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Enjoy (Wellington)
Enjoy was born out of transparency and openness and a focus on critical dialogue combined with some utopian ideals such as being 'Liberated from Commercial Constraints' and has been a place for dissent and discussion. Artists Ciaran Begley and Ros Cameron with administrator Rachel Smithies established enjoy in 2000. Exhibiting artists have included Caroline Johnston, Eve Armstrong and Violet Faigan.
Cuckoo
Cuckoo was formed in January 2001 by dreamers Ani O'neill, Daniel Malone, Judy Darragh (artists), Jon Bywater and Gwyneth Porter (writers). Collectively they created this space as a means for discussing ways to present artist's projects outside the traditional method of running a gallery space. Some of the artists involved with cuckoo are Dan Arps, Kate Newby, Sriwana Spong, Ben Tankard, Janet Lilo, Fiona Connor, Seung Yul Oh and Nick Austin.
RM103 (Auckland)
In 1997 a tiny office overlooking a record store in Auckland was turned into a gallery space called 'rm3'. Directors of the now 'rm103' include Andrew Barber, Kylie Duncan, Kirsten Dryburgh and Nicholas Spratt. Previously exhibiting artists include Bjorn Houtman, Sarah Gruiters, Finn Ferrier, Gaelen Macdonald and Erica van Zon.
Round-tables and Square Holes: Recovering Ground
Examines the fragility of the cross-institutional and inter-disciplinary debate. Raises issues of political intervention, globalisation and indigenous and non-indigenous identity and aesthetic. Refers to key figures Joan Kerr, Daniel Thomas, Mary Eagle, Narelle Jubelin, Michael Riley, Ross Gibson, Ricky Swallow, Patricia Piccinini, Tracey Moffatt, Dawn Casey, Terry Eagleton, Ian Burn, Djon Mundine, Diane Moon, George Lambert, Will Dyson, Ruby Lindsay, Christobel Pankhurst, Clive Bell, Roger Fry, Barbara Campbell, Raquel Ormella, Regina Walters, Joanna Callaghan, Martin Mischkulnig and Esme Timbery.
Art History in a Post-Medium Age
Marshs article is largely in response to Bernard Smiths article In Defence of Art History (I&II) published in Art Monthly 2000. Smiths essays were part of a larger debate between art historians and those aligning themselves with either the new art history, or postmodern methodologies associated with cultural studies or virtual culture. Marsh refers to the works of key figures such as Rosalind Krauss, Hal Foster, Peter Greenaway, David Lynch, Caravaggio, Lyndal Walker, David Rosetzky, Versacci, Clement Greenberg, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin, Thomas Crow and Marcel Proust.
On Radical Revisionism
This text looks at two key paintings by Melbourne magic realist artist Julia Ciccarone, which come from a 1996 show at the Robert Lindsay Gallery called Fictitious Voyages. These works are illustrations of the text A New Discovery of Terra Australis, or, The Great Southern Land, originally published in 1676 by one Gabriel de Foigny. These images are deconstructed in relation to past and present histories and what Butler believes are two major attitudes concerning the way things are seen and valued. Other artists here referred to include Gordon Bennett, Colin McCahon, Mondrian, Michael Stevenson, Scott Redford and Mikala Dwyer.
The Necessity of (Un)Australian Art History for the New World
McLean examines the current state of art in Australia as both a positive force and one essentially unAustralian. As he states There may be plenty of interesting artists from Australia but few aspire to make Australian art. McLean looks at the work of artists Tracey Moffatt, Gordon Bennett, John Citizen, Henri Matisse, John Peter Russell, Tony Nathan and John Mawurndjul in an attempt to address some of the issues surrounding the case for unAustralian art.
Dictionary of Australian Artists Online 2006
Respected educators, artists and curators took part in a no-holds-barred workshop coordinated by Dr Vivien Johnson on the teaching of Indigenous art at tertiary level. Appropriation of imagery, bicultural education and the delicate balance between serving the market for overseas students and the need of local and indigenous students were among the issues discussed.
Indigenising Art Education
Far from being at the forefront of Art History/Theory curricula, Indigenous art is frequently missing or relegated to the margins. Kleinert explores this fact through looking at the results of a recent report by Gregory Leong, Bronwyn Power, Penny Mason and Belinda Wright into the percentage of indigenous art material taught in Australian art schools. Furthermore this text focuses on a few recent initiatives which have attempted to strengthen the content of local art education in Australia.
What Should Australian Art Historians Teach?
Grishin looks at the earliest teachings of Australian art history in Australian universities, commencing in the year 1946 with gradually diminishing staff and resources in more recent years. This text further examines some of the pressures against and valued roles of Australian art history in education institutions. Key figures referred to are Sidney Dickinson, Bernard Smith, James Mollison, Wally Caruana, Robyn Maxwell, Bea Maddock and William Morris.
Blindspot: Regional Art Histories in Australia
Holmes focuses on Ian Burns essay regarding the exhibition Popular Melbourne Landscape Painting Between the Wars to explore the nature of the regional landscape as it is depicted and analysed in Australian art and art theory. Discusses the works of: Penleigh Boyd, W.B. McInnes, Arthur Streeton, Harold Herbert, W.D. Knox, John Rowell, Will Rowell, Kenneth Clark, Stephen Bann, Geoff Parr, Marion Hardman, Max Angus, Olegas Truchanas, Peter Dombrovskis, Hamish Fulton, Mario Merz, Ger van Elk, Jan Dibbets, Richard Long, Mark Boyle, Nikolaus Lang, Raymond Arnold, Bea Maddock, Caspar David Friedrich, David Stephenson, Anne McDonald, Paul Zika, Wally Barda, Virginia Coventry, Adrian Hall, Old Mick Tjakamarra, Max Tjampitjinpa, Ronnie Tjampitjinpa, Don Tjungurrayi, Dick Pantimatu Tjupurrula, Greg Burgess, Norman Day, Jennifer Hill, Michael Viney, David Keeling, Richard Wastell, Tim Burns, Tim Morrison, Geoff Dyer, Kenny Gregan, Michaye Boulter, Sue Lovegrove, Jan Senbergs, John Caldwell, David Hansen, Lynne Andrews, Leigh Hobba, Philip Wolfhagen, Tim Burns, Martin Walch, Christl Berg, Nick Waterlow, Victoria Hammond, Tim Bonyhady, Margaret Scott, Edward Colless, Heather B Swan, Mary Knight and Peter Timms.
Chronologically Unsound
In 1982 Ian Burn wrote an incisive essay for the exhibition Popular Melbourne landscape painting between the Wars. The exhibition, curated by Doug Hall for the Bendigo Art Gallery, included a range of landscape paintings by artists such as Penleigh Boyd and W.B. McInnes.
Indigenous art: how should it be taught?
Respected educators, artists and curators took part in a no-holds-barred workshop coordinated by Dr Vivien Johnson on the teaching of Indigenous art at tertiary level. Appropriation of imagery, bicultural education and the delicate balance between serving the market for overseas students and the needs of local and indigenous students were among the issues discussed.
Gleaning Relational Aesthetics
The term Relational Aesthetics was first coined by Nicolas Bourriard, French curator and, since 1999, co-director with Jerome Sans of the Contemporary art centre Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Relational art doesn't produce a product but focuses on relations between audience members, events and ideas.
Depravity-in-Wharfedale
Founded as recently as 1888 the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum in Wharfedale was by reputation the biggest madhouse in Western Europe, and Brooks small village lay huddled beside it. Brook tells the story of living in sin, celebacy and the wall that proposed a division between madness and sanity.
Picturing Climate Change
CSIRO science writer Simon Torok summarises the facts about how global warming is affecting every one of us in Australia. The marks of climate change, so far, are less tangible and Torok proposes that it is the challenge for art and science to help people see it. Torok initiated a project during his time in England which aimed at bringing art and climate science together through the use of objects and images to visualise our future climate and in turn provoke a strong emotional response amongst audiences.
Overtaken by Glaciers: The State of Eco-Architecture
Downton and Prelgauskas are advocates for ecological architecture and urbanism and through this article explore a little of what is happening in Australian architecture and compare overseas experiences. Australian progress in the art of ecological living has been fairly slow and although it hasnt matured yet, this article is optimistic in its exploration of some of the encouraging signs. What is missing they say is sufficient enlightened clients and a culture that is ecologically attuned to the artful songs of the biosphere.
Black Death: Species Extinction in WA
After 25 years of living in Victoria, Gregory Pryors rediscovery of and new found appreciation for the Australian landscape came about due to his relocating to Perth. Subsequent to this profound experience whereby he felt he was viewing the Australian landscape for both the first and last time, Pryor set out to create a body of work which entailed around 200 detailed drawings made from the Western Australian Museums archives. Through detailed examinations of individual flowers and specimens, Pryor was able to metaphorically travel across a huge amount of Australia and locate specific relationships between these flowers and the lands ancient human inhabitants.
Wetland (as in Disneyland)
In his 2004 gallery installation Wetland, Michael Harkin used the familiar imagery of rainwater tanks and the gentle notes and timbres of water whooshing and gurgling to highlight to audiences the consequences of turning on the tap or flushing a toilet within the area covered by the local water authority. Harkin has based this project on some of the important issues surrounding water commoditifaction and consumtion as well as being developed within a framework based on the ideas of theorist Jean Baudrillard.
Sweet Revenge: An Interview with Ken Yonetani
Ken Yonetani is an artist born and raised in Japan, and now practising in Sydney. Much of his recent work explores the intersections between consumption, desire, and human impact on our environs. He talks here with Julia Yonetani, who, apart from being Kens partner, is a lecturer, translator and writer on art, history, and things Japanese. This interview was conducted in Japanese and translated into English by Julia.
Stepping Lightly: The Art of Melissa Hirch
Byron Bay-based fibre artist Melissa Hirsch is the first artist to achieve climate neutrality through her involvement with Climate Friendly, a goverment-accredited Australian company which allows businesses and individuals to calculate the climate impact of their energy use. As a result she plans to promote her climate neutral art to corporate clients seeking a more eco-friendly image. Environmental sustainability was the impetus in Hirschs choice of career and has been the guiding force in the trajectory of her development as an artist; to produce art in nature, with nature, about nature.
Artists' Footprints (Sustain ability labelling and artworks! What's that?)
Smith offers some suggestions for those interested in the ecological (and social) sustainability of an art work and introduces the notion of EarthLabel as a way of making artworks ecologically and socially accountable - and maybe even more marketable. For more information visit: www.myfootprint.org
Framing The Colour of Infestation: the work of Liz Woods
Liz Wood is a landscape installation artist whose work over the years has included covering rocks with wallpaper and embellishing tree trunks with roses. In July 2005 Woods was selected to be a part of Farming with Mary, a collaborative project which took place along the Mary River in four agricultural communities near Gympie in Queensland. In the case of Woods large-scale works in the landscape, their ephemeral existence has the advantage of avoiding a harmful environmental impact, whilst the visual impact is clearly assertive.
Bowerbirds and the Art of Ian Hamilton
Ian Hamilton has approached some of the ideas surrounding sexual and asexual reproduction amongst organisms from a different perspective to those of biologists in his ongoing artistic studies. Hamilton began his work on bowerbirds when he was an Artist-in-Residence at Griffith University in 1976 during a visit to OReillys national park south of Brisbane where he filmed and videotaped Satin Bowerbirds as they worked upon their bowers. He has drawn many parallels between the creative processes of Bowerbirds and artists and over the years the ongoing extinction of these birds has come to be a symbolic representation and reminder of the harsh ramifications of human activity on the natural world. Hamilton is based in Adelaide in South Australia.
Remediation as art with Gavin Malone
For a decade the art practice of Gavin Malone has been concerned with ecological rehabilitation and cultural interpretation. A former grazing property and thus a degraded ecosystem, the 185 ha property belonging to fellow artist Greg Johns overlooking the plains of the River Murray, has been transformed into what Malone suggests is not just a sculpture park with a Landcare project but actually reconceptualises art as ecology.
From the River to the Source: Lloyd Godman's Ecological Explorations
Lloyd Goldman's twin careers of serious and successful organic gardener and practising artist of great creative energy converge in new and constantly surprising ways to make art about the ecological concerns that underly his gardening. Over almost three decades his art has widened out from relatively traditional landscape photography to include elements of performance, audience participation art and multimedia installation to explore the tensions between electronic consumer society and the ecosystem.
A Torn Parchment: The Murray Darling Palimpsest
Since European settlement the Murray Darling district has been a major site for irrigation and has been established as an important agricultural centre. In 1956 a valuable collection of late nineteenth and early twentieth century art was bequeathed to the city and a new gallery was built to display it. Over the years the Mildura Sculpture Prize has progressed to become a non-competitive event and in 1973 for the first time, environment was the theme. With the launch of Mildura Palimpsest, Mildura once again emerged as a central location for experimental art that tackled ecological issues.
TeATR'ePROUVeTe: Social Ecology in French Villages
Jean Bojko is the founder of TeATRePROUVeTe, a project created in response to a desire for a socially inclusive cultural event to be held in the Shire of Nievre in regional France in 2000. Bojko came up with the idea of marrying the 32 smallest villages of the shire with thirty-two artists. The aim was to get the villagers to see their own potential and to build a network with others. The event involved mock burials which took place in the local cemeteries as well as numerous events focused on environmental viability and sustainability as a way to symbolically reinforce the transition of these individuals from craftsmen to members of common life.
EcoTV: A South Australian Experiment
As part of the 2005 Adelaide Film Festival, the inaugural EcoTVC competition for a 30-second television commercial was held to create greater public awareness of key environmental issues. The winner was Peter Miller, a 22-year-old superannuation administrator and writer whose entry showed people hopping around dressed ridiculously as endangered native animals. The commercial ended with the slogan Youll appreciate the real thing...once theyre gone , together with a final shot of a Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby as an example of the real thing that could become extinct.
Drawing on the Earth: Bronwyn Wright's 'Running Dog'
Photographer Bronwyn Wright has been visiting the local swamp lands northeast of Darwin with her dogs for about fifteen years. Her latest artwork at The Swamp draws on her knowledge of this piece of land and on her Spatial Sciences (GIS and Remote Sensing) studies at Charles Darwin University. It is a geoglyph, an earth drawing of a dog that is ecological because it treads lightly on the earth by using only human footprints to make marks that are visible from space.
Drought and Art: 10% and Falling
On 2 July 2005 Goulburn Regional Art Gallery held a community forum to discuss the water crisis in the region. The all-important forum only happened because of art, or more specifically because Goulburn Regional Art Gallery had organised the exhibition Water Works of 16 regional artists works about water sustainability and survival. Gallery director Jennifer Lamb tells the hair-raising story of a town learning to do without water and the role of artists in coming to terms with this.
John Dahlsen: Plastic Arts
John Dalsens work, utilising found plastic beach rubbish, is seen as environmental art. Art debates aside, he has collected mountains of rubbish and transformed it into artworks that really do captivate people. Recognition of his collecting has been made by the Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World campaigns by naming Dahlsen as their official artist. Through the material he finds Dahlsen depicts various landscapes and the multitude of objects create a dialogue about our use, and abuse, of the environment.
Performance art and Plastic Bags in the Pacific
The scourge of non-recyclable waste devastating the precious land of the Pacific Islands has become a new subject matter for some of the local performers. A play put on in front of the newly built Parliament House on the tiny Pacific island of Tuvalu marked the islands transition to becoming the worlds first plastic shopping bag free country. Campbell looks at some of the ecological and economic crisis in the South Pacific Islands in the year that was declared The Year of Action Against Waste and the methods which are employed to assist with the educating of such issues.
The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize Under Scrutiny
Osborne examines and questions the validity of the South Australian Museums Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize in terms of its proposed intentions which lie in the educating of issues concerning Australias natural heritage and ecology. With a prize pool of $85,000 in total the event certainly offers incentive to artists and attracts many of the countries most prolific artists but in turn fails to provide any intrinsic value in terms of art or natural history. As Osborne concludes neither sales, nor attendance figures are sufficient to justify the museum devoting its space, resources and prestige to this ill-conceived event.
Ecology Network
Free soil http://www.free-soil.org is an international collaboration of artists, activist, researchers and gardeners who take a participatory role in the transformation of our environment. Founded in 2005 by Amy Franceschini (USA) Stijn Schiffeleers (Belgium), Nis Romer (Denmark) and Joni Taylor (Australia), it aims to foster discourse, develop projects and give support for art practices that reflect and often change the urban and natural landscape by working on issues such as sustainability, environmental art and greening cities.
Finsbury Green Printing - The Story of the First Carbon Neutral Printer in Australia
Finsbury is the only printing company in Australia to successfully establish an environmental printing brand, and over the years their environmental credentials have become so strong that they can legitimately call everything they do green. They are also the only commercial printing company in Australia to volunteer for the Federal Goverments Greenhouse Challenge Plus to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This article looks at some of the developing methods and strategies Finsbury Green Printing are dedicated to year after year in an attempt to become as environmentally sustainable as possible.
Qin Ga: 'Miniature Long March'
The Long March A Walking Visual Display is an international collaboration involving over 250 Chinese and international artists taking place along 20 sites of the historical Long March. Each site was chosen for its symbolic import; the Long March was tatooed onto Qin Ga's back transforming his body into both an artwork and a Long March object.
Here Come the Jets
Current trends in image reproduction, addressed through the introduction of giclee technology and industry. Neylon deals with issues of prints authenticity and some of the controversial debates surfacing within Australias art community.
Philanthropy, Sponsorship, or Dinner?
On July 29 2005 the Prime Minister, John Howard, was guest of honour at the annual Australian Business Foundation for the Arts (AbaF) Awards Dinner. Joanna Mendelssohn reports on the event.
Biennials of the World: Myths, Facts and Questions
In recent years, in the rarefied world of high art, in the places where international curators meet and work, amongst critics, commentators, artists, sponsors and collectors there has been no subject more widely discussed than that of the international recurrent exhibition. While Stephanie Britton recognises that the more closely it is examined the larger and more complex the subject becomes she has set out to tackle some of the essential ideas and questions surrounding these exhibitions. Includes two double fold out charts exclusive to Artlink: 1) a map of the world showing all the current biennales and triennials plus a new analysis of the 112 most frequently invited artists; 2) a star chart titled Artlink's Intergalactic Guide to the Curators of International Biennials and Triennials which lists the most frequently employed curators on these events and which events they have worked on.
An Inauspicious Occasion
In May 2005 Brisbane lost a landmark. Wendy Mills water sculpture On this auspicious occasion, commissioned in November 1998 as part of a major refurbishment of Brisbanes Queen Street Mall and a broader attempt to achieve a more culturally sophisticated city, came down in the dead of the night.
Public Interrogations
Architecturally-trained artist Richard Goodwin regards built and urban spaces as his performative stage. He has sought out parks, passageways, plazas, under and overpasses and other connective, forgotten and in-between spaces to insert an often absurdist mark of his presence.
Give Wings to the Arts
This article outlines a radical new model for arts funding in Australia which will seek to adequately address many of the economic and creative necessities of young and established artists. Hall clearly sets out the proposal for the model, pointing out the four wings which would come into place to assist various sectors of the creative industries including Visual Arts, Literature, Crafts and Composition and Choreography and would replace both existing Fellowships and New Works Grants.
New Museum Creates Cafe Society in Shenzhen
At the end of January 2005 in the He Xingning Art Museum in Shenzhen, a conference was held to coincide with the opening of the first dedicated Contemporary Art Museum in China named OCTA Contemporary Art Centre. The conference was essentially looking at the major issues confronting contemporary art in China as it goes through yet another dramatic evolution.
The Larrakia Legacy of Billiamook
Larrakia people bore the brunt of colonial expansion in the Northern Territory when Darwin was settled by beraguds (white people) in 1869. Gary Lee writes of Billiamook, one of the first Larrakia to interact with the settlers and the first Aboriginal artist to have his work exhibited and recognised as art.
Under the Skin
The Aboriginal community of Balgo, situated on the cusp of the Tanami and Great Sandy Desert is a melting pot for contemporary Aboriginal art and culture. This article examines a group of white women artists and their various bodies of work which grew from their time spent at Balgo.
Just Really Out There
Steve Fox's job involves regular 1400km round trips from Uluru to some of the most remote communities in Australia. He reports on a typical four-day excursion in the Maruku troopcarrier.
Looking Forward Looking Back: in the East Kimberly
Marrying visual art, dance and inspirational rhetoric has been one of the hallmarks of the Jirrawun Artists Co-operation operating out of Kununarra. These traditional people have been at the forefront of contemporary political debates and Indigenous art practice. Cath Bowdler follows the story of Jirrawun Artists Co-operation from its inception in 1998 to the present day. A non-government funded body, Pro bono partnerships with the corporate and private sector.
Kuninjku Modernism
Kuninjku Modernism pays respect to the wellspring of the Indigenous art movement and the many artists of Western Arnhem Land, furthermore exploring the several countries or nations of this large civic nation.
Looking Elsewhere: Asia at the Top End
The top end has a distinctly Asian flavour not only because of its cultural heritage prior to 1880s but also because of the significant East Timorese connection. This article looks at the Northern Territorys strong and visionary commitment to cultural exchange with Indonesia and the increasing Asian character of Darwin's rapidly changing population.
Sitting Down with Indigenous Artists
Erica Izett explores the cultural convergence between Australias indigenous and non-indigenous people over the past few decades and the rewarding implications it is having on Australias artistic and cultural practice and awareness.
Bush Techies and Secret Data Business
Caroline Farmers position at 24HR Art, the Northern Territorys Centre for Contemporary Art required an involvement with projects specifically aimed to help indigenous artists acquire new media skills. What she found in the Territory however required her to think in an entirely new way. Farmer discusses some of her experiences with her new found traditionally and technologically aligned environment.
Art at the Frontier: Franck Gohier
Frank Gohier has distinguished himself as a resident Darwin artist whose work as a painter, sculptor, printmaker and teacher reflects a different perspective of the far northern - one based on lived experience. Addresses the impact of the indigenous community on his Anglo perspective art.
From Fregon to Srinigar and Back
Kaltjiti Arts is a community owned arts centre in Fregon. A cross-cultural project between two groups of community artists based in South Australia's remote and traditional Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands and in Srinigar, the turbulent capital of Kashmir is based on the combining of these two isolated and very different cultures via their arts and traditions.
Neverland vs. Reality: How to Sustain an Art Practice in the Territory
Historically, people in the Territory have viewed southeners with suspicion, often characterising them as missionaries or carpetbaggers. Some emerging artists here are beginning to question these attitudes and are starting to take advantage of the financial and critical lifelines that the south has to offer. Bronwyn Wright and Tobias Richardson are two who have engaged energetically with southerners and achieved high levels of recognition.
Making the Gospel Their Own
Eastern Arrernte Catholics at Ltentye Apurte, the former Santa Teresa Catholic mission east of Alice Springs, are making the local church and liturgy a ground for telling their recent history and reflecting their ancient yet evolving traditions. A mural project was initiated by a local non-aboriginal woman Cait Wait in 2002 with the help of eight neophyte artists.
Women's Business by Remote
In the past two decades the face of Australian art practice has been changed immeasurably by a renewed focus on the culture of Indigenous people and the efflorence of Aboriginal art. This article looks at the work of three non-Indigenous artists who worked in places regarded as remote and developed art practices through engagement with Aboriginal people.
Fremantle Print Award 30 Years Later and Still Standing
One of the many pleasures of running an annual award for excellence in printmedia is the thrill of unpacking the entries and encountering a work that takes your breath away. That thrill can evaporate when the judging panel dismisses the favoured work, or simply die away amongst the endless piles of entries waiting to be processed before you.
The Sounds of Silence
Through traditional method, an explicit residue of manual labour, and a constructed subject, Ricky Swallows wooden work suggests a past tense, which leads the viewer backwards through the material history of the work. The Defining aspects of Swallows approach are distinctly framed in the western tradition of the artisan and the language of figuration.
The Art of Outsourcing
While our romantic inheritance imagines artists working in isolation, this is changing. Increasingly, successful artists are working with teams of technicians who contribute precious amounts of skill, time and experience to the final work. Harvey looks at the relationships between artists, apprentices and their creations within the realm of tactile, three-dimensional art and some of the apparent concerns associated.
It's Not You, It's Me - I Just Don't, You Know, Think We're Compatible
"It should go without saying that our responses to the handmade, the mass-produced and techno gadgetry are principally structured within and by fantasy worlds . Cook explores peoples relationships to objects in a world that is perpetually developing and enhancing itself materially, or so it seems.
I Came to Japan Because of the Chopstick
Timms' account of a personal journey through Japan and South Korea and the traditional history of fine pottery crafts that accounts for a large degree of Eastern culture. He here explores the distinctions and connections between Eastern and Western material culture as exemplified through the life and role of the chopstick.
Getting Off Your Face With a Destructive Character
Christian Capurros Another Misspent Portrait of Etienne de Silhouette documents the act of erasure over a period of five years, with the artist asking family, friends, artists and others to each erase a page from the male fashion rag Vogue Hommes. Each rubber was asked to record how long it took them to rub out their page, the results were then tallied.
The Darkroom in the Age of Post-Film Photography
In both amateur and professional photography the few multinational corporations that control the industry have collectively marshalled their marketing strategies to capitalise on recent advances in digital technology. Jolly looks at the shifting photographic trends, their viability and the increasing loss of intimate image-making.
Pixel Perfect: The Craft of Photography in the Age of Digital Reproduction.
Walkling proclaims that something is being mourned that has to do with the physical object and its associated labour, in the meantime the distinction between amateur and professional photographer is lessening as this particular creative niche is becoming more automated.
Australian Drawing Now: Labouring Lightly
The on again/off again love affair between drawing and contemporary art practice seems to have been going on ad nauseam. From the sixties through to the present day, ongoing tensions between the apparent values of traditional and conceptual art have resulted in much of today's appreciation for the reworking of both aesthetics in what has become a new labour of love.
Nurturing the Handmade
In interacting with an object, its physical properties are paramount; as a result, the power of objects to affect us becomes identified with their physical attributes, leading to an emphasis on making, and so linking making with authorship. Sorzano explores the process of object-making as the work in our minds, the work in our hands, and the work as a result... .
The Hand in Making
The Tamworth Fibre Textile Biennial began in 1975 and every two years a collection of contemporary fibre textile work tours nationally to metropolitan and regional audiences. For Attiwill, guest curator of the 16th Biennial, the spark for the exhibition A Matter of Time came from Sue Rowleys wisdom: it is useful to think of craft in terms of multiple temporalities, A Matter of Time is an exploration of this usefulness.
Bush TV's: Piliyi - Good One
Nyinkka Nyunyu is an art and culture centre located on Warumungu land in Tennant Creek, right in the middle of the Northern Territory. From the time the idea came up to build something alongside the sacred site of Nyinkka Nyunya, art was always going to be an integral part of the project. The result of many brainstorming sessions amongst traditional owners of the land on which Tennant Creek stands was the idea of dioramas, or Bush TVs to provide the means to present history and contemporary life through art to a diverse audience.
Hand to Mouse: Design and the Handmade
There have always been cycles in the making of what we describe as art, crafts and design, where surges of new ideas have been followed by revivals of earlier values or reform movements that challenge both. The Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, is working on an exhibition for late 2006, on the interface between art, design, industry and the values of the handmade. Cochranes hope is that it will challenge audiences to look closely at some of the exciting working relationships that are possible.
In the Wake of Gesture: Architecture and the Handmade
Architecture has long since surrendered the tactile in favour of grander visions. Through an examination of Sandra Seligs recent work Synthetic Infinite at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and the unique responses to architecture and the handmade that this work displays, Murray attempts to question how we might then consider architecture and our relationship with built matter to restore a direct connection with human experience.
Domestic Arts in the White Cube
There exists an increasing number of artists - mostly women - creating art using what have been known, somewhat disparagingly, as domestic arts: knitting, crochet, sewing, tatting, embroidery. For many of these artists the choice of method is integral to what the work is saying, the making - the journey - as important as the result, even if that journey is not immediately obvious to the viewer.
Parallel Universe: The Gray St. Workshops @ 20
Gray Street Workshop, which is this year celebrating its twentieth anniversary, has pursued a creative work ethic closely aligned to values of the handmade, not as an end per se but as a means to evolve a creative language grounded in the interplay between ideas and practice.
Patrick Hall's Cabinets of Everyday Curiosities
For Hughes, Patrick Halls cabinets recall the great elaborately decorated cabinets of the 17th century. Rather than mere decoration, Halls cabinets express a poetry of the everyday that is neither a condescending celebration nor a critical analysis but a deeply personal response to his materiel.
Unpacking 'Il Cretino Veloci' or 'The Fast Idiot'
Thomson pays tribute to an increasing minority of Australians devalued for getting their hands in the mucky stuff. As he proclaims ...people who make things with their hands for a living are seen as a hopeless anachronism rooted to the ground. In an age where the majority of the Australian population now work in what are termed the service industries, the ability to apply ones motor skills are making for a society who rarely needs to use those funny slabs of flesh at the end of our arms.
A Response by a Fringe Dweller
Debates about what is mainstream, whether in global or national terms, seem to perennial. Some have claimed Aboriginal art is now mainstream. Stephanie Radok takes this notion apart.
Shifting Gears: Asian Traffic
Asian Traffic was, outside the Asia-Pacific Triennial (APT), one of the most ambitious efforts undertaken in Australia aimed at exploring the multifarious nature of new Asian art and its complex intersection with contemporary Australian culture. Visitors were forced to join the Asian Traffic coming and going from the Asia-Australia Centre in Chinatown, Sydney, and in its ever-changing guises and fluid shifts in direction, the project successfully circumvented any traffic jams.
Towards Ubuntu: The Way of the South
Melbourne is the host city of the South Project, a project designed to celebrate the creative energies of people living in the southern hemisphere and create south-south dialogue between artists of the countries of the south. South 1 encouraged all kinds of responses: philosophical and whimsical, creative and conceptual, contesting and renewing ideas, in the first gathering of its kind.
Exchange Value # 1. If It's Tuesday it Must be a Conference on Art and Globalism
As with Feminism in the 1970s certain ideas are in the air and finding widespread expression amongst artists and art institutions. Globalism impacts upon artists options and this phenomenon of artists and curators on the move is the result of the explosion of communication around art. Peers looks at the influx in globalism and its various influences in the Australian and international art scene.
Exchange Value # 2. Keeping up the Momentum
Britton follows up from Peers examination of Art and Globalism to discuss the trends of international art residencies and the evident exchange in cultural values and creative receptibility that comes as a result of working in a foreign country; the buying of time away from other strategies for staying solvent - part time or full time jobs, or feeling under pressure to make work with commercial appeal .
The In-Between: Hybrid Arts Laboratories as Places to Question
Hybrid art laboratories - both funded and semi-funded - are dotting themselves around the Australian arts landscape. Most of them involve time away from the everyday, where experience can be intensified and where a new set of meetings between artists can take place. It is an experimental environment encouraging a mode of artmaking that struggles to exist between art form and another, one identity and another, one technology and another, one world and another.
Sutapa Biswas: Birdsong
Sutapa Biswas was born in Santinekethan, India, in 1962 and immigrated to the UK with her family at the age of three. Her subsequent life and studies in Britan have resulted in a truly cross-cultural, multi-layered dialogue within her work. Her 2004 film Birdsong encapsulates the realisation of a young boys dream (in this case her son). Sutapa believes for a child, there is nothing that holds them back if you allow them to dream....
Audience Implication: PVI Collection
Back in 1998, the PVI (Performance, Video, Installation) Collective were a neat group and a fledgling collective. In 2004, seven years and eighteen major works later, the group has expanded to include new members, in addition to remote cells and networks of groups and individuals across Australia. The PVI refer to themselves as shape-shifters, and in this sense the shifting evolution of the collective has been influenced as much by the consequences of their national and international residencies as their addoption of new technologies.
Virtuous Networks
While many art institutions are just coming to terms with incorporating networked media into their exhibition programs, the genres have been exponentially expanding and mutating. In recognition of the newly hatched species that is networked media art, the ISEA2004 (the nomadic biennial festival held in Finland, Estonia and onboard a Baltic cruise ship) and the Australian ARS ELECTRONICA, dedicated a stream of their conference and exhibition programs to networked themes.
The City of Light: Video Projection and Public Art in Adelaide
The recent initiative of the Adelaide City Councils Public Art Program Luminosity has seen the commissioning and exhibition of five temporal public art projections between June and December of 2004. The objectives of the initiative aim to foster the Citys image as a centre of creativity and innovation, supporting established and emerging artists through the encouragement of quality new media art, thus making a contribution to the social and cultural substance of the city space.
Fakery and Fabrication in Photomedia
A series of photographs, still images from Monika Tichaceks 2002 video/performance work Lineage of the Divine, were exhibited in Japan in Supernatural Artificial, an exhibition of nine contemporary Australian photomedia artists. Tichacek exploits a heightened intimacy between viewer and work to construct complex and ambiguous scenarios that simultaneously delight, unsettle and confound.
SenseSurround: Empathy Between Human and Machine
The artists featured in ACMIs latest exhibition of new media work, SenseSurround, both use and develop cutting edge audio/visual technology to enhance sensorial experience for the spectator. The idea was to use the film soundtrack to trigger massively boosted low frequency signals, below the audible threshold, in the theatres. This would cause vibrations of the ear-drum and the body of the spectator and provide the sensation of earth tremors.
Bridget Riley on Bridget Riley
Bridget Riley is an artist who has pursued her own agenda for over thirty years with no concessions and has made a place for herself within the heart of the art world not only with her work but through her extraordinary desire and willingness to communicate. On the occasion of her major survey exhibition in Sydney in the summer of 2004 at the Museum of Contemporary Art she kindly assembled for Artlink some excerpts from some of these interviews.
The Importance of Being 'Un-Australian'
Melbournes Moomba festival held in 1956 replaced the annual celebration of the winning of the eight-hour day. Thus an occasion that had originally been devised to commemorate an important victory of the Australian labour movement was transformed into a bipartisan celebration of civic pride and family values.
The New Cosmopolitans
During his visit to Melbourne in April this year, Bombay-born, Oxford-educated, Harvard professor, Homi Bhabha spoke of Vernacular Cosmopolitanism, the global citizenry of refugees, economic migrants and minorities within cultures who must learn about translation because you survive that way.
Location Location Location
The position of long-term visitor or unfaithful citizen affords a view from both within a culture and outside it. The art of Pasifika is as diverse as its people, it is a 21st Century hybrid reality. Pasifika is urban.
'Aboriginalism' in Europe: On the Way Out?
Subsequent to Nicholls three month residency in several European regions, she has been examining some of the ways in which Australian Aboriginal art is currently being perceived, received and curated in this part of the world. As she states, the Salzburger Kunstvereins programme, juxtaposing photographic works and video installations by Destiny Deacon and Lisl Ponger was the only one of the four European Indigenous art exhibitions she saw that made any serious and genuine effort to address the postcolonial legacy of Anglo-European colonialism.
Michael Jagamara Nelson Gives It A Go
Michael Jagamara Nelson is an artist who love - maybe even needs - a challenge. As Johnson examines, he has had his fair share. With his first painting, a piece he did for his uncle Jack Wayuta (a senior custodian for the Flying Ant Dreaming for Yuwinji) going unrecognised as one of his own for fifteen years, Michael Nelson made his mark in the indigenous art scene after his big break from Daphne Williams of Papunya Tula Arts.