Art & Medicine
An issue which explores the new frontiers of the body and the intersection of medical technology with imaging the body and art. Examines the role of art and healing and the body as the site for new ways of looking at ourselves. Reviews
Topic list: architecture, body image, death, health, identity, medicine, new technology, sexuality.
Articles in Vol 17 no 2, 1997
Art Therapy: The New Frontier 
Feature by Fred RostLooks at the program in the College of Fine Art at the University of New South Wales. —
Artworks in the New Children's Hospital Westmead NSW
Feature by Joanna CaponThe new building was conceived with the idea that artworks would be included throughout the new hospital as part of the desire to create a total healing environment. Since 1995 when the first patients were admitted the collection has continued to grow. An illustrated catalogue of the collection has also been published. —
Body Suits
Feature by Cath KenneallyBody suits, conceived by Jane Trengove of Arts Access Victoria, proposes the body as a site for investigation with the contributing artists being mostly people who experience 'bodily difference due to disability'. Touring show in 1997. —
Drugs 'n' Art
Feature by Stephanie RadokThe role of drugs and art making is examined in the works of particular artists. Historically drugs have been used for enlightenment as well as for healing or endurance.... —
Getting Better all the Time: Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre Arts Program
Feature by Svetlana KarovichThe Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre (Victoria) has an innovative arts program. Commenced in 1989 and now holds an annual exhibition of sculpture. —
Hand and Eye: The Art of Michael Esson
Feature by Christopher AllenMichael Esson is fascinated by medical science. His work is not simply a satire of the medical profession or a reflection of the limitations of modern science. The surgeon is a metaphor for the mind facing the limits of its own ability to look into the darkness of nature. —
Healing Places: The Art of Placemaking in Health Facilities
Feature by Merily OppermannExamines ideas of place in medical/health facilities from different perspectives. What role does art play in these places? To promote wellness, designers need to create environments that help in reducing stress. Art has an important role to play in helping people to heal. —
Image Bank for Art and the Body - Medical Imaging
Feature by Stephanie BrittonMedical imaging through the work of nine artists: James Guppy, Ruth Waller, Victor Dellavia, Elizabeth Abbott, Julie Rrap, Jan Parker, Tina Gonsalves, Kate Campbell-Pope and Claire Bailey. Artists statements and colour images included. —
Introspecting
Feature by Donald Brook"The belief system that makes the artworld so unlike - let us say - the builder's hardware world is distinguished primarily by the doctrines that there are no truths and that nothing is real.... To put the point with moderation: artists would not be inconvenienced in the least by a general theory of representation that brought the trustworthiness of their critic somewhere within powerful cooee of the trustworthiness of their radiologist. And Theory owes it to them." —
Linking Art, Science and Technology through the body
Feature by Elizabeth AshburnLooks at the conference 'inter sections 1996' hosted by the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales. The theme for the conference was Imag(in)ing Bodies; Issues of art, design, technolgy, health, medicine and science. —
Magnetic Resonance
Feature by Robyn DawIt is now no longer necessary to dissect the body in order to achieve an empirical base for knowledge. The Irish/Australian artist Kevin Todd critiques the idea of searching for objective truth in respect of the body via scientific analysis, by becoming both subject and object through the use of medical imaging. —
Manifesto of Carnal Art
Feature by OrlanCarnal art is self portraiture in the classical sense, but realised through the possibility of technology. It swings between defiguration and refiguration. Its inscription in the flesh is a function of our age. The body has become a 'modified ready-made', no longer seen as the ideal it once represented. —
Means to an Endoscope: Art, Medicine and the Body
Feature by Michele TheunissenArt medicine and the body was a project spanning 18 months. There were 28 participating artists. The exhibition opened at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art in August 1996 followed by the performance and forum. —
Post-mortem: Farrell and Parkin
Feature by Robert NelsonFor a number of years the collaboration of Farrell and Parkin has produced photographic imagery dealing with medical history. Their photographic work involves the almost archaeological reconstruction of medical contraptions together with bandaging and stirrups and so on which are described in medical texts. —
The Faulding Collection
Feature by Dale KellyLooks at the art collecting practice of international pharmaceutical and healthcare company F.H.Faulding & Co. —
The Irrepressible Imprecision of Emotion
Feature by Pat HoffieOne of the general aims of internationally focussed survey exhibitions is to reflect the art of a particular time....However there is also a sense in which exhibitions of this nature can tend to operate as a form of cultural engineering, where the very status of inclusion in such exhibitions influences the kind of work made. —
The Visible Human Project: Life and Death in Cyberspace
Feature by Catherine WaldbyThe Visible Human Project, which first made its public appearance in 1994, is an innovation in medicine's ability to picture bodily interiors, and its iconography has commanded an extraordinary degree of interest. It is an extraordinary visual text. —
Whose Body? Ethics and Experiment in Art
Feature by Jane GoodallHow does the notion of experiment translate from the realms of scientific medicine to the realms of art? We are forced to examine how legal and ethical liabilities of behaviour are encoded. Looks at the work of Stelarc and Orlan. —
Youth Arts in Hospital
Feature by Kristen SabielThe Youth Arts program at the Department of Adolescent Medicine at the New Children's Hospital Sydney commenced in 1984. In 1994 the project 'Art Injection' took place resulting in a book. —
A Manifesto of Arrival and Understanding
Review by James MossExhibition review Paintings: Zhong Chen
Adelaide Central Gallery,
South Australia
7 March - 20 April 1997 —
An Elliptical Traverse
Review by Virginia RigneyExhibition review Inside the visible - Alternative views of 20th Century Art through Women's Eyes
Art Gallery of Western Australia
13 February - 6 April 1997 —
Compelling Viewing
Review by Annette PedersonExhibition review In focus: Rover Thomas
Stories: Works from the Holmes a Court Collection
Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery
The University of Western Australia
Part of the 1997 Festival of Perth —
Getting a Glimpse of the San
Review by Lavinia S RyanExhibition review Eland and Moon: Contemporary San Art of Southern Africa
Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
29 November - 31 March 1997 —
Hello Sailor
Review by Catherine SpeckExhibition review Sculpture Bert Flugelman
Greenaway Art Gallery,
Adelaide, South Australia
23 April - 18 May 1997 —
Historical Incisions
Review by Mary KnightsExhibition Review Intervention 4: Michael Schlitz
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
3 February - 2 March 1997 —
Salome's Dance
Review by Stephanie RadokExhibition review Blind: Annette Bezor
Greenaway Art Gallery,
Adelaide, South Australia
March 26 - April 20 1997 —
Other articles & reviews
in this issue
- Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
Book review by Juliette Peers - Search and You Shall Find
Book review by Anna Ward