Mary MacKillop Kitsch

I confess to a feeling of great affection for Mary MacKillop (1842 - 1909), vernacular culture and kitsch, and great enthusiasm for the idea of an Australian Vatican - an extravagant museum which is also a major site of pilgrimage.

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When I was an art critic, I quickly grew to dislike the word 'taste'. It was a convenient tool used to dismiss reviews by people who didn't like what I had to say. Whenever I delivered a negative crit upon a widely revered artist, or a positive crit on a very minor figure, they complained that I was allowing my taste to undermine my professionalism.

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Teaching Aids

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Tamworth

The days of the Tamworth Festival are marked with ceremonies. Stars place their hands into cement and history in the Hands of Fame Park. At the rear of Maguire's pub the popular alternative Noses of Fame honours famous noses.

Judith Ahern

Inflecting the Museum

Exhibition review Litteraria Simryn Gill and Robert MacPherson Artists in residence at the South Australian Museum 16 September - 31 December 1995

Barry Craig

Kitschoprenia

Our affection for kitsch is a benign form of aesthetic hypocrisy. My generation, give or take 15 years, adores kitsch. We want to have some badness; it's fun: you laugh both at your dismay for an object and your perplexity over the delight that it brings. In a broad cultural sense, my generation is kitschophilic; and this means, I suppose, not that we love the kitschy object with innocence but that we love the contempt which the kitschy object arouses.

Robert Nelson

Image Bank

Collection of images with artists statements. Artists featured: Katanya Shanzy, Anne Graham, Geoffrey Seelander, Simon Duncan, Pierre Cavalan, Stefan Szonyi, Cliff Burt, Andrea McNamara, Karen Ferguson, Constanze Zikos, Jandee Amar Leddar, Leon Pericles, Meryn Jones, Annie Taylor, Ex de Medici and Ian Mowbray.

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Making and Breaking

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Suzanne Spunner

Cakes for Show: The Last Great Undigested Art

That these same institutions have never seriously attempted to digest the great crafty, feminine art of traditional cake decoration is more regrettable. Icons, after all, are as valued as the most avant-garde compostion if made of oil paint and gold leaf on wood. When future generations visit our hallowed aesthetic halls, let them meet cake!

Joan Kerr

Pretty Baby

Collecting and making dolls grows in popularity in Australia, but members of Australia's arts industry are relatively under-represented in the ranks of doll collectors. Original dolls speak of the culture that produces them.

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It's Things That Matter

Book review The Barossa Folk: Germanic Furniture and Craft Traditions in Australia By Noris Ioannou Craftsman House 1995

Artlink

Delma's Collection

Collections of any kind require patience, luck, money, space, time and dedication.....

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