More from this Issue
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!
Continuous History
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
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.
Actions Louder Than Words
Exhibition review Beep 'n' Click
Entrepot Gallery Tasmanian School of Art
Hobart Tasmania
8 - 29 September 1995
It's Things That Matter
Book review The Barossa Folk: Germanic Furniture and Craft Traditions in Australia
By Noris Ioannou
Craftsman House
1995
Destiny Deacon: It's Been Ages Since We Last Marched
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).
Bruising as R & D
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.
Making and Breaking
Exhibition review Cross Fibre
Lia Gill Pam Lofts and NT women working with fibre
24 Hour Art Darwin, Northern Territory
18 August - 2 September 1995
Kitsch or Kind: Representations of Aborigines in Popular Art
Much contemporary Aboriginal art functions in the inappropriate melding of two visual art traditions and is kitsch within the given meaning within the article.
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.
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.