Visual Arts
I bump into two friends at the opening of SYNERGY and we peer into Tony Tuckson’s works, finding allegiances with and hints of other artists: the red, black, and white palette of Philip Guston; Ian Fairweather’s shallow space and densely patterned linework hovering between figuration and abstraction; Cy Twombly’s intricate, repetitive gestures; the torn edge of a calligraphic Robert Motherwell brushstroke in fluid black paint. ... (read more)
As the self-proclaimed home of Australian modernism, Heide Museum of Modern Art is largely known for its exhibitions focusing on the story of the Heide circle and the interactions between Heide founders and patrons John and Sunday Reed and the group of artists, including Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, and Joy Hester (to name but a few), now referred to collectively as the Angry Penguins.
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Melbourne Now began in 2013 as a massive survey championing contemporary art. Ten years on, the National Gallery of Victoria presents the second iteration. As with many sequels, the intent is to be bigger and better. Melbourne Now 2023 styles itself as an extravaganza, an epic journey into the city’s artistic beating heart. ... (read more)
Andy Warhol and Photography: A Social Media
Art Gallery of South Australia
by Patrick Flanery •
14 March 2023
Ask the average person what they picture when they hear the name ‘Andy Warhol’ and they will likely mention Campbell’s Soup Cans, Marilyn Monroe, or Elizabeth Taylor. The Art Gallery of South Australia’s exceptional new exhibition ‘Andy Warhol and Photography: A Social Media’ reminds us that such ubiquitous images of Pop Art are but one aspect of Warhol’s oeuvre. ... (read more)
Radical Utopia: An archeology of a creative city, curated by Harriet Edquist and Helen Stuckey, is a maximalist experience. Even the title itself is a little unwieldy.
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Nearly three months have passed since the new building at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) opened (3 December 2022). This summer, Sydney Modern, as the new North building by Japanese architectural firm SAANA is popularly known, has been Sydney’s main attraction and topic of conversation. ... (read more)
Imagine … the Wonder of Picture Books
State Library of New South Wales
by Margaret Robson Kett •
03 February 2023
‘Just follow the ants,’ said a smiling guide at the Macquarie Street entrance to the State Library of New South Wales. I was led up the stairs by Tohby Riddle’s jaunty decals of those excellent insects to Imagine … the Wonder of Picture Books. ... (read more)
Although Peter Tyndall’s art is littered with the breezy, post-pop imagery of cartoons and illustrations, there is a sparse and unrelenting quality to his work. When assembled together, as in the current retrospective at Buxton Contemporary, they threaten to blur into one. Though this is by design, every painting and print here is a fragment of a single work that has been unwavering in its consistency over the past fifty years. ... (read more)
Before environmental psychologist Glenn Albrecht gave us the language of solastalgia, Mandy Martin painted Depaysement (2003). Martin chose a different word that also explores a sort of longing for a home that was no longer there, a safe place that predated the environmental destruction that rendered home unrecognisable. ... (read more)
Is there now an elemental quality to data? Amazon and Meta have certainly demonstrated that data can be harnessed like a natural resource. Yet given that we, the users, shed data at an uncontrollable and unknowable rate, perhaps Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are not twenty-first century oil barons so much as the managers of a silkworm farm? Is all this data just simply information? Do we even have a right to claim it back? ... (read more)