Reflection: 20th Anniversary Issue
Issue 20:3 | September 2000
Guest editor Stephanie Radok Looking back and looking forward. Revisiting some of Artlink's favourite themes over the 2 decades and offering new perspectives for the next decade: ecology, new media, regional arts, Indigenous art, museum practice, craft, theories of art especially that of Donald Brook, multiculturalism and social change. Also an account of Artlink's last decade. Reviews.
In this issue
Artlink - The Second Decade 1991-2000
Britton recaps on the decade that was and discusses some of the significant challenges she and her team at Artlink faced such as marketing, distributing, staffing, staying solvent and avoiding terminal burnout. Also looks at some of Artlinks major achievement over the past ten years.
Screen Gallery
At the time of this article, Screen Gallery, the world's first gallery for the exhibition and research of digital media, was anticipated to open at Federation Square in Melbourne. Screen Gallery is located underground, on the site of a couple of old railway platforms 100 metres long, 15 metres wide and seven metres deep. Creative Director of the Screen Gallery, Ross Gibson spoke to Stephanie Radok over the internet.
Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery
The new Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery, the spearhead of the new and improved South Australian Museum development program, set out to unlocked one of the great ethnographic collections of the world and give insight into one of the worlds oldest, most continuous living cultures. Some of the artefacts on display included totem poles from Elcho Island, headdresses from Central Australia, Darwin area and Mornington Island and wooden shields from across Australia.
Artlink and Museums, Past and Present
The issues raised by revisiting in some degree the past within Artlink touch upon a more general invocation to the authority and precedent of history in an Australian context. Some of these issues are here discussed with reference to key figures such as the Papunya Tula movement, David Kerr, Jude Adams, Drusilla Modjeska, Joan Kerr, Anne McClintock, Louise Dauth, Penny White, Zara Stanhope, Stuart Hall, Nicholas Rothwell, Paul Carter and Donald Brook.
The Link Exhibition
The Link Exhibitions were a series of contemporary art exhibitions run on a very low budget by the Art Gallery of South Australia between 1974-1979 to increase communication and understanding between Australian artists . This article is a retrospective account of the events and responses to the Link Exhibitions. Key figures discussed are Imants Tillers, Jim Cowley, Bob Ramsay, Brian Medlin, Terry Smith, John Baily, Noel Sheridan, Donald Brook, Hank Vischedyk, John Kaldor, Charlotte Moorman, Nam June Paik, Ann Newmarch, Hossein Valamanesh, Aleks Danko, Tony Coleing, Marcus Beresford, Alison Carroll, Ian Maidment, Dick Richards and Barry Pearce.
Craft Theory
The twentieth anniversary of Artlink has provided an occasion for an article on the current state of craft theory and its ramifications. This article gathers and presents a knowledge that eddies around craft and engages in the ontology of craft theory. Its aspirations: for craft theory to be not only approached from the point of view of the useful, instrumental or skilful but as offering new ways of moving and thinking. William Morris, Adolf Loos, David Walker, Sue Rowley, Grace Cochrane, Justin Clemens, Mark Pennings, Kevin Murray, Gilles Deleuze, Nicole Tomlinson, John Rajchman, Felix Guattari, Tony Fry, Frances Lindsay and Paul Carter are discussed through this text.
Design Practice: Trawling the Speculative Field
This article is a response to a renewed interest by design practice into the cultural and natural environment for inspiration, and a renewed focus of design education and practice on investigations in the field. The recent installation works of two architectural practices - Lyons: City of Fiction inspired by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and Shop:Dunescape by PSI New York - are here described.
Art/Body the Liminal Experiences of Indigeneity
Art from an indigenous context cannot be transferred wholly into another context for reading. This denies the fact that indigenous contexts do have ways of seeing and making sense of their art. Mel presents a discourse for alternate ways of viewing such indigenous artwith reference to terms such as postmodern, objectivity and subjectivity. The Mogei people of Mt Hagen area in Papua New Guinea are examined through this text.
Modern Machine Art
Information processing technology influences our notions about creativity, perception, and the limits of art ... It is probably not the province of computers and other telecommunication devices to produce works of art as we know it; but they will, in fact be instrumental in redefining the entire area of esthetic awareness.
Social Ecology
In March 2000, Stuart Hill attended the Mildura Palimpsest #3 Science and Art Symposium organised by Sunraysia TAFE and La Trobe University. One of the speakers was Stuart Hall, scientist and ecologist who, in his talk introduced the concept of social ecology, a cross-disciplinary field of which he is the inaugural professor at the University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury Campus. Here is Hill's interview with Stephanie Radok.
Culture Without Limits: a reflection of art, politics, and shabby nationalism
In this article Kapetopoulos reflects on the watersheds which reinforce her attachment to multiculturalism. The watersheds are the works of certain artists involved with Multicultural Arts Victoria (MAV) and the rise of One Nation. The artists Kapetopoulos writes about are: Yumi Umiumare, Tina Yong and Sung Ping; Charito Saldana; Renato Cuocolo and his innovative theatre company IRAA; Emmanuel Santos and Sandor Matos.
Regional Art: Theorising the regions
This article seeks to challenge regional communities away from the self-prophesying defeatism of whingers from the bush towards a concept of growing communities . The arts have an intrinsic contribution to make within the chosen future. Fettling discusses this with reference to globalisation, de-centred cultural and ethnic hybridization and individuality. Featured artists include Megan Jones, Andrew McDonald, Janet Gallagher, Vicki Reynolds, Danielle Hobbs, Chris Booth, Craig Christie, Rodney Spooner, Michael Doneman, Motoyuki Niwa and Lee Salomone.
Art for Social Change: Footsteps from the Past to the Future
We have arrived at a point where we are constantly experimenting with and experiencing a new understanding of diversity in Australia. Art discovers new directions through the development of strategies that enable it to penetrate and interpret the unknown other in a more profound way. This sets up the topical discussion for this article with references to exhibitions Boghcheh (Bundle), Defiling the Object, Embellishing the Family Photograph and The City which showed at the Gabriel Gallery in 2000. Featured artists include Karen Lunn, Mehmet Adil, Peter Bok, Alan Cruickshank, Helen Fuller, Catherine K, Pramod Kumar, Michelle Nikou, Deborah Paauwe, Bronwyn Platten, Hossein Valamanesh, Zita Weelius, Mei Wong, Anthony Figallo, Fassih Keiso, Samia Mikhail, Yatzek Szmuc and John Tsiavis.
Unsentimental Experimental: The Experimental Art Foundation 25 years on
Bilske looks at the history of EAF: Experimental Art Foundation and some of the significant events which have contributed to its success since its inception in 1974. Discusses briefly Stephanie Brittons publication A Decade at the EAF written in 1984 and the role Donald Brook has played in tackling head-on the problem of just what the experimental in Experimental Art Foundation means. Some of the artists involved with EAF include Aleks Danko, Mike Parr, Michael Craig-Martin, John Barbour, George Popperwell, Shaun Kirby, Craige Andrae, Nic Folland, Hayley Arjona, Sam Wilde, Samantha Small, Jim Moss, Chris Chapman, Sally-Ann Rowland and Michael Newall.
Donald Brook's Art Theory
This text is a dedication to Donald Brooks literary contributions to Artlink magazine over the years. Different from his specifically theoretical writings on art, those featured in Artlink focus on temporal and local issues, and are often written in a wittily ironic style that leaves readers unsure whether they have understood his position.
Adelaide Studios
This article celebrates the diversity of some of the groupings whichlink artists within the city that is Artlink's birthplace, Adelaide. Gray Street Workshop, Central Studios, Experimental Art Foundation (EAF), Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), Jam Factory Contemporary Craft and Design, Jamboree Ceramic Workshop, SAAW (South Australian Artists Workshop), Red Door Facing East, Butcher's Studio, Blythe Street Studios, Rice Art, Zu Design, SEAS Studios and the Electronic Writing Research Ensemble are all examined.
Rosemary Laing: Gradience and Flight Research
Australian Centre for Photography 27 May - 25 June 2000 flight research Gitte Weise Gallery 25 May - 17 June 2000
Little Rippers: Australian Fringe Pop
Outre Gallery, Melbourne to July 15 Fluxus in Germany 1962-1994: A Long Story With Many Knots RMIT Gallery to July 15th
Artists in Focus - Iconography: Traditions and Influence
Holmes à Court Gallery East Perth 9 June - 16 July 2000
Designing Minds
JamFactory Craft & Design Centre 24 June - 23 July Object Galleries 5 August - 1 October Symposium: University of SA, 21-22 July
Milan Milojevic Intervention 6 - 'Index of Possibilities'
Zoology Room, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart curated by David Hansen 4 June -17 July 2000
Drive-By, Fourteen Artists
Sarah Dawson & Bec Dean, Cam & Yvette Merton, Rick Mason & Malcolm Riddoch, Jo Law & Redmond Bridgeman, Marcus Canning & Emily Murray, Vikki Wilson & Erin Heffron, Sam Landels & Sohan Arial Hayes. Each work rotated between locations nightly around the city of Perth during 15-28 April 2000
Place and Identity: Contemporary South Australian Ceramicists
University of SA Art Collection University of South Australia Art Museum 3 August - 9 September 2000