Artlink began thirty years ago in a corner of an office in Adelaide. Today it is available in the Tate Modern Bookshop purveying its unique brand of attention to important issues in contemporary art, mostly Australian, often international, wherever the ideas are sharp and the ideals are idealistic.
Adjunct Professor at RMIT Kevin Murray contrasts the idea of Australians as xenophobic 'moat' people with the idea of 'poor craft' which uses detritus to alchemically create a new preciousness.
Joanna Mendelssohn examines a new book on photography, second in a series, this time juxtaposing German and Australian artists. Mendelssohn writes "What Germany and Australia have in common is a certain navel-gazing obsession about what it means to belong to their particular nationalities."
Novelist and former Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies in the College of Arts at the University of Western Sydney Jane Goodall responds to the new collection of essays edited by Brad Buckley and John Conomos called 'Rethinking the Contemporary Art School'. Goodall analyses the complexity and often dire times engendered by the incorporation of art schools into universities. However she is optimistic and suggests a first step to be a well-designed retreat system.
Chief Curator at the National Institute for Experimental Arts (NIEA) at the College of Fine Arts, Uni of NSW, Felicity Fenner discusses the HotHouse Symposium the launch event of a longer-term research project called 'Curating Cities' being conducted by NIEA in association with Object: Australian Centre for Craft and Design and the City of Sydney. Other research partners include the Melbourne-based group, Carbon Arts, which facilitates opportunities for artists to generate awareness and action on climate change. The central premise of the project is that we can no longer simply curate art, but need to think more holistically, instead curating space in ways that are environmentally sustainable.
Former Head of Asialink Alison Carroll visited Touched the Liverpool Biennial and found 870 artists showing in 400 exhibitions over the 10 weeks of the event.