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Australian Art

Art Essays

Thomas Demand, Gonkar Gyatso

Saturday, April 14th, 2012 Australian Art, International Art, Sydney Morning Herald Column,

There have been 24 previous Kaldor Public Art Projects in Sydney, but never anything so cool and oblique as Thomas Demand’s The Dailies 2012. The work is not installed in a gallery, but in the Commercial Travellers’ Association Club, in the MLC Centre, just off Martin Place. The unconventional venue is an essential part of […]

Art Essays

New MCA

Saturday, April 7th, 2012 Australian Art, International Art, Sydney Morning Herald Column,

A new Museum of Contemporary Art has been a long time coming. This weekend the public can take a first look and see if the wait has been worthwhile. My own verdict, after an intensive preview, is that it is a qualified success. Some would argue we have been waiting ever since John Wardell Power’s […]

Art Essays

Archibald Prize 2012

Saturday, March 31st, 2012 Art Essays, Australian Art, Sydney Morning Herald Column,

At that dreaded time of year when the Archibald Prize rolls around, the Trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW strap on their armour and prepare to be criticised, condemned, lampooned and humiliated. Admittedly they often bring this fate on themselves by their choice of a show or a winner. The only difference this time […]

Art Essays

Mike Parr, Denise Green, Art Month

Saturday, March 24th, 2012 Art Essays, Australian Art, Sydney Morning Herald Column,

Three weeks in, Art Month keeps rolling. The wine is still being sipped, the eager crowds scramble from one gallery to the next; the chatter is relentless. There’s always something else to say about Art, even if each new pronouncement tends to contradict the previous one. The unresolved issue hanging over this collective love-in for […]

Art Essays

Last Days

Friday, March 16th, 2012 Art Essays, Australian Art, Blog, General Art Essays,

“Hurry, hurry, last days!” Margaret Olley used to say, when she felt the pinch of old age. Her final show, completed in fairy tale fashion on the day she died, reveals an artist who knew she did not have much time left. The paintings in the exhibition, The Inner Sanctum, hosted by Philip Bacon in […]

Art Essays

Sunset over Cottesloe

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012 Art Essays, Australian Art, Blog, General Art Essays,

As half of the Sydney art world celebrated the launch of Art Month, and the other half clinked glasses at a valedictory show of Margaret Olley’s work, I was on Cottesloe Beach watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean. It was the eighth incarnation of Sculpture by the Sea in Western Australia, and I […]

Art Essays

Parallel Collisions: The 2012 Adelaide Biennial

Saturday, March 10th, 2012 Aboriginal Art, Art Essays, Australian Art, General Art Essays, International Art, Sydney Morning Herald Column,

“We love language,” confessed the curators of Parallel Collisions: the 12th Adelaide Biennial. This may not sound controversial – for the purposes of communication it’s very useful. It was only as I read through the boxed, brick-heavy catalogue for this exhibition that I began to feel Natasha Bullock and Alexie Glass-Kantor may love language not […]

Art Essays

Russell Drysdale: The Drawings

Saturday, March 3rd, 2012 Art Essays, Australian Art, Sydney Morning Herald Column,

When Lou Klepac tells us that Russell Drysdale “was always reluctant to get on with painting or even drawing,” it is the merest understatement. Of all the Australian artists who have made a lasting contribution to the national culture, Drysdale was the least driven by either ambition or compulsion. This year is the hundredth anniversary […]

Art Essays

Love Lace

Saturday, February 25th, 2012 Art Essays, Australian Art, International Art, Sydney Morning Herald Column,

Over the past few years the Powerhouse Museum has attracted plenty of critics, but turn up on a Saturday and the place is full of people. Does this mean the criticisms are baseless – the mere bleating of snobs and elitists? Well no, actually. Since its grand opening in 1988, the building has always been […]

Art Essays

Fred Sandback; Wim Delvoye; Abstract Canvas; Philip King

Saturday, February 18th, 2012 Art Essays, Australian Art, General Art Essays, International Art, Sydney Morning Herald Column,

Over the years Andrew Jensen has edged his way north, starting in Christchurch, moving to Wellington, on to Auckland, and last year crossing national lines and arriving in Sydney. What makes the Jensen Gallery unusual is that the exhibition program consists of 70-80 per cent international art – the kind of art we normally only […]