Tag: Art prizes
Darwin 2023
Saturday, August 19th, 2023 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Another hot August night in Darwin, another National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. It was the 40th occasion this event has been celebrated at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT), and rarely has it gone off so smoothly. Things felt a little tentative last year as the industry emerged […]
Ramsay Art Prize 2023
Tuesday, June 13th, 2023 Sydney Morning Herald Column,To the best of my knowledge, until late last month there had never been a major Australian art prize awarded to a performance piece. It had to happen eventually, and the breakthrough moment came at the Art Gallery of South Australia, where local girl, Ida Sophia, took out the $100,000 Ramsay Art Prize, for her […]
Dobell Drawing Prize 2023
Tuesday, June 6th, 2023 Sydney Morning Herald Column,There is a painting by Philip Guston called The Line (1978), in which a red, veiny hand descends from the clouds, and draws a line with a stick of charcoal held between two fingers. God is drawing a line and daring us to step over it. He is also establishing His credentials as the first […]
The Wynne Prize 2023
Tuesday, May 23rd, 2023 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Although the Wynne Prize for landscape (and very occasionally, figurative sculpture) is twenty years older than the Archibald Prize, the portrait show gets all the headlines. It seems local audiences agree with Clement Greenberg, the champion of late modern Abstraction, who said landscape was “overrated”. Not being an Aussie, he did not proceed to transfer […]
Julia Gutman is the Winner
Friday, May 5th, 2023 Blog,This year’s Archibald Prize is a victory for youth. A 29-year-old artist has painted – or rather stitched – a portrait of a 27-year-old pop star. It’s not the worst work in the show, but I wouldn’t have called it as the best. My first impression of this year’s selection was that it was exceptionally […]
Archibald Prize 2023
Friday, May 5th, 2023 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Of all the Archibald Prizes I’ve seen and reviewed, this year’s version is the most difficult to pick. it’s usually easy to spot the winner within five minutes – even when, as is often the case, it may not be the best picture. This year I confess myself bamboozled. One feels a certain sympathy for […]
The Archibald Prize in Ten Pictures
Tuesday, June 14th, 2022 Sydney Morning Herald Column,No fewer than 816 works were entered in this year’s Archibald Prize, with 52 being selected as finalists. I should be used to it by now, but I’m still amazed that so many artists plunge in, year after year, in the forlorn hope of making it into the charmed circle that hangs at the Art […]
The Archibald Prize 2022: A First Look
Monday, May 9th, 2022 Blog,It was predictable that after last year’s orgiastic celebrations of the Archibald Prize’s hundredth birthday, the following year would bring the hangover. But it’s not worth complaining about the quality of the 2022 exhibition, as the Archibald is never better than mediocre, with a few standouts. The dominant aspect of this year’s selection is a […]
Portia Geach Memorial Award 2021
Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Entering this year’s Portia Geach Memorial Award at the S.H. Ervin Galley means being virtually assaulted by Janne Kearney’s There’s a rainbow after every storm (Tilly Baker, musician). There may be nothing subtle about this portrait but it sets the tone for a show that greets the end of Sydney’s lockdown with a loud hooray! […]
Salon des Refusés 2019
Friday, June 7th, 2019 Sydney Morning Herald Column,If Friedrich Nietzsche hadn’t come up with his theory of the Eternal Return in the late 19th century, a few visits to the Salon des Refusés at the S.H.Ervin Gallery would have planted the idea in the mind of any latter-day philosopher. For Nietzsche the thought that everything in life would repeat on an endless cycle was […]