Word as Image: Islamic calligraphy in contemporary art

In the broadest terms calligraphy can be seen as a prescriptive form of drawing and in this liberated sense an artist is free to investigate its role as both message and ornament. This article looks at the nature of Islamic calligraphy via the works of two very different artists working in Australia today Iranian born Hossein Valamanesh and Naeem Rana of Pakistan. With the significance of language and the written word in Islamic culture it is hardly surprising that visual artists have in recent decades turned to it as the source of cultural and political potency.

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Vivienne Binns survey at TMAG, curator: Merryn Gates

The Tasmanian School of Art in collaboration with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery have created an exhibition focused on the phenomenon of the solo survey, using the work of Vivienne Binns to open a space for conversation about the personal aspirations of the artist and the broader role of curator and institution. Through the complex layering of this exhibition the artist and curator entice the viewer to engage more directly with the trials and joys of the artist's struggle. By engaging a museum-style presentation, Vivienne Binns becomes a contextual display marking milestones, thoughts, actions, protests, interactions, people, places, discisions and emotional responses that accumulate to give meaning to current choices.

Jane Deeth

Tom Muller > Gold Standard Art

This article discusses the artistic practice of Tom Muller - one concerned with both elegance of appearance and versatility of application. It is argued here that his astringent imagery is surely the art of our times not only in terms of its subject matter but its ease of distribution. Two works closely examined are Mullers 2006 piece 'Gold Card' in which the artist offered an edition of 24 carat gold credit cards and 'World Passport' (2000 present), considered to be two of Mullers most accomplished works because of the tension between their formalist pleasures and their real time operation.

Jasmin Stephens

Emily Floyd against herself

Emily Floyd is attracted to texts that focus on identity and place and that offer new ways of thinking about these issues in the light of globalisation and post-colonialism. She is interested in the malleability of language and its connection to knowledge and power. The process Floyd employs to produce her numerous large-scale wooden letters mirrors the anxiety and obsessions with the various novels they are referencing Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment, Kafkas The Trial and Camus The Outsider. Sarah Tutton looks at Floyds practice, calling particular attention to her recent installation works its because I talk too much that I do nothing, Gen-existential Crisis and Compulsory for young intellectuals.

Sarah Tutton

Nick Mangan

The Mutant Message Nick Mangan Sutton Gallery Melbourne 21 October- 15 November 2006

Melissa Amore

In black & white: text in Indigenous Queensland art

Timothy Morrell examines the significance of words within the context of Australian Indigenous art subsequent to the efforts of colonisation in neutralising indigenous identity through assimilation. The point is made through this article that: Words give artists the opportunity to be more direct than they usually are with images. Morrell uses the case of a handful of Queensland based indigenous artists such as Gordon Bennett, Richard Bell, Ah Kee, Fiona Foley and Vanessa Fisher.

Timothy Morrell

Rodney Glick/Lynette Voevedin

24Hr Panoramas Rodney Glick and Lynnette Voevodin Curator: Gary Dufour Art Gallery of Western Australia Perth 16 November 2006 - 21 January 2007

Jasmin Stephens

Shane Forrest

Shane Forrest: Float A-Space on Cleveland Sydney November 8-15, 2006

Tracey Clement

Words, words, words: Mike Brown, Ruark Lewis, Rose Nolan

On its own, a word points to both the sentence that it might end up in, and also to the thought that precedes it. This zone between thought and convention allows artists to foreground qualities that are normally ignored in linguistic acts. Alex Selenitsch looks at a number of post WW2 tendencies or art movements which have made use of words: Action Painting, Graffiti, Concrete Art, Conceptual Art, Fluxus and Pop Art. Selenitsch uses the examples of Mike Brown, Rose Nolan and Ruark Lewis to highlight specific functions of the word, whether it be the morphing of word and image into one, the iconic and formal aspects of words or the relationship between visual and aural language.

Alex Selenitsch

Editorial

Richard Tipping looks at the role of text and language from an historical and contemporary context, covering areas of interest such as recent technological advancements, graffiti culture and going as far back as 46,000 years to briefly discuss some of the oldest found examples of Indigenous cave art in the south of Australia. Along the way he looks to medieval and ancient Phoenician developments, Clement Greenbergs promotion of painting as a purely optical experience, one in which text has no place except as another kind of surface, the role of Dada in claiming the relationship between word and image and discusses other important figures such as Duchamp, Brancusi, Stephane Mallarme, Christopher Brennan, Picasso, Braque, Kurt Schwitters, Charles Olson, Alex Selenitsch, Allan Riddell, Rosalie Gascoigne and many others.

Richard Tipping

APT5

5th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT5) Queensland Art Gallery Gallery of Modern Art Brisbane 2 December - 27 May 2007

Timothy Morrell

RAPT

Rapt! 20 Contemporary Artists from Japan Nobuya Hoki, Tomoaki Ishihara, Yuki Kimura Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) Clayton, Victoria 6 Sept - 18 November 2006

Olivia Poloni

Adam Cuthbert

Warporn Adam Cuthbert CAST Gallery Hobart 28 October - 26 November, 2006

Colin Langridge

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