More from this Issue
When Is A Door Not A Door?
Exhibition review Birds Have Fled
Angela Valamanesh
Univsersity of South Australia Art Museum
7 September - 2 October 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.
Made in WA: A Sculptor's Alternative Practice
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.
Kitschville - The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
...But the Mardi Gras will always be a child of the seventies. Remember that mantra 'the personal is political'. In spite of the co-option and mainstreaming of Lesbian and Gay culture this wonderful spectacularly amateurish display (of difference) cannot help but be a politicised intervention.
Not Afraid of Flying: Fairies and Femocrats
Are gossamer wings set to supplant shoulder pads as signifiers of feminist power? Shopping malls in middle class suburbs are now sprouting fairy shops where, for only a few dollars, little girls and grown-up ones too, can sprout fairy wings that temporarily release them from the masculine world around them.
Actions Louder Than Words
Exhibition review Beep 'n' Click
Entrepot Gallery Tasmanian School of Art
Hobart Tasmania
8 - 29 September 1995
A Dual Aesthetic
Exhibition Review Patmos Series Paintings
Jules Sher
Perth Galleries
Western Australia
It's Things That Matter
Book review The Barossa Folk: Germanic Furniture and Craft Traditions in Australia
By Noris Ioannou
Craftsman House
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.
Reathing, Writhing and Fainting in Coils: Richard Grayson
Exhibition review Received
Richard Grayson
Greenaway Art Gallery
Adelaide South Australia
12 July - 6 August 1995
The Other Big F-Word
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.
Cakes for Show: The Last Great Undigested Art
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!