Kitsch or Kind: Representations of Aborigines in Popular Art

Much contemporary Aboriginal art functions in the inappropriate melding of two visual art traditions and is kitsch within the given meaning within the article.

Published December 1995

Making and Breaking

Exhibition review Cross Fibre
Lia Gill Pam Lofts and NT women working with fibre
24 Hour Art Darwin, Northern Territory
18 August - 2 September 1995

Published December 1995

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.

Published December 1995

Kings of Kitsch: Big Things

Big things have the power to make real the stuff of dreams. They have the power to make us stop at places we would never have dreamed of visiting. Grand kitsch is both art and beyond.

Published December 1995

Wer ist Unschuldig?

This issue of Artlink meanders (with kitschy loucheness rather than formalist stringency) around 'taste' bad and good, the workings of taste and various permutations of cultural expression in present day Australia. Kitsch is scrutinised.

Published December 1995

Delma's Collection

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

Published December 1995

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.

Published December 1995

Boys and Girls: Pierre et Gilles' Sydney Mardi Gras Poster

Examines the 1995 poster for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. How appropriate though, at the moment when Mardi Gras had successfully commodified itself as a cultural event, that its key representation should be through international glamour product photography.

Published December 1995

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.

Published December 1995

Worms and Roses

The first Australian garden books put vegetables first but by the mid 19th century the language of flowers was in vogue. Gardens, flowers and art...

Published December 1995

If Aquarium Gravel Is So Bad For You, How Come It Tastes So Good?

In the trading card world there are collectors, dealers, curators, critics, interested observers, and of course various magazines. Does this world sound familiar? Looks at the role of collecting...

Published December 1995

Artrave

Published December 1995