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

Cover of If Aquarium Gravel Is So Bad For You, How Come It Tastes So Good?
1.128
Wardlipari Homeriver: Vulnerable observations
Feature
Uncle Lewis Yarluburka O’Brien and Ali Gumillya Baker

Published 01 March 2019
1.126
Local colour: Dyeing and women's wealth
Feature
Julie Ewington

Published 01 March 2019
1.122
Hi-vis commodities: A body corporate's toxic economy
Feature
Tessa Laird with Debris Facility

Published 01 March 2019
Churchie
1.126
Revisiting colour problems: Emily Vanderpoel, Hilma af Klint, Becca Albee, Clare Milledge
Feature
Amelia Wallin

Published 01 March 2019
1.126
Queer uses of colour: A tinted hermeneutics
Feature
Abbra Kotlarczyk

Published 01 March 2019
1.278
Meet Lisa Walker in her workshop: VR in the museum
Feature
Justine Olsen and Prue Donald

Published 01 December 2018
Riddoch
1.126
Eugenie Lee's Seeing is Believing: VR in pain management
Feature
Dylan DeLosAngeles

Published 01 December 2018
1.128
Artificial imagination: Deepfakes from latent space
Feature
Sean Dockray

Published 01 December 2018

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...

Buy Now   or   Subscribe
Artlink App in iTunes
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
Support independent writing on the visual arts. Subscribe or donate here.

More from this Issue Full Issue Contents

Kitschoprenia
Feature
Robert Nelson

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
Cakes for Show: The Last Great Undigested Art
Feature
Joan Kerr

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!

Published December 1995
Thought Police Versus Life: Extracts from an Interview with Ray Hughes
Feature
Tony Twigg

Discussion with the artist Ray Hughes about issues that have impacted on his art practice. Biographical details also included.

Published December 1995
Ethereal Days
Review
Vivonne Thwaites

Exhibition review Defrosting Familiar Tales
Jo Crawford, Bev Hogg
Jam Factory Gallery
Adelaide South Australia
7 July - 27 August 1995

Published December 1995
The Taste Factor
Feature
Christopher Heathcote

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.

Published December 1995
Kings of Kitsch: Big Things
Feature
John Cross

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
Made in WA: A Sculptor's Alternative Practice
Feature
Robyn Taylor

Although well known in regional art histories, Western Australian sculptor Edward Kohler has a far wider importance. Economic survival led him to blend popular and high art long before it was standard practice. With the Piccadilly Theatre reliefs of 1938, the sheer exuberance and infectious quality of a positive (if unconscious) kitsch aesthetic entered professional Australian art 60 years ago: Hollywood meets Olympia.

Published December 1995
Boys and Girls: Pierre et Gilles' Sydney Mardi Gras Poster
Feature
Leigh Raymond

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
The Other Big F-Word
Feature
Juliette Peers

Monash University Gallery presented Fashion, Decor, Interiors, curated by Natalie King 7 June - 15 July 1995, high-lighting aspects of advertising, mass production and architectural design through the work of Lyndal Walker, Tony Clark and Stephen Bram -- extracts from the exhibition catalogue.

Published December 1995
It's Things That Matter
Book Review
Artlink

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

Published December 1995
Bruising as R & D
Feature
Pat Hoffie

Livid Festival was launched in Brisbane in 1988 with the broad altruistic aim of 'giving a go' to local Brisbane bands, performers and visual artists. Within three years the festival had grown exponentially and included a wide range of feature guest artists.

Published December 1995
Reathing, Writhing and Fainting in Coils: Richard Grayson
Review
Linda Marie Walker

Exhibition review Received
Richard Grayson
Greenaway Art Gallery
Adelaide South Australia
12 July - 6 August 1995

Published December 1995
 
Crown Resorts
The Japan Foundation
Artlink Subs Promo
NAVA
ACE Open