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?"

More from this Issue

History and Memory

History and meaning are very much at the centre of an important exhibition in WA of Aboriginal art. Many of the artists draw on personal or family memory, while others use documentary evidence of the past. Parallel to these individual histories is the history of government policy and its impact on groups and individuals.

Philippa O'Brien

Market Mark-Art: Forgotten Fruit

In the final stages of the demolition of the old Adelaide fruit and vegetable markets, Margaret Dodd and Jennifer Hughes collaborate to produce an installation which caught the echoes of the history displayed in situ at the markets.

Noel Purdon

Recollections of Memory: Akio Makigawa

Jewellery by Carlier Makigawa Galerie Dusseldorf October 1998

David Bromfield

Going Over Old Ground

The artist discusses the research for her exhibition entitled 'The Private Eye- a foreigner's power of observation'. Held in regional Victoria 1998.

Vicki McConville

Juliet Stone Paintings and Pastels

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

Philippa O'Brien

The Fleurieu Biennale 1998

McLaren Vale Fleurieu Peninsula 6 - 29 November 1998

Michael Newall

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

Fabricating Archives: Six New Zealand Artists confuse the system

In New Zealand, conceptual and post conceptual artists from the 1970s to the present have incorporated various references to the archive; its contents, classificatory systems and its institutional adjuncts, the library, the art gallery and the museum.

Christina Barton

Parallax Error

Working within the context of the Percy Grainger (1882-1961) collection, artists Louise Weaver and Carolyn Eskdale created an installationwithin the architecture and material culture of the building. In 1998 composer and sound artist Ros Bandt created an installation for the Museum's courtyard.

Naomi Cass

Elizabeth Gertsakis: Tampering with the Archive

Elizabeth Gertsakis has excavated her family histories and Greek/Slavic heritage as part of understanding difference as a critical space of knowing. It is not an attempt to 'position' or 'locate' herself in Anglo Australian culture or in the art world, but to understand the mechanisms that produce dominant cultural histories and resultant exclusions.

Brett Jones

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

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

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