Story 1: A story about land owners and nomads. Story 2: Never terra nullius. Story 3: Genetic imperialism. Story 4: The politicization of hunger. Story 5: Kunde and the perception of order.
New Caledonia has become the first Pacific nation to hold a Biennale of Contemporary Visual Art. Lucienne Fontannaz travelled to Noumea to interview artist Rene Boutin and discovered an artist who takes more than the gallery and his studio as his milieu.
If there is a contemporary issue for landscape artist to engage with, it must be the process of developing a relationship with the landscape, even if it is at the level of s sustain[able] failure, a low level antagonism or an uneasy peace. It is as difficult and as complex as any other issue, and it ultimately speaks of the human condition.
Beth Field is a farmer and a photographer in the WA wheatbelt facing a curious loss, one she is happy to accept - the dramatic colours of sunsets reflected in the salt lakes which she used to photograph may soon be hard to find as revegetation reclaims the soil. She recounts the changes she has seen in the last decade.
Exhibition review Lifeworks: Aboriginal women photographed in action and at work by Aboriginal women photographers
Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute
Adelaide South Australia
7 October - 4 December 1994
Making taste? Making money? Melbourne historian Juliet Peers scrutinises a group of books and catalogues on corporate art collections to see whether boardroom fancies and their lavish publications reflect a wider role in shaping popular visions of Australian painting.
The artist grew up in Baguio, which looks to be quite close to Ifugao on the map, and although I was taught that the rice terraces of this region of the Philippines were the eighth wonder of the world it was many years before he was able to see them.