When I was an art critic, I quickly grew to dislike the word 'taste'. It was a convenient tool used to dismiss reviews by people who didn't like what I had to say. Whenever I delivered a negative crit upon a widely revered artist, or a positive crit on a very minor figure, they complained that I was allowing my taste to undermine my professionalism.
Are gossamer wings set to supplant shoulder pads as signifiers of feminist power? Shopping malls in middle class suburbs are now sprouting fairy shops where, for only a few dollars, little girls and grown-up ones too, can sprout fairy wings that temporarily release them from the masculine world around them.
Although well known in regional art histories, Western Australian sculptor Edward Kohler has a far wider importance. Economic survival led him to blend popular and high art long before it was standard practice. With the Piccadilly Theatre reliefs of 1938, the sheer exuberance and infectious quality of a positive (if unconscious) kitsch aesthetic entered professional Australian art 60 years ago: Hollywood meets Olympia.
Monash University Gallery presented Fashion, Decor, Interiors, curated by Natalie King 7 June - 15 July 1995, high-lighting aspects of advertising, mass production and architectural design through the work of Lyndal Walker, Tony Clark and Stephen Bram -- extracts from the exhibition catalogue.
In the trading card world there are collectors, dealers, curators, critics, interested observers, and of course various magazines. Does this world sound familiar? Looks at the role of collecting...
Collecting and making dolls grows in popularity in Australia, but members of Australia's arts industry are relatively under-represented in the ranks of doll collectors. Original dolls speak of the culture that produces them.
Much contemporary Aboriginal art functions in the inappropriate melding of two visual art traditions and is kitsch within the given meaning within the article.
Exhibition review Active Agents: Aids Art in Australia
Anthony Babicci, Bronwyn Bancroft, Simon Carver, Eddie Hackenberg, Ian Hartley, Leonore Lancaster, David McDiarmid, Ross Moore, Marcus O'Donnell, Scott Redford, Celia Roach, Gary Shinfield, Jackie Stockdale, Andrew Thomas-Clark, Hiram To, Julia Topliss, John Turner, David Urquart
Curators Jill Bennett and John Turner
University Gallery, University of Tasmania, Launceston
11 May - 9 June 1995