Artists and Wunderkids

Why is child art so important in 20th-century Australian art? From the turn of the century there was a European upsurge of interest in the art of children manifested in surveys of large samples of their work (Corrado Ricci, Georg Kerschensteiner and James Sully, for example), the collecting of children’s art by artists (including Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Gontcharova, Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter) and exhibitions of child art in many major cities.

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Engaging a Young Audience at the Queensland Art Gallery

The Queensland Art Gallery's recent series of exhibitions aimed specifically at young children represents a dramatic shift in many of Australias leading art galleries to create a more stimulating and interactive space for children to visit. For children to be involved with the material present, the design of each exhibition is a critical factor with the height of an artwork being altered to allow children to easily view it, as well as the way the artwork is arranged in the space and importantly the use of colour. Some of the childrens exhibitions which have been held by the Queensland Art Gallery are located through this text, including a day at the beach, the Kid's APT and animals who think they are people.

Michael Beckmann

Tense Past - Narratives of Gaps and Silences

Julie Gough Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart 17 - 23 February 2001

Greg Lehman

Teenage Riot: Representations of Adolescence in Contemporary Art

The child has always been a favoured subject for artists. Recent exhibitions both in Australia and internationally address the shift from a sanguine vision of childhood to alternative representations, where children are presented as desirable and desirous, menacing yet vulnerable, widely unpredictable and ultimately mysterious. Artistic works by Robert Gober, Ronnie Van Hout, Larry Clark, Katie Siegel, Justine Kurland, Anna Gaskell, Diane Arbus, Di Barrett, Mark McDean, Anne Ferran, Polixeni Papapetrou, Bill Henson, Pat Brissington, Tracey Moffatt, Deborah Paauwe, Mona Hatoum and Nic Nicosia all help to illuminate the complexities of adolescence, a subject of ambivalence wedged between contradictory discourses and spaces of transition.

K.P. Hall

The Child Guides Program

One of the challenges facing galleries dealing with contemporary art is to persuade visitors to be open-minded about whats on display. All too often it's not the art that's the problem, but the context in which it is placed. Macgregor is here responding to an issue she feels strongly about, especially as it relates to the viewing of art amongst children. The Child Guides program was an initiative at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham which Macgregor was involved with. The program recruited children from local schools to guide visitors informally around the exhibition, and helped to enhance the childrens communicative skills, gain knowledge of a range of contemporary art practices and to develop a sense of self-importance.

Elizabeth Ann Macgregor

The Archibald Prize

Art Gallery of NSW March 2001

Jo Higgins

The Paradox of Autistic Art

Certain autistic children whose linguistic ability is virtually non-existent can draw natural scenes from memory with astonishing accuracy. In particular their drawings display convincing perspective. In contrast, normal children of the same preschool age group and even untrained adults draw primitive schematics or symbols of objects which they can verbally identify.

Allan W. Synder and Mandy Thomas

Art of the Sacred Heart

Arts Project Australia Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide 31 January - 25 February 2001

Paul Hoban

Male Nude: A Private View

Curator: Eugene Barilo von Reisberg Charles Nodrum Gallery Jan/Feb 2001

Sam Schoenbaum

East of Somewhere

Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Sydney 10 March - 29 April

Kiersten Fishburn

Primary Non-Producers: The Arts in Crisis in Public Education

In this article Orchard is looking at the nature of art teaching in primary schools rather than focusing on the debate surrounding the value of arts learning and education. Although art has in the past decade become a formal part of the curriculum across Australia there is still a huge dearth of support material for teachers, particularly those in isolated areas. Orchard introduces some of the support programs which have been implemented in various schools, including the Department of Education & Training & Employment (DETE) and South Australian Living Artists (SALA) programs.

Julie Orchard

Sampling our Child-Friendly Museums

This text samples three innovative programs situated in Melbourne, Cairns and Canberra for kids of various ages. The Cairns Regional Gallery held an exhibition of lino prints by Torres Strait Islander artist Alick Tipoti which attracted 35 school bookings (over 500 children). The Children's Museum at Melbourne Museum opened in October 2000 and held the exhibition 123 Grow!, about the magic of how things, including ourselves, grow. The National Portrait Gallery, Canberra had a showing of student portraiture entitled Hearts/Heads: Headspace II in September 2001.

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