John McDonald

When Robert Hughes died last week, I spent much of the day on the telephone. Inevitably, the passing of this great, controversial figure was a media event of the first order. Among the mass of small comments I had to produce, the Sydney Morning Herald asked for a quick 500 words. The following day the … More

Switzerland gave us the cuckoo clock, and Swiss-American artist, Christian Marclay, has created the most preposterous time-piece in the history of art. The Clock is such a unique artifact it defies all but the most impressionistic responses. This is obvious from Zadie Smith’s essay in the brochure published for the work’s showing at the Museum … More

For 26 years Peter Crayford wrote the weekly film column for the Australian Financial Revew, an appointment he missed on only a handful of occasions. His consistency and the quality of his work become even more remarkable when one understands the circumstances of his life. When early on Sunday morning, Peter gave up his long, … More

With some films box office success owes as much to timing as to the intrinsic qualities of actors, directors or cinematographers. I don’t mean genre pictures made for the Christmas market, but those rare films that capture the spirit of the times. Frank Capra’s movies did this in the 1930s and 40s, with their parables … More

Norwegian Wood will do nothing to dispell the popular preconception that Japanese films are obsessed with sex and death. It is a long, slow, intense story about a young student, Watanabe (Ken’ichi Matsuyama), and his relationship with a disturbed girl, Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi – the schoolgirl from Babel). It is a tale saturated in melancholy, … More

Think of the New York Times and Tom Wolfe’s acqueous description in The Painted Word comes quickly to mind: “that great public bath, that vat, that spa, that regional physiotherapy tank, that White Sulphur Springs, that Marienbad, that Ganges, that River Jordan for a million souls”.. a daily ritual immersion in news and commentary – … More

There was considerable trepidation leading up to the international launch of Sculpture by Sea in the Danish city of Aarhus. This prodigiously popular show, which has occupied the Sydney heads, from Bondi to Tamarama every year since 1997, had never previously been seen outside of Australia. Although the exhibitions at Bondi, and more recently at … More

“The East looks to itself,” wrote Gertrude Bell in her book, Persian Pictures, “it knows nothing of the greater world of which you are a citizen, asks nothing of you and your civilisation.” In the era of globalisation one can only smile at those Orientalist sentiments that impressed Bell’s readers with their profundity in 1894. … More

Imagine a sleepy country town of twelve thousand inhabitants transformed for one week every year by an invasion of raucous aliens wearing white bejeweled jump suits and huge wigs. Imagine a town on the edge of the Australian outback where the summer temperature rises regularly past 40 degrees Celsius, causing the tar on the roads … More

For three days in summer, every other year, an unruly crowd of artists, critics, curators, dealers and collectors descends on Venice for the opening of the Biennale – the world’s premier contemporary art event. The networking and partying goes on at a furious pace, as the art luminaries separate the stars from the also-rans, deciding … More