Savvy: New Australian Art

Savvy: New Australian Art
QUT Art Museum, Brisbane
6 August - 17 October 2004

Published December 2004

The New Cosmopolitans

During his visit to Melbourne in April this year, Bombay-born, Oxford-educated, Harvard professor, Homi Bhabha spoke of Vernacular Cosmopolitanism, the global citizenry of refugees, economic migrants and minorities within cultures who must learn about translation because you survive that way.

Published December 2004

Rick Amor

Niagara Galleries, Melbourne
September 2004

Published December 2004

Audience Implication: PVI Collection

Back in 1998, the PVI (Performance, Video, Installation) Collective were a neat group and a fledgling collective. In 2004, seven years and eighteen major works later, the group has expanded to include new members, in addition to remote cells and networks of groups and individuals across Australia. The PVI refer to themselves as shape-shifters, and in this sense the shifting evolution of the collective has been influenced as much by the consequences of their national and international residencies as their addoption of new technologies.

Published December 2004

Virtuous Networks

While many art institutions are just coming to terms with incorporating networked media into their exhibition programs, the genres have been exponentially expanding and mutating. In recognition of the newly hatched species that is networked media art, the ISEA2004 (the nomadic biennial festival held in Finland, Estonia and onboard a Baltic cruise ship) and the Australian ARS ELECTRONICA, dedicated a stream of their conference and exhibition programs to networked themes.

Published December 2004

A Response by a Fringe Dweller

Debates about what is mainstream, whether in global or national terms, seem to perennial. Some have claimed Aboriginal art is now mainstream. Stephanie Radok takes this notion apart.

Published December 2004

Human Weeds

Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia
10 September - 17 October 2004

Published December 2004

The Importance of Being 'Un-Australian'

Melbournes Moomba festival held in 1956 replaced the annual celebration of the winning of the eight-hour day. Thus an occasion that had originally been devised to commemorate an important victory of the Australian labour movement was transformed into a bipartisan celebration of civic pride and family values.

Published December 2004

Exchange Value # 2. Keeping up the Momentum

Britton follows up from Peers examination of Art and Globalism to discuss the trends of international art residencies and the evident exchange in cultural values and creative receptibility that comes as a result of working in a foreign country; the buying of time away from other strategies for staying solvent - part time or full time jobs, or feeling under pressure to make work with commercial appeal.

Published December 2004

Exchange Value # 1. If It's Tuesday it Must be a Conference on Art and Globalism

As with Feminism in the 1970s certain ideas are in the air and finding widespread expression amongst artists and art institutions. Globalism impacts upon artists options and this phenomenon of artists and curators on the move is the result of the explosion of communication around art. Peers looks at the influx in globalism and its various influences in the Australian and international art scene.

Published December 2004

Out of the Dark

Published December 2004

Shifting Gears: Asian Traffic

Asian Traffic was, outside the Asia-Pacific Triennial (APT), one of the most ambitious efforts undertaken in Australia aimed at exploring the multifarious nature of new Asian art and its complex intersection with contemporary Australian culture. Visitors were forced to join the Asian Traffic coming and going from the Asia-Australia Centre in Chinatown, Sydney, and in its ever-changing guises and fluid shifts in direction, the project successfully circumvented any traffic jams.

Published December 2004