Donald Brook: Secret Agent

Ian North Our brief is to outline how you set out to change the world ... and then to evaluate the degree of your success. The latter is no doubt an especially embarrassing thing for you to do yourself. So let me provoke you by saying at the outset that I believe that you did indeed set out to change the world quite consciously, or at least that part of it prefixed by the word “art” by the early 1970s, perhaps earlier?

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Art and literature: A chapter in the autobiography of Donald Brook

Growing up in a diffe,ent wo,ld: this chapte, in octogenarian art theorist and philosopher, Donald Brook's autobiographical writings sheds light on the early adulthood of this super-gifted individual. It follows an earlier chapter on his childhood and adolescence. Depravity in Wharfedale published in Artlinlc Vol 25#3 (2005).

Donald Brook

John Vella: Fume

Fume John Vella Devonport Regional Gallery, Tasmania 9 September - 8 October 2006

Jane Deeth

Reunion of Mildura Directors

A small performance piece was created for the recent 50th anniversary celebrations of the Mildura Arts Centre which brought together six of the seven directors who have overseen the development of this remarkable regional arts complex since 1956. The extraordinary historical line-up of directors was a highlight with each providing personal insights into the galleries collection and their time at the helm. The presenting directors were Rex Bramleigh, Eric Westbrook, Tom McCullough, Michel Sourgnes, Ian Hamilton and Julian Bowron.

Anne Sanders and Pamela Zeplin

Arthur + Corinne Cantrill: The Film's the Thing

Arthur and Corinne Cantrill, arguably Australias most important experimental filmmakers, have been making films since 1959, when they worked on films on child art. They bought their Bolex camera in 1960, and their first experimental films followed in 1961-62. Films like Mud, Kinegraffiti, Galaxy and Nebulae, were more or less stylised or abstracts with sound-tracks inspired by musique concrete experiments. In the years that followed, they made a large number of films, published 100 issues of Cantrills Filmnotes and gave innumerable screenings of works by themselves and other experimental filmmakers. Included is an edited version of an interview conducted by Warren Burt via telephone on 2 September 2006.

Warren Burt

Ray Crooke: The Stillness and the Colour

Though born and educated in Melbourne, Ray Crooke spent most of his career in the tropics away from the metropolis, risking anonymity, at a time when equity funding and regional issues were unheard of. Despite these odds he is recognised as one of Australias visionary artists, his tropical and outback paintings suffused with a contemplative stillness. What are some of the pivotal points that shaped his independent career? What is he involved in at present? These were some of the questions put to him in Cairns where he and his wife June, now in their early eighties, live. Some of Crooke's artistic influences and contemporaries here discussed are Arthur Boyd, Charles Blackman, Russell Drysdale and Sidney Nolan.

Anneke Silver

Daniel Thomas: Empathy and Understanding

Steven Miller talked to Daniel Thomas AM, much-loved curator and Emeritus Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia, at his house overlooking the wild north coast of Tasmania about what he has discovered about art and artists during his long career across three major Australian art museums.

Steven Miller

Joan Kerr: Unfinished Business

Art historian critic, essayist, heritage consultant, the late Joan Kerr was writing of the Irish-Australian women who passed though the Hyde Park Barracks wondering whether their presence was effectively mediated into the Irish Famine sculpture. Furthermore she added we dont want to remember them solely in piety as what has melted away in dismemberment and loss. Ironically Joan could be prophetically setting out the appropriate moodscape for her own memorialising. In the words of her husband who has compiled a partisan and intimate memoir of this distinguished artworld figure, Joan had a natural capacity to prick pretension and kick against the pricks of perceived injustice

Juliette Peers

Ernest Orel: Master of the Press

The relationship of the artworld with the world of mass production printing has always been a very important one. Graphic designers and their clients have been blessed in Adelaide by the presence here of Ernest Orel whose commitment to quality, attention to detail and willingness to experiment has helped and inspired many people and set a very high benchmark for the whole of Australia. Here Irene Previn looks at the prominent career of Ernest Orel now aged 74 and the outstanding achievements of his printing company Finsbury in the production of environmentally friendly products and processes.

Irene Previn

Arthur Pambegan Jr: Not to Die Away

Arthur Pambegan Jr was born in 1936 and lives at Aurukun on Cape York Peninsula. He is one of the senior members of the Wik-Mungkan language group and an elder of the Winchanam people. His main traditional lands lie between the Small Archer River and the Watson River. The sacred totemic sites of his people are told through two main stories Walkaln-aw (Bonefish Story Place) and Kalben (Flying Fox Story Place) which are the subjects of ceremonial carved sculptures. Peter Denham spoke to him in June 2002 at Aurukun.

Peter Denham

The Bentinck Painters: Stories to Tell

The Aged Persons' Hostel on Mornington Island is home to 1000 residents. Amongst them are three women from nearby Bentinck Island whose culture is a very separate one to that of Mornington and whose experience of exile sets them quite apart. This article looks at the creative practice of Bentinck elder Sally Gabori, her first solo show and the success of the Woolloongabba Art Gallerys Bentinck Project. According to Robert Mercer, one of the co-directors of the WAG: "&the energy of the Bentinck painters comes from an impulse to tell stories about a life lived. To relate people and places and dreams and hopes in ways that make sense of the passage of time".

Pat Hoffie

Artrave

Artlink

Alicia King: i'm growing to love you

I'm growing to love you Linden, St Kilda Centre for Contemporary Arts Victoria, Melbourne 18 August - 24 September 2006

Amy Spiers

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