A Dream of Earthly Organisation

Not only are artists fascinated with images and objects - it has been estimated that half the adult world population has been a collector at some point in their life. A number of different projects have been instigated by artists considering what it means to collect and archive.

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Wunderkammern: Actual and Virtual

The notion of the Wunderkammern is discussed in the work of Shiralee Saul (an on-line hypertextual essay for the World Wide Web WWW) and Luke Roberts ( a series of exhibitions from 1990 onwards).

Beth Jackson

The TMAG Commissions 1998

Here at the end of the twentieth century, the world is having to come to terms with the socio-political, economic and environmental legacies of nineteenth century imperialism. Contemporary art participates in this post colonial discourse: issues of ancestry and inheritance, relations between indigenous and settler peoples, national and imperial mythology, mapping and borders, migration and language, ecology and exploitation - these are increasingly familiar themes.

David Hansen

Psychology of Retrieval: Personal and Fictional Archives

How can (traumatic) memories be excavated? Many visual artists use records and material objects as documentation with which to resurrect their past experience and those of their families. Often using literary means, visual artists who archive their past employ text as well as images in poetic and haunting ways. Quotation and citation form the kernel of this pychology of retrieval and act of preservation.

Natalie King

Photosynthesis: Two approaches

The photograph as a source and subject for photographic practice iteself is characteristic of the work of a great many artists today. Tracey Moffatt and Margaret Dawson's works are considered. Each draws on photographs which precede their own, but work in markedly different ways.

Clare Williamson

Underbelly

November 22 to December 20 Cosmopolitan Cinema and Shopping Arcade

Samara Mitchell

Four Shoes Many Signs

Four artist's projects initiated by the National Gallery of Victoria engage contemporary art practices and the role of the museum and public galleries as mediators between the collections and the viewers. Impacts on policies regarding the moral rights of artists.

Jason Smith

Is there an Artist in the Museum?

Examines two multi-site exhibitions Archives and the Everyday, Canberra Contemporary Art Space September/October 1997 curated by Trevor Smith: and Collected, Photographer's Gallery London June 1997 curated by Neil Cummings. The museological urge in artists has for some time been a part of contemporary practice...leading to the new museology.

Merryn Gates

Vault: A Collaborative Installation Cluster

Ian North and Helen Fuller 12 November - 6 December 1998 Experimental Art Foundation

Lisa Harms

Archives After the Seventies and After

Brown and Green are well known for their meticulously produced paintings, often involving the layering and juxtaposition of competing forms and histories. They continue to paint though photography has now assumed a major position in their practice. These photographs function as archives without narrative: scrambled mythology.

Tom Nicholson

Juliet Stone Paintings and Pastels

Juliet Stone paintings and pastels Gomboc Gallery Perth 1-22 November 1998

Philippa O'Brien

Polemic: Object and Text

"So the question raised for art theory is this....Is a physical autographic sculpture - a Brancusi woodcarving for example - only an 'instantiation'(albeit rather a privileged one) of some imperceptible, intentional object that is the 'real' sculpture? Are sculptures more literally than metaphorically - 'poetry in stone'? Are they in a word 'texts' whose proper reading (as we are told) had best be undertaken in French?"

Donald Brook

The Fleurieu Biennale 1998

McLaren Vale Fleurieu Peninsula 6 - 29 November 1998

Michael Newall

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