Many great artists died in 2016: Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Paul Cox, Shirley Hazzard. It was a year of creative foment and as always, intense debate about the importance of the arts to a thriving, democratic society.
Sydney Opera House during this year’s Vivid Festival: now, more than ever, we need artists to tell us the truth.
Tibor Kovacs/Flickr
There was once a sense of excitement about creating a genuinely Australian culture and making our own way in the world. What's happened to that optimism?
David Bowie was the master of reinvention. Can the arts sector follow suit?
Brandon Carson/Flickr
A culture of 'managerialism' has bled the arts of originality and purpose. We need a changed mindset and an arts and culture think-tank that is separate from the Australia Council.
Why can’t an artist offer advice to politicians in the same way a scientist can?
David Gray/Reuters
In one of those abyssal silences that punctuate official Thinkfests when artists have to come up with new policy ideas that don’t involve asking governments for more money, I once facetiously suggested…
Public protests forced a backdown on a proposed merger of university art schools, but their value to cities is still being underestimated.
Joel Carrett/AAP
Art schools are emerging globally as very powerful instruments of urban renewal. In a time of transformation, Sydney must learn to tap into the value of having multiple art colleges.
Three more years for Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition.
AAP/David Moir
A 'mortal blow' to the South Australian theatre scene. 'Inexplicable' cuts to centres for photography in two states. The Australia Council's latest funding decisions have left the arts sector reeling and are evidence of a government indifferent to culture.
Last night's budget failed to offer a compelling overall policy framework and vision for the arts in Australia. Like a Beckett play, narratively not much is going on.
It’s time to look back on a year of art and culture.
Blake Danger Bentley. Melbourne street art
It's another year in Arts + Culture, so in case you missed it we've collected all the best coverage of screen, theatre, music, books and culture in one place.
The BCA was probably doomed the moment Tony Abbott announced its creation out of Australia Council funds.
Nastya Shershneva
The Book Council of Australia – announced by Tony Abbott just over a year ago – was today scrapped. But we still need a body to advocate for literature and to advise government on policy settings.
In many quarters, the arts receiving any government support is still a contested space.
Julie
With a change in prime minister and a new arts minister there has been an acknowledgement perhaps that the arts matter. But have the needs and concerns of the arts sector have been understood?
Following a sustained and vocal campaign by the arts sector, the National Program for Excellence in the Arts has been canned.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
Following a sustained and vocal campaign by the arts sector, the controversial National Program for Excellence in the Arts has been rethought and renamed. Should we be celebrating or concerned?
It’s time to embrace a more collaborative approach to cultural leadership.
opensource.com
Young, experimental arts practitioners are exploring new ways to think about cultural leadership. But if we see leadership as a form of action rather than a role, how should we teach it?
To bring arts policy into the 21st century, we need to update and correct the basic economic flaws that were baked into the mid-20th century model.
Fabrik Bilder/Shutterstock
Turnbull’s 21st century vision for government provides an opportunity to fundamentally rethink arts and cultural policy from the ground up and move beyond its 20th century legacy.
The new Arts Minister, Mitch Fifield, is in a fortunate position …
Rachel.Adams
If the new arts minister, Mitch Fifield, abolishes the National Program for Excellence in the Arts and diverts its funds back to the Australia Council, he will increase arts funding at no cost to the budget bottom line.
If we have learned anything thus far it is this: one man’s excellence is another man’s mediocrity.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
In live performance, when developing a new work and before getting to the final rehearsal period, previews and season, there is often a public showing. Enter the Senate Inquiry, stage left.
Artists must take the opportunity to sharpen their minds as well as their rhetoric.
id-iom
How can common standards apply to a sector with so much difference? Artists must take the opportunity to sharpen their minds as well as their rhetoric. The implications of the NPEA go beyond the polemical.
Front doors closed as indefinite strike continues.
Andy Rain/EPA
Political discussion about the arts and creative industries is famously woolly ybland, generic and interchangeable. But Corbyn cuts through this.
Senator Scott Ludlam said changes to arts funding will mean the minister will not need to publicly reveal funding recipients. True or false?
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
The Greens' Senator Scott Ludlam said changes to arts funding will mean arts minister George Brandis won't need to publicly disclose who he's funding. He said it's unbelievable -- but is it true?
Director - Melbourne Networked Society Institute, Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Co-Founder/Academic Director - Melbourne Accelerator Program, University of Melbourne
