Stirring II
Issue 30:4 | December 2010
Substantial essays asking questions about: the effect of the 'art as research' model in our universities, design and art for climate change, art and sport - odd bedfellows?, Australia's 'moat complex', identifying secret sacred Indigenous material, colour, sense impressions and 'theory', and welcoming a new museum of Chinese art in Sydney. Other content: image based profiles of Shen Shaomin, Ariel Hassan, Fiona MacDonald, twelve new art books reviewed, thirty years in the business of contemporary Australian publishing - where it has been and where it is going, 'Exposed' at the Tate Gallery and the Liverpool Biennial reviewed. Authors include: Jane Goodall, Kevin Murray, Alison Carroll, Jo Higgins, Wu Hung, Felicity Fenner, Djon Mundine, Catriona Moore, Peter Hill, Donald Brook.
In this issue
Designing with the Neighbours in Mind: Unlimited Asia Pacific
'Unlimited Asia Pacific' is a platform for the Queensland state government to join Victoria as a leading force in Australia’s emergent design economy. It coincides with the birth of the Australian Design Alliance as a lobbying group to promote design as a capacity across government.
Patronage of the Passionate
Stephanie Britton was very impressed by her visit to the country's only art gallery devoted to contemporary art made by Chinese artists - White Rabbit Gallery and its third six monthly hang titled 'The Big Bang'.
Resistance to Change: Art in the university environment
Novelist and former Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies in the College of Arts at the University of Western Sydney Jane Goodall responds to the new collection of essays edited by Brad Buckley and John Conomos called 'Rethinking the Contemporary Art School'. Goodall analyses the complexity and often dire times engendered by the incorporation of art schools into universities. However she is optimistic and suggests a first step to be a well-designed retreat system.
Art and Sport
Artist and art critic Peter Hill reflects on the boredom factor of sport and how the Basil Sellers Prize has got it right.
Art as a Catalyst of Change: Sydney's HotHouse International Symposium
Chief Curator at the National Institute for Experimental Arts (NIEA) at the College of Fine Arts, Uni of NSW, Felicity Fenner discusses the HotHouse Symposium the launch event of a longer-term research project called 'Curating Cities' being conducted by NIEA in association with Object: Australian Centre for Craft and Design and the City of Sydney. Other research partners include the Melbourne-based group, Carbon Arts, which facilitates opportunities for artists to generate awareness and action on climate change. The central premise of the project is that we can no longer simply curate art, but need to think more holistically, instead curating space in ways that are environmentally sustainable.
Is it Sacred? The Collarenebri Files
Senior curator Djon Mundine reflects on his experiences in the past of consultation with Aboriginal people about artefacts, in particular carved trees in NSW that he wanted to include in 'Spirit and Place' at the MCA in 1997.
Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera
One of Artlink's London correspondents Jo Higgins visited EXPOSED : Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera at the Tate Modern, an exhibition of photography first developed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and found it overwhelmingly strong.
Liverpool Biennial 2010: Touched
Former Head of Asialink Alison Carroll visited Touched the Liverpool Biennial and found 870 artists showing in 400 exhibitions over the 10 weeks of the event.
The Push Pull Decade
Artlink began thirty years ago in a corner of an office in Adelaide. Today it is available in the Tate Modern Bookshop purveying its unique brand of attention to important issues in contemporary art, mostly Australian, often international, wherever the ideas are sharp and the ideals are idealistic.
Interpreting Portraits
Macquarie 1810 - 2010 Hawkesbury Regional Gallery 10 December - 6 February 2011
Shen Shaomin's Bonsai
University of Chicago Professor Wu Hung analyses Sydney and Beijing-based Shen Shaomin's Bonsai series as seen at the MCA for the 2010 Biennale of Sydney as "uncovering secrets".
Confluent Forms: Ariel Hassan recent work
Biotech artist Niki Sperou unpacks at the curious art practice of Adelaide and Berlin-based Ariel Hassan who uses science, philosophy and politics as well as paint, canvas and polyurethane foam to make work embodying action, reaction and the connectivity between all things.
100KM Artworks: Fiona MacDonald's Local Studies
Senior Lecturer at the Power Institute, University of Sydney, Catriona Moore writes bout the recent work of Fiona MacDonald in terms of its connections to locality and history.
Stop the Moats: Recent work by Cecile Williams and Nick Mangan
Adjunct Professor at RMIT Kevin Murray contrasts the idea of Australians as xenophobic 'moat' people with the idea of 'poor craft' which uses detritus to alchemically create a new preciousness.
CACSA Contemporary 2010: The New New
CACSA Contemporary 2010: The New New Curators: Alan Cruickshank and Peter McKay 12 venues around Adelaide 29 October - 21 November 2010
In the Balance: Art for a Changing World & The River Project
In the Balance: Art for a Changing World Museum of Contemporary Art 21 August – 31October 2010 The River Project Campbelltown Arts Centre 28 August – 24 October 2010
Djalkiri: We are standing on their names
Djalkiri: We are standing on their names 24HR ART NT Centre for Contemporary Art 31 July – 4 September 2010 Touring nationally 2011
Madeleine Kelly: The Crevice
Madeleine Kelly: The Crevice Milani Gallery, Brisbane 9 September – 25 September 2010
Laughter
Laughter Stephen Bird, Ben Booth, Andrew Harper, Henri Papin, Roam & Loba, Nicole Robson Curator: Victor Medrano 14 August - 19 September 2010 CAST Gallery, Hobart
GW Bot: The long paddock: A 30 year survey
GW Bot: The long paddock: A 30 year survey Curator: Peter Haynes Goulburn Regional Gallery 9 October – 29 November 2010 Touring until 2013
Curious Colony: A twenty first century Wunderkammer
Curious Colony: A twenty first century Wunderkammer Curator: Lisa Slade Newcastle Region Art Gallery 11 July – 29 August 2010 Curious Colony will be touring to the SH Ervin Gallery, Sydney, 11 January – 20 February 2011.
Elisabeth Kruger: On Beauty
Elisabeth Kruger: On Beauty Curator: Jenny McFarlane Drill Hall Gallery, ANU, Canberra 30 September – 7 November 2010-10-26
Up Close
Up Close Carol Jerrems with Larry Clark, Nan Goldin and William Yang Curator: Natalie King Heide Museum of Modern Art 31 July - 31 October 2010
Unlacing Carnal Margins: Portraits by Angela Stewart
Unlacing Carnal Margins: Portraits by Angela Stewart John Curtin Gallery 16 September – 10 December 2010
Before Time Today: Reinventing Tradition in Aurukun Aboriginal Art
Before Time Today: Reinventing Tradition in Aurukun Aboriginal Art University of Queensland Art Museum 11 September – 28 November 2010
Beyond Garment
Beyond Garment Curator: Anne Farren West Australian Museum, Fremantle 3 Sept to 28 Nov 2010
En Pointe: Magda Matwiejew
En Pointe: Magda Matwiejew Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne 28 July 28 – 21 August 2010
Abstract Nature
Abstract Nature Curator: Margot Osborne Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia 30 July – 8 October 2010
Hijacked Volume 2: Australia / Germany
Joanna Mendelssohn examines a new book on photography, second in a series, this time juxtaposing German and Australian artists. Mendelssohn writes "What Germany and Australia have in common is a certain navel-gazing obsession about what it means to belong to their particular nationalities."
The Revolutionary Century. Art In Asia 1900 to 2000
Artist Pat Hoffie reviews Alison Carroll’s The Revolutionary Century: Art in Asia 1900 to 2000' and finds it both timely and prescient.
Eleven recent publications
Stephanie Radok reviews eleven recent publications in a long celebration of the book: Before Time Today: Reinventing Tradition in Aurukun Aboriginal Art; Once Upon a Time in Papunya; John Davis: Presence; Ingo Kleinert: Two Decades; Joachim Froese: Photographs 1999-2008; Renata Buziak: Afterimage; Substance of Shadows: Jutta Feddersen; Khai Liew; Rounds (PICA); Barbara Hanrahan: A Biography; and Ken Bolton's Art Writing.
