Exhibitions to watch

Published December 2012

New Orleans': Resilience goes way back before Katrina

The Big Easy is a nickname for New Orleans, USA, referring to the easy-going, laid back attitude to life that jazz musicians and local residents indulge in there. Carol Schwarzman, with the aid of her brother, reviews some resilient responses to the Big Hurricane Katrina's path through it on 25 August 2005. In the words of US writer Tom Piazza: "The ‘underprivileged’ people of New Orleans “spun a culture out of their lives – a music, a cuisine, a sense of life – that has been recognised around the world as a transforming spiritual force.”

Published December 2012

In a silent way

Review

Claire Krouzecky

Curator: Matt Warren
Laura Altman, Monica Brooks, Nicolas Bullen, Darren Cook, Gail Priest, Lawrence English, Samaan Fieck, Joel Stern
Contemporary Art Spaces, Hobart
28 July – 26 August 2012

Published December 2012

Pat Brassington: Á Rebours

Review

Laura Castagnini

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne
11 August - 23 September 2012

Published December 2012

Khmer pop-lock: saving kids through breaking

Feature

Annemarie Kohn

It's tough being a refugee, really tough for some. Cambodian Tuy 'KK' Sobil's story begins in a refugee camp in Thailand, travels to the US where he winds up in prison for eight years and more happily shifts to Phnom Penh where he landed as a deportee from the US and has since become an important role model teaching hiphop dancing and music to vulnerable children.

Published December 2012

Falling through time

Feature

Anna Gibbs

In September 2011 at the UTS Gallery in an exhibition called The Fall before the Fall Elvis Richardson and Daniel Mudie Cunningham showed work reflecting on 9/11. Anna Gibbs analyses how their works make this trauma "articulable, shareable and ... to some extent, bearable."

Published December 2012

Remembering Lidia Groblicka 1933 - 2012

Obituary

Stephanie Radok

Published December 2012

Promoting the long view

Feature

Malcolm McKinnon

Artist and filmmaker Malcolm McKinnon's current practice is focused around documentary filmmaking and social history, motivated by an appreciation of living memory and local vernacular. He writes about the Illuminated by Fire project, an initiative of Regional Arts Victoria, that involved a dozen artists working with eleven local communities in the wake of Black Saturday.

Published December 2012

Colour by number

Review

Angelita Howell

!Metro Arts, Brisbane
19 September – 6 October 2012

Published December 2012

Shen Shaomin: The day after tomorrow

Feature

Christen Cornell

The Day After Tomorrow is Chinese-Australian Shen Shaomin’s first solo show in Australia in ten years. His visions of a warped natural world tap into anxieties about civilisation’s ghastly effects. “The space for our lives is shrinking,” Shen said in a recent interview. “The world is more and more dangerous because of the way that we live our lives.”

Published 01 December 2012