Issues

Issue 37:3 | September 2017 | Anxiety: Art and mental health
Anxiety: Art and mental health
Issue 37:3 | September 2017
Issue 23:2 | June 2003 | Critical Mass: The New Brisbane
Critical Mass: The New Brisbane
Issue 23:2 | June 2003
Issue 12:3 | September 1992 | Art and the Economy
Art and the Economy
Issue 12:3 | September 1992

Articles

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The art of dis-ease

I have lifted the title for this essay from Narratives of Dis‑ease (1990), a series of works by the late British photographer Jo Spence. The series was made following the artist’s partial mastectomy for the treatment of breast cancer. Closely‑cropped around her body, the photographs show Spence partially nude, using props and performing emotive gestures, compositions and sight gags that were suggestive of the sub‑titles she ascribed to each individual image: Expunged, Exiled, Included, Excised and Expected.

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Stuart Ringholt: Anxiety, laughter and stress reduction

Why I do them is to be around people that don’t have any fear.
I want to see what it’s like to be around people who are really happy. 

Stuart Ringholt’s anti‑anxiety Anger Workshops and stress‑healing Naturist Tours step outside the usual model of clinical healing practices. They revisit the potential of being happy by living in the moment as a form of liberation and group therapy that is creatively driven. The first of the Naturist Tours began as part of a show on art and therapy named Let The Healing Begin (2011) at the IMA in Brisbane. Curator Robert Leonard commented that many regular gallery goers politely declined the invitation to take part, and although he was low key in his advertisement of this aspect of the show, it created a tremendous amount of community and media interest. Fast forward to the subsequent tours through the Wim Delvoye Retrospective at MONA (2011), and James Turrell: A Retrospective at the National Gallery of Australia, and Ringholt’s practice has all but surrendered to the demand, with an accelerated following. 

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Warwuyun (worry) in the age of the selfie

The affective power of a photograph is perhaps never more potent than when the subject is a lost loved one, as Roland Barthes famously discussed on contemplating a portrait of his dead mother. This appreciation of the role of photography is harnessed in a new digital artwork by the Miyarrka Media collective which uses family photographs, including many images of deceased family members, as the basis for an interactive digital artwork about the importance of family and feeling in an age of interconnection. 

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Reflections on the neurodiverse city

I am autistic. I perceive and experience the world through sensory and cognitive pathways unique to autism. Neuroscience documents this as “sensory atypicality” and “detail‑focused perception.” In terms of lived‑experience, this means the senses react in ways different from the norm, and the mind attends to minutiae that most others dismiss or miss altogether. Autistic sensory‑cognitive idiosyncrasy unpacks in myriad ways, varying from person to person and in modulations that range from intense attraction to extreme aversion.

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Performing panic. How does your data glow?

I am in France. I have been working towards a presentation related to my research on panic at the Sorbonne, at a conference called Lire Pour Faire. I am anxious, sick with it, actually. My paper is dry and I need wet. The wet of tears, the wet of biochemicals pumping through blood, the wet of fear-piss. I want to vomit and I want to scream. Instead I sit in my room and hyperventilate. I find my friend and disclose my fears to her. I am in a state. She convinces me to do a practice presentation for a group of people who will be kind and supportive. I perform my disquiet and my insecurity and it is painful, and the pain is felt, and there is silence. There is a sitting back, a sinking down, a closing of laptop lids. There is quiet. Sometime after the quiet somebody tells a story and there is talk, feedback, questioning, exchange, confusion. This is where the research happens. Elsewhere, and otherwise, and afterwards.

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The New Brisbane
Brisbane's coming of age has been announced a number of times, most recently with millennial-expansiveness, in its claim to be the Creative City leading the Smart State. Over the past 15 years the city has spawned new enterprises, a new generation of artists, new cultural policies, new public buildings, and a new sense of grace. With an ugly past left largely unexplained, the focus is on the present and the ambitions for the city. While government and the mainstream media look to the future of the New Brisbane, it has been the role of writers, artists and a few historians to examine the past as part of the task of fully inhabiting the city. This article provides a discourse with Ross Fitzgerald about some of the above mentioned issues.
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A History of Forgetting
Anderson looks at one of Brisbanes formative cultural events, The Demolition Show, an exhibition curated by John Stafford in 1986 to mark to demise of the relatively short lived Observatory artist run space and in the fact the whole city block that surrounded it. This notion of demolition is raised in this article not only in the context of this particular event but also as a way of exploring a past which has for the most part fallen through the cracks. As Anderson states: Long after the dust has settled, the perception that Brisbane has no past in visual art, no critical mass, still lingers. Yet it is far from a new issue.
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Always Remember: there is no past
This article examines Brisbanes steeped conservative polical history and looks at the radical changes which occured as a result of the early 1990s shift to a Labour goverment. As an aftermath to the anti-climax that was the 1988 World Expo, the 90s was a decade which saw the Queensland Art Gallery embark on new avenues of experimentation and a new confidence was in the air. Furthermore Hoffie addresses the ongoing lack of substantial criticism in relation to arts and cultural development as many saw this as the single most pressing problem dogging the local scene.
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Great White Sharks
Holubizkys article deals with the ever present attitude that Brisbane is a city 20 years behind the times in the cultural sector and poses the question as to what this really means? Culture has become a business only within the relative scheme of things, and ahead may only be the false competitive edge and gamesmanship of regional-urban cultural ambition. Comparisons, therefore, should not be made lightly, nor benchmarks for the vitality of a cultural milieu. Discusses the works of Craig Walsh, Eugene Carchesio, Caitlin Reid and Vernon Ah Kee.
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Parallel Precincts
Once depressed inner-city suburbs that were havens for students, migrants, artists and fringe communities, the high profile precincts of South Brisbane/West End and Fortitude Valley/New Farm have developed into fast-growing centres of urban residential and cultural development. The Millennium Arts Program now underway will see the expenditure of over $100 million on the development of a new Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) through the Queensland Art Gallery's Two Sites-One Visionstrategy. Heather locates the diversity of Brisbane's arts and culture scene through such new and existing precincts, establishments which mark an exciting transformation in the future of the cities art scene.
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Is Art Built-in Built-out? debating public art
In 1999 Art Built-in was declared public policy by the Queensland Government, mandating that two percent of all construction budgets over $250,000 across governments be allocated to the artworks equating to some $15m worth of arts projects annually. Recently the first in a series of formal debates took place to canvas opinion on results so far. The topic was that the role of the curator is essential to create great public art. Looks at the role of local artists such as Jay Younger and her collaborative partner, architect Michael Rayner as well as Wendy Mills and Jill Kinnear.
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Next Wave Coming
A conversation between Jennifer Herd, artist, curator and convenor of the BOVACAIA program at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Richard Bell, artist and activist, Gloria Beckett, an artist who is currently completing her Masters candidature at the QCA, GU, and well known artist and lecturer, Pat Hoffie. Together they discuss some of the personal and artistic struggles of the Aboriginal Murri community and the role of performative and visual arts in recognising a history largely understood.
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The Campfire Group
The Campfire Group is an independent cultural enterprise where Indigenous and cross-cultural perspectives provide the organising principles. This article talks briefly of Balance 1990, the first exhibition held by The Campfire Group, open to Murris and whitefellas alike with curatorial efforst by Michael Eather, Marlene Hall and Marshall Bell. The diversity of Campfire Group's projects over the past few years is testimony to its members ability to transform and reinvent artistic practices and introduce those practices to new audiences. Carrolli looks at the various projects, both local and international, which have contributed to the success of the transitional authorial figure that the Campfire Group has come to be.
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Hybrid Arts, Cultural Policy and Chinese Whispers
Recently some of the individual, performance and new media artists who have been collaborating across borders in Brisbane and Queensland have networked their way out of the city and into Europe and Asia. With cross commissions and research and development for contemporary performance work there is a new and vibrant creative export. This article explores some of these artists and their international work and looks at how such collaborated efforts are contributing to a new examination of what culture actually is for a country steeped in its European heritage. Follows the practice of local performance artist Lisa ONeil and her collaborations with Keith Armstrong as well as examining The Bonemap Project initiated by artists Russell Milledge and Rebecca Youdell.
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The Artists
Notable for their ability to conduct practices from Brisbane over recent years are Luke Roberts, Scott Redford, Eugene Carchesio, Leonard Brown, Sebastian de Mauro, Gordon Bennett, Joe Furlonger, and Jay Younger, who have all emerged since 1980 into the national (and several into the international) marketplace. These practice are here explored in all their diversity. Martin-Chew looks at the increase in available resources and some of the opportunities that Brisbane has to offer for young and emerging artists wanting to break into the local and international art scene. Other artists discussed include Jemima Wyman, Lisa Adams, Rod Bunter, Vernon Ah Kee, Sandra Selig, Andrea Higgins and Michael Zavros.
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New Media Art in Brisbane
The investigation of New Media Art is especially relevant in a city that is hyped with the rhetoric about critical mass in the New Media and Creative Industries. Machan here attempts to redraw some lines of definition in what the term New Media Art actually means, as it is often seen as a doomed and short-lived handle. She does this through examining some of the key New Media artists (including Craig Walsh, Keith Armstrong, Tim Plaisted, Bonemap, Trish Adams, Di Ball, Grant Stevens, Jenny Fraser, Simone Hine, Alex Gillespie, Jay Younger, Adam Donovan, Andrew Kettle and Molly Hankwitz) and the difference between New Media and other visual arts as well as looking at government support and initiatives in the line of New Media Arts.
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Fuelling Innovation: Starting Young
Over the last two decades, Queensland has generated an arts and innovation culture for children and youth. Brisbanes distinguished reputation in the arts for young audiences rests on several solid foundations, most developed with support from major civic organisations, cultural institutions and successive governments. To understand how critic mass for childrens participation in the arts has been achieved, this article looks at a few of the formative events such as Play and Prime held at the Queensland Art Gallery and the popularity of artists such as Yayoi Kusama and Cai Guo Qiang amongst young audiences.
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Prime Two
With the redevelopment of many inner-city dwellings which in the past were alternative hot spots for the local youth, Brisbane was left with very few arts venues catering for youth-specific programs, and limited opportunities for young artists to present their work. In 2001 the Queensland Art Gallery appointed an Access and Youth Program Officer and 2003 saw Prime Two, a six-hour long celebration of youth culture for National Youth Week. The intensity of Prime Two transformed the gallery into a festive and lively venue and created an experience that was reminiscent of an adventure rather than a visit to a state institution. Featured artists include Jemima Wyman, Arryn Snowball, Anne Wallace, Brett Whiteley and James Gleeson.
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Moving Beyond Pragmatism: filmmaking in Queensland
The local film production community in South-East Queensland has come a long way, and over the past decade it has been important for local filmmakers to lay claim to an authentic local production that has achieved commercial if not critical success in the box office. Ward looks at those feature films and documentaries (Blurred, Under The Radar, Getting Square and Feeling Sexy) which have contributed to the emerging critical mass of the local film industry and the current debate surrounding creative pragmatism within this fledgling sector.
'Glocal' Government: Cross Cultural Understanding

David Hinchliffe has been a Councillor with Brisbane City for 15 years. He is also a photographer and exhibiting artist with 16 exhibitions to date. His background makes him a powerful supporter of Brisbanes art scene. Artlink asked him to tap into his experience and tell us how the new Brisbane came into being and where it is headed next.

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The Gay Museum – a history of lesbian and gay presence in Western Australia
A history of lesbian and gay presence in Western Australia 22 January - 31 May 2003
Aboriginal Art, the Nation State Suburbia
In Englishwe use the word 'country' in two main senses: to refer to nation states, and to speak about rural lands beyond the big cities and their suburbs. In Australia there is historically a third zone out past the country; the now quickly shrinking Outback.
Art and the Economy
What is Australian Work?
I am often asked where I originally come from. And, if I am in a wicked mood, I will try to embarass the questioner with some non-answer. A persistent enquirer will ignore the flippancy and further qualify their question by rephrasing the terminology to ask whether I was born in Australia (which incidentally, was the form the question was usually couched in up to the 1980s when issues of multiculturalism introduced a so-called obscure politeness.
Art and the Economy
Proposals from Invisible Worlds
This paper is almost all stories. Each one is part of much larger ones about cultures changing and moving to occupy the same geographies. We can speak of the conflicts and possibilities that seem to ignite by spontaneous combustion in these sites. But there is a series of sites from which I wish to speak: spaces of crisis that seem to lie within my person. B/w photographs of ritual and shrine.
Art and the Economy
The Recession and the Arts
The theme in this article is that the recession will have significant implications for the arts community. The argument is that the recession is not just a temporary phenomenon, related to a decline in demand, but is the product of weaknesses in the Australian economy and of the peculiar nature of economic growth in the 1980s....
Art and the Economy
Art, Sports Stars and the Depression: Knocking at the Door of the Special World
Our sports stars are successful because they are not burdened by funding programs which dribble a meagre supply to an army of unknown novices....the arts need radical strategies to help them survive the recession and achieve greater audience participation. (this article is responded to by Norm Austin, the Deputy Director of the Art Gallery of NSW).
Art and the Economy
A response to the Article by Nelson English
A response to the article by Nelson English in this issue of Artlink Volume 12 no 3.
Art and the Economy
Arts and the Economy?
Just recently I was giving a lecture to a large group of arts people when a person in the audience had a go at me for talking about the economy of the arts and not about art. I, too, am very conscious of the intellectual dilemma in this regard.
Art and the Economy
The Silence of the Lambs: Before Leaving for a Trip Abroad
Looks at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Circular Quay in Sydney and the issue of economics.
Art and the Economy
The Artist, the Gallery and the Recession
In thinking about the repercussions of the recession for artists and galleries, I am worried that our dismay at the present hardship and heartbreak may blind us to the fundamental recession related changes to the artist-gallery system which tend to the detriment of artists and forever endanger the quality and excitement of the Australian art scene.
Art and the Economy
The Arts- Survival of the BIGGEST?
The arts community of Australia has weathered the recession extremely well. While shopkeepers are shutting their doors, factories are shedding their workers, and the average Australian contemplates life in the same house for the next five years, the average artist continues on pretty much as always.
Art and the Economy
Incidental Benefits: Arts Industry Rhetoric and Policy Objectives
The notion of the arts as an industry dates in Australia from about 10 years ago with the beginnings of statistical data measuring the economic impact of artistic activity. ... (Response to this article by Anna Ward, Director of the National Association of Visual Arts also in this issue of Artlink.)
Art and the Economy
A Response to 'Incidental Benefits'
Response to the article by Peter Anderson in this issue of Artlink examining arts industry rhetoric and policy objectives.
Art and the Economy
The Australia Shop -- EXPO 92 Seville
The Australian Government's decision to participate in Expo 92 in Seville, the biggest Expo this century, has culminated in a presence recently described in a 'Best of Expo Guide' as "high spirited in mood and one of the most distinctive pavilions at Expo."
Art and the Economy
The Ham Museum ARCO 1992
Critically examines the 11th manifestation of the international art fair ARCO in Madrid. Photographs of the art fair included in the article.
Art and the Economy
Predicaments of Furniture Design
No matter what we say about furniture, it seems to have been said before. Small wonder that painting and installation attracts our writers more than furniture, when discourse about tables and chairs is confined to the rehearsal of so many grim platitudes. But if banality beleaguers the objects themselves, it is still more oppressively unavoidable in discussion of the unfortunate Australian industries of furniture design and manufacture.
Art and the Economy
The Business of Art
It's not easy to make a conference look sexy - especially when it's about regional galleries. But the team at the five year old Regional Galleries Association of Queensland managed just that in the late winter sunshine of Cairns last year.
Art and the Economy
Culture as Transformation: ARX
Artist's regional exchange (ARX). Events such as ARX in Perth are rare and potentially of such value for me that, although not a participating artist this time, I was determined to travel from the east to attend. Four views on the exchange See also the articles by Ian Howard, Anne Kirker and Adrian Jones in this issue of Artlink.
Art and the Economy
Towards a Legitimate Interest
The most important questions that arose from ARX3 related to the issue of legitimacy of interest. Four views on the exchange See also the articles by Vivienne Binns, Anne Kirker and Adrian Jones in this issue of Artlink.
Art and the Economy
Dialogue with Thailand
Interview format with Dr Poshyananda One of Four views on the exchange. See also the articles by Vivienne Binns, Ian Howard and Adrian Jones in this issue of Artlink.
Art and the Economy
Managing ARX
Written by the co-ordinator of the past three ARX events which have taken place in Perth Western Australia. Four views on the exchange See also the articles by Vivienne Binns, Anne Kirker and Ian Howard in this issue of Artlink.
Art and the Economy
There's Magic in your Hands
Looks at the artist in residence program for Thancoupie at the Hamley Bridge Primary School South Australia in May 1992.
Art and the Economy
Vicious Circles: Women's Exclusion from Contemporary Visual Art
Written with Cassandra Cavanaugh with graphs illustrating participation of women in the various sectors of the visual arts.
Art and the Economy
The Brush-Off Syndrome: Stage Design, History and Visual Art in Adelaide
Clear discussion of the issues facing stage and set designers in the visual arts world.
Art and the Economy
Incomplete Identities: A Critical Study of the Work of Mike Parr
Book review Identities: A Critical Study of the Work of Mike Parr David Broomfield University of Western Australia Press 330 pp
Art and the Economy
Demystifying Art Criticism
Book review Art Connections Jenny Aland and Max Darby Heinemann, Melbourne 1991 RRP $29.95
Art and the Economy
The Money, the Means and the Info...
Book review The Money and the Means: Grants, Scholarships and Opportunities for Professional Development Art Museums Association of Australia 1992 RRP $8.00
Art and the Economy
Between the Clues Lies the Evidence
Exhibition review Suzanne Treister Post West Gallery 22 - 31 May 1992
Art and the Economy
Metaphors of Mortality: Catherine Truman
Exhibition review Life Boat: Carvings by Catherine Truman Jam Factory Gallery South Australia 10 July - 9 August 1992
Art and the Economy
The Fourth Side of the Triangle: Bronwyn Oliver
Exhibition review Bronwyn Oliver Artspace, Adelaide Festival Centre Adelaide, South Australia 29 May - 18 July 1992
Art and the Economy
Uncertainly Thinking
Exhibition review Blink Contemporary Art Centre Adelaide May 1992
Art and the Economy
Give Me a Home Among the Gum Trees...
Exhibition review Backyards Exhibition Prospect Gallery 21 June - 12 July 1992
Art and the Economy
Sites in Relation to Themselves
Exhibition review 42 Degrees South and 175 Degrees East Artspace, Adelaide Festival Centre 16 June - 1 August 2000
Art and the Economy
Putting in the Boot - Nicely
Exhibition review Do Something with a Blunstone Chameleon Gallery Hobart Tasmania
Art and the Economy
A Belgian Artist's Work in Tasmania
Exhibition review Chantal Delrue: Recent Works Dick Bett Gallery Hobart, Tasmania February - March 1992
Art and the Economy
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Ten Days on the Island
Tasmania Artistic Adviser Robyn Archer 28 March - 6 April 2003
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Deficiency - Installation and paintings
Christian Flynn Soapbox Gallery, Brisbane 21 March - 4 April 2003
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Ruth Waller
Watters Gallery, Sydney 25 March - 26 April 2003
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Light Black: Catherine Truman, Robin Best, Sue Lorraine
JamFactory, Adelaide 1 March - 4 May 2003 Asialink tour to National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
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Madonna Staunton
Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane 13 March - 18 April 2003
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Drought and Fire
Paintings, drawings and installation, Wendy Teakel Stella downer Fine Art, Sydney 18 March - 17 April 2003
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Painting Tasmanian Landscape
Plimsoll Gallery, Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania 14 March - 6 April 2003
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NEW03
Emily Floyd, Andrew McQualter, Christine Morrow, David Rosetzky, Daniel von Sturmer, Louse Weaver Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
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Fifth Showing
Chris Mulhearn Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide 5 - 30 March 2003
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Vacant Space
Anthony Johnson Inflight, North Hobart 8 - 28 March 2003
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Synergies
A Fusion Event Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra 27 March - 27 April 2003
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Mightier than the Sword: Arabic Script, Beauty and Meaning
Arabic Script, Beauty and Meaning Ian Potter Museum of Art University of Melbourne 22 March - 23 May 2003 A touring exhibition from the British Museum in association with the Aitajir World of Islam Trust Guest Curator, Venetia Porter
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