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Arts + Culture – Articles, Analysis, Comment

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“Stranger Visions” is a series of 3D printed portraits based on genetic material taken from public places, by Heather Dewey-­Hagborg. Image courtesy of the artist

Trace Recordings: surveillance, art and identity in the 21st century

“We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about.” These aren’t lines from Nineteen Eighty-Four but the words of Eric Schmidt, Google’s notoriously…
In letting go, we have the chance to find ourselves. Warner Bros Pictures/AAP

Gravity lends weight to cinema – and always has

Cinema’s relationship to gravity is a fascinating one. At the time of its birth, in 1895, cinema was seen as a revolutionary machine that didn’t simply defy gravity through moving pictures seemingly suspended…
Women’s contribution to art history might have to be revised – for the better. Dean Snow/Society for American Archaeology

Hands on the wall: were the first artists actually women?

Back in the 70s, when I was writing a book called Australian Women Artists: 1840-1940 people were often bemused by my research. A book devoted to women artists? Pretty short book, huh? I mean, there were…
Shows such as Kitchen Cabinet can elicit unexpected – and genuinely newsy – responses from guests. ABC

We still want to consume news – but tastes are changing

Earlier this year, the ABC’s managing director Mark Scott announced Australia’s public broadcaster would begin a search “to find creative ways to deliver news to children and teenagers”. In the announcement…
The LEGO Architecture range has been good for the company’s fortunes. lilivanili

Block party: how architecture helped rebuild LEGO

Virtually any kid who picks up a bucket of LEGO bricks will start by making a house, usually in mismatched, rainbow colours, maybe featuring a few of the little plastic minifig people. It seems almost…
A salmon makes an unfortunate leap. Joel Sartore

Art and endangered species: eye candy, or action?

Joel Sartore has been an explorer and photographer for National Geographic for 20 years. He captures the drama and beauty of wild animals from all corners of the earth, some of which you see here. But…
Max Dupain, Bankstown aerodrome camouflage experiment, c.1943. National Archives of Australia

Hidden history: Max Dupain, modernism and war time camouflage

Max Dupain and Frank Hinder are among the many significant artists who contributed decisively to Australia’s modernist tradition. Less well known, however, is that they both worked for Australia’s military…
Dorrit Black’s The Bridge is one of many works celebrated in the Art Gallery of NSW’s last exhibition, Sydney Moderns. Art Gallery of New South Wales

Rushing towards the Moderns at the Art Gallery of NSW’s new exhibition

When Australian artist Lionel Lindsay wrote Addled Art, his polemic against modernism, he found one aspect of the new brash art world worth valuing. The way some artists had liberated colour was so enticing…
The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is at the heart of Hobart’s cultural transformation. Christopher Neugebauer

David Walsh’s MONA and the cultural regeneration of Hobart

A column of light shines from Hobart’s Queen’s Domain, where Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda’s Spectra reaches up to the looming clouds, visible across the city. The normally empty streets are crowded, the…
Why should arts and science curricula be developed separately? Person image from www.shutterstock.com

Why arts and science are better together

MATHS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION: We’ve asked our authors about the state of maths and science education in Australia and its future direction. In our final instalment, Benjamin Miller and Fiona White examine…
Modern Australian exhibitions, like the recent “Turner from the Tate” exhibition, shows just how spoilt Australian audiences are. J.M.W. Turner's Regulus, 1828, reworked 1837. AAP Image/Supplied by the Art Gallery of South Australia

Art out of the wilderness: Turner exhibition shows how far we’ve come

When visitors come to the Turner from the Tate exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, the experience is to travel through time and space to early 19th century Britain. It was a time of social…
Does the art critic speak for the broader public, for the artist or the connoisseur? http://www.flickr.com/photos/uber-tuber

The critical friend: for whom does the art critic speak?

The contemporary art critic cannot say with certainty whether something is good or bad. What good criticism does today is to help the public “see” the artwork. It does not explain and close down meaning…
Monet’s Garden has already proved popular but why does it take so long for “new art” to be accepted and understood? AAP Image/David Crosling

Making an Impression: why does art take so long to be accepted?

As the curtains rise on the National Gallery of Victoria’s (NGV) latest blockbuster, Monet’s Garden, it is a good time to reflect on a connection between this acclaimed modernist painter and the art world…
Women need to play a greater role at the top of Australia’s art institutions. Man in gallery image from www.shutterstock.com

Why are so many arts organisations run by blokes?

One of my favourite paintings in the Art Gallery of New South Wales is Emanuel Phillips Fox’s Art Students. It’s particularly notable because all the Melbourne Art School students pictured are women. In…
Namatjira, by Imants Tillers, which won the 2013 Wynne Prize. Art Gallery of NSW

Times change but the art establishment rolls on

It was the 1960s when a curator – who shall remain nameless – was ordered to hang Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira’s work in his gallery. He hung the painting next to the ladies toilet with a vase of…
The idea of a machine being creative goes back to the earliest days of computing. Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Pablo eCasso? In search of the first computer masterpiece

For much of his adult life, painter and scholar Harold Cohen has been working in collaboration with a computer to make visual art. Cohen has worked almost continuously on this creative artificial intelligence…
Artworks by Mic Eales from the Inspired Lives exhibition at The Dax Centre. ‘End of statistics’ in the foreground. Mic Eales

The art of healing suicide: re-creating original narratives to embrace life

My doctoral studies in visual arts entails working with people who are not necessarily visual artists, but see the value in artistically expressing their story to expand our understanding of suicide. Suicide…
Vladimir Umanets tagged a Mark Rothko painting at the Tate Modern last weekend. Twitter/WrightTG

Who tags a Rothko? The ethics of vandalising art

Vladimir Umanets, who scrawled his signature on Mark Rothko’s painting Black on Maroon in the Tate Museum this week, is not the first artist to deface an established artwork. In 2003, Jake and Dinos Chapman…
No war was photographed like Vietnam and many of these images still speak to us today. Photographer: Michael Coleridge. Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial EKN/67/0130/VN.

The photographer’s war: Vietnam through a lens

An unprecedented level of media coverage made the Vietnam war a watershed moment in the discipline of photography. The images by official military photographers, photojournalists, and individual soldiers…