Inside Sydney's new Outsider art centre

Outsider Art is enjoying increasing attention in Australia. STOARC – the Self-Taught and Outsider Art Research Collection – at the University of Sydney opened its public face at Callan Park Gallery in March 2009.

More from this Issue

Strange bedfellows

Why write or think about the work of Patricia Piccinini and Richard Billingham together? Because the work of each of them elicits a visceral response, a response characterised by emotion and gut feeling. Because the border between humans and animals and the relationships between us are examined by both Piccinini and Billingham in a manner that emphasises our relatedness. These are intensely moral artworks with a strong documentary flavour that ask us questions about responsibility and connection that go to the very heart of our lives.http://www.artlink.com.au/admin/article_edit.cfm?id=3280

Stephanie Radok

Nobody Likes a Show Off: Richard Lewer

Nobody Likes a Show Off: Richard Lewer Curator: Kirrily Hammond Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne 1 July – 5 September 2009

Jared Davis

M/other love: the first relationship & the photography of Toni Wilkinson

Toni Wilkinson’s 'm/other' exhibition of photographs at Perth Galleries, North Fremantle earlier this year confronted the viewer with a series of atypical representations of the mother child relationship. She give a glimpse into the privacy, and reality, of a mother’s world by showing us mothers and their children at their most naked, physically and emotionally.

Dawn Barker

Choosing who will keep the stories strong

In early 2006, the renowned Liyagauwumirr painter Mickey Durrng Garrawurra died in his home on Milingimbi. For many years, Durrng (1940-2006) and his brother Tony Dhanyala (1935-2004) were the only people authorised to paint the Liyagauwumirr’s most important clan designs. Before his death, however, Durrng made the seemingly unorthodox decision to pass this knowledge and authority to his sister Ruth Nalmakarra (b.1954) and her family. What followed was a flowering of tradition, as Nalmakarra and her sisters used this broadened authority to instigate a cultural revival that united their community around these ancient designs.

Henry F. Skerritt

The Divided Heart

The divided heart Rachel Power Red Dog Books, Melbourne RRP $29.99

Rox De Luca

Integration Assimilation and a Fair Go For All: Khaled Sabsabi

Integration Assimilation and a Fair Go For All: Khaled Sabsabi Gallery 4A, Sydney 13 June – 25 July 2009

Eliza Garnsey

The Underpass Motel

This project grew as an extension of a Fellowship awarded to Stuart Elliott in 2006 from ArtsWA – the major arts funding body of the WA Government. Artists involved: Stuart Elliott, Graham Taylor, Patrizia Tonello, Amanda Williams, Peter Dailey, Ben Jones, Richard Heath and Si Hummerston. The Underpass Motel, DVD premiere and gallery exhibition opens at Turner Galleries 9 October - 7 November 2009. www.turnergalleries.com.au Visit the website: http://members.iinet.net.au/~reuham/theunderpassmotel.html

Stuart Elliott

Personal Political Emotional

Artist Megan Evans was for some years the partner of Aboriginal activist and artist Les Griggs who suicided in 1993. Fifteen years later she has begun to write his story - a story of reconciliation with herself and her country, through a relationship that undid her and put her back together again.

Megan Evans

Notes on melancholy and anxiety in the works of Sanja Pahoki

The artworks of Sanja Pahoki walk a zigzag between melancholy and its contemporary cousin, anxiety. Curator and writer Hannah Mathews interviewed Sanja Pahoki about her recent work while thinking about Daniel Birnbaum's comment about the relationship between melancholy and the arts: "The idea of the melancholic as someone not only passive and depressed but also creative is the basis for the Renaissance idea of the genius – the dialectic between darkness and light, destruction and creation."

Hannah Mathews and Sanja Pahoki

Visual arts at OzAsia

The 2009 OzAsia Festival runs from 3 – 17 October, and also includes a fantastic family-friendly program of theatre, dance, film, food, as well as the free community opening event, the Moon Lantern Festival in Elder Park. See www.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au Open from 29 September - 1 November at the Festival Centre Curious Screen: Festival Theatre (FT) Foyer The Sum of Cultures: Piano Bar Follow, Northern India: Faces and Words and Okami: FT Foyer Miss Taken: Space Theatre Foyer 'this reminds me of some place': FT Foyer 29 September - 8 November, Following Threads: Artspace Gallery (Upstairs, Dunstan Playhouse)

Artlink

Artrave

Artlink

Oh that I were where I would be

Oh that I were where I would be Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane 10 June – 4 July 2009

Arryn Snowball

View all articles in this issue