Published 30 March 2022
A lively coverage of the exciting 2008 Next Wave Festival directed by Jeff Khan. Next Wave began 24 years ago and in 2008 presented the work of around 400 artist over 61 projects.
Without Borders: Outsider Art in an Antipodean Context Curators: Glenn Barkley, Peter Fay Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW 30 August 21 September 2008
Published December 2008
Katherine Moline Yuill / Crowley, Sydney 10 July 2 August 2008
Artlink Executive Editor Stephanie Britton 'did' two major art fairs in our region, the first ever in Hong Kong - ART HK08 and the fifth Beijing one - CIGE (China International Gallery Exposition). She found them both fascinating and especially enjoyed the Mapping Asia and Alternative Energy sections of CIGE and the symposium organised by Asia Art Archive at HK08.
Trace Elements: spirit and memory in Japanese and Australian photomedia curated by Bec Dean and Iida Shihoko opened at the Tokyo Opera City Gallery in July 2008 and will travel to Performance Space in Sydney in April 2009. Artists: Philip Brophy, Jane Burton, Alex Davies, Teiji Furuhashi, Seiichi Furuya, Genevieve Grieves, Sophie Kahn, Chie Matsui, Lieko Shiga and Kazuna Taguchi
Ornament : Anne MacDonald Carnegie Gallery, Hobart 19 September 26 October 2008
London-based Macedonian artist and writer Nadja Prlja compares the urban and modern 5th Berlin Biennial BB5: When Things Cast No Shadow (5 April - 15 June 2008) with Manifesta 7 (19 July - 2 November 2008) which occupied the whole arae of Trentoni in Italy. Prlja pays particular attention to the differences in the ways the projects were curated.
Marcus Westbury, former director of Noise, Next Wave, TINA (This Is Not Art) festivals, and writer and presenter of Not Quite Art on ABC TV, writes about the need for art to get away from reflecting too hard on gatekeepers and their requirements. He looks at the Biennale of Sydney at Cockatoo Island, the Next Wave's The Containers Village and the Melbourne Laneways projects as good examples of stepping outside the cube. He concludes that: 'Artists are best to invest their energy in finding their audiences and their communities.'
Joanna Mendelssohn, author and Associate Professor at the College of Fine Art, University of New South Wales where she co-ordinates the Master of Art Administration, writes about the highly competitive and financially unrewarding realities of getting a position as a curator in an art musuem.
Outgoing Director of the Experimental Art Foundation Melentie Pandilovksi spills the beans on the current state of play internationally in terms of powerful independent curators moving into important positions in museums. He puts forward the prevalence of a 'new institutionalism' seeking to redefine contemporary art institutions from within. The EAF is about to release a Futures paper on this topic.
Its Time : Emily Floyd Australian Print Workshop Gallery, Fitzroy, Melbourne 23 August - 18 October 2008
