Introspecting

"The belief system that makes the artworld so unlike - let us say - the builder's hardware world is distinguished primarily by the doctrines that there are no truths and that nothing is real.... To put the point with moderation: artists would not be inconvenienced in the least by a general theory of representation that brought the trustworthiness of their critic somewhere within powerful cooee of the trustworthiness of their radiologist. And Theory owes it to them."

Published June 1997

The Irrepressible Imprecision of Emotion

One of the general aims of internationally focussed survey exhibitions is to reflect the art of a particular time....However there is also a sense in which exhibitions of this nature can tend to operate as a form of cultural engineering, where the very status of inclusion in such exhibitions influences the kind of work made.

Published June 1997

Post-mortem: Farrell and Parkin

For a number of years the collaboration of Farrell and Parkin has produced photographic imagery dealing with medical history. Their photographic work involves the almost archaeological reconstruction of medical contraptions together with bandaging and stirrups and so on which are described in medical texts.

Published June 1997

Kevin Todd: Magnetic resonance

Published June 1997

Body Suits

Body suits, conceived by Jane Trengove of Arts Access Victoria, proposes the body as a site for investigation with the contributing artists being mostly people who experience 'bodily difference due to disability'. Touring show in 1997.

Published June 1997

Getting Better all the Time: Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre Arts Program

The Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre (Victoria) has an innovative arts program. Commenced in 1989 and now holds an annual exhibition of sculpture.

Published June 1997

Healing Places: The Art of Placemaking in Health Facilities

Examines ideas of place in medical/health facilities from different perspectives. What role does art play in these places? To promote wellness, designers need to create environments that help in reducing stress. Art has an important role to play in helping people to heal.

Published June 1997

Hello Sailor

Exhibition review Sculpture Bert Flugelman
Greenaway Art Gallery,
Adelaide, South Australia
23 April - 18 May 1997

Published June 1997

Whose Body? Ethics and Experiment in Art

How does the notion of experiment translate from the realms of scientific medicine to the realms of art? We are forced to examine how legal and ethical liabilities of behaviour are encoded. Looks at the work of Stelarc and Orlan.

Published June 1997

The Visible Human Project: Life and Death in Cyberspace

The Visible Human Project, which first made its public appearance in 1994, is an innovation in medicine's ability to picture bodily interiors, and its iconography has commanded an extraordinary degree of interest. It is an extraordinary visual text.

Published June 1997

Manifesto of Carnal Art

Carnal art is self portraiture in the classical sense, but realised through the possibility of technology. It swings between defiguration and refiguration. Its inscription in the flesh is a function of our age. The body has become a 'modified ready-made', no longer seen as the ideal it once represented.

Published June 1997

Compelling Viewing

Exhibition review In focus: Rover Thomas
Stories: Works from the Holmes a Court Collection
Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery
The University of Western Australia
Part of the 1997 Festival of Perth

Published June 1997