Issues

Issue 15:4 | December 1995 | Taste Meets Kitsch
Taste Meets Kitsch
Issue 15:4 | December 1995

Articles

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YARN: The art of conversation
Coby Edgar interviews Warren Roberts, CEO of YARN Australia
1.126
Four thousand fish: Our language of memory

As people walk down that little wharf towards the canoe, I hope they remember how it was back in the day and how our old ancestors used to live and survive. And I want them to think back and imagine if they can, the women out in the canoes, and what it would have looked like and how beautiful it would have looked like with the fires going and we must not forget them, our ancestors. They were some special people. Because all the thousands of years they lived here says it all. It just says it all, how powerful and strong they were. And survivors… still survivors today. 

Phyllis Stewart

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Tasmania's Black War: Undermining the foundations of terra nullius

A couple of years ago I quipped to my friend Alec Coles, who had recently taken up the position of CEO at the West Australian Museum, that the spirit of terra nullius lurks beneath the floorboards of every museum and art gallery in Australia. Apparently, he has dined out on this slightly parsimonious comment once or twice since. Alec likes to raise the stakes in discussions with his colleagues about the responsibilities that history demands of them as leaders of major collecting institutions—each with its own problematic legacy in terms of respecting and representing Indigenous culture. 

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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
The Taste Factor
When I was an art critic, I quickly grew to dislike the word 'taste'. It was a convenient tool used to dismiss reviews by people who didn't like what I had to say. Whenever I delivered a negative crit upon a widely revered artist, or a positive crit on a very minor figure, they complained that I was allowing my taste to undermine my professionalism.
Taste Meets Kitsch
Kitschoprenia
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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
The Black Swan of Western Australian-ness
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...
Taste Meets Kitsch
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).
Taste Meets Kitsch
Worms and Roses
The first Australian garden books put vegetables first but by the mid 19th century the language of flowers was in vogue. Gardens, flowers and art...
Taste Meets Kitsch
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!
Taste Meets Kitsch
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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
If Aquarium Gravel Is So Bad For You, How Come It Tastes So Good?
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...
Taste Meets Kitsch
Delma's Collection
Collections of any kind require patience, luck, money, space, time and dedication.....
Taste Meets Kitsch
Image Bank
Collection of images with artists statements. Artists featured: Katanya Shanzy, Anne Graham, Geoffrey Seelander, Simon Duncan, Pierre Cavalan, Stefan Szonyi, Cliff Burt, Andrea McNamara, Karen Ferguson, Constanze Zikos, Jandee Amar Leddar, Leon Pericles, Meryn Jones, Annie Taylor, Ex de Medici and Ian Mowbray.
Taste Meets Kitsch
Pretty Baby
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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
Kings of Kitsch: Big Things
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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
Boys and Girls: Pierre et Gilles' Sydney Mardi Gras Poster
Examines the 1995 poster for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. How appropriate though, at the moment when Mardi Gras had successfully commodified itself as a cultural event, that its key representation should be through international glamour product photography.
Taste Meets Kitsch
Museum of Shopping
Kitsch is a kind of creole. It quotes and mixes references from quite unrelated sources, dresses in wildly unsuitable materials, then tries to insinuate itself using childhood wiles.
Taste Meets Kitsch
Motor-Cross Dressing
Issues of stereo-typing, conforming behaviour and fun and practicality are looked at in an observation of an MG driver.
Taste Meets Kitsch
Tamworth
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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
Thought Police Versus Life: Extracts from an Interview with Ray Hughes
Discussion with the artist Ray Hughes about issues that have impacted on his art practice. Biographical details also included.
Taste Meets Kitsch
Ethereal Days
Exhibition review Defrosting Familiar Tales Jo Crawford, Bev Hogg Jam Factory Gallery Adelaide South Australia 7 July - 27 August 1995
Taste Meets Kitsch
Reathing, Writhing and Fainting in Coils: Richard Grayson
Exhibition review Received Richard Grayson Greenaway Art Gallery Adelaide South Australia 12 July - 6 August 1995
Taste Meets Kitsch
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
Taste Meets Kitsch
Inflecting the Museum
Exhibition review Litteraria Simryn Gill and Robert MacPherson Artists in residence at the South Australian Museum 16 September - 31 December 1995
Taste Meets Kitsch
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
Taste Meets Kitsch
Monstrous Change Observed
Exhibition review Forrest Place During the Time of the Fly Plague and Other Paintings 1993-1995 Thomas Horeau Perth Western Australia
Taste Meets Kitsch
A Dual Aesthetic
Exhibition Review Patmos Series Paintings Jules Sher Perth Galleries Western Australia
Taste Meets Kitsch
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
Taste Meets Kitsch
Teaching Aids
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
Taste Meets Kitsch
Actions Louder Than Words
Exhibition review Beep 'n' Click Entrepot Gallery Tasmanian School of Art Hobart Tasmania 8 - 29 September 1995
Taste Meets Kitsch
It's Things That Matter
Book review The Barossa Folk: Germanic Furniture and Craft Traditions in Australia By Noris Ioannou Craftsman House 1995
Taste Meets Kitsch
Bigs R Us
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.
Taste Meets Kitsch
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