The Perverted Gaze of the Artist: Recent Work of James Guppy

James Guppy has a curiously ambiguous place in contemporary art. This is not because of his subject matter, but rather because of his technique. For the most part Guppys recent work is not about fun, nor is it even really about sex. Rather he argues it is about the nature of exploitation. He argues that artists by their nature are voyeurs who see the world around them and all its objects as items to be used as visual product. His recent Peeping Box series taps into this idea where images of sexual activity with a particular sadistic overlay are presented behind thick glass to incite some vain attempt on the part of the viewer to engage in such voyeuristic acts.

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Artlink on the Road: a China Diary

March saw a little bit of history being made in Sino-Australian cultural relations with Artlink being the first Australian art magazine to be launched as well as offered for sale in China. Perversely we were not offering the Chinese an issue of the magazine about Australia, our normal subject area, but about China, a subject area we have only visited occasionally. In the manner of all human vanities that may have been one of the reasons we received such a warm reception. Imagining the reverse - reading an issue of a Chinese art magazine about Australian art is in the current state of art writing in China unlikely.

Stephanie Britton

Tokyo Shopping Mix: An Email Saga*

It is not hard to shop given the entire city of Tokyo seems to be premised on the activity. Tokyo is a space as complex and flowing as the most convoluted natural system. One may be in a train station but it is filled with shops. Above ground, below ground, on the ground - shops. Haley documents his activities over a period of a couple of months in what is most likely the worlds largest consumer oriented city. He discusses the somewhat surreal and absurdist nature of this environment and paints a picture of the plethora of advertisements, signs, extreme fashion trends and other visual paraphernalia that consume the city.

Stephen Haley

Boogie, Jive and Bop

Plimsoil Gallery, Hobart 5 - 28 March 2004

Briony Lee Downes

The Space Between

John Curtin Gallery Curtin University of Technology, Perth 14 - 17 April 2004

Jessica Hemmings

Allthatglitters: Contemporary Visions of the Gold Coast / Allthatglitters: 50 Years of Gold Coast Kitsch and Memory

7 February - 21 March 2004 The Gold Coast City Regional Art Gallery 14 February - 9 May 2004

Gordon Foulds

Now, Beauty: Cover or Re-Mix

Perth Symposium, various venues 19 - 21 March 2004

Simon Blond

Food Slut > Manifesto

Food increasingly became alienated from the body over the latter half of the twentieth century. Its material, its preparation, its distribution and its consumption became hostage to the banal aesthetics of the food stylist, the aridity of cultural studies and the repressive partnership of the public health zealot and the liability lawyer. Paul van Reyk here presents a manifesto on the food slut, a model for the examination of current food consumption trends in our society. As he states, a food slut is never indifferent to food, any more than a sex slut is indifferent to sex.

Paul Van Ryke

How Much is that Artwork in the Window? Notes on Shops and Art

Through reference to Walter Benjamin's writings, Peers suggests that it has become commonplace to describe the city in terms of the progress of the flaneur, the middle class bohemian who strolled through the city, moving in the ephemeral sphere of impressions and images. This article looks at shopping as a central feature to the manner in which Australian art and culture has developed. The artist is a shopper and collector, moving through the materiality of things. Australian culture has itself become flaneur-ised over the past decade in the expansion of new museums and cultural precincts inviting discovery and added pleasure to the experiences of viewing and consuming art.

Juliette Peers

Group Material

Ben Booth, Neil Haddon, Anthony johnson, Anna Phillips, Lucia Usmiani and Kit Wise The Queen's Warehouse Gallery Tasmanaian museum and Art Gallery, Hobart 18 March - 2 May 2004

Phillip Watkins

Artrave

Artlink

Repercussions: Individual and Collaborative Works

Peter Hennessey & Patricia Piccinimi Greenaway Gallery, Adelaide 28 February - 28 March 2004

Ted Snell

One or Two Things about Art and Shopping

This article explores the relationship between art and shopping, in particular the contemporary alignment of the two as one and the way feminist identity is largely constructed through the media and consumption. Wilson looks at the work of Barbara Kruger and her critique of Western consumer habits, in particular the way Kruger explores the different shopping patterns of men and women to reflect some inherent gender traits.

Josephine Wilson

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