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You are here » Artlink » Issues Index » Best Practice: Export Quality

Best Practice: Export Quality

What does an artist need to establish his/her name in the competitive international art world? Gordon Bennett, Fiona Hall, Fiona Foley, Rosemary Laing, Patricia Piccinini, Roslynd Piggott, Ginger Riley Munduwalawala, Imants Tillers, and William Robinson are all becoming recognised internationally while working from an Australian base, both physically and conceptually. It seems it is no longer necessary for an artist to leave Australia to become known overseas. Also, Pt I of Donald Brook's radical new 'The Undoing of Art History'; exhibition and book reviews.



Articles in Vol 21 no 4
Fiona Foley: Knowing Where to Look
Feature by Pat Hoffie

Fiona Foley's career as an artist has resulted in a diverse practice united by a dedication to indigenous issues that are of relevance to all Australians. Her presence as an artist, advocate, activist and identity in the Australian cultural scene has remained poised and proud for over two decades. From her involvement in the formation of the Boomalli Ko-operative to her often hard-hitting presence as a public speaker and the lyrical and enchanting nature of her images, Foley has continued to disturb assumptions and challenge clichés about the way Australians think of themselves and the place we inhabit. Ephemeral Landscapes (1990), Ya Kari - speak for (2001), Kunm'arin - wooden shield (2001) and other works are here discussed. — More »

Ginger Riley Munduwalawala: A Seeing Artist Full article available
Feature by Judith Ryan

Ginger Riley's superlative colour sense sets him apart from other Indigenous Australian artists. His unique landscape manner, studded with icons of identity and place, is instantly recognisable yet it has attracted both passionate acclaim and vitriolic criticism. Riley's has forged his own way of encapsulating and celebrating the grand sweep and detailed minutiae of a particular tract of land in Southeast Arnhem Land, over which he now holds native title through his role as djungkayi (caretaker). In order to understand why Riley stands alone as an Indigenous painter, Ryan looks at his personal life history and the wellsprings of his art: his intimate connection to his mother's country. — More »

Gordon Bennett's Art: The Aura of Origin
Feature by Ian McLean

With a directness and clarity born from genuine insight, Gordon Bennett's art gives form to the structure of an invisible repetitive history haunting the psyches of non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians alike. This text gives rise to Bennett's fierce artistic practice - including an examination of the works Outsider, Am I scared? and the Notes to Basquiat and Home Decor series'. These works are looked at to reveal his recent concerns with the mechanisms of doubling, moving beyond the fatal powers of representation and indeed beyond a primary concern with Australian heritage to take on the world. — More »

Imants Tillers and Positive Value
Feature by Ian North

Artlink asked Ian North to interview Imants Tillers for this issue, in view of North's longstanding interest in both Tiller's work and the landscape genre generally. North introduces the artist from his early recognition as a leading conceptual artist in the 1970's and pre-eminent postmodernist thereafter, working consistently according to strategies he evolved during the 1980's. This interview examines some of the key works and local concerns of Tiller's ongoing artistic practice. — More »

Light Years: William Robinson and the Creation Story Full article available
Feature by Hannah Fink

Art for William Robinson has always been an intensely personal exercise, from the early domestic interiors, suffused with love for his family, to the hard-won intimacy of his relationship with the wilderness in which he now lives. Yet the animating principle of his work in its ever changing fashion is its expression of faith. Robinson's landscape is unquestionably a God-revealed world; what is in question is the relation of man to that universe. As much as Robinson's art is a faithful reflection of his immediate environment, it is drawn from the "memory of an experience in a landscape". — More »

Polemic: The Undoing of Art History (Part I)
Feature by Donald Brook

In this part 1, the viability of the subject called Art History is challenged, using the terms 'art' and 'work of art' in a conventional way. The nature of histories as they are ascribed to 'kinds', especially art as a 'kind', cultural 'kinds', the problems associated with generalisations and the 'dilemma for the Macho 'art historian'' are ideas addressed through this text. — More »

Post Natural Nature: Rosemary Laing
Feature by George Alexander

Brisbane born Rosemary Laing is one artist who is fully up to speed with the photographic and technological changes in supermodernity. Her work conveys better than most the strange double life we lead today: one half viscerally embodied, the other half immaterial and virtual. Like an aviation physicist Laing tries to push the envelope of what can be represented in photography. Works such as Natural Disasters(1988), Flight Research(2000) and Groundspeed are here examined. — More »

Rosslynd Piggott: Perfect/Sense
Feature by Juliet Peers

In the context of Melbourne art, Rosslynd Piggott could be linked to a significant movement of young artists who emerged in the 1980's. Her earlier works were figurative compositions which presented painterly/philosophical essays upon the nature of water, clouds and impermanence through surrealistic juxtapositions. This article follows her career from the early painting days through to her current concerns with mediums such as sculpture, installation and more recently performance. — More »

Trade: Fiona Hall
Feature by Stephanie Radok

The complex, ingenious, labour-intensive artworks made by Fiona Hall arouse great wonder, delight, incredulity and thoughtfulness in the viewer as the various bodies of her work create a Wunderkammer for the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Radok here covers the life and work of Fiona Hall, with a particular focus on the material and immaterial aspects, the idea of the 'other' and the human and non-human to demonstrate that no separation is possible or, indeed, desirable. — More »


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