Published 30 March 2022
Collections of any kind require patience, luck, money, space, time and dedication.....
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
Exhibition review Beep 'n' Click Entrepot Gallery Tasmanian School of Art Hobart Tasmania 8 - 29 September 1995
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!
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.
Exhibition review Defrosting Familiar Tales Jo Crawford, Bev Hogg Jam Factory Gallery Adelaide South Australia 7 July - 27 August 1995
Much contemporary Aboriginal art functions in the inappropriate melding of two visual art traditions and is kitsch within the given meaning within the article.
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...
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.
Exhibition review Litteraria Simryn Gill and Robert MacPherson Artists in residence at the South Australian Museum 16 September - 31 December 1995
Exhibition review Active Agents: Aids Art in Australia Anthony Babicci, Bronwyn Bancroft, Simon Carver, Eddie Hackenberg, Ian Hartley, Leonore Lancaster, David McDiarmid, Ross Moore, Marcus O'Donnell, Scott Redford, Celia Roach, Gary Shinfield, Jackie Stockdale, Andrew Thomas-Clark, Hiram To, Julia Topliss, John Turner, David Urquart Curators Jill Bennett and John Turner University Gallery, University of Tasmania, Launceston 11 May - 9 June 1995
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.
Exhibition Review Patmos Series Paintings Jules Sher Perth Galleries Western Australia
