Published 01 December 2020
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.
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
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 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
Exhibition review Defrosting Familiar Tales Jo Crawford, Bev Hogg Jam Factory Gallery Adelaide South Australia 7 July - 27 August 1995
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
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!
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.
You can hear her on the radio and see her on the television and contemplate her in better State galleries. Pluralist par excellence, artist, writer and film-maker Destiny Deacon has been blazing away on visual and linguistic fronts since premiering 'Koori Rocks Gub Words' in 'Pitcha Mi Koori' (1990).
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 Patmos Series Paintings Jules Sher Perth Galleries Western Australia
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.
Book review The Barossa Folk: Germanic Furniture and Craft Traditions in Australia By Noris Ioannou Craftsman House 1995
