The Obsessive Compulsive Worker
What does obsessive artwork mean? Is this a new compulsion among artists and what does it mean? The work of Hossein Valamanesh, Fiona Hall, Zhuang Hui, Zhang Huan, Shen Shaomin, Katsuhige Nakahashi are referenced.
More from this Issue
Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater
The CDEP (Community Development Employment Program) was axed by the Howard Federal Government throughout the Northern Territory though is still current in South Australia and Western Australia. The Program was launched in 1977 by the Fraser Government and has been a very valuable way of getting Aboriginal people to be engaged productive community memes in art centres and other activities. A number of key Aboriginal art centres rely on CDEP staff for printing, administration, preparators, artists and craftspeople. It is a vital component in building community self-reliance and pride.
Papunya Tjupi: A New Beginning
Papunya Tjupi: A New Beginning Ivan Dougherty Gallery 6 September - 6 October 2007
The Work of Art
Art theorist and Emeritus Professor of Visual Arts, Flinders University, Donald Brook examines the art world and its strange ways. Art, he says, is not craft nor the consequence of any exercise of skill at all but the artworld is infallible in identifying art.
Artworks Out on the Beach Townsville
In September 2007 in Townsville Stephanie Radok attended the Perc Tucker Regional Gallerys Strand Ephemera, a biennial outdoor sculpture and installation exhibition first held in 2001. The Strand is a 2km landscaped beachfront park where local and interstate artists placed their site specific works which ranged from an Aeolian harp by Nameer Davis to a throne made of seasponges by Wendy Robertson. An enthusiastic audience of children and Strand-strollers made their way from work to work thinking about art and its myriad manifestations. Commissioned artists making work in shipping containers were Craig Walsh, Bonemap, Donna Marcus, Chris Fox and Richard Goodwin.
We Can Work it Out: New Style Residencies in Asia
Since the early nineties Asialink has helped to plunge 450 Australian artists into the proverbial deep end of arts practice, the overseas residency. Out of their comfort zones, far from friends and familiar comforts, the artists test their artwork and themselves in new cultural contexts. The recent experiences of Megan Keating in Taiwan, Danius Kesminas in Indonesia, Alwin Reamillo in the Philippines and Ben Morieson in Japan are described in all their variety and embrace of an increasingly Asia-literate world.
Strange Fruit
Strange Fruit: Testimony and Memory in Julie Dowlings Portraits Curator: Jeanette Hoorn Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne 21 July - 14 October 2007
Valuing Relationships: Concertina
Concertina is a group of seven artists, Katrina Weber, Ros Miller, Wendy Rushby, Kathryn Hill, Wendy Todd, Dana Kinter and Anny Gooden, who for six years have been working as a collective creating within self-prescribed boundaries. Once a year they set aside their own practices and embark upon a major collaborative project leading to an exhibition. Their latest venture meant one artist Anny Gooden stepping outside the group, she was overseas, and providing instructions to the others. The resulting exhibition, Text as Muse, was shown at Light Square Gallery from 27 June - 26 July 2007.
Soft Power - Confession: Leung Mee Ping
Hong-Kong based Leung Mee Ping sees the artist as a craftperson able to fabricate intricate work that makes the viewer revision the everyday. Memorising the Future is an ongoing project of shoes made from felted human hair. It has been shown all over the world in major museums and now consists of more than 11,500 shoes.
ACCA
Almost Everywhere Apparent Sonia Leber and David Chesworth Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne 11 August - 30 September 2007
Mirroring our Dialogue: Danielle Freakley as 'The Quote Generator'
The Quote Generator is a three year public art project where the artist only speaks in quotes which she instantly attributes. For the first year Danielle Freakley will quote from commercial products, the second year from friends and acquaintances and the last year from herself in the past.