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Rich and Strange

Stephanie Britton

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Thinking Big: Spatial Conception in the Art of Dorothy Napangardi

The Warlpiri artist Dorothy Napangardi was born in the late 1940s or early 1950s in the bush near Mina Mina, northwest of Alice Springs at a time when colonisation meant that whites were increasingly encroaching on Walpiri land. Although Napangardi did not begin painting until much later, her childhood spent in the bush gathering the plentiful bush tucker and watching family members catch animals for food has had a critical influence on her artistic work. Because Napangardi did not live in a house in her formative years, the ability to view the landscape in its full 360 degrees enabled a different kind of 'eye' which plays out extensively in her visual scapes. It is in this sense that Nicholls looks at the spatial conceptions of the work of Napangardi.

Christine Nicholls

Warped Reflections

Through this article Clement examines the idea that, as human beings we never tire of looking at ourselves, and we particularly seem to like looking at a self we recognise. In this sense it is not hard to see why Mueck's sculptures are so popular, not only in their satisfying familiarity but also in the sheer technical virtuosity they display. The same cultural anxiety that subtly animates Mueck's seemingly ordinary human figures deforms the flesh of Patricia Piccinini's hyper-real creatures. Subsequent to this idea of self observation, Clement looks at the increasing fluidity of the boundaries of the human body and, through examples of such artistic concerns, questions what it means to be human.

Tracey Clement

Stone Into Flesh: Julie Rrap

Australian artist Julie Rrap has consistently explored issues of corporeality and history. Her recent Fleshstones series expands upon these interests by directing her attention to public sculpture and, in particular, the relationship between landscape and the body. Using digital photography Rrap questions the hierarchical organisation of space through fusing figure and ground relations together. These images refer largely to the sculptural work of Henry moore and the myth of Galatea, the tradition of figurative sculpture in which stone is transformed into flesh.

Adrian Parr

Place-Urbanity: A Psycho-Ethnographic Portrait of Melbourne by Jeffrey Shaw

Australian artist Jeffrey Shaw has been at the forefront of interactive new media practice for the past two decades. He has used complex technologies to create large-scale immersive experiences that explore the meeting point between physical touch and human motion, and fantastic and uniquely conceived digital landscapes. He is also the founding Director of the Institute for Visual Media at the ZKM Centre for Art and Media in Karlsruhe in Germany. Right looks at Shaw's film piece Place-Urbanity which premiered in November 2002 and which has proven to be one of the most popular works in the ACMI's collection.

Graham Right

Impressive Risk-Taking: The Ideal City at the Valencia Biennial 2003

While the Venice Biennale remains the pre-eminent visual arts event on the international calendar there are now over 40 similar events that claim to be truly international. One of the newest is held in Spain and its second addition in 2003 gave us a tightly curated, human-scale celebration of ideas with some outstanding exhibitions. Developed expediently over the last five years, taking the community with them, the government is changing face and mindset of what was only ten years ago a city in the grip of chronic decay. Paul Greenaway reports.

Paul Greenaway

Colin McCahon: A Question of Faith

Colin McCahon was born in 1919 in the South Island of New Zealand, in the town of Timaru, that is to say, about as far from the centres of modern art as it is possible to get. The early Italian Renaissance as much as the work of Gauguin and Picasso provided McCahon with his lead in these paintings. Raw and strange, they were greeted with puzzled and angry responses whilst at the same time these profound works secured a number of loyal and powerful supporters. McAloon looks at what was initially a slow and meandering ascent to his career and examines one of McCahon's most well known exhibitions which included 78 of McCahon's works covering the span of his career from 1946 to 1982.

William McAloon

Sideways Glances: South Africa, Australia and Intersections

With the showing of the BHP-Billiton collection of South African art at the RMIT Gallery in late 2002 early 2003, Australians not only saw convincing artworks, but also contemplated a culture that is both akin and alien. Synchronicities and differences in these two cultures and specific artistic experiences played out through the Intersections exhibition, with a recognition of the two nations being joined by mediating a white culture, looking upwards to Europe for inspiration and validation. Peers explores these and other parallels drawn between Australian and South African art and culture and addresses some of our own countries ongoing inequalities and historical misfortunes.

Juliette Peers