for the uninitiated how it works.

Rodney Crackers

The Good the Bad and the GST

The role of the arts within the Federal Coalition portfolio. Proposed new tax arrangements suggest a contraction in support for new innovative work in favour of much more conservative, market driven high end focussed practice, and a drop overall in arts activity.

Tamara Winikoff

Virtual Futures for New Media Art: A Report on dLux Media Arts' Immersive Conditions Forum

New media art has developed a close if troubled relationship with the figure of the future. Discusses Troy Innocent's ICONICA, Mousetrap by Ian Haig, RAPT by Justine Cooper, OSMOSE and EPHEMERE by Char Davies and Immersive Conditions a forum held at the Powerhouse Museum Sydney. Examines concepts of virtual reality and apparent reality.

Mitchell Whitelaw

The Future of Art

Editorial for the issue -- not the definitive answer but a series of clues as to what direction the visual arts might be following. The issue picks up ideas addressed in the forum 'Art of Sight, Art of Mind: Speculations on the Future of the Visual Arts and Crafts in Australia' organised by the National Association of Visual Arts. NAVA

Stephanie Britton

Immediate

Exhbition Review Immediate 31 March- 11 April 1999 Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart Tasmania Curated by Leigh Hobba

Maria Kunda

Emblematic

Exhibition review Emblematic 12-31 March 1999 Smith+Stonely, Queensland Curated by Amelia Gundelach

Cameron Stelzer

Art Teachers Hampered by Lack of Training

Art teachers today are expected to have a greater proficiency in a broader range of art skills, yet due to the under funding of teacher training they are receiving less training and professional development to prepare them for the classroom. Discusses the 1999 International Society of Education through Art (InSEA) the theme being 'Cultures and Transitions' held in Brisbane. 1st conference held in 1951

Maria Whaley

An Identity Crisis for Art Education?

Examines recent reports by the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs [DEETYA] and Strand 1998 'Research in the Creative Arts'. Should our retort be 'If you don't know much about art I don't care what you like.' ?

Graeme Sullivan

A Country Practice...

The Northern Rivers Region of NSW has more practising artists per head of population than any other region of Australia. Issues such as surviving as a country artist, traditional art practice, commercial considerations, prescribed political and gender issues are raised. Critiques the project 'Beyond the Basin' funded by the NSW Ministry for the Arts and its resultant exhibition 'A Country Practice'.

Peter Wynn-Moylan

The Traditional and the New - Artists and Teachers Please Note

Explanation of the benefits to the artist and the environment of working with photopolymer plates (solar plates) in printmaking.

Dianne Longley

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