Editorial: Art in the face of disaster

Humanity seems to be on the brink of annihilating the natural world on which we depend. Our quarrelsome species has built a gigantic web of capitalism, connecting global corporations, consumerism, the markets, the military, rhetoric machines called politicians and the organisations and institutions that now include, tragically, the universities.

Published 01 December 2012

Contained fear: Ken & Julia Yonetani's uranium art

Published 01 December 2012

The cinemas of disaster

Curator, film programmer and writer Danni Zuvela reviews the genre of disaster films since 1903 and finds that the most recent example 'Beasts of the Southern Wild' expresses a spirit of resilience that is both wild and magical.

Published December 2012

Bungaree: the First Australian

Curator: Djon Mundine
Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney
1 September – 25 November 2012
then touring

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

Shen Shaomin: The day after tomorrow

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

HERE&NOW12

Curator: Katie Lenanton
Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth
11 August – 6 October 2012

Published December 2012

Remarking | Remaking: Contemporary Australian Drawing Connections

Curators: Abdullah M. I. Syed and Wenmin Li
Nicole Barakat, Denis Beaubois, Nick Brown, Muamer Cajic, Anie Nheu, Ana Pollack, Nusra Latif Qureshi, Marikit Santiago, Shay Tobin, Teo Treloar

Remarking | Remaking Community Project

Nicole Barrakat in collaboration with Blacktown Indian Subcontinent Women’s Group
Blacktown Arts Centre
20 July – 1 September 2012

Published December 2012

Merilyn Fairskye: Precarious

Published 01 December 2012

Contact lenses: Lloyd Godman's ecological art

New Zealand-born ecological artist, Lloyd Godman, who now lives in Australia, has in his own determined way for over thirty years, pondered and acted upon questions of how aesthetics might be involved in creating sustainable solutions to environmental problems. Historian Helen McDonald uses eco-critic Timothy Morton's notion of ambient aesthetics to examine three of Godman's multimedia projects.

Published December 2012

The art of climate change

Published 01 December 2012

Calamity Japan: grieving artists respond to quake, tsunami and nuclear crisis

Former editor of Japanese Art Scene Monitor and the current Arts, Entertainment and Features Division Chief at The Japan Times, Edan Corkill looks at the wide variety of sensitive works produced by Japanese artists in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent Fukashima Daiichi nuclear Power Plant disaster.

Published 01 December 2012