Published April 2021
Collections of any kind require patience, luck, money, space, time and dedication.....
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
Exhibition review Litteraria Simryn Gill and Robert MacPherson Artists in residence at the South Australian Museum 16 September - 31 December 1995
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.
Exhibition review Defrosting Familiar Tales Jo Crawford, Bev Hogg Jam Factory Gallery Adelaide South Australia 7 July - 27 August 1995
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.
Book review The Barossa Folk: Germanic Furniture and Craft Traditions in Australia By Noris Ioannou Craftsman House 1995
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.
Exhibition review Beep 'n' Click Entrepot Gallery Tasmanian School of Art Hobart Tasmania 8 - 29 September 1995
Since 1829, the inhabitants of the western third of Australia have identified more closely with the black swan than the kangaroo. The swan was and is to be found on a wide range of items from buildings to letterheads and furry toys. It crosses class boundaries...
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...
Exhibition review Djalki Wanga: The Land is My Foundation 50 years of Aboriginal Art from Yirrkala Northeast Arnhem Land Northern Territory Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery Western Australia July 9 - September 3 1995
Australians have a natural thirst for objects of grand scale, however ridiculous their theme or location or context. From big sandfly, big axe to big oyster and beyond, we are the big desert island that experiences big wets and big dries, little wonder someone made a Big Tap to remind us...we are big drinkers.
