tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/visual-arts-5710/articles
Visual arts – The Conversation
2024-03-28T15:08:05Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224417
2024-03-28T15:08:05Z
2024-03-28T15:08:05Z
Making short films is a powerful way to learn job skills: 5 ways it prepares students for work
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578598/original/file-20240228-18-mdyusr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Making short films can change the way people learn. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ASphotowed/iStock/Getty Plus</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world of work is changing all the time. Technology is driving innovation and productivity, leading to the creation of new industries and employment opportunities. This means people need new skills to meet the demands of an ever-changing economy.</p>
<p>While universities can and do equip young people with important skills, tertiary education isn’t available to everyone. This is especially true in a country like South Africa, where <a href="https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/over-one-million-enrolments-expected-public-universities#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CIn%20the%202023%20academic%20year,skills%20areas%2C%E2%80%9D%20Nzimande%20said">about 43% of students</a> in 2023 who qualified to pursue a bachelor’s qualification at university could not because of limited spaces. </p>
<p>Valuable knowledge and skills can also be acquired through non-formal and alternative pathways, however. We are education scholars who ran a pilot project using artistic media to teach important life skills to young adults (18–24 years old). Our project, Myturn, ran in South Africa’s Western Cape province over ten months in 2020. It used simple technology like smartphones and editing software to make short films.</p>
<p>Myturn benefited participants in several ways, as we’ve documented in <a href="https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/article/view/1382">a study</a>. For instance, it honed their communication and teamwork skills. It bolstered their digital skills. It also allowed the students to connect with their communities. This connection, in turn, provided a platform for the communities to witness the participants’ willingness to learn and become change agents, while also allowing them to share their own stories and experiences.</p>
<p>The project showed how short films could be used to change the way people learn. This method meets many needs of young people by combining the learning of soft skills, computer literacy and artistic expression. It gets them ready for the problems of the future – not just ready for work, but also as <a href="https://theconversation.com/teachers-can-nurture-students-who-care-about-the-world-four-approaches-that-would-help-them-214172">socially involved people</a>.</p>
<h2>Five main benefits</h2>
<p>Our research paper focused on the perceptions of nine (out of the initial group of 17) Myturn participants. All had completed secondary school. They were involved in various dance, drama, music and visual arts projects when recruited for Myturn and came from semi-rural communities in the Langeberg district of South Africa’s Western Cape province.</p>
<p>In 2020 they found themselves in a transitional phase between jobs, were preparing to enter the workforce for the first time, or were between school and tertiary education. They were also dealing with the effects of the pandemic, which began after we’d launched Myturn. This global crisis created difficulties but was also an opportunity for learning and adaptation. </p>
<p>During the project, participants learned the technology and skills needed to create and produce their own short films.</p>
<p><a href="https://td-sa.net/index.php/td/article/view/1382">Our study</a> identified five ways in which participants benefited from the project. </p>
<p><strong>1. Improved emotional intelligence and soft skills:</strong> </p>
<p>Making short films helps build skills like leadership, teamwork and communication. It pushes young creators to figure out how to work together on complex tasks. This helps team members from different backgrounds understand and care about each other. People learn how to resolve disagreements, make their points clear, and inspire others to work towards a shared goal. These skills are necessary in any professional setting.</p>
<p><strong>2. Improved digital skills and connectivity:</strong></p>
<p>Participants learned how to use software programmes, handle digital content and interact with online groups. They were empowered to offer their skills globally and work remotely and flexibly.</p>
<p><strong>3. Encouraged new ideas and creative ways to solve problems:</strong></p>
<p>Making short films encourages people to try new things and to look at problems from different angles. This way of handling problems creatively makes one <a href="https://en.unesco.org/themes/gced/1974recommendation">more flexible</a>. </p>
<p>As a way to reach their artistic goals, participants learned to make changes and accept loss. This approach is in <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/49ccabb1-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/49ccabb1-en">high demand</a> across various sectors.</p>
<p><strong>4. Supported personalised learning and finding out more about oneself:</strong></p>
<p>Making a short film is a very personal process. It lets people explore themes that are important to them based on their own experiences, interests and goals. Personalising the way people learn reveals their skills, flaws and interests. </p>
<p>One participant, reflecting critically on her role as short film producer in the project, showcased her ownership of learning and the potential for transpersonal growth:</p>
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<p>Being able to watch my video back before sending it made me realise how fast I speak and that (I) can come across as unclear, so I worked on speaking slower and I was satisfied with the final product. </p>
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<p>Participants became more self-aware and confident. Young adults need help to figure out who they are and what they want to do with their lives. </p>
<p>One told us: </p>
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<p>When the opportunity came I told myself it’s time to stretch myself and explore my skills.</p>
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<p><strong>5. Made the community more involved and gave people more power:</strong></p>
<p>Making short films is a way to hear opinions that aren’t always heard. A participant said she enjoyed the chance her short film presented “to be able to comment or talk about the issues that everybody is most likely aware of but refuses to publicly speak/comment on”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-introduced-social-entrepreneurship-to-my-trainee-teachers-why-itll-make-them-better-at-their-jobs-197622">I introduced social entrepreneurship to my trainee teachers -- why it'll make them better at their jobs</a>
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<p>Young film-makers can bring attention to problems that matter in their communities by sharing their stories. This can start a conversation and help bring people together. This involvement goes beyond the project. People can be inspired by hearing these stories, which can lead to a shared sense of power and a dedication to making things better.</p>
<h2>What came next</h2>
<p>In the time since the Myturn project, participants have flourished. One was selected for a six-month jewellery design research programme in Belgium. Three more have been accepted for tertiary education; others became involved in education as teaching assistants. One started a media house company with a colleague. Two participants created their own YouTube channels and another started making TikTok reels with her brother. </p>
<p>While the project itself couldn’t guarantee personal change within its informal setting, it did offer significant benefits for some participants: developing critical self-awareness, overcoming cultural and language barriers, and gaining a deeper understanding of themselves. This suggests that meaningful interactions, both in person and online, can equip young people with valuable skills. These skills, like critical thinking and empathy, will be crucial for navigating their future lives and careers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224417/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article is based on my independent research, which did not receive direct funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF). However, I gratefully acknowledge the partial funding support from Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) for dissertation editing and the publication of a collaborative article titled "Nurturing Youth Film Literacy: Post-qualitative Arts-Based Inquiry into Critical Self-Awareness" in the Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zayd Waghid is the current Director of the Global Institute for Teacher Education and Interim Chair in Teacher Education which receives funding through the South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) from the National Research Foundation (NRF). He is an executive member of the South African Education Research Association and a Fulbright Scholar.</span></em></p>
Making films meets many needs of young people by combining the learning of soft skills, computer literacy and artistic expression.
Wendy Smidt, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Global Institute for Teacher Education Society (GITES), Faculty of Education, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Zayd Waghid, Associate professor, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214142
2023-09-25T20:07:05Z
2023-09-25T20:07:05Z
Take risks, embrace failure and be comfortable with uncertainty: 3 activities to help your child think like an artist
<p>As a visual artist and educator, I know how important it is to encourage your child to think and behave like an artist. But this is not necessarily about drawing or painting in a particular way. </p>
<p>The habits of an artist include the ability to generate ideas, trust in creative processes, be comfortable with ambiguity, take risks and embrace failure.</p>
<p>All this helps children embrace “failures” as a learning experience. In doing so, you are <a href="https://raisingchildren.net.au/school-age/behaviour/understanding-behaviour/resilience-how-to-build-it-in-children-3-8-years">building their resilience</a>. </p>
<p>These are all transferable skills kids can use in other areas of learning and life. As the late UK education expert <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity?language=en">Ken Robinson</a> said:</p>
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<p>If you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZcFRfJb2ONk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<h2>How to think and behave like an artist</h2>
<p>You can encourage children to develop the habits of an artist by providing opportunities for them to take <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13603124.2021.1969040">creative risks</a> and use <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1421841">problem finding</a> skills. Problem finding skills are identifying unforeseen problems using critical and analytic thinking. </p>
<p>Here are three art activities to try in the holidays – or any time – to build these skills. </p>
<p>These activities work for kids from five and up. Some children will need help but parents should try to be the “guide on the side”. This means helping children make their own discoveries and not jumping in and taking over. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/holiday-help-an-art-expert-suggests-screen-free-things-to-do-in-every-room-of-the-house-202947">Holiday help! An art expert suggests screen-free things to do in every room of the house</a>
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<h2>1. Blind contour drawing</h2>
<p>In blind contour drawing you don’t look at the paper while you draw and once your drawing implement touches the paper, you don’t lift it off until you are done. </p>
<p>You can draw anything, but portraits are a lot of fun. Look closely at your subject and slowly draw what you see, looking for lines and contours to draw in and around them. </p>
<p>This is a gentle way of extending creative potential of drawing. It also stops your inner critic telling you you “can’t draw” (because you can’t see what you’re doing, so you can’t criticise yourself). It also connects your <a href="https://www.drawright.com/theory">hand to your brain</a> and allows you to draw what you see, not what you think you see. </p>
<p>The lines are always lovely. They are free flowing and fluid as opposed to what I call “furry lines” that show all insecurities, second thoughts and apprehensions.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-set-up-a-kids-art-studio-at-home-and-learn-to-love-the-mess-196026">How to set up a kids' art studio at home (and learn to love the mess)</a>
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<h2>2. Make your own brushes</h2>
<p>In a previous article, I talked about <a href="https://theconversation.com/holiday-help-an-art-expert-suggests-screen-free-things-to-do-in-every-room-of-the-house-202947">how to make paint</a>. </p>
<p>Another similar activity is making brushes or “mark-making tools” as I like to call them. You can use a range of materials from outside or even the recycling bin: a few sticks, masking tape and some string. Tie a bunch of twigs and leaves or feathers together and bind them to the top of a stick. </p>
<p>Why use not the bottom of the stick to make a double-ended tool? Or cut up an old sponge and tie it to a stick. </p>
<p>Try really long sticks or short stubby sticks. The size and shape of the stick will change the way you use it and affect the marks you will make. </p>
<p>Dip your tools in ink and try them out on reams of butcher’s paper rolled out in a space where children feel free to move around and put their body into it. You can use paint too, though you might want to add water to make it runnier. </p>
<p>This encourages becoming comfortable with uncertainty (who knows what marks these new tools will make?). </p>
<p>In this context “failure” might look like the tool not making the mark the child had in their mind. This forces the child to either go with the mark it makes or go back and redesign their tool. </p>
<p>This helps children to become comfortable with that idea of testing, experimenting and creating your way through an issue.</p>
<h2>3. Change your medium and your size</h2>
<p>Willow charcoal – made from burnt willow branches – is an excellent medium for experimenting with and enables children to “draw big”. </p>
<p>It can be crumbly and smudges easily (it’s also extremely messy) so it can make some unexpected marks and children can explore a range of tones from black to light grey. </p>
<p>Children can use the tip of it to draw lines, or use the side of the stick to create wide shapes and shades. </p>
<p>Get some large pieces of paper and encourage your child to draw as big as they can to create huge gestural drawings with the charcoal. This encourages kids to move out of their comfort zone (and beyond A4 paper).</p>
<p>Challenge them to upscale what they see, such as flowers or their favourite <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20419112.2020.1819095">object</a>. Or put on some music and suggest to your child they draw what they hear and feel. </p>
<p>If you don’t have charcoal, you could also use jumbo chalk and draw on the footpath. </p>
<p>Another approach is to sit on a piece of paper and get them to trace their bodies, move, trace themselves and again, like Australian artist <a href="https://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/exhibition/the-dust-of-history/xshf9">Julie Rrap</a>. </p>
<p>If the page gets covered in charcoal just keep going, cover the paper completely with charcoal and then use a eraser to draw “in reverse”. </p>
<p>As I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-set-up-a-kids-art-studio-at-home-and-learn-to-love-the-mess-196026">said before</a>, try not to worry about the mess. This is also part of being an artist – and learning to think like one, too. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stand-back-and-avoid-saying-be-careful-how-to-help-your-child-take-risks-at-the-park-212969">Stand back and avoid saying 'be careful!': how to help your child take risks at the park</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naomi Zouwer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Encourage your child to make their own paintbrushes or draw everyday objects in huge sizes. Or try a portrait without taking their marker off the page.
Naomi Zouwer, Visual Artist and Lecturer in Teacher Education, University of Canberra
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/202947
2023-04-06T06:30:31Z
2023-04-06T06:30:31Z
Holiday help! An art expert suggests screen-free things to do in every room of the house
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518945/original/file-20230403-26-p77pnf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C25%2C5599%2C3640&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Keren Fedida/Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>School holidays can feel like a marathon if all the kids want to do is watch TV, play Minecraft or repeatedly ask you for the iPad.</p>
<p>There are lots of things you can do inside the house that do not involve a screen. And will help ward off any whines along the lines of: “I’m booooooored”.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-set-up-a-kids-art-studio-at-home-and-learn-to-love-the-mess-196026">previous piece</a> I talked about how to set up an art studio at home. This time, here are five creative ideas to try in every room of the house. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-set-up-a-kids-art-studio-at-home-and-learn-to-love-the-mess-196026">How to set up a kids' art studio at home (and learn to love the mess)</a>
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<h2>In the kitchen: make your own paint</h2>
<p>Kids enjoy making potions in the garden by adding dirt and flowers and you can have similar fun in the kitchen making paint from ingredients in the cupboard. </p>
<p>Paint is made with pigment and a binder. The <a href="https://www.earthdate.org/episodes/the-colorful-history-of-paint#:%7E:text=By%2040%2C000%20years%20ago%2C%20tribes,and%20roots%2C%20and%20many%20minerals.">first paint on cave walls</a> was made with charcoal, ochre, minerals mixed with water, saliva, blood, animal fat and even wee. The history of paint is fascinating and kids are intrigued by the stories, like how a certain purple (tyrian) comes from the <a href="https://exhibitions.kelsey.lsa.umich.edu/ancient-color/map_purple.php">glands of sea snails</a> and how a type of yellow was cruelly made from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180906-did-animal-cruelty-create-indian-yellow">cow wee</a>, after forcing them to eat mango leaves. </p>
<p>You can make your own paint with spices like turmeric, curry powder and cinnamon or hunt through the house for chalk and eye shadow for a variety of colours. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Ground turmeric" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518936/original/file-20230403-16-1dhaqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518936/original/file-20230403-16-1dhaqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518936/original/file-20230403-16-1dhaqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518936/original/file-20230403-16-1dhaqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518936/original/file-20230403-16-1dhaqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518936/original/file-20230403-16-1dhaqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518936/original/file-20230403-16-1dhaqe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ground tumeric can be turned into paint.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Grind the pigments up with a mortar and pestle (some will need this more than others but it’s a fun part of the process). Then in a glass or jar, mix your ground pigments with a bit of egg yolk, a teaspoon of vinegar and a small amount of water as a binder and you have made <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/tempera-painting">egg tempera</a> – a type of paint the Egyptians discovered and some artists still use today. </p>
<p>Experiment with other spices, berries, grass or charcoal. If it’s colourful, you can grind it and its not too lumpy, give it a go. See how many colours you can make, then make a painting.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/screen-time-for-kids-is-an-outdated-concept-so-lets-ditch-it-and-focus-on-quality-instead-186462">'Screen time' for kids is an outdated concept, so let's ditch it and focus on quality instead</a>
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</em>
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<h2>In the living room: create a box masterpiece</h2>
<p>Kids who may not like to draw or paint often love construction. So, collect different types of boxes and see what your child can create. </p>
<p>Apart from the boxes, you will also need masking tape. Kids can tear it themselves, or use a dispenser. Staplers and hole punchers are good connectors too. Also give them some thick markers, fabric scraps and glue to add details to their creations. </p>
<p>One holiday, we lived around my daughter’s construction zone as she worked with cardboard, other items from the recycling bin and things from around the house to make her own house.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519176/original/file-20230404-20-my260t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519176/original/file-20230404-20-my260t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519176/original/file-20230404-20-my260t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519176/original/file-20230404-20-my260t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519176/original/file-20230404-20-my260t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519176/original/file-20230404-20-my260t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519176/original/file-20230404-20-my260t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519176/original/file-20230404-20-my260t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cardboard boxes and everyday household items can be turned into a holiday home.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Naomi Zouwer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>In your child’s bedroom: paint a mural</h2>
<p>This won’t be possible for everyone, but think about letting your child paint a mural in their bedroom. My mum let us create fantastic scenes in our bedrooms growing up. </p>
<p>Start by mapping out a basic design on paper. This slows the process down, allowing the child to think about what they would like on their walls. But be prepared for the plan to go out the window. Sometimes as artists we respond to the materials when we get them in our hands.</p>
<p>The trick to creating a successful mural with kids is selecting a good colour palette and you really can’t go wrong.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A child paints a flower on a wall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518940/original/file-20230403-28-itefrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518940/original/file-20230403-28-itefrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518940/original/file-20230403-28-itefrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518940/original/file-20230403-28-itefrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518940/original/file-20230403-28-itefrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518940/original/file-20230403-28-itefrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518940/original/file-20230403-28-itefrs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Start with a mural plan but be prepared to ditch it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Get some sample-sized pots of water-based interior paint and bristle brushes from the hardware shop. Then tape a drop sheet to the floor and cover anything else you don’t want covered in paint and go for it! </p>
<p>If this is too freestyle for you, have a look at the wonderful “field of flowers” activity in Hervé Tullet’s book, <a href="https://www.phaidon.com/phaidon-kids/ages-3-5/art-workshops-for-children-9780714869735/">Art Workshops for Children</a>. This is a more structured approach to a collaborative painting and yields beautiful results (it starts with dots, then dots within dots and you end up with a field of flowers). </p>
<p>If this is not possible where you live, consider liquid chalk pens to create murals on the windows. This is so much fun and you can play with tracing things outside the window. </p>
<p>Pick an array of colours and overlap line drawings to build up patterns on the glass. This is so easy to clean too – just wipe it off with a wet cloth.</p>
<h2>In the dining room: make a comic</h2>
<p>The dining table is the perfect spot for projects and drawing. I find kids love creating comics. The book <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/1/8/21024723/lynda-barry-interview-making-comics-book">Making Comics</a> by Lynda Barry has excellent exercises to get you started on comic strips, storyboards and zines. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519177/original/file-20230404-24-fr2hi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519177/original/file-20230404-24-fr2hi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519177/original/file-20230404-24-fr2hi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519177/original/file-20230404-24-fr2hi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519177/original/file-20230404-24-fr2hi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519177/original/file-20230404-24-fr2hi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519177/original/file-20230404-24-fr2hi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519177/original/file-20230404-24-fr2hi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1073&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘A day at the museum’ by T Slater, aged 5.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Naomi Zouwer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Zines are mini DIY booklets. You can fill them with ideas using drawing, collage and words. Check out my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5QuKshVL-4">how to make a zine video</a> done for the National Museum of Australia’s <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/ancient-greeks">Ancient Greeks exhibition</a> last year.</p>
<p>You could do something similar: take your young person to see an exhibition, collect some flyers or postcards, and then at home cut them up and stick them into a zine. This can extend your child’s museum experience, and provides a chance to discuss and make sense of what you saw together. </p>
<p>Children use drawing to make sense of the world around them. When my son was five, he made a comic about a gallery experience: how he didn’t want to go, how he felt about some of the artworks, and how he was relieved to get out because he was scared by some of the work. </p>
<p>This gave me the opportunity to see how strongly he was affected by the exhibition and we were able to talk about those feelings. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U5QuKshVL-4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>In the bathroom: crack open the shaving cream</h2>
<p>Shaving cream is a <a href="https://artfulparent.com/shaving-cream-art-play-round-up-of-ideas/">great medium</a> with endless possibilities for <a href="https://www.goodstart.org.au/parenting/exploring-the-benefits-of-sensory-play">sensory play</a>, which helps brain development, motor skills and more. </p>
<p>You can make slime by adding a cup of glue to two cups of shaving cream and sprinkling a teaspoon of baking powder in the mix, plus two teaspoons of saline solution. Add food dye for a marble effect, make prints and paint with it onto a mirror or bathtub. </p>
<p>You can also use it to make sculptures. Start with a shampoo bottle as your armature (inner structure) and build your form around it. Take photos of the sculptures as a way of recording the ephemeral creations. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Green and blue dye mixed into shaving cream." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518932/original/file-20230403-3782-se4i4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518932/original/file-20230403-3782-se4i4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518932/original/file-20230403-3782-se4i4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518932/original/file-20230403-3782-se4i4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518932/original/file-20230403-3782-se4i4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518932/original/file-20230403-3782-se4i4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518932/original/file-20230403-3782-se4i4t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Add food dye to shaving cream for a creative bathroom activity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Try adding cornstarch to the shaving cream and play with the proportions until you have developed a malleable substance. The transformation of the substance is quite remarkable and kids love the tactile quality of this mixture.</p>
<p>In the end, kids have the best ideas, so just take some time to ask them what kinds of creative activities they might like to explore over the holidays and let them take the lead. The important thing here is to let go, enjoy the process and play – worry about cleaning up later!</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-sand-play-4-tips-from-a-sculptor-195209">How to get the most out of sand play: 4 tips from a sculptor</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202947/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naomi Zouwer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From the kitchen to the bedroom and bathroom, here are five creative ideas to try in every room of the house.
Naomi Zouwer, Visual Artist and Lecturer in Teacher Education, University of Canberra
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196026
2022-12-22T19:08:44Z
2022-12-22T19:08:44Z
How to set up a kids’ art studio at home (and learn to love the mess)
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499201/original/file-20221206-20-idr2yk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=62%2C44%2C5847%2C3889&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cottonbro Studio/Pexels</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many parents want to encourage their children to be creative. This is not just about training the next Archibald Prize winner. Young people develop important <a href="https://www.artsednj.org/10-points-about-arts-education-by-elliot-eisner">emotional and cognitive skills</a> when they make art. </p>
<p>But at the same time, it can be tricky to know where to start. Or how to overcome the fear of a big clean up. </p>
<p>I am a visual artist and art educator of big and small people. Here are some ways to support your child to set up their own art studio at home. </p>
<p>All you have to do is make a space for them, supply the materials and not get too hung up on the mess! </p>
<h2>How to set up a kids studio</h2>
<p>First, you need to set up a space or a “kids studio”. Ideally, this is a place where your child can make and leave work in progress. </p>
<p>Artists need time to mull over ideas. If they have to pack up their work at the end of each session, it disrupts the creative process. Artists like to make, take a break, think and go back to their work in spurts. Spurts can be five minutes or five hours.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A young girl paints with watercolours." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499461/original/file-20221207-25-dghwqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499461/original/file-20221207-25-dghwqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499461/original/file-20221207-25-dghwqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499461/original/file-20221207-25-dghwqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499461/original/file-20221207-25-dghwqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499461/original/file-20221207-25-dghwqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499461/original/file-20221207-25-dghwqa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A ‘studio’ could simply be a corner of a table.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Madalyn Cox/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not everyone has a separate backyard studio in their home. So your studio could be the dining table or a corner of the lounge room. You can always cover the studio with a tablecloth to signify it is “closed” during dinner or for other activities. </p>
<p>Another excellent option is an easel. Standing at an easel to paint and draw helps the artist see their work better, as it allows them to stand back and look at the proportions of what they are doing.</p>
<p>Kids are also happy to make on the floor! A simple mat can help designate a studio space. The important thing is your child can come and go as the urge takes them. </p>
<p>And you don’t need special lights. Natural light is best as it doesn’t distort the colours and forms you are working with.</p>
<h2>How can you encourage them to start?</h2>
<p>Under the Reggio Emilio <a href="https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/nov2015/emergent-curriculum">teaching philosophy</a>, the environment around a child plays a central role in the process of making learning meaningful.</p>
<p>One way to encourage your child to begin creating is to place freshly sharpened pencils in a jar (not a box that needs opening) on the table with some paper and a provocation. This could be some shells or anything you know your child might find curious. This becomes an offering to “come and draw here”. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/paiEAR1tJH8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">This video shows you how to make a mythical beast.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You could also have a construction area with a pile of cardboard next to masking tape (which children can tear themselves), scissors and a fully loaded stapler and a few images of houses as a provocation. </p>
<p>You might like to consider having a wet area and a dry area. Painting, gluing and clay work happen in the wet area and cutting and drawing happen in the dry area.</p>
<p>While it’s great to set up spaces for your child, remember they are the ones using it. So, one way of encouraging them is to invite them to set up and design the space with you. This means they are invested in where things go (and putting things away). </p>
<h2>Basic materials for your studio</h2>
<p><strong>Pencils</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://alicesteiner.nt.edu.au/educational-programs/art-and-craft/">Steiner schools</a> know that using quality art materials enhances the creative process. I love the pencils from German brand Lyra. Prismacolor pencils are another excellent brand.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A jar of coloured pencils." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499462/original/file-20221207-16-z1yirf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499462/original/file-20221207-16-z1yirf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499462/original/file-20221207-16-z1yirf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499462/original/file-20221207-16-z1yirf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499462/original/file-20221207-16-z1yirf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499462/original/file-20221207-16-z1yirf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499462/original/file-20221207-16-z1yirf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Invite your child to draw with a jar of sharp pencils.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Debby Hudson/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I also love Lyra’s stubby fat graphite sticks. These are good for all ages (from one and up) because they are sturdy and easily gripped. They also change when you add water, the graphite turns to paint - changing the drawing into a painting! </p>
<p>Good quality pencils will need to be sharpened less, break less when they are dropped and will last a very long time. You can also replace individual pencils, so in the long run it is more economical.</p>
<p><strong>Paper</strong></p>
<p>Good quality paper also makes a difference. The feeling of a pencil dragging across a rough or smooth surface promotes a sensory feeling that you do not get from inferior quality materials. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A small child drawing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499477/original/file-20221207-1436-oor6yt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499477/original/file-20221207-1436-oor6yt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499477/original/file-20221207-1436-oor6yt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499477/original/file-20221207-1436-oor6yt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499477/original/file-20221207-1436-oor6yt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499477/original/file-20221207-1436-oor6yt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499477/original/file-20221207-1436-oor6yt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Little children will go through paper very quickly.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I like to use heavy watercolour paper. Look for paper thickness (200 to 300gsm) and feel the texture. You are looking for a nice surface (touch lots of paper and you will begin to know what a nice surface feels like). Canson make good water colour pads and you can find something similar at most art shops. </p>
<p>But sometimes all you need is a packet of A3 copy paper or a roll of butchers paper (which you can get from IKEA or Officeworks). </p>
<p>As influential professor of art education <a href="https://www.d.umn.edu/artedu/Lowenf.html">Viktor Lowenfeld noted</a>, children under four are in the “scribbling” phase of their artistic development. So, young children will burn through paper.</p>
<p><strong>Paint</strong> </p>
<p>IKEA make great acrylic and watercolour paints and the colours are vibrant. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Water colour paints and a brush." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499469/original/file-20221207-26-xltcwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499469/original/file-20221207-26-xltcwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499469/original/file-20221207-26-xltcwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499469/original/file-20221207-26-xltcwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499469/original/file-20221207-26-xltcwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499469/original/file-20221207-26-xltcwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499469/original/file-20221207-26-xltcwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Watercolours are easily ‘woken up’ with water.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Collins/Pexels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I particularly like to use watercolours because they are like magic. They have a beautiful effect as they wash together, and they don’t dry up into blobs of plastic and destroy brushes (if you don’t clean them straight away). It’s easier to come and go from your work without the palaver of “getting the paints out”. </p>
<p>When watercolours dry up, you just “wake them up from their sleep” with water.</p>
<p><strong>Brushes</strong></p>
<p>Use soft bristle brushes for water colour and firm bristle brushes for acrylic paint. </p>
<p>Try to provide an assortment of sizes, of short and long handles and shapes such as round and flat. This will help your young artist explore a range of different marks.</p>
<p>You can get brushes from art stores but also Officeworks and IKEA. Examine the bristles closely: long soft floppy bristles or hard plastic ones are terrible to use and take the fun out painting. </p>
<p><strong>Use recycled materials where possible</strong></p>
<p>Art materials don’t have to cost the earth and you can be sustainable. Save magazines, newspapers, catalogues, flyers and cardboard boxes as they provide endless open-ended opportunities for making. </p>
<h2>Things to say and NOT to say</h2>
<p>As adults we tend to have decided what we can and can’t do. But do not say things to your child such as, “I can’t draw” or “I’m no good at art”. </p>
<p>Role model a positive can-do attitude and show your child that you can try anything (and it doesn’t matter whether you are “good” or not). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Uo0DTp6BF98?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Try the ‘Exquisite Corpse’ drawing game.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I like to give my students practical skills they can apply to open-ended activities. That is, there is no prescribed outcome. This is important to keep in mind. If you set your child up with a certain activity but they do something completely different – this is not wrong or bad.</p>
<p>It seems counterintuitive, but avoid saying things such as, “that’s beautiful” or “that’s pretty”. Art isn’t just about making beautiful things it’s also about expressing yourself or trying to make sense of the world. It is a process as much as a product. So, don’t get hung up on the final art work.</p>
<p>So, instead of saying, “Oh that’s a great drawing of a giraffe”, ask them, “what were you thinking about when you made this?” </p>
<p>Keep in mind, there’s also a good chance it’s not even a giraffe! Very young children can change what they are drawing along the way. They might start out drawing their family but end up drawing something completely different. And when you show them the drawing after a week they might have a completely different explanation for the artwork. </p>
<p>So, don’t “correct” your child if they colour outside of the lines or draw something you can’t immediately understand. By the same token, never finish your child’s work for them. </p>
<h2>A final word on mess</h2>
<p>Creativity can (and should!) look really messy. It’s important to give your child the opportunity to make a mess in order to discover new possibilities, generate ideas and think through materials. </p>
<p>This can understandably be off-putting for parents. But if you have a designated area, then hopefully you can relax and know you are providing your child space to grow and develop creative and critical skills they need for now and in the future. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kJS9yWZtKcI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Naomi Zouwer shows you how to make a zine.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>You can find more activities and suggestions on Naomi Zouwer’s <a href="https://youtu.be/paiEAR1tJH8">YouTube channel</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196026/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naomi Zouwer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
You can set up a studio space on the dining table or the floor. One way to encourage your child to begin creating is to place freshly sharpened pencils in a jar.
Naomi Zouwer, Visual Artist and Lecturer in Teacher Education, University of Canberra
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191674
2022-10-12T19:01:58Z
2022-10-12T19:01:58Z
AI image generation is advancing at astronomical speeds. Can we still tell if a picture is fake?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488438/original/file-20221006-14-objv4e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=42%2C16%2C1710%2C1003&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brendan Murphy</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fake photography is nothing new. In the 1910s, British author Arthur Conan Doyle was famously deceived by two school-aged sisters who had produced photographs of elegant fairies cavorting in their garden. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488291/original/file-20221005-12-upabra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black and white image of a girl surrounded by paper cutouts of fairies" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488291/original/file-20221005-12-upabra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488291/original/file-20221005-12-upabra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488291/original/file-20221005-12-upabra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488291/original/file-20221005-12-upabra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488291/original/file-20221005-12-upabra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488291/original/file-20221005-12-upabra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488291/original/file-20221005-12-upabra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first of the five ‘Cottingley Fairies’ photographs, taken by Elsie Wright in 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies#/media/File:Cottingley_Fairies_1.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today it is hard to believe these photos could have fooled anybody, but it was not until the 1980s an expert named Geoffrey Crawley had the nerve to directly apply his knowledge of film photography and deduce the obvious.</p>
<p>The photographs were fake, as later admitted by one of the sisters themselves. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A slightly uncanny image of a smiling man holding an oldschool photography camera" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488293/original/file-20221005-25-fkopdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488293/original/file-20221005-25-fkopdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488293/original/file-20221005-25-fkopdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488293/original/file-20221005-25-fkopdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488293/original/file-20221005-25-fkopdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488293/original/file-20221005-25-fkopdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488293/original/file-20221005-25-fkopdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1982 Geoffrey Crawley deduced the fairy photographs were fake. So is this one.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brendan Murphy, Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hunting for artefacts and common sense</h2>
<p>Digital photography has opened up a wealth of techniques for fakers and detectives alike.</p>
<p>Forensic examination of suspect images nowadays involves hunting for qualities inherent to digital photography, such as examining <a href="https://www.iptc.org/standards/photo-metadata/photo-metadata/#:%7E:text=Photo%20metadata%20is%20a%20set,other%20software%20and%20human%20users.">metadata embedded in the photos</a>, using software such as Adobe Photoshop to correct distortions in images, and <a href="https://fotoforensics.com/tutorial.php?tt=about">searching for telltale signs of manipulation</a>, such as regions being duplicated to obscure original features.</p>
<p>Sometimes digital edits are too subtle to detect, but leap into view when we adjust the way light and dark pixels are distributed. For example, in 2010 NASA released a <a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100420.html">photo of Saturn’s moons Dione and Titan</a>. It was in no way fake, but had been cleaned up to remove stray artefacts – which got <a href="https://www.space.com/9337-conspiracy-debunked-nasa-photoshops-images-good-reason.html">the attention of conspiracy theorists</a>.</p>
<p>Curious, I put the image into Photoshop. The illustration below recreates roughly how this looked.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Screenshot of an image editing screen with charts for dark and light adjustment" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488673/original/file-20221007-12-8qqscd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488673/original/file-20221007-12-8qqscd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488673/original/file-20221007-12-8qqscd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488673/original/file-20221007-12-8qqscd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488673/original/file-20221007-12-8qqscd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488673/original/file-20221007-12-8qqscd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488673/original/file-20221007-12-8qqscd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A simulation showing how editing can be detected when levels of light and dark are adjusted.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brendan Murphy, Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most digital photographs are in compressed formats such as JPEG, slimmed down by removing much of the information captured by the camera. Standardised algorithms ensure the information removed has minimal visible impact – but it does leave traces.</p>
<p>The compression of any region of an image will depend on what is going on in the image and current camera settings; when a fake image combines multiple sources, it is often possible to detect this by <a href="https://farid.berkeley.edu/downloads/publications/wifs17.pdf">careful analysis of the compression artefacts</a>.</p>
<p>Some forensic methodology has little to do with the format of an image, but is essentially <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170629-the-hidden-signs-that-can-reveal-if-a-photo-is-fake">visual detective work</a>. Is everyone in the photograph lit in the same way? Are shadows and reflections making sense? Are ears and hands showing light and shadow in the right places? What is reflected in people’s eyes? Would all the lines and angles of the room add up if we modelled the scene in 3D?</p>
<p>Arthur Conan Doyle may have been fooled by fairy photos, but I think his creation Sherlock Holmes would be right at home in the world of forensic photo analysis.</p>
<h2>A new era of artificial intelligence</h2>
<p>The current explosion of images created by text-to-image artificial intelligence (AI) tools is in many ways more radical than the shift from film to digital photography.</p>
<p>We can now conjure any image we want, just by typing. These images are not frankenphotos made by cobbling together pre-existing clumps of pixels. They are entirely new images with the content, quality and style specified.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ai-art-is-everywhere-right-now-even-experts-dont-know-what-it-will-mean-189800">AI art is everywhere right now. Even experts don't know what it will mean</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Until recently the complex neural networks used to generate these images have had limited availability to the public. This changed on August 23 2022, with the release to the public of the <a href="https://stability.ai/blog/stable-diffusion-public-release">open-source Stable Diffusion</a>. Now anyone with a gaming-level Nvidia graphics card in their computer can create AI image content without any research lab or business gatekeeping their activities.</p>
<p>This has prompted many to ask, “<a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/with-stable-diffusion-you-may-never-believe-what-you-see-online-again/">can we ever believe what we see online again?</a>”. That depends.</p>
<p>Text-to-image AI gets its smarts from training – the analysis of a large number of image/caption pairs. The strengths and weaknesses of each system are in part derived from just what images it has been trained on. Here is an example: this is how Stable Diffusion sees George Clooney doing his ironing. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488296/original/file-20221005-21-8v0eyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A slightly uncanny image of a man with distorted features holding a white towel" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488296/original/file-20221005-21-8v0eyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488296/original/file-20221005-21-8v0eyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488296/original/file-20221005-21-8v0eyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488296/original/file-20221005-21-8v0eyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488296/original/file-20221005-21-8v0eyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488296/original/file-20221005-21-8v0eyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488296/original/file-20221005-21-8v0eyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is George Clooney doing his ironing… or is it?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brendan Murphy</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is far from realistic. All Stable Diffusion has to go on is the information it has learned, and while it is clear it has seen George Clooney and can link that string of letters to the actor’s features, it is not a Clooney expert.</p>
<p>However, it would have seen and digested many more photos of middle-aged men in general, so let’s see what happens when we ask for a generic middle-aged man in the same scenario.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488297/original/file-20221005-22-z9jj09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A slightly uncanny image of a middle-aged man with rounded features looking at the camera and holding a shirt" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488297/original/file-20221005-22-z9jj09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488297/original/file-20221005-22-z9jj09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488297/original/file-20221005-22-z9jj09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488297/original/file-20221005-22-z9jj09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488297/original/file-20221005-22-z9jj09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488297/original/file-20221005-22-z9jj09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488297/original/file-20221005-22-z9jj09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not-George-Clooney doing his ironing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brendan Murphy</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is a clear improvement, but still not quite realistic. As has always been the case, the tricky geometry of hands and ears are good places to look for signs of fakery – although in this medium we are looking at the spatial geometry rather than the tells of impossible lighting.</p>
<p>There may be other clues. If we carefully reconstructed the room, would the corners be square? Would the shelves make sense? A forensic expert used to examining digital photographs could probably make a call on that.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cyber-csi-the-challenges-of-digital-forensics-37902">Cyber CSI: the challenges of digital forensics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>We can no longer believe our eyes</h2>
<p>If we extend a text-to-image system’s knowledge, it can do even better. You can add your own described photographs to supplement existing training. This process is known as <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.01618">textual inversion</a>.</p>
<p>Recently, Google has released <a href="https://medium.com/technology-hits/googles-new-ai-image-generator-offers-more-personalization-6fee9fcdc39">Dream Booth</a>, an alternative, more sophisticated method for injecting specific people, objects or even art styles into text-to-image AI systems. </p>
<p>This process requires heavy-duty hardware, but the results are staggering. Some great work has begun to be shared on Reddit. Look at the photos <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/xs2b2k/dreambooth_is_the_best_thing_ever_period_see">in the post below</a> that show images put into DreamBooth and realistic fake images from Stable Diffusion.</p>
<hr>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-737" class="tc-infographic" height="500px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/737/1b725c8fe34ad428aef4d17f221c2e3a444d1a1c/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>We can no longer believe our eyes, but we may still be able to trust those of forensics experts, at least for now. It is entirely possible that future systems could be deliberately trained to fool them too.</p>
<p>We are rapidly moving into an era where perfect photographic and even video will be common. Time will tell how significant this will be, but in the meantime it is worth remembering the lesson of the Cottingley Fairy photos – sometimes people just want to believe, even in obvious fakes.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-epic-storm-pics-to-fairies-in-the-garden-be-careful-with-images-40818">From epic storm pics to fairies in the garden, be careful with images</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191674/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendan Paul Murphy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In the age of AI image generation, believing your own eyes may not hold the same weight it once used to.
Brendan Paul Murphy, Lecturer in Digital Media, CQUniversity Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/189221
2022-09-05T04:17:32Z
2022-09-05T04:17:32Z
Male artists dominate galleries. Our research explored if it’s because ‘women don’t paint very well’ – or just discrimination
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481462/original/file-20220829-34035-99g66p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1587%2C1078&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of these vases was painted by a woman; the other by a man. Can you guess which is which?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">B van der Ast/M van Oosterwijck</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the art world, there is a gaping gender imbalance when it comes to male and female artists.</p>
<p>In the National Gallery of Australia, <a href="https://nga.gov.au/knowmyname/about/">only 25%</a> of the Australian art collection is work by women. </p>
<p>This is far better than the international standard where <a href="https://nmwa.org/support/advocacy/get-facts/">roughly 90%</a> of all artworks exhibited in major collections are by men. The <a href="https://www.artsy.net/artwork/georgia-okeeffe-jimson-weed-slash-white-flower-no-1">most expensive</a> painting by a female artist – Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 – does not even rank among the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_paintings#List_of_highest_prices_paid">100 most expensive paintings</a> ever sold. </p>
<p>Why is women’s art valued so much less than art by men?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481455/original/file-20220829-60594-nguhqg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481455/original/file-20220829-60594-nguhqg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481455/original/file-20220829-60594-nguhqg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=205&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481455/original/file-20220829-60594-nguhqg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=205&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481455/original/file-20220829-60594-nguhqg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=205&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481455/original/file-20220829-60594-nguhqg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481455/original/file-20220829-60594-nguhqg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481455/original/file-20220829-60594-nguhqg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Could you guess the gender of these artists?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">C Peeters/O Beert</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some economists <a href="https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/02/why_do_women_su.html">have suggested</a> the greater burden of child rearing and other domestic duties means women have had fewer opportunities to succeed in the art world.</p>
<p>Others have blamed the “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/report-names-laggers-as-women-artists-win-parity-20191029-p534vy.html">quality</a>” of women’s art. In 2013, German painter <a href="https://observer.com/2013/01/georg-baselitz-says-women-dont-paint-very-well/">Georg Baselitz said</a> “Women don’t paint very well. It’s a fact. The market doesn’t lie.”</p>
<p>We wanted to know: is work by women generally valued differently to work by men because it is of a lower artistic quality, or is it just discrimination?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-werent-there-any-great-women-artists-in-gratitude-to-linda-nochlin-153099">Why weren't there any great women artists? In gratitude to Linda Nochlin</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Which painting do you like better?</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268122002669?dgcid=author">our new research</a> we showed average Americans pairs of paintings, painted between 1625 and 1979, side by side. Each of the pairs are similar in style, motif and period, but one work was by a male artist and the other by a female artist.</p>
<p>Participants were in two groups. One group saw the artists’ names and the other didn’t. We wanted to see whether more people among those who saw artist names preferred the male painting. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481453/original/file-20220829-64639-q2vdu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two paintings of flowers in a vase." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481453/original/file-20220829-64639-q2vdu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481453/original/file-20220829-64639-q2vdu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481453/original/file-20220829-64639-q2vdu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481453/original/file-20220829-64639-q2vdu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481453/original/file-20220829-64639-q2vdu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481453/original/file-20220829-64639-q2vdu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481453/original/file-20220829-64639-q2vdu3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Which one of these paintings do you think is worth the most?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">E Gonzalès/G Caillebotte</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If seeing the names – and thereby inferring artist gender – causes more people to prefer male paintings, then there is gender discrimination.</p>
<p>Before we tell you the results, think about what you would have expected. And <a href="https://rmit.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e4JBs0wxKeftYF0">take a look</a> at our actual painting pairs and see if you can guess which is the male one (hint: you can’t).</p>
<p>We were pleasantly surprised to find our participants did not give a hoot about artist gender. In both groups, 54% preferred the painting from a woman.</p>
<p>We repeated this experiment, this time rewarding participants if they could accurately guess the preferences of others – the people in the first experiment. </p>
<p>Again, 54% of the people in each group picked the female paintings. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481450/original/file-20220829-62013-hfrglg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481450/original/file-20220829-62013-hfrglg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481450/original/file-20220829-62013-hfrglg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481450/original/file-20220829-62013-hfrglg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481450/original/file-20220829-62013-hfrglg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481450/original/file-20220829-62013-hfrglg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481450/original/file-20220829-62013-hfrglg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481450/original/file-20220829-62013-hfrglg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">54% of participants favoured the work painted by a woman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">LC Breslau/RL Reid</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Which painting do you think is worth more?</h2>
<p>Next we wanted to find out if people picked male paintings for reasons other than personal taste. Art isn’t just bought and sold on aesthetic value: it is a speculative market, where art is treated as an investment.</p>
<p>We conducted two more experiments. In one, participants were rewarded if they picked the more expensive painting. In the other, they were rewarded to pick the one painted by the more famous artist.</p>
<p>Gender discrimination emerged in both these experiments. When asked to predict the value of and creator fame of paintings, people suddenly swung towards picking male artists. Preference for female paintings fell by 10% and 9% in these two new experiments.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481449/original/file-20220829-48396-zxgvqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481449/original/file-20220829-48396-zxgvqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481449/original/file-20220829-48396-zxgvqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481449/original/file-20220829-48396-zxgvqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481449/original/file-20220829-48396-zxgvqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481449/original/file-20220829-48396-zxgvqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481449/original/file-20220829-48396-zxgvqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481449/original/file-20220829-48396-zxgvqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is art by women less attractive than art by men?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">J Leyster/B Assteyn</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gender discrimination in art comes not from personal aesthetic preference – Baselitz’ argument that women “don’t paint very well” – but people thinking paintings are more valuable and famous when painted by male artists.</p>
<h2>A question of fame</h2>
<p>In our fifth experiment, we again rewarded participants who could correctly guess which painting would be preferred by others. This time everyone saw the names of the artists. But only one group was told which of the two artists was objectively more famous – the male artist in 90% of cases.</p>
<p>The group with that information was 14% more likely to pick male paintings. People used fame information to predict the painting others liked better. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481448/original/file-20220829-60590-8l0l6s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481448/original/file-20220829-60590-8l0l6s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481448/original/file-20220829-60590-8l0l6s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481448/original/file-20220829-60590-8l0l6s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481448/original/file-20220829-60590-8l0l6s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481448/original/file-20220829-60590-8l0l6s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481448/original/file-20220829-60590-8l0l6s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481448/original/file-20220829-60590-8l0l6s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Participants chose work by male artists when asked to select the more famous painting.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">LC Perry/WM Chase</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If women artists were discriminated against just because of their gender we would have seen a higher premium put on the male artists even in questions of aesthetics.</p>
<p>Here, discrimination only occured when our participants were asked to assign a monetary value to the art works, or when they were given information about the level of fame of the painter. </p>
<p>This means our art appreciators discriminated not on gender, but on something closely associated with gender: fame.</p>
<p>And because male artists have, historically, been given <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1574067606010234">more opportunities</a> to become artists – and therefore become famous – artwork by men is perceived as having a higher value.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481452/original/file-20220829-64639-8ddjov.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481452/original/file-20220829-64639-8ddjov.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481452/original/file-20220829-64639-8ddjov.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481452/original/file-20220829-64639-8ddjov.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481452/original/file-20220829-64639-8ddjov.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481452/original/file-20220829-64639-8ddjov.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481452/original/file-20220829-64639-8ddjov.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481452/original/file-20220829-64639-8ddjov.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Discrimination in the arts comes from people’s beliefs what others care to discriminate about.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">M Cassatt/JS Sargent</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Policy is slowly starting to recognise and target institutional factors that perpetuate male dominance because of historical notions of fame, like the National Gallery of Australia’s <a href="https://knowmyname.nga.gov.au/">Know my Name</a> initiative. </p>
<p>Discrimination in the arts exists, but it often comes from people’s beliefs about what others care to discriminate about. The task ahead is to change perceptions of people and institutions who do not discriminate – but merely conform to others’ discrimination.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beauty-and-audacity-know-my-name-presents-a-new-female-story-of-australian-art-150139">Beauty and audacity: Know My Name presents a new, female story of Australian art</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189221/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
People in our experiments liked art by women – but believed women’s paintings are less attractive for investment.
Robert Hoffmann, Professor of Economics, RMIT University
Bronwyn Coate, Senior Lecturer in Economics, RMIT University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/179771
2022-05-13T05:37:58Z
2022-05-13T05:37:58Z
‘I can’t think of a more timely painting’: Blak Douglas’s Moby Dickens is a deserving winner of the 2022 Archibald Prize
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462944/original/file-20220513-14-jejm0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C10%2C2371%2C3631&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Winner Archibald Prize 2022, Blak Douglas Moby Dickens, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 300 x 200 cm </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist, image © AGNSW, Mim Stirling</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2020, the year Vincent Namatjira was awarded the Archibald for his <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2020/30235/">double portrait with Adam Goodes</a>, I was also impressed by the painting hanging next to it, Blak Douglas’ (aka Adam Hill) <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2020/30215/">Writing in the Sand</a>. It was both passionately political and visually very clever, incorporating the speech that the 12-year-old Dujuan Hoosan gave to the United Nations. </p>
<p>One of the many unwritten rules of the Archibald is that the winner is often an artist who has exhibited an outstanding (non-winning) work in previous years. </p>
<p>But this year, Blak Douglas’s winning portrait is the standout entry, head and shoulders above the rest. </p>
<p>It is not just the subject that makes it significant and topical, although that helps. Karla Dickens, a Wiradjuri woman, lives in Bundjalung Country in northern New South Wales. </p>
<p>When the prize was announced, Dickens described herself as “a grumpy white sperm whale in muddy water ready to rip the leg off any fool with a harpoon who comes too close”. </p>
<p>The people of Lismore and surrounding districts have every reason to be enraged at the politicians who come with platitudes instead of help. The people are left to wade through muddy waters with leaky buckets. Dickens herself harboured three homeless families in the immediate aftermath of the floods.</p>
<p>Douglas has painted Dickens standing under a dark grey sky patterned with 14 stylised clouds, symbolising the 14 days of continuous rain that brought the floods. </p>
<p>Douglas’s style owes a great deal to commercial art. The subject is outlined in black for emphasis, even the mud forms a pattern. Dickens stands full frontal, scowling at the viewer, uncompromising in her anger at the folly that has led to this mass destruction. Her feet are concealed by mud, the kind of sludge that still fills and stinks the houses as people try to survive. </p>
<p>I can’t think of a more timely painting, as it so effectively encapsulates the current mood of the country.</p>
<p>In his acceptance speech, Blak Douglas noted he has spent “20 years of taking a risk” before he stood on the winners podium with a prize of $100,000. He reminded the gathering of media and patrons that, especially in recent years, the lives of artists are both hard and uncertain. Not all are winners.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-archibald-2022-finalists-sitters-speaking-up-to-power-artists-speaking-back-to-the-canon-179770">The Archibald 2022 finalists: sitters speaking up to power; artists speaking back to the canon</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The Wynne Prize</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462945/original/file-20220513-3750-onvo9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462945/original/file-20220513-3750-onvo9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462945/original/file-20220513-3750-onvo9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462945/original/file-20220513-3750-onvo9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462945/original/file-20220513-3750-onvo9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462945/original/file-20220513-3750-onvo9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462945/original/file-20220513-3750-onvo9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462945/original/file-20220513-3750-onvo9u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Winner Wynne Prize 2022, Nicholas Harding Eora, oil on linen, 196.5 x 374.8 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist, image © AGNSW, Mim Stirling</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nicholas Harding, who has been awarded the Wynne Prize is not an Indigenous artist, but his painting, Eora, also references Australia’s Aboriginal heritage. </p>
<p>The subject is based on the Narrabeen Lakes walk, north of Sydney. It is one of the largest works exhibited. Harding’s characteristic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impasto">impastoed</a> surface evokes the lush vegetation of the land before the colonists came to fell the trees and kill the ferns.</p>
<p>Interestingly the painting was not painted for the prize but as a commission for two private collectors who are long-term admirers. Harding is a nine time finalist in the Wynne, and says the decision to enter was “a last minute thing”. </p>
<p>His hesitation is understandable as every year, even being hung can be a bit of a lottery.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-gum-trees-to-cities-to-sweeping-deserts-how-125-years-of-the-wynne-prize-traces-australias-shifting-relationship-to-our-landscape-179764">From gum trees to cities to sweeping deserts: how 125 years of the Wynne Prize traces Australia's shifting relationship to our landscape</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The Sulman Prize</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462946/original/file-20220513-3750-cfaigb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462946/original/file-20220513-3750-cfaigb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462946/original/file-20220513-3750-cfaigb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462946/original/file-20220513-3750-cfaigb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462946/original/file-20220513-3750-cfaigb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462946/original/file-20220513-3750-cfaigb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462946/original/file-20220513-3750-cfaigb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462946/original/file-20220513-3750-cfaigb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Winner Sulman Prize 2022, Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro Raiko and Shuten-dōji, acrylic gouache, jute and tape on helicopter shell, 159.5 x 120 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist, image © AGNSW, Mim Stirling</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Archibald and the Wynne are judged by the Trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW. Not so the Sulman Prize, which was established as a bequest of Sir John Sulman – one of the Gallery’s most conservative trustees. The brief is for a “subject or genre painting”, but over the years that distinction has become meaningless. </p>
<p>Because it is judged by a different person every year, its outcome is less predictable. </p>
<p>It is worth noting that this year, 69% of the Sulman entries were by artists who had never before been hung. This is in marked contrast to the Archibald (27%) and Wynne (50%) finalists. </p>
<p>As is common practice this year’s judge, Joan Ross, was a previous winner and is also an Archibald finalist. </p>
<p>The winner is unusually a duo – Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro – who formed their artistic collaboration when they were undergraduate students. Over the last 20 years they have created installations both large and small, including at the Venice Biennale.</p>
<p>Raiko and Shuten-doji is painted on a piece of an army surplus helicopter, so that the Japanese legend of the warrior Raiko and the demon Shute-doji can be viewed through the lens of military conflict. But then they turn it back into a kite: a playful thing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179771/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has received funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>
This year’s winning Archibald Prize portrait, Moby Dickens by Blak Douglas, encapsulates the justifiable rage felt by people living in flooded Bundjalung country
Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/168548
2021-11-01T12:27:19Z
2021-11-01T12:27:19Z
COVID-19 threatens the already shaky status of arts education in schools
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427842/original/file-20211021-19-mpwsjr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C0%2C5182%2C3680&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As more normalcy returns to schools, will arts education programs rebound?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/giani-clarke-a-senior-at-wilson-high-school-during-her-news-photo/1306725559">Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Parents can watch their kids draw and paint at home or perform in school music concerts and dance recitals. But they may not know how their school arts program compares with others around the country.</p>
<p>As a music education professor and a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hKa909sAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">researcher who studies arts education policies</a>, I know that access to and the quality of arts programs vary greatly among states, districts and even schools within the same district.</p>
<p>Additionally, I see that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2021.1931599">disruptions from the pandemic</a> are threatening the already <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2010.490776">tenuous status</a> of the arts in public schools.</p>
<h2>Who gets to study art and music?</h2>
<p>Music education first made its way into American public schools in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40318321">Boston in the 1830s</a>. It started with singing instruction, with instrumental music to follow later in the century. Today, arts programs in K-12 schools include visual arts, music, theater, dance and multimedia or design.</p>
<p>A congressionally mandated <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2011078">study from 2011</a> offers a snapshot of what’s available to kids. Back then, 94% of public elementary schools reported that they offered music instruction, and 83% offered visual arts. Theater (4%) and dance (3%) were much less common.</p>
<p>Data also shows that, at least at the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2020.1773365">high school level</a>, larger schools and traditional public schools offer more arts courses than do smaller schools and private or charter schools.</p>
<p>But the more locally one looks, the more disparities emerge. For example, only <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012014rev.pdf">22% of high schools</a> with high concentrations of poverty offer five or more visual arts courses, compared with 56% of high schools with low concentrations of poverty. Some evidence suggests schools with mostly white students offer <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2014.914389">significantly more music offerings</a> than schools in the same metropolitan area that serve mostly students of color.</p>
<p>Disparities also exist in terms of how qualified arts teachers are in different schools. In Utah, for example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2014.944967">fewer than 10%</a> of elementary school students receive music instruction from certified specialists. And in my own analysis of music education in Michigan in 2017-2018, I found only <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429421989961">two-thirds of urban schools</a> had certified music teachers, compared with almost 90% of suburban schools.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Boy wearing a blue shirt and face mask paints a piece of wood outside as a man wearing a pink shirt and orange baseball cap offers direction" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428829/original/file-20211027-21-1gotzgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428829/original/file-20211027-21-1gotzgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428829/original/file-20211027-21-1gotzgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428829/original/file-20211027-21-1gotzgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428829/original/file-20211027-21-1gotzgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428829/original/file-20211027-21-1gotzgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428829/original/file-20211027-21-1gotzgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Visual arts and music classes are common in public elementary schools, while theater and dance are rare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tim-gibson-center-gives-direction-to-a-4th-grader-working-news-photo/1279154819">Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Cuts to instruction</h2>
<p>These findings offer clues to how the arts are currently positioned in U.S. schools. </p>
<p>Although the arts were considered a core subject in the 2001 federal <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/1">No Child Left Behind Act</a>, they were not factored into annual testing or related sanctions against underperforming schools. As a result, instructional time in the arts was <a href="https://arteducators-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/448/bf6db6ff-3e19-4642-8f33-93415c74810b.pdf?1452927747">cut back</a>. </p>
<p>In two studies from 2007 to 2008, schools indicated that they had cut an average of <a href="https://www.ewa.org/report/choices-changes-and-challenges-curriculum-and-instruction-nclb-era">145 minutes per week</a> across the nontested subjects, lunch and recess. Where visual art and music were cut back, it was for an average of <a href="https://doi.org/10.3200/AEPR.109.6.23-28">57 minutes per week</a>.</p>
<p>Because states determine curricular requirements and other policies, the landscape varies. <a href="https://c0arw235.caspio.com/dp/b7f9300062f044d142eb469b83ba?state=Arkansas">Arkansas</a>, for example, requires 40 minutes of elementary school art and music per week, while <a href="https://c0arw235.caspio.com/dp/b7f9300062f044d142eb469b83ba?state=Michigan">Michigan</a> has no requirement for either. Only <a href="https://www.ecs.org/artscan-at-a-glance/">32 states</a> consider the arts a core subject.</p>
<p>Furthermore, a school superintendent’s priorities may be the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429412474313">deciding factor</a> in whether a school district’s arts education is robust or merely an afterthought. In a 2017 study I did on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429417739855">arts education in Lansing, Michigan</a>, a midsized school district that had cut staff to fill a budgetary gap, I found elementary schools offered a single music and art class once every eight weeks.</p>
<h2>Benefits of arts education</h2>
<p>Arts education has been associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-381460-9.00012-2">increased cognitive ability</a>, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/edu0000376">academic achievement</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264180789-en">creative thinking</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2015.1086915">school engagement</a> and so-called “soft skills” like <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED598203">compassion for others</a>. However, many of these studies are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10632910109600008">correlational rather than causal</a>. It may be that more advanced and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429413485601">more privileged</a> students pursued arts education in the first place. </p>
<p>Still, research on the benefits of the arts has spurred many schools to invest in <a href="https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/articles-and-how-tos/articles/collections/arts-integration-resources/what-is-arts-integration/">arts integration</a>. This approach marries arts content with traditional academic subjects. For example, students might <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858420902712">learn history though theater performances</a>. Other policies aim to use <a href="http://turnaroundarts.kennedy-center.org/">arts integration and artist residencies</a> to improve test scores, attendance, graduation rates and other metrics.</p>
<p>Some arts education advocates have <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3399646">pushed back</a> with a rallying cry of “art for art’s sake.” They worry that if arts education is always justified by its impact on math and reading achievement, it may be viewed as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20299381">nice but not necessary</a>.</p>
<p>More recently, arts education proponents talk about access to a well-rounded, rich curriculum as an <a href="https://www.americansforthearts.org/by-program/reports-and-data/legislation-policy/naappd/arts-facts-access-to-arts-education-in-not-equitable-2017">equity issue</a>. This has led large districts in <a href="https://www.ingenuity-inc.org/">Chicago</a>, <a href="https://www.creativeadvantageseattle.org/">Seattle</a>, <a href="https://www.edvestors.org/bps-arts-expansion/">Boston</a> and <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/Study/88827">Houston</a> to slowly chip away at disparities in arts education.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="High school students sing in individual green tents during choir class" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427845/original/file-20211021-23-1r8arvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427845/original/file-20211021-23-1r8arvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427845/original/file-20211021-23-1r8arvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427845/original/file-20211021-23-1r8arvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427845/original/file-20211021-23-1r8arvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427845/original/file-20211021-23-1r8arvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427845/original/file-20211021-23-1r8arvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">COVID-19 changed how students participate in arts classes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/choir-director-dawn-mccormick-leads-students-keyonna-page-news-photo/1231401397">David Ryder/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>COVID-19 and arts education</h2>
<p>Hands-on arts classes made for an awkward fit with remote learning when schools suspended in-person instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2021.1931597">Many music teachers reported</a> that they were told not to hold live virtual classes with students, and that their students did not engage much with their assignments.</p>
<p>Yet when schools returned to in-person instruction, frustrations and confusion continued to abound. After a community choir rehearsal in Washington state turned into a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/us/coronavirus-washington-choir-outbreak-trnd/index.html">superspreader event</a>, singing and playing wind instruments <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/will-coronavirus-silence-school-bands-and-choirs/2020/08">were banned</a> in many schools. In visual arts classes, the sharing of materials was an issue. And across schools, arts teachers were limited by social distancing restrictions and guidelines around keeping groups of students separated. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 110,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Preliminary results of a survey I’m conducting suggest that high school music class enrollment has suffered during the pandemic. This may be as a result of students <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-trends-in-public-school-enrollment-due-to-covid-19-168911">exiting the public school system</a> or of safety concerns regarding singing and performing in large groups.</p>
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
<p>As more normalcy returns to schools, will arts education programs rebound? Two forces may help determine the answer.</p>
<p>On one hand, the concern over so-called <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/regions/central/blog/mitigating-learning-loss.asp">learning loss</a> is pushing school districts to invest in extra tutoring and coaching in traditionally tested subjects like math and English language arts. As in the aftermath of No Child Left Behind, this could crowd out instructional time for the arts.</p>
<p>However, the pandemic has also drawn more attention to <a href="https://theconversation.com/students-are-returning-to-school-with-anxiety-grief-and-gaps-in-social-skills-will-there-be-enough-school-mental-health-resources-165279">mental health and student wellness</a>. Arts classrooms may provide a <a href="https://artsedsel.org">natural place</a> for <a href="https://casel.org/fundamentals-of-sel/">social and emotional learning</a> because of the focus on collaboration, goal-setting and emotional expression. </p>
<p>There are also government and nonprofit efforts to <a href="https://www.amacad.org/publication/case-for-arts-education">make arts education more consistent</a> across the country. Proposed legislation like the <a href="https://oregonculture.org/2021/04/encouraging-words-from-congresswoman-bonamici/">Arts Education for All Act</a> would expand arts education in K-12 public schools and require more data reporting on arts achievement at the state and federal levels.</p>
<p>For now, access to school arts education remains unequal in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic could help focus attention on these inequities and spur solutions, or it could further complicate the perennially shaky footing of the arts in schools.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168548/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan D. Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Even before the pandemic, access to arts programs and qualified instructors varied greatly among schools and districts.
Ryan D. Shaw, Assistant Professor of Music Education, Michigan State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/164713
2021-08-09T04:52:10Z
2021-08-09T04:52:10Z
Art, drama and music lower stress. Here’s what you need to know if you’re thinking of taking arts in years 11 and 12
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415136/original/file-20210809-17-wg6eas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/school-art-college-arts-education-group-1486701911">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/senior-subjects-series-107516">series</a> providing school students with evidence-based advice for choosing subjects in their senior years.</em></p>
<p>If you’re thinking of taking a performing or visual arts subject in years 11 and 12, you are probably weighing up a few considerations. These may include your passion and interest in the subject, how doing one or two arts subjects might affect your entry into university and what you could do with the skills you learn.</p>
<p>Nearly 30% of all <a href="https://www.acara.edu.au/reporting/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia/national-report-on-schooling-in-australia-data-portal/year-12-subject-enrolments#datase">year 12 students across Australia</a> (53,311 year 12 students in total) chose to study visual or performing arts in year 12 in 2019. But twice as many girls took an arts subject (40%) as boys (18%).</p>
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<p><iframe id="Pk3kw" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Pk3kw/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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<p>The arts subject selection you have will depend on what state you live in. But these are the types of subjects you can broadly choose from in visual and performing arts.</p>
<h2>Visual arts</h2>
<p><a href="https://vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/vce/art/ArtSD-2017.pdf">Visual arts</a> is a theory-based subject. You will learn about different artworks and the role of artists in society. You will engage in discussions and writing tasks about what artworks mean. This includes ideas from historical and contemporary arts and culture. </p>
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Read more:
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<p>In <a href="https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/curriculum/vce/vce-study-designs/studioarts/Pages/Index.aspx">studio arts</a>, you will learn about artists’ practices and the art industry while also developing your own art. </p>
<p>You will experiment with techniques and art processes in the mediums of your choice. These include photography, painting, drawing, printmaking, film, digital arts, ceramics or textiles. You will develop your own artworks, document this process and exhibit your work.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415139/original/file-20210809-16-mez1ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Young man holding camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415139/original/file-20210809-16-mez1ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415139/original/file-20210809-16-mez1ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415139/original/file-20210809-16-mez1ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415139/original/file-20210809-16-mez1ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415139/original/file-20210809-16-mez1ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415139/original/file-20210809-16-mez1ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415139/original/file-20210809-16-mez1ho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In studio arts, you can work in a media form of your choice, including photography.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/school-art-college-arts-education-group-1486701911">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/vce/media/MediaSD_2018.pdf">Media arts</a> involves researching and learning about narrative across different media forms. You will demonstrate your understanding of production processes by designing a media product (such as a film or photographic exhibition) and presenting it.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/curriculum/vce/vce-study-designs/productdesign-and-technology/Pages/Index.aspx">Product design and technology</a> involves learning about, and experimenting with, materials and processes. The materials will vary from school to school, but you may be able to choose from wood or timber, metal, fabrics, polymers, glass or ceramics. You will learn how to design and put these designs into production. </p>
<h2>Performing arts</h2>
<p><a href="https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/arts/dance">Dance</a> will teach you about dance traditions, styles and works from different cultures. You will learn about music theatre, the work of tap or jazz or street performers, ballet and modern dance, and choreography. As you learn this content through theory and practice, you will engage in analysis of dance that will help you develop your own choreographed performance with others. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sace.sa.edu.au/web/drama">Drama</a> involves studying practice and theory to understand the ways theatre and performance can communicate stories and ideas. You will explore different traditions of drama including costume, set design and lighting, make-up, masks, props and puppetry and sound design. You will ultimately create, develop and present a solo performance.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415147/original/file-20210809-20-jh2w7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Girl playing guitar." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415147/original/file-20210809-20-jh2w7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415147/original/file-20210809-20-jh2w7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415147/original/file-20210809-20-jh2w7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415147/original/file-20210809-20-jh2w7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415147/original/file-20210809-20-jh2w7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415147/original/file-20210809-20-jh2w7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415147/original/file-20210809-20-jh2w7t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In music, you will learn through listening, performing and composing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-girls-hands-playing-guitar-against-140070883">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/vce/music/2017MusicSD.pdf">Music</a> has different pathways depending on what state you live in. In the Victorian curriculum, there are three pathways culminating in units 3 and 4 of music investigation and music performance. These pathways require at least four years’ experience in learning an instrument. Another pathway, <a href="https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/curriculum/vet/vce-vet-programs/Pages/musicindustry.aspx">VET music industry</a>, focuses on performing in public.</p>
<p>While each pathway and qualification is different, you will learn through listening, performing and composing. You will apply creative thinking skills to analyse and critique contemporary and historical music and musicians. </p>
<h2>What benefits will I get through studying arts?</h2>
<p>From my research and practice as an artist and university educator of 15 years, I know any of the year 11 and 12 art subjects will enable you to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1871187117301694">learn from extensive creative processes</a>. Developing a set of paintings will require experimenting with techniques, learning from other artists, developing a theme or message to convey, and ensuring the subject matter in your paintings is suitable for conveying the message and appropriate for the style you are working in.</p>
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<p>Your technique must be proficient to achieve good marks. You also need to document the development of your research and ideas with visual images you created and written statements in journals. This is somewhat risky as you are putting yourself out there. It must also come together in a certain time frame, which can be challenging and stressful. </p>
<p>But it will pay off as research shows <a href="https://www.artsedsearch.org/study/arts-education-in-secondary-schools-effects-and-effectiveness/">arts education has</a> many benefits. </p>
<p>Beyond technical knowledge and skills, benefits include actual enjoyment and stress relief. The senior years can be stressful years, so adding an arts subject to the mix can actually be a way to take care of yourself. It is well documented the arts offer <a href="http://www.artshealthandwellbeing.org.uk/appg-inquiry/">mental health benefits</a> as the focus on creating art is a form of mindfulness. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415149/original/file-20210809-28-1tim6q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Students doing improvisation in drama class, wearing all black." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415149/original/file-20210809-28-1tim6q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415149/original/file-20210809-28-1tim6q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415149/original/file-20210809-28-1tim6q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415149/original/file-20210809-28-1tim6q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415149/original/file-20210809-28-1tim6q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415149/original/file-20210809-28-1tim6q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415149/original/file-20210809-28-1tim6q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Theatre and other arts can be a great form of stress relief.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/male-female-drama-students-performing-arts-1336613192">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Creating art is a process of focusing on bringing together subject matter, technique and creative experience to communicate a story or an idea. The ability to express your feelings through the arts is a <a href="https://cv.vic.gov.au/media/2807/making-sense-art-and-mental-health-educationkit.pdf">form of release</a>. And reflecting on its meaning can provide insights into your self, which is therapeutic.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/choosing-your-senior-school-subjects-doesnt-have-to-be-scary-here-are-6-things-to-keep-in-mind-160257">Choosing your senior school subjects doesn't have to be scary. Here are 6 things to keep in mind</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In addition, you will develop a range of skills that will help you in any area of life. Beyond creativity and thinking skills, <a href="https://www.artsedsearch.org/study/arts-education-in-secondary-schools-effects-and-effectiveness/">research shows</a> arts education will help you enhance your communication and expressive skills, as well as boosting your confidence and self-esteem. Teamwork, too, is a big part of the arts, and learning this skill will be helpful at university and in your future employment.</p>
<p>The presentation, communication and performance skills you learn are adaptable for public speaking, community and public art careers, as well as teaching. </p>
<h2>Will doing the arts bring down my ATAR?</h2>
<p>The ATAR is a university-based system that determines how many students will get into particular courses. Like a queue, it ranks you against everyone in the year 12 age group. </p>
<p>But university entry, particularly when it comes to the arts, doesn’t rely on ATAR. It often requires an <a href="https://www.rmit.edu.au/study-with-us/levels-of-study/undergraduate-study/bachelor-degrees/bachelor-of-arts-fine-art-bp201#admissions">interview process with presentation of a portfolio</a>. </p>
<p>If you’re not looking to do arts at university, it’s still important to choose senior subjects you are interested in and good at. Plus, skills you learn in the arts can enhance your entry prospects. For instance, entry into a medical degree requires a high ATAR. But most <a href="https://www.monash.edu/medicine/som/direct-entry/domestic">universities also conduct an interview</a> to test your empathy, collaboration and ethical reasoning skills – all of which are enhanced by the arts.</p>
<h2>What will I do with these skills after school?</h2>
<p>Many students who study senior art go on to study the visual and/or performing arts at university. Some become self-employed artists. Others practise art on the side and that helps them maintain a good balance in life.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415153/original/file-20210809-25-lc3rde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Woman's hands making pottery." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415153/original/file-20210809-25-lc3rde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415153/original/file-20210809-25-lc3rde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415153/original/file-20210809-25-lc3rde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415153/original/file-20210809-25-lc3rde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415153/original/file-20210809-25-lc3rde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415153/original/file-20210809-25-lc3rde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415153/original/file-20210809-25-lc3rde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many people continue to practise art on the side of their full-time job, to help create a healthy life balance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-hands-working-on-pottery-wheel-1377692564">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One ex-student, now in her late 20s, studied visual art and music in school but is now a psychiatric nurse who is also in a band. She said being a musician helps her cope with the stresses of her job. </p>
<p>Another ex-student, a 20-year-old male, studied the VCE VET in music industry as well as media arts, studio arts, visual arts, psychology and literature. He is a full-time intern in a technology company. He said the networking he does now is very close to what he had to do for the documentary he made in media arts. He also said his creative skills were helpful in the marketing material he designs.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have to be a creative strategist to get people to give you time of day in sales and marketing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1417399025930698752"}"></div></p>
<p><em>Read the other articles in our series on choosing senior subjects, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/senior-subjects-series-107516">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164713/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shelley Hannigan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Beyond creativity and thinking skills, arts education will help you enhance your communication and expressive skills, as well as boosting your confidence and self-esteem.
Shelley Hannigan, Senior Lecturer in Art Education, Deakin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/162566
2021-06-21T11:27:39Z
2021-06-21T11:27:39Z
The art of Aphantasia: how ‘mind blind’ artists create without being able to visualise
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407200/original/file-20210618-16-8hefm7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C963%2C678&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Glen Keane at work</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfUp0cy2zoM">Google ATAP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Glen Keane, the Oscar-winning artist behind such Disney classics as The Little Mermaid (1989), was once described by Ed Catmull the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47830256">former president</a> of Pixar and Walt Disney Studios as “one of the best animators in the history of hand-drawn animation”. But when he sat down to design Ariel, or indeed the beast from Beauty and the Beast (1991), Keane’s mind was a blank. He had no preconception of what he would draw. </p>
<p>This is because he has <a href="https://theconversation.com/aphantasia-explained-some-people-cant-form-mental-pictures-162445">aphantasia</a>, a recently-identified variation of human experience <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-05537-003">affecting 2-5% of the population</a>, in which a person is unable to generate mental imagery. Perhaps surprisingly, Keane is not alone in being a visual artist who cannot visualise. </p>
<p>When aphantasia was <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010945215001781?via%3Dihub">named</a> and publicised, a number of creative practitioners – artists, designers and architects – contacted the researchers to say that they too had no “mind’s eye”. Intrigued by the seemingly counter-intuitive notion, we gathered a group of these people together and curated an <a href="https://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/cspe/engagement/extreme-imagination/">exhibition</a> of their work.</p>
<p>How is it, then, that a person like Keane can draw a picture of Ariel without a mental picture to guide him?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A swirl of indecipherable pencil lines" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407201/original/file-20210618-22-15tgnnn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An early-stage sketch of Ariel from the Little Mermaid by Glen Keane.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL4U9Ygtxh8&ab_channel=GoogleDevelopers">Disney/Google Developers/YouTube</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Knowing vs picturing</h2>
<p>The first point to consider is that there is a difference between knowing or remembering what something looks like and generating a mental image of that thing. To draw it, you only need to know how it looks, or would look.</p>
<p>As the psychologist of art <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DWmtB9szhFsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">Rudolf Arnheim</a> noted, a draftsperson working from memory “may deny convincingly that he has anything like an explicit picture of [the object] in his mind” – yet, as he works, “the correctness of what he is producing on paper” is judged and modified “according to some standard in the mind”. </p>
<p>We’ve found that aphantasics retain such standards. “MX”, the subject of the first <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19733188/">case study of acquired aphantasia</a>, could give detailed descriptions of scenes and landmarks around his native Edinburgh: “I can remember visual details,” he commented, “but I can’t see them”. </p>
<p>Aphantasia prevents the generation of mental images based on knowledge of what things look like, but it does not prevent that knowledge serving as the basis for an image made with pencil and paper. Keane can draw a picture of Ariel because he knows what humans (and fish) look like, and that information – plus the skills acquired through study and practice – steers his hand accordingly.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A neat sketch of Ariel the mermaid, body foreshortened, swimming towards the viewer" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407203/original/file-20210618-27-qol7by.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A later-stage sketch of Ariel the mermaid by Glen Keane.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL4U9Ygtxh8&ab_channel=GoogleDevelopers">Disney/Google Developers/YouTube</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seeing vs imagining</h2>
<p>Another seemingly obvious but important point is that whereas mental visualisation takes place entirely within the brain, drawing is a partly external act, taking place in front of the artist’s eyes. When you draw, you perceive the marks you make. Each change, perceived, suggests the next, in a <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-11133-004">feedback loop</a>. You don’t have to imagine. </p>
<p>Many of the aphantasic artists we spoke to emphasised this aspect of their creative process: they would need to “get something down” on the paper or canvas, or even start with a pre-existing image, which they can then alter, erase or add to. When Keane draws Ariel, he begins with what he calls an “explosion of scribbles”, then highlights and subtracts lines until he finds the form that he wants. </p>
<p>Designing the Beast was a similar process of trial and error. Keane started by copying the buffalo’s head that hung in his studio, then tried out features from various other animals – a gorilla’s brow, a lion’s main. A cow’s slightly drooping ears, he discovered, made the Beast less threatening. The eureka moment was when he added human eyes. For Keane, it was “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ftHVPJJ26I">like recognising somebody you know</a>”. Someone he knew, but couldn’t picture.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u5a0Rl4D_UA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Creativity diversified</h2>
<p>The way that aphantasics like Keane work challenges the stereotype of the creative artist that has held sway over Western culture for centuries, at least since the Renaissance biographer <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=43yEDKzADr0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">Giorgio Vasari</a> declared that “the greatest geniuses…are searching for inventions in their minds, forming those perfect ideas which their hands then express”.</p>
<p>Vasari was referring to Leonardo da Vinci and his comments show how we have come to think of artistic creativity as being an internal capacity, the fruits of which are simply reproduced in the outside world. The artist of genius is distinguished by the richness of their mental conceptions as much as their artworks. </p>
<p>But there are historical reasons for the stereotype: career-minded Renaissance artists wanting to define themselves against the craftsman and his rule-following, manual labour, for one. </p>
<p>And while there are individuals who, experiencing vivid imagery, do mentally preconceive their artworks, Keane and his fellow aphantasics show that the creative process can just as easily begin with, and depend on, the material world around them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew MacKisack does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The condition challenges the centuries-old idea that all great artists are able to envision what they’re drawing.
Matthew MacKisack, Associate Research Fellow, University of Exeter
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/161575
2021-06-01T20:11:48Z
2021-06-01T20:11:48Z
‘I think Archie would be pleased’: 100 years of our most famous portrait prize and my almost 50 years watching it evolve
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403668/original/file-20210531-15-1k7lntr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C2552%2C2046&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Winner: Archibald Prize 1972: Clifton Pugh. 'The Hon EG Whitlam' 1972. Oil on composition board, 113.5 x 141.5 cm</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Estate of Clifton Pugh</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2008, when I first visited Canberra’s newly opened <a href="https://www.portrait.gov.au/content/gallery-history/">National Portrait Gallery</a>, my first response was an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. I knew many of those paintings. They had once hung on the walls of the Art Gallery of New South Wales as part of the annual Archibald Prize exhibition, or been seen in the <a href="https://www.shervingallery.com.au/event/salon-des-refuses-2021/">Salon des Refusés</a> — home to the best of the rejects. </p>
<p>Over 49 years I have seen the Archibald from both the inside, as a curator, and the outside as a critic. My first Archibald was in 1972, the year Clifton Pugh won with his portrait of Gough Whitlam. Along with other art history students, I had never been especially interested in this festival of popular culture, but as the recently appointed most junior of all curators my job was to administer the prize. </p>
<p>It is fair to say the gallery trustees who voted for the winning portrait (all appointed by Sir Robert Askin’s Liberal government) were not fans of the newly elected Labor Prime Minister. But Pugh’s painting dominated the longlist, the shortlist and the final exhibition, where I took great pleasure in hanging it so it was the first work people saw on arrival. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403678/original/file-20210601-17-671zhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403678/original/file-20210601-17-671zhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403678/original/file-20210601-17-671zhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403678/original/file-20210601-17-671zhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403678/original/file-20210601-17-671zhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403678/original/file-20210601-17-671zhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403678/original/file-20210601-17-671zhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403678/original/file-20210601-17-671zhy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A finalist in 1969: John Brack, Barry Humphries in the character of Mrs Everage, 1969. Oil on canvas, 94.5 x 128.2 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of New South Wales. Purchased with funds provided by the Contemporary Art Purchase Grant from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council 1975 © Helen Brack</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since then I have seen almost every Archibald, and although some of my colleagues continue to loathe the annual feast of novelty portraiture, I have come to appreciate it as an annual snapshot of the kind of society we are, and who our heroes may be.</p>
<h2>Proudly Australian</h2>
<p>As the gallery celebrates the prize’s centenary and the ABC prepares to screen a documentary hosted by Rachel Griffiths, <a href="https://youtu.be/6XKXyAKzBMI">Finding the Archibald</a>, which looks at the history of the prize and asks what the selected paintings say about us, it is worth remembering exactly why Archibald bequeathed some of his considerable estate to create an Australian portrait prize – and to give thanks for his vision.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6XKXyAKzBMI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The man born John Feltham Archibald in 1856, who later renamed himself <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/archibald-jules-francois-2896">Jules François Archibald</a> because he loved France, was an Australian nationalist. </p>
<p>As founding editor of <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/the-bulletin">The Bulletin</a> he fostered the literary careers of Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson, Miles Franklin and Steele Rudd – writers whose work defined the country as we moved towards Federation. His illustrators included Phil May, Will Dyson, D. H. Souter, George Lambert and Norman Lindsay. All projected a sense of an independent Australia.</p>
<p>At the beginning of last century, it was assumed an Australian’s success was made in England. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403679/original/file-20210601-19-1ko5sbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403679/original/file-20210601-19-1ko5sbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403679/original/file-20210601-19-1ko5sbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403679/original/file-20210601-19-1ko5sbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403679/original/file-20210601-19-1ko5sbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403679/original/file-20210601-19-1ko5sbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403679/original/file-20210601-19-1ko5sbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403679/original/file-20210601-19-1ko5sbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">1939 finalist: Tempe Manning, Self-portrait 1939. Oil on canvas, 76 x 60.5 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Private collection © Estate of Tempe Manning</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1900, when private philanthropy paid for <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lawson-henry-7118">Henry Lawson</a> to travel north to London, the Melbourne artist <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/4829/">John Longstaff</a> painted his portrait, purchased by the Art Gallery of NSW the following year. Longstaff then also left for London.</p>
<p>Lawson soon returned home, but the absence of Longstaff and other talented Australians is one reason for the precise wording of <a href="https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_archibald_prize">Archibald’s will</a>, enacted on his death in 1919. </p>
<p>He wanted our artists to see Australia as home, so he carefully wrote the prize would be for:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the best portrait of some man or woman distinguished in Art Letters Science or Politics painted by any artist resident in Australasia during the twelve months preceding the date fixed by the Trustees for sending in the Pictures …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those words have been the subject of argument by generations of artists, critics and lawyers. When Longstaff first entered the prize in 1921 he was ruled ineligible as he had only just returned from England. In 1988, the same rule disqualified Sidney Nolan as he, too, was a UK resident.</p>
<h2>A prize of the trustees</h2>
<p>As the prize must be judged by the gallery’s trustees, it is possible to track the nature (and prejudices) of those trustees by looking at the artists awarded it, as well as their sitters. </p>
<p>The initial seriousness of the prize and its generous funding led to a bias towards the dull tonal work of <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/1921/">W B McInnes</a> who won a total of seven times. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403485/original/file-20210531-21-1m144cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A dour oil portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403485/original/file-20210531-21-1m144cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403485/original/file-20210531-21-1m144cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403485/original/file-20210531-21-1m144cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403485/original/file-20210531-21-1m144cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=618&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403485/original/file-20210531-21-1m144cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403485/original/file-20210531-21-1m144cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403485/original/file-20210531-21-1m144cm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">McInnes won seven times, first in 1921. WB McInnes, H Desbrowe Annear 1921. Oil on canvas, 107.5 x 104.2 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of New South Wales. Gift of the artist 1922</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This record was beaten by Sir William Dargie with eight wins, the last one being in 1956 for his powerful portrait of <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/1956/">Albert Namatjira</a>, the first time a portrait of an Aboriginal person had won. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403486/original/file-20210531-15-1rk1t1k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403486/original/file-20210531-15-1rk1t1k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403486/original/file-20210531-15-1rk1t1k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403486/original/file-20210531-15-1rk1t1k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403486/original/file-20210531-15-1rk1t1k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=809&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403486/original/file-20210531-15-1rk1t1k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403486/original/file-20210531-15-1rk1t1k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403486/original/file-20210531-15-1rk1t1k.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first winning portrait of an Aboriginal person. William Dargie, Portrait of Albert Namatjira, 1956. Oil on canvas, 102.1 x 76.4 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. Purchased 1957 © Estate of William Dargie Photo: QAGOMA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2020, Vincent Namatjira — Albert’s great-grandson — was the first Aboriginal artist to win the prize with <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2020/30235/">Stand Strong For Who You are</a>, a double portrait with Adam Goodes.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403669/original/file-20210531-23-1mhs7fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403669/original/file-20210531-23-1mhs7fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403669/original/file-20210531-23-1mhs7fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403669/original/file-20210531-23-1mhs7fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403669/original/file-20210531-23-1mhs7fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403669/original/file-20210531-23-1mhs7fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403669/original/file-20210531-23-1mhs7fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403669/original/file-20210531-23-1mhs7fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Winner: Archibald Prize 2020. Vincent Namatjira ‘Stand strong for who you are’. Acrylic on linen, 152 x 198 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© the artist Photo: AGNSW, Mim Stirling</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Archibald welcomed women writers throughout his journalistic career and made a conscious decision to include both genders in his will. Many women entered, but it was not until 1938 that <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-nora-heysen-more-than-her-fathers-daughter-111074">Nora Heysen</a> won with a portrait of Madame Elink Schuurman, wife of the Consul-General for the Netherlands. </p>
<p>The commentary that followed was especially distasteful as the artist, still the youngest ever winner at 27, had Schuurman wear a Chinese dress from her time living in Shanghai. In 100 years, the prize has only been awarded to women artists ten times. Six of those occasions have been in the last 20 years.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403670/original/file-20210531-25-17hst0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403670/original/file-20210531-25-17hst0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403670/original/file-20210531-25-17hst0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403670/original/file-20210531-25-17hst0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403670/original/file-20210531-25-17hst0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403670/original/file-20210531-25-17hst0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403670/original/file-20210531-25-17hst0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403670/original/file-20210531-25-17hst0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Winner: Archibald Prize 1938. Nora Heysen ‘Mme Elink Schuurman’ 1938. Oil on canvas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Lou Klepac</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sadly, this lively painting remains overseas and is unavailable for the centenary retrospective exhibition. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-nora-heysen-more-than-her-fathers-daughter-111074">Friday essay: Nora Heysen, more than her father's daughter</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Another absence is William Dobell’s 1943 portrait of Joshua Smith, effectively destroyed in a fire many years ago. As is the way of artists, Dobell and Smith had painted each other’s portraits. The year’s two finalists were Dobell’s portrait of Smith, and Smith’s portrait of the poet <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/7619/">Dame Mary Gilmore</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403671/original/file-20210531-14-1uxmyiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403671/original/file-20210531-14-1uxmyiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403671/original/file-20210531-14-1uxmyiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403671/original/file-20210531-14-1uxmyiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403671/original/file-20210531-14-1uxmyiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403671/original/file-20210531-14-1uxmyiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403671/original/file-20210531-14-1uxmyiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403671/original/file-20210531-14-1uxmyiz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Joshua Smith ‘Dame Mary Gilmore’ 1943. Oil on canvas, 85.7 x 92.3 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of New South Wales, Gift of Dame Mary Gilmore 1945 © Yve Close Photo: AGNSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.daao.org.au/bio/sir-lionel-lindsay/biography/">Lionel Lindsay</a>, well-known as an anti-modernist, recognised the superior quality of the Dobell and so advocated for it, as did the only woman trustee, Mary Alice Evatt, recently appointed to the board by her brother-in-law, the Minister for Education. </p>
<p>After Dobell’s victory two unsuccessful artists, <a href="https://www.daao.org.au/bio/mary-edwards/biography/">Mary Edwards</a> (later known as Mary Edwell-Burke) and Joseph Wolinski, were persuaded by colleagues in the Royal Art Society to mount a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/from-the-archives-1944-the-archibald-prize-court-hearing-begins-20191016-p531b6.html">court case</a> to dispute the result, claiming Dobell’s work was not a portrait but a caricature.</p>
<p>They lost, but in the aftermath the Archibald became the most popular event for artists wishing to make their name. </p>
<h2>Paintings of ideas</h2>
<p>This year <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2021/">938 works were entered</a> and only 52 were hung. The inability to guarantee a sitter their portrait will be hung is one reason for the many self-portraits, portraits of fellow artists and family members. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-grace-tame-to-craig-foster-distinguished-public-figures-but-only-one-politician-in-a-telling-2021-archibald-shortlist-161576">From Grace Tame to Craig Foster: distinguished public figures but only one politician in a telling 2021 Archibald shortlist</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>These more intimate portraits have been among the most successful exhibits. For me, the most memorable of all is Janet Dawson’s <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/1973/">1973 portrait</a> of her husband, the pioneering playwright, food writer, gardener, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/michael-boddy-new-wave-theatre-pioneer-had-lust-for-life-and-language-20140513-38857.html">Michael Boddy</a>.</p>
<p>I was in the packing room when it was being unwrapped. I still remember getting a shiver down my spine. Even under plastic it was so beautiful. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403701/original/file-20210601-13-1xibvw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403701/original/file-20210601-13-1xibvw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403701/original/file-20210601-13-1xibvw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403701/original/file-20210601-13-1xibvw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403701/original/file-20210601-13-1xibvw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403701/original/file-20210601-13-1xibvw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403701/original/file-20210601-13-1xibvw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403701/original/file-20210601-13-1xibvw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Winner: Archibald Prize 1973: Janet Dawson, Michael Boddy. Acrylic on bleached linen, 150 x 120 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Janet Dawson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is an especially lush and loving work. At the time Daniel Thomas, the gallery’s senior curator, wondered if women secretly wanted to eat their husbands. </p>
<p>One truth about the Archibald rarely discussed is the influence of individual trustees. When Wendy Sharpe won in 1996 with her exuberant <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/1996/">Self-portrait as Diana of Erskinville</a>, there had just been a changing of the guard with the appointment of new trustees. </p>
<p>The announcement was delayed for almost an hour as the trustees deliberated. Word is, it was the advocacy of one of the newly appointed board members that gave her the prize by one vote.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403488/original/file-20210531-23-tgpabn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403488/original/file-20210531-23-tgpabn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403488/original/file-20210531-23-tgpabn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403488/original/file-20210531-23-tgpabn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403488/original/file-20210531-23-tgpabn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403488/original/file-20210531-23-tgpabn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403488/original/file-20210531-23-tgpabn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403488/original/file-20210531-23-tgpabn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wendy Sharpe. Self-portrait as Diana of Erskineville, 1996. Oil on canvas, 210 x 172 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mr N and Mrs A Pezikian Collection, Sydney © Wendy Sharpe</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is true to say the trustees of 1920 would not share the aesthetic values of much of the art in recent exhibitions. Celebrations of cultural difference and gender and the presence of many works by Aboriginal artists would almost certainly be beyond their comprehension. </p>
<p>With the exception of the photo-realist works and the occasional academic portrait, realistic depictions of the subject are now the exception rather than the rule. </p>
<p>But what would Archibald think? He was, above all, a man of ideas. He wanted us to look to our own history in preference to that of England. He wanted Australians to debate our artists, writers, actors – even politicians. </p>
<p>I think he would be pleased. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Archie 100: A Century of the Archibald Prize is at the Art Gallery of NSW June 5 – September 26, then touring nationally.</em></p>
<p><em>Correction: a previous version of this story misstated the heritage of Elink Schuurman.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161575/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has received funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>
It’s 100 years since the Art Gallery of NSW first held the Archibald Prize. Though loathed by some critics, it is an annual snapshot of the kind of society we are, and who our heroes might be.
Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/157594
2021-04-28T20:05:50Z
2021-04-28T20:05:50Z
If I could go anywhere: German Modernism at the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart — beauty, play and the horror of war
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397249/original/file-20210427-15-y2x1zp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Triadic Ballet costumes by Oskar Schlemmer, 1922.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/if-i-could-go-anywhere-102157">this series</a> we pay tribute to the art we wish could visit — and hope to see once travel restrictions are lifted.</em></p>
<p>The city of <a href="https://en.stuttgart.de/">Stuttgart</a> doesn’t generally come to mind when planning a jaunt to Germany. Berlin’s edgy <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/berghain-bouncer-sven-marquardt-interview">nightclubs</a> and rich history make it a <a href="https://www.visitberlin.de/en">must-see destination</a> and of course, thousands travel to <a href="https://www.muenchen.de/int/en.html">Munich</a> for its famous annual <a href="https://www.munichsoktoberfest.com/">Oktoberfest</a>. But poor old Stuttgart isn’t usually on tourists’ radar and perhaps that’s why I love it. </p>
<p>Stuttgart is Germany’s fourth largest metropolitan region and a major manufacturing hub. The <a href="https://www.daimler.com/company/">Daimler Group</a>, which owns Mercedes-Benz, is headquartered there, as are the <a href="https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/company/porsche-zuffenhausen-stuttgart-headquarter-12121.html">Porsche</a> HQ and factory.</p>
<p>But the city has put art at the centre of its cultural life for more than 250 years with countless famous artists, from the neo-classical scupltor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_von_Dannecker">Johann Heinrich von Dannecker</a>, to leading Bauhaus practitioner <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schlemmer">Oskar Schlemmer</a> and contemporary artist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karin_Sander">Karin Sander</a>,
all calling Stuttgart home. </p>
<p>A 2015 study ranked Stuttgart the <a href="https://www.thelocal.de/20171010/10-fascinating-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-stuttgart/">number one city</a> in Germany for arts and culture. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397232/original/file-20210427-13-1917t5h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397232/original/file-20210427-13-1917t5h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397232/original/file-20210427-13-1917t5h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397232/original/file-20210427-13-1917t5h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397232/original/file-20210427-13-1917t5h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397232/original/file-20210427-13-1917t5h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397232/original/file-20210427-13-1917t5h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397232/original/file-20210427-13-1917t5h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stuttgart’s Neue Staatsgalerie has magnificent collections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stuttgart’s veneration of art is reflected in the magnificent collections held in the <a href="https://www.staatsgalerie.de/en.html">Neue Staatsgalerie</a>, which include works spanning more than 1,000 years. Among my favourites are paintings and sculptures by leading German Modernists. These powerful works express the joys and beauty of the world as well as the horrors of World War I.</p>
<p>The Staatsgalerie holds Franz Marc’s works, The Little Blue Horses (1911) and The Little Yellow Horses (1912). Marc was one of the key figures of German Expressionism, an artistic movement that broadly emphasised representing the artists’ inner emotions or ideas over replicating reality.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397228/original/file-20210427-17-5b7ri3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397228/original/file-20210427-17-5b7ri3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397228/original/file-20210427-17-5b7ri3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397228/original/file-20210427-17-5b7ri3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397228/original/file-20210427-17-5b7ri3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397228/original/file-20210427-17-5b7ri3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397228/original/file-20210427-17-5b7ri3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397228/original/file-20210427-17-5b7ri3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Franz Marc, The Little Blue Horses, 1911.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1909, Marc, along with Russian artist, Wassily Kandinsky, founded the Expressionist group, <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/der-blaue-reiter">Der Blaue Reiter</a> in Munich. The characteristics of Marc’s Expressionism included simplified shapes, bright colours and gestural marks or brushstrokes, which are seen in the beautiful, big, round rumps of Marc’s blue and yellow horses. </p>
<p>The pictures recall the geometry of Cubism, yet perfectly capture the spirit of relaxed horses standing in a field.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397229/original/file-20210427-23-d2t954.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397229/original/file-20210427-23-d2t954.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397229/original/file-20210427-23-d2t954.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397229/original/file-20210427-23-d2t954.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397229/original/file-20210427-23-d2t954.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397229/original/file-20210427-23-d2t954.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397229/original/file-20210427-23-d2t954.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397229/original/file-20210427-23-d2t954.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Franz Marc, The Little Yellow Horses, 1912.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another key work is Max Beckmann’s 1916 painting, <a href="https://www.staatsgalerie.de/g/sammlung/sammlung-digital/einzelansicht/sgs/werk/einzelansicht/1330989D413DC400C839A9A1C5D7A4AA.html">Auferstehung</a> (Resurrection). Beckmann had painted a neo-baroque vision of salvation in 1908-09, also entitled <a href="https://www.staatsgalerie.de/en/g/collection/digital-collection/einzelansicht/sgs/werk/einzelansicht/721375A24387651DE15E5EB787E36323.html">Auferstehung</a>, which depicts the figures of redeemed souls reverently ascending to heaven in a column of light. </p>
<p>But after being discharged from the German army in 1915 following a nervous breakdown, Beckmann abandoned classical conventions in painting and turned to the distortion, angularity and exaggerated colour found in Expressionism for his 1916 Auferstehung to portray the terrible suffering of a people deceived by nationalistic promises of a glorious war. </p>
<p>In contrast to his earlier work of the same title, Beckmann’s 1916 Auferstehung shows dehumanised, broken people crawling from bombed out cellars onto piles of rubble and performing an apocalyptic <em>danse macabre</em>, or dance of death. The scale of the work, which is almost 3.5 metres high by 5 metres wide, adds to its shocking, tragic impact. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397231/original/file-20210427-13-kcbmfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397231/original/file-20210427-13-kcbmfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397231/original/file-20210427-13-kcbmfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397231/original/file-20210427-13-kcbmfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397231/original/file-20210427-13-kcbmfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397231/original/file-20210427-13-kcbmfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397231/original/file-20210427-13-kcbmfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397231/original/file-20210427-13-kcbmfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Auferstehung, Max Beckmann, 1916.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>George Grosz’s 1917-1918 <a href="https://www.staatsgalerie.de/g/sammlung/sammlung-digital/einzelansicht/sgs/werk/einzelansicht/04B9A380494146E06B7118AD8FE5BE99.html">The Funeral Procession, Dedicated to Oskar Panizza</a>
painted the same year as his work, Explosion, also depicts the horrors of a society ruined by war. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397237/original/file-20210427-13-1j9bgsz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397237/original/file-20210427-13-1j9bgsz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397237/original/file-20210427-13-1j9bgsz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397237/original/file-20210427-13-1j9bgsz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397237/original/file-20210427-13-1j9bgsz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397237/original/file-20210427-13-1j9bgsz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397237/original/file-20210427-13-1j9bgsz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397237/original/file-20210427-13-1j9bgsz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Grosz, 1917-18, The Funeral (To Oskar Panizza), oil on canvas, 140 x 110 cm, 1918-18.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The painting shows grotesque figures moving in a macabre funeral procession through an infernal city led by three allegorical creatures representing Drunkenness, Syphilis, and Religious Fanaticism.</p>
<p>To me, this painting is a bitter reminder of how humans often self-medicate with alcohol, unsafe sex and religious zeal to try to cope with trauma. </p>
<p>The Staatsgalerie, however, also contains beautiful, strange and compelling works that exemplify Modernity in post-World War I Germany, including the original costumes for the <a href="https://www.staatsgalerie.de/g/sammlung/sammlung-digital/einzelansicht/sgs/werk/einzelansicht/2B95DCBB43CB51A4CBFF1F9D58D4730B.html">Triadic Ballet</a> (1922) by Oskar Schlemmer, and the
<a href="https://www.staatsgalerie.de/en/g/collection/digital-collection/einzelansicht/sgs/werk/einzelansicht/3AC0F10449F23BC11089FDBD748C7797.html">Head in Brass (Portrait Toni Freedan) (1925)</a> by the sculptor Rudolf Belling. </p>
<p>Schlemmer’s costumes point to the ideals of play and fun — so important to the ethos of the <a href="https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-bauhaus-art-movement/#:%7E:text=Bauhaus%E2%80%94literally%20translated%20to%20%E2%80%9Cconstruction,approach%20to%20architecture%20and%20design">Bauhaus</a> movement — particularly after the brutal war. The costumes are also a complex exploration of the relationships between the body and space. </p>
<p>Seeing them up close lets the viewer appreciate not just Schlemmer’s aims and work, but how important it must have been for artists to create something completely unrelated to war.</p>
<p>Belling’s brass head perfectly captures the Zeitgeist of mid-1920s Germany. Its lines point to styles Belling explored throughout his career, including Expressionism, Futurism and traditional sculpture, as well as to his 1921 work, Fashion Sculpture A, a mannequin made in collaboration with a Berlin workshop. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392432/original/file-20210330-19-2plbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392432/original/file-20210330-19-2plbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392432/original/file-20210330-19-2plbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392432/original/file-20210330-19-2plbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392432/original/file-20210330-19-2plbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392432/original/file-20210330-19-2plbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392432/original/file-20210330-19-2plbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392432/original/file-20210330-19-2plbe4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rudolf Belling Head in brass (Portrait Toni Freedan) (1925).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The head’s enigmatic expression echoes that of the ancient <a href="https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/aegyptisches-museum-und-papyrussammlung/collection-research/bust-of-nefertiti/the-bust/">Bust of Nefertiti</a>, which was first exhibited in Berlin in 1924, and foreshadows the beautiful “Maschinenmensch” robot of Fritz Lang’s 1927 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/">Metropolis</a>.</p>
<p>These key works are just the beginning of any visit to the Staatsgalerie and to understanding how these great artists shaped how we see the world today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Brayshaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Stuttgart flies under the radar as a tourist destination but it is a treasure trove of Expressionist art and works that exemplify post-war modernity.
Emily Brayshaw, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/157401
2021-03-24T18:50:26Z
2021-03-24T18:50:26Z
Guy Pearce shines, but The Last Vermeer paints over the remarkable true story of the world’s most successful art forger
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390532/original/file-20210319-19-1908nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C0%2C6000%2C3988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jack English ©2020 CTMG. All Rights Reserved.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Film review: The Last Vermeer, directed by Dan Friedkin.</em></p>
<p>Among the thousands of plundered treasures <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-monuments-men-180949569/">discovered</a> in May 1945 by the Allies was an undocumented picture supposedly by Johannes Vermeer, a masterpiece titled <a href="https://www.museumdefundatie.nl/en/explore-the-fundatie-collection/object/?pagina=0&id=0&vervaardigers=&techniek=&datums=&query=Meegeren">Christ and the Adulteress</a>. </p>
<p>Held in the personal collection of Reichsmarschall <a href="https://allthatsinteresting.com/hermann-goring">Hermann Göring</a>, no one knew anything about it. Where had it come from? How did Göring get his hands on it?</p>
<p>The Last Vermeer — the first directorial outing for <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomogalardini/2020/08/06/us-businessman-dan-friedkin-takes-over-as-roma-for-701-million/?sh=65161bc81eec">billionaire Dan Friedkin</a> — recounts the fascinating story of the painting’s discovery, and exposure as a fake.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Painting. Jesus talks to a woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391299/original/file-20210323-22-1qh1xce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391299/original/file-20210323-22-1qh1xce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391299/original/file-20210323-22-1qh1xce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391299/original/file-20210323-22-1qh1xce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391299/original/file-20210323-22-1qh1xce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391299/original/file-20210323-22-1qh1xce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391299/original/file-20210323-22-1qh1xce.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Han van Meegeren, Christ and the Adulteress, 1942.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fundatie Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the process, Friedkin turns a spotlight onto the art market, questioning why some artworks are worth millions and others only a few hundred dollars, and querying who makes these decisions.</p>
<p>Early in the film, our hero, the infamous Dutch art forger <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_van_Meegeren">Han van Meegeren</a> (played with flair by Guy Pearce), suggests the problem facing the film’s protagonist Captain Joseph Piller (played woodenly by Claes Bang) is not one of art. Instead, Piller should be “investigating money and power”. </p>
<p>From the rollicking beginning, it seems Friedkin intends to investigate just that, but after about 15 minutes, the wheels fall off. For the next hour, we lose track of the central narrative until suddenly (and unconvincingly) we arrive at the 1945 trial in which van Meegeren is accused of treason for selling national treasures to the Nazis.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JCw90xLvYPw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Forgery as revenge</h2>
<p>Born in 1889, the unsuccessful artist-turned-art-dealer van Meegeren was a charlatan, talented painter, bon vivant, opportunist, satirist, critic and — eventually — national hero.</p>
<p>Sadly, The Last Vermeer does not explore the complete and detailed narrative of this forger, the Nazi, and the art market. Instead, the film introduces a cohort of characters that confuse rather than clarify, changing and ignoring critical details of the story.</p>
<p>As we discover in the film, van Meegeren’s early career was impacted by negative reviews from his first solo exhibition in 1917. </p>
<p>To win back his self-esteem (and make himself absurdly wealthy) he began forging artworks. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391290/original/file-20210323-22-56ohup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391290/original/file-20210323-22-56ohup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391290/original/file-20210323-22-56ohup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391290/original/file-20210323-22-56ohup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391290/original/file-20210323-22-56ohup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391290/original/file-20210323-22-56ohup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391290/original/file-20210323-22-56ohup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391290/original/file-20210323-22-56ohup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Han van Meegeren painting in 1945.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One expert, art historian and curator <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Bredius">Dr Abraham Bredius</a> found fault with an early attempt and pronounced it a fake, instantly becoming the target for van Meergeren’s revenge. </p>
<p>To convince the world of his true genius, van Meegeren painted forgeries to fulfil Bredius’ theory that the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer had been influenced by Italian painting. Van Meegeren painted the quintessential “missing link” to try to prove this Italian connection. </p>
<p>By 1936, he had perfected his technique, painting <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-secret-to-all-great-art-forgeries-50173">Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus</a>. Bredius was delighted, and arranged for the Museum Boijmans in Rotterdam to buy the painting, which he believed to be a Vermeer, for a huge sum. </p>
<p>In 1942, van Meegeren sold another painting, Christ and the Adulteress, as a true Vermeer to Göring.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-secret-to-all-great-art-forgeries-50173">The secret to all great art forgeries</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In the film, once the plot is set up with the discovery of the treasures, the story meanders around the central characters and a lengthy exposition of antipathy between the Dutch and their liberators, before Friedkin finally returns to the core of the story. </p>
<p>However, here he presents a revamped version. </p>
<p>The film suggests van Meegeren, on trial for treason for selling Vermeers to the Nazis, convinced his jailers to allow him to paint and drink whiskey while in confinement. </p>
<p>The real story was much more dramatic. </p>
<p>Even though he could tell the jury which paintings they would find under his “Vermeers” when x-rayed (forgeries are <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-secret-to-all-great-art-forgeries-50173">often</a> painted over existing paintings from the same era), the court remained unconvinced. </p>
<p>To settle the case, van Meegeren was set up in a house rented by the Dutch government — under the scrutiny of six witnesses — to paint another Vermeer. To their astonishment, he completed <a href="https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/fotocollectie/ac1f2368-d0b4-102d-bcf8-003048976d84">Jesus among the Doctors</a> in a matter of weeks. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391293/original/file-20210323-18-1q91qp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391293/original/file-20210323-18-1q91qp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391293/original/file-20210323-18-1q91qp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391293/original/file-20210323-18-1q91qp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391293/original/file-20210323-18-1q91qp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391293/original/file-20210323-18-1q91qp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391293/original/file-20210323-18-1q91qp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391293/original/file-20210323-18-1q91qp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Han van Meegeren’s Jesus among the Doctors, also called Young Christ in the Temple (1945) was painted in just six weeks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/you-may-spot-the-fake-at-dulwich-picture-gallery-but-forgeries-are-no-joke-24509">You may spot the fake at Dulwich Picture Gallery, but forgeries are no joke</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Surely this is a much better cinematic scenario than the absurdity of soldiers setting their prisoner up in a studio with all the comforts of home.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the result of this extraordinary evidence was so conclusive van Meegeren was convicted of forgery — not treason — in November 1947. And as the man who had swindled Göring, he became an instant folk hero for the liberated Dutch. </p>
<p>Sadly, his glory was short-lived. He died of a heart attack six weeks later.</p>
<h2>Faking the fakes</h2>
<p>Despite the rambling first half of the film, we do finally get most of the details of this extraordinary story of power, the art market, the role of critics, and how the latter two can destroy careers. </p>
<p>But I do feel sorry for van Meegeren, the most successful forger in history. The master forger would be rightly horrified that instead of using his own forgeries of Vermeer, Friedkin hired a scene painter named James Gemmill to create rather ham-fisted versions for his film. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391292/original/file-20210323-20-8tqlnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391292/original/file-20210323-20-8tqlnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391292/original/file-20210323-20-8tqlnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391292/original/file-20210323-20-8tqlnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391292/original/file-20210323-20-8tqlnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391292/original/file-20210323-20-8tqlnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391292/original/file-20210323-20-8tqlnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391292/original/file-20210323-20-8tqlnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Van Meegeren’s The Supper at Emmaus (1937): his forgeries are much better than the versions in the film.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although not Vermeers, they were van Meegerens — and worthy of our admiration. </p>
<p>Like Göring, who according to the film’s final credits, “looked as if for the first time he had discovered there was evil in the world” when told his beloved Vermeer was a forgery, van Meegeren would be justifiably horrified by this final insult.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8337320/">The Last Vermeer</a> is in Australian cinemas from March 25.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157401/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Snell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A new film ignores some of the most striking details of the man who sold a fake Vermeer to the Nazis.
Ted Snell, Honorary Professor, Edith Cowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/155365
2021-03-01T19:10:26Z
2021-03-01T19:10:26Z
Street art in a white cube: Rone at Geelong Gallery marries ephemeral beauty with a proven formula
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386876/original/file-20210301-21-fiqq5c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C26%2C5879%2C3907&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Green Room (Omega Project) 2017 archival pigment print on 310 gsm Canson Baryta; A/P
Collection of the artist
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Rone</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: RONE in Geelong, Geelong Gallery</em></p>
<p>In 2004, black-and-white posters of a woman staring into a distant horizon began appearing inexplicably throughout Melbourne. The images — of model <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/the-girl-in-the-tunnel-20070730-ge5go0.html">Suzanne Brenchley, taken from a fashion magazine ad</a> — were renamed <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Jane%20Doe">Jane Doe</a> by <a href="https://www.r-o-n-e.com/">street artist Rone</a>, who had created them. To avoid criminal prosecution, his paste-ups were applied surreptitiously at night.</p>
<p>These works contributed to the patchwork assemblage of stickers, tags and stencils that formed Melbourne’s burgeoning street art scene at the time. Although it is synonymous with Melbourne’s inner-city cultural identity today, this was a time before Banksy’s meteoric ascendancy, so municipal authorities made no distinction between unauthorised street art and vandalism. </p>
<p>Most of these early works were erased in 2006 in an attempt to beautify Melbourne for the Commonwealth Games.</p>
<p>Following Banksy, street art was propelled from its <a href="http://www.cdh-art.com/Writing/CDH%20AMA%20Notes%20on%20the%20commodification%20of%20street%20art.pdf">counter-cultural origins into the mainstream</a> and Rone’s career trajectory followed this cultural arc. He has since painted one of <a href="http://thecityjournal.net/arts-and-culture/first-art-tram-designed-by-local-melbourne-artist/">Melbourne’s art trams</a> and <a href="http://openjournal.com.au/the-week-in-review-rone/">murals of Kylie Minogue and Cate Blanchett</a> for the NGV’s <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/jeanpaulgaultier/">Jean Paul Gaultier</a> exhibition. Rone himself has advertised <a href="https://melbourneartcritic.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/">clothing for Uniqlo</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386877/original/file-20210301-15-8r45ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386877/original/file-20210301-15-8r45ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386877/original/file-20210301-15-8r45ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386877/original/file-20210301-15-8r45ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386877/original/file-20210301-15-8r45ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386877/original/file-20210301-15-8r45ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386877/original/file-20210301-15-8r45ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386877/original/file-20210301-15-8r45ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Artist Rone preparing the Geelong installation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photographer: Tony Mott © Rone</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Last month, to underscore this inversion from subculture to peak mainstream, Rone was awarded a <a href="https://www.grants.gov.au/Ga/Show/2dce4c99-8114-44af-8270-0b456fd16531">$1.86 million RISE Arts grant</a> from the federal government. It was <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/street-artist-rone-scores-a-covid-grant-coup-20210202-p56yvt.html">met with surprise</a>: grants of this size usually go to theatre companies or production houses, rather than individual artists (although Rone will employ other practitioners as part of it). </p>
<p><a href="https://www.geelonggallery.org.au/rone">Rone’s latest exhibition</a> at Geelong Gallery in his home city is a comprehensive survey of his work over two decades, tracing the evolution of his Jane Doe motif into states of greater realism, painterly technical proficiency and larger scale murals. </p>
<p>It is styled in decaying vintage opulence, like an ethereal moment in time. There are murals painted directly onto the walls of the gallery but the majority of the exhibition features studio works on varied surfaces, under framed glass: early stencils on canvas, portraits on poster advertising (styled to look torn and weathered) and poster-sized photographs of murals in abandoned, dilapidated buildings.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386879/original/file-20210301-13-1mpbum3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386879/original/file-20210301-13-1mpbum3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386879/original/file-20210301-13-1mpbum3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386879/original/file-20210301-13-1mpbum3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386879/original/file-20210301-13-1mpbum3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386879/original/file-20210301-13-1mpbum3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386879/original/file-20210301-13-1mpbum3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386879/original/file-20210301-13-1mpbum3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Opulent decay in Rone’s Geelong installation (2021). © Rone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photographer: Tony Mott/Geelong Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All street art is ephemeral, but here Rone exaggerates transience in the staging and framing of the work. The smooth porcelain skin of Rone’s “muses” juxtaposed against flaking, crumbling walls provides an arresting contrast of textures. The rooms are <a href="https://www.theestablishmentstudios.com.au/contact">styled by Carly Spooner</a>, mixing decadence and disintegration.</p>
<p>The exhibition is accompanied by a musical score by <a href="https://www.nickbatterham.com/about#:%7E:text=Nick%20Batterham%20is%20a%20musician,major%20labels%20and%20extensive%20touring.">composer Nick Batterham</a>. Highly evocative, the classical arrangement enhances a haunting atmosphere and sense of loss; the music was originally written in response to the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/latest-arts-windfalls-show-money-isnt-enough-we-need-transparency-154725">Latest arts windfalls show money isn't enough. We need transparency</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Empty show</h2>
<p>Before Banksy’s success, it was difficult for street artists to exhibit in established galleries. This led to the innovation of the “Empty Show”: street artists would install their works in an abandoned space and then hold unauthorised exhibition openings.</p>
<p>Rone has previously exhibited in non-traditional spaces: the derelict Lyric Theatre in Fitzroy (for <a href="https://www.r-o-n-e.com/empty-project">Empty Project</a>) and at Burnham Beeches, a dilapidated Art Deco mansion (for <a href="https://www.r-o-n-e.com/empire">Empire</a>). The art functions as an invitation to explore these spaces, which would otherwise be accessible only to trespassers. </p>
<p>It stimulates an imagined history of the buildings and invites speculation about the previous occupants. The spaces also fit with Rone’s apparent intention to use environmental decay as a material resource in his work.</p>
<p>The white cube of a gallery, however, is designed to remove everything else from view, leaving only the artwork for consideration. It’s perfectly climate-controlled to preserve the artworks inside. </p>
<p>So, in Rone’s latest exhibition, the themes of moribundity, transience and imagined historical echoes sit awkwardly in a traditional gallery space: broken bricks and detritus laid out carefully and precisely to mimic an abandoned building; a temporary artifice wall made with crumbled plaster. Translating his work into an art gallery has faded some of the verisimilitude (or the story world’s appearance of truth) and charm of previous exhibitions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386878/original/file-20210301-17-lsslw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386878/original/file-20210301-17-lsslw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386878/original/file-20210301-17-lsslw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386878/original/file-20210301-17-lsslw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386878/original/file-20210301-17-lsslw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386878/original/file-20210301-17-lsslw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386878/original/file-20210301-17-lsslw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386878/original/file-20210301-17-lsslw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain (2016) from Rone’s Empty series.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Rone/Geelong Gallery</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/getting-to-the-street-art-of-a-year-like-no-other-149923">Getting to the (street) art of a year like no other</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Pretty girls</h2>
<p>The accompanying exhibition literature outlines the intended reading of the works: “beauty and decay”. But this immediately prompts a counter-reading: What is being presented as “beautiful”? What assumptions are encoded into the visual representation?</p>
<p>Many of the paintings conflate beauty with specific attributes: youth, Caucasian in appearance, female, thin-bodied, full-lipped, big-eyed. With few exceptions, there’s a very specific and narrow type of woman on display: the <a href="https://melbourneartcritic.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/sexy-girls-girls-girls/">pretty girl motif</a> via <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-male-gaze-mean-and-what-about-a-female-gaze-52486">the male gaze</a>. This motif can be found throughout popular culture: advertising, fashion and cosmetics, social media, pornography and the industry of celebrity.</p>
<p>Rather than trying to find beauty in new ways; these works are reproducing the most conventional notions of beauty to an established formula.</p>
<p>That doesn’t make the work necessarily “bad” (although some could argue it’s pernicious), but it does make the images derivative (of this mainstream motif).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gallerysowhite-a-digital-exhibition-exposing-racism-in-contemporary-art-spaces-153920">#GallerySoWhite: a digital exhibition exposing racism in contemporary art spaces</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Divergent agendas</h2>
<p>In the exhibition press release, the mayor of Geelong, Martin Cutter, is quoted as saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This exclusive Geelong Gallery exhibition is expected to attract over 25,000 people to the region and contribute approximately $3 million to the local economy. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>His high hopes for the show are well-placed. Deputy gallery director Penny Whitehead explained at the launch the exhibition has pre-sold 5,000 tickets, over three times the pre-sales of the touring Archibald Prize at the gallery.</p>
<p>Rone’s use of a proven formula (some would say cliché) is what makes it a favoured project for a risk-averse municipal body, hoping to revitalise a local tourism economy. The motif is familiar to a broad audience. No one feels challenged or lost. It will attract a large crowd.</p>
<p>This prompts an interesting discussion about the balance major public galleries must strike between populism and fostering new art that can be difficult or unfamiliar by virtue of its originality. </p>
<p>Attracting broader audiences is of course good, providing it’s not training them to engage only in superficial experiences. So if you attend the Rone Exhibition, the Geelong Gallery also has an impressive permanent collection of Australian art worth exploring. There are major works by Arthur Streeton and Frederick McCubbin, but I got lost in Charles Blackman’s painting of <a href="https://www.geelonggallery.org.au/scenic-victoria/key-works-2295/charles-blackman">Joy Hester’s house</a> .</p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.geelonggallery.org.au/rone">RONE in Geelong</a>, is at Geelong Gallery to 16 May.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155365/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Honig does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Street artist Rone’s return to his home town gallery is sure to draw crowds — but his definition of ‘beauty’ is conventional and narrow.
Chris Honig, Lecturer, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/154033
2021-02-26T18:07:06Z
2021-02-26T18:07:06Z
Polar bears have captivated artists’ imaginations for centuries, but what they’ve symbolized has changed over time
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386719/original/file-20210226-21-uossmr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=152%2C177%2C4012%2C3067&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The giant predators were a deadly danger to early European explorers of the Arctic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-engraving-from-a-book-by-gerrit-de-veer-a-crewman-on-a-news-photo/526746520">Chris Hellier/Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Polar bears have long held visual artists in their thrall. Over time, the mythologies around these extraordinary animals have evolved – and so have the ways artists have depicted them in their work.</p>
<p>Reflecting a deeply respectful even symbiotic relationship between human beings and the natural world, likenesses of polar bears <a href="http://collections.fenimoreartmuseum.org/polar-bear-effigy">crafted within Indigenous communities</a> for thousands of years have long conveyed the awe-inspiring power of these mighty animals.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386693/original/file-20210226-17-1dlyp47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A polar bear lunges at men near a ship frozen in ice" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386693/original/file-20210226-17-1dlyp47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386693/original/file-20210226-17-1dlyp47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386693/original/file-20210226-17-1dlyp47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386693/original/file-20210226-17-1dlyp47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386693/original/file-20210226-17-1dlyp47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386693/original/file-20210226-17-1dlyp47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386693/original/file-20210226-17-1dlyp47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Illustration of a real polar bear attack on Dutch explorers in 1596.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://aradernyc.com/products/de-bry-johann-theodor-1560-1623-and-johann-israel-de-bry-1565-1609-part-iii-plate-43-two-bears-which-approached-the-ship-and-what-happened-to-them-from-the-little-voyages">Hand-colored engraving by Johann Theodor de Bry</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Towering above European adversaries in early 17th-century engravings, or bearing witness – alternately majestic and menacing – to whaling ships pictured in print and in paint, they testified to the expanding empires and commercial interests of western powers bent on exerting domination over new territories.</p>
<p>Conveying the bond of a <a href="https://www.picuki.com/media/2512718205208082900">resilient mother and her cub in a 21st century photograph</a>, they hint at the fragility of a changing climate.</p>
<p>Though polar bears can hover at the edge of invisibility under the right conditions, they’ve left their indelible imprint upon the imaginations of image-makers from many eras and regions. Their shape-shifting significance in the context of western art intrigues me from my perch at Bowdoin College in Maine – whose mascot just happens to be the polar bear. As co-director of the college’s <a href="https://www.bowdoin.edu/art-museum/">Museum of Art</a>, I’ve helped expand our collection of polar bear pieces and have become fascinated by this animal’s enduring hold on audiences.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386580/original/file-20210225-23-17flwo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Engraving of many polar bears on ice with hunters in boats" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386580/original/file-20210225-23-17flwo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386580/original/file-20210225-23-17flwo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386580/original/file-20210225-23-17flwo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386580/original/file-20210225-23-17flwo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386580/original/file-20210225-23-17flwo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386580/original/file-20210225-23-17flwo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386580/original/file-20210225-23-17flwo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An early 17th-century Dutch artist captured the fascination and terror polar bears sparked in European hunters and explorers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Johann Theodor de Bry, copper plate engraving, ca. 1601.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Exploration, empire and polar bears</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.7183/0002-7316.79.4.89">Effigies and carvings created</a> as long as 2,500 years ago in Paleo-Eskimo Indigenous communities reflect a sense of deep interconnection between the people and the bears, with cosmological and spiritual significance.</p>
<p><a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295999227/ice-bear/">Westerners first encountered polar bears</a> over a millennium ago, when Norse explorers advanced into the Arctic. In contrast to Indigenous representations of the bears, by the 15th century western artists were positioning human beings in opposition to these fearsome hunters as they adorned maps and explorers’ written narratives.</p>
<p>Even Shakespeare may leave a legacy of the <a href="https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295999227/ice-bear/">fascination polar bears held for Elizabethan audiences</a>. In one scene of “The Winter’s Tale,” a bear chases the character Antigonus from the stage. Historians have suggested that this dramatic exit may have been inspired by one of the live polar bears housed near the Globe Theatre, in London’s Paris Garden.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386695/original/file-20210226-23-1rb9wjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Whalers swarm the ice and water, killing whales and threatening polar bears" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386695/original/file-20210226-23-1rb9wjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386695/original/file-20210226-23-1rb9wjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386695/original/file-20210226-23-1rb9wjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386695/original/file-20210226-23-1rb9wjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386695/original/file-20210226-23-1rb9wjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386695/original/file-20210226-23-1rb9wjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386695/original/file-20210226-23-1rb9wjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">17th-century Dutch whalers dominate the natural Arctic landscape, even subduing harried polar bears.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5523">Abraham Storck, 'Whaling Grounds in the Arctic Ocean,' Rijksmuseum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the rise of European exploration and exploitation, the cultural legacy of the polar bear spread rapidly among European nations and their colonial outposts. The bears became identified with political and technological prowess, and a triumphant march toward the future. Groups of these giants are called “celebrations,” and their images in art tended to celebrate the brute forces of western modernity.</p>
<p>They appeared in the decorative arts, including a 19th-century <a href="https://www.spencermarks.com/products/gorham-antique-sterling-silver-polar-ice-bowl-providence-ri-c-1870">silver Gorham ice bowl</a>, ostensibly marking the U.S. acquisition of the territory of Alaska from the Russians in 1867. Fierce and menacing polar bears stand guard above the frozen treasure within the vessel, simultaneously celebrating North American success in the ice industry.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.artnet.com/artists/alexander-phimister-proctor/polar-bear-DyCkEoIuK_xOFago74hMNQ2">Prominent polar bear sculptures</a> by Alexander Phimister Proctor at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago connected the United States with the distant north. Placed upon a pedestrian footbridge, the bear’s attitude – head up, powerful, taking its bearings as if to move forward – mirrored the optimism of the nation during the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/gilded-age">Gilded Age</a> on the brink of the 20th century.</p>
<p>The polar bear also became a symbol of the conquest of the North Pole by American explorers in 1909. Despite controversy, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-discovered-the-north-pole-116633746/">Robert E. Peary</a> was ultimately recognized for reaching it. Pants created from the fur of polar bears, which Peary described as “<a href="http://downeastbooks.com/books/9781608936434">impervious to cold… almost indestructible</a>,” helped make the feat possible. In the wake of this accomplishment, the <a href="https://dailysun.bowdoin.edu/2013/02/whispering-pines-bobcats-and-mules-and-bears%e2%80%a6oh-my/">polar bear became a popular college mascot</a> — with Peary’s alma mater and my home institution, Bowdoin College, leading the way.</p>
<h2>An icon transformed</h2>
<p>But if the polar bear thrived into the mid-1900s as a sign of human might and of the successful mastery of antagonistic forces, this symbolic association evaporated in the latter 20th century. Today’s polar bears are more closely tied to the demise of the mythic western belief in conquest and domination.</p>
<p>The drawings of such pop artists as <a href="http://www.artnet.com/artists/john-wesley/">John Wesley</a> and <a href="https://warholfoundation.org/legacy/biography.html">Andy Warhol</a> mark this shift in perceptions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386691/original/file-20210226-21-3l31hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="pencil drawings of polar bears" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386691/original/file-20210226-21-3l31hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386691/original/file-20210226-21-3l31hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=278&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386691/original/file-20210226-21-3l31hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=278&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386691/original/file-20210226-21-3l31hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=278&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386691/original/file-20210226-21-3l31hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386691/original/file-20210226-21-3l31hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386691/original/file-20210226-21-3l31hv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Wesley’s drawing contains a number of polar bears, with a somber mood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Wesley, 'Polar Bears,' 1970, graphite on tracing paper. Museum Purchase, acquired through the generosity of Eric Silverman ’85 and an anonymous donor.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1970, Wesley drew “<a href="https://artmuseum.bowdoin.edu/objects-1/info/38969">Polar Bears</a>,” depicting the intertwined bodies of polar bears seemingly enjoying a peaceful slumber. That same year, an international cohort of scientists published their conclusion that the bear stood a good chance of surviving extinction if people worked together to protect it.</p>
<p>Intriguingly, the artist’s cartoon-like renditions of the “great white bear” seems to echo the illustration included in the <a href="https://www.fws.gov/news/Historic/NewsReleases/1970/19700315b.pdf">press release published by the U.S. Department of the Interior</a> announcing this finding. But Wesley’s drawing raises questions about the fate of the motionless creatures it pictures: is this “celebration” in fact a tragedy?</p>
<p><a href="https://artmuseum.bowdoin.edu/objects-1/info/38238">Andy Warhol’s “Polar Bear”</a> (1983) struts across the paper. Likely inspired by the 10th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.fws.gov/endangered/laws-policies/">U.S. Endangered Species Act</a>, the drawing points to the very fragility of the bear. Its composition uses the white of the paper to evoke the animal’s coat and its polar environment, suggesting the imminent possibility of their collapse into nonexistence. It would take another quarter century for the polar bear to be <a href="https://www.fws.gov/alaska/pages/marine-mammals/polar-bear/polar-bears-and-esa">listed as threatened, in 2008</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386704/original/file-20210226-23-1jw0tpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cover of Time magazine with struggling polar bear" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386704/original/file-20210226-23-1jw0tpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386704/original/file-20210226-23-1jw0tpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386704/original/file-20210226-23-1jw0tpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386704/original/file-20210226-23-1jw0tpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386704/original/file-20210226-23-1jw0tpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386704/original/file-20210226-23-1jw0tpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386704/original/file-20210226-23-1jw0tpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Time magazine’s cover helped solidify the iconography of a polar bear struggling in a melting Arctic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20060403,00.html">Time</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By the early 21st century, pictures of the animal, such as on a seemingly diminishing ice floe, frequently associated it with catastrophic climate change and the endangerment of the species itself, as the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fagpY8kAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">art historian Nicholas Mirzoeff</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23349848">has noted</a>.</p>
<p>Despite, or perhaps because of, their association with extinction, the allure of the polar bear seems only to have intensified. One curious reflection of this celebrity comes in the form of endearing anthropomorphic depictions of these <a href="https://youtu.be/47Dlkfg9Jhk">wild creatures pitching consumer products like Coca-Cola</a>.</p>
<p>But what are the implications of conflating the polar bear with human beings today?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386721/original/file-20210226-19-zla8a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Activists in polar bear costumes outside the White House" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386721/original/file-20210226-19-zla8a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386721/original/file-20210226-19-zla8a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386721/original/file-20210226-19-zla8a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386721/original/file-20210226-19-zla8a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386721/original/file-20210226-19-zla8a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386721/original/file-20210226-19-zla8a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/386721/original/file-20210226-19-zla8a2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Climate activists have adopted the iconography of the polar bear because of their habitat’s precarious status in a warming world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/activists-remove-polar-bear-costumes-on-pennsylvania-avenue-news-photo/181933180">Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The question has particular resonance as people reflect upon the fragility of our own species in the midst of a global pandemic that has already cost millions of lives.</p>
<p>Contemplating new strategies to promote healing – including science and social and political policies – perhaps there is something yet to learn from these exceptionally adaptable creatures, at home on solid ground and in the water. As people examine the broader implications of this current human crisis, and consider a lasting commitment to promoting global health, might there be room to hope that the polar bear might eventually become a new icon, this time of resiliency and recovery?</p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154033/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Collins Goodyear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Do you see a fearsome predator? A fragile icon of impending extinction? What these arctic giants have stood for in art has continually evolved.
Anne Collins Goodyear, Co-Director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Bowdoin College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/153099
2021-01-24T18:52:37Z
2021-01-24T18:52:37Z
Why weren’t there any great women artists? In gratitude to Linda Nochlin
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379410/original/file-20210119-21-1konmvo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C9%2C2056%2C2486&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Judith Beheading Holofernes, painted by Artemisia Gentileschi c. 1614-20.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museo di Capodimonte, Napoli/Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In January 1971, Art News published Linda Nochlin’s <a href="https://www.artnews.com/art-news/retrospective/why-have-there-been-no-great-women-artists-4201/">Why have there been no great women artists?</a></p>
<p>Her essay was both a clarion call for a new generation of women and a signal to change the institutions that shape the understanding of art. </p>
<p>Nochlin was not writing from the perspective of an artist, frustrated at the lack of recognition, nor was she simply claiming that past women geniuses had seen their work relegated to the attic. </p>
<p>Rather, as one of the great authorities on 19th century European art, she gave a scathing and detailed analysis of how and why white bourgeois men were “great” while women and people of colour were not.</p>
<p>She wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the question of women’s equality — in art as in any other realm — devolves not upon the relative benevolence or ill-will of individual men, nor the self-confidence or abjectness of individual women, but rather on the very nature of our institutional structures themselves and the view of reality which they impose on the human beings who are part of them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Instead of falling into the popular trap of claiming that minor women artists in the canon of art history should simply be reclassified as major, Nochlin deftly gave an account of the circumstances under which art was made, and artists taught.</p>
<p>Until the 19th century gave us the romantic cult of the individual, art came from studios with masters, apprentices and assistants. Women weren’t artists for the same reason we weren’t carpenters. As with other trades, skills were passed down through generations. </p>
<p>Some women worked in their fathers’ studios. The Italian painter, Orazio Gentileschi, actively supported the career of his daughter <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/artemisia-gentileschi">Artemisia Gentileschi</a>, so she became known as an artist. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379160/original/file-20210117-13-snqdzy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman stands looking at the viewer, her hand draped over a piano." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379160/original/file-20210117-13-snqdzy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379160/original/file-20210117-13-snqdzy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379160/original/file-20210117-13-snqdzy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379160/original/file-20210117-13-snqdzy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379160/original/file-20210117-13-snqdzy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379160/original/file-20210117-13-snqdzy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379160/original/file-20210117-13-snqdzy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Self-portrait, painted by Marietta Robusti, c. 1590s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Galleria degli Uffizi/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Others preferred to keep their daughters in the background. This is perhaps why Tintoretto insisted his studio assistant daughter, <a href="https://www.theflorentine.net/2009/09/10/marietta-robusti/">Marietta Robusti</a>, not leave his household in his lifetime. After she died in childbirth his prodigious output was somewhat diminished in both quantity and quality.</p>
<p>By the late 19th century, most art students were women, so in theory a barrier had been broken. However, as Nochlin points out, professional artists need a studio, materials and models. Women students were not allowed access to nude models. <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/rosa-bonheur">Rosa Boneheur</a>, the daughter of a drawing master, avoided the issue by painting animals.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379366/original/file-20210118-13-1muwk52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The horse market in Paris, and the dome of La Salpêtrière is visible in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379366/original/file-20210118-13-1muwk52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379366/original/file-20210118-13-1muwk52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379366/original/file-20210118-13-1muwk52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379366/original/file-20210118-13-1muwk52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379366/original/file-20210118-13-1muwk52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379366/original/file-20210118-13-1muwk52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379366/original/file-20210118-13-1muwk52.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Horse Fair, painted by Rosa Bonheur c. 1852-55.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Training for ‘good wives’</h2>
<p>1973, when I first read Nochlin’s essay, was the year the Art Gallery of New South Wales organised the first major exhibition of the Australian modernist painter <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/cossington-smith-grace/">Grace Cossington Smith</a>. </p>
<p>For many years the Australian art establishment had rejected modernism — which may be why so many modernist artists were women, making art that was rejected for its style, not the gender of the artist. Although it was good to see her so honoured in her 81st year, younger women were not so lucky. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379425/original/file-20210119-13-i35aqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bright painting of the Sydney Harbour Bridge" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379425/original/file-20210119-13-i35aqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379425/original/file-20210119-13-i35aqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379425/original/file-20210119-13-i35aqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379425/original/file-20210119-13-i35aqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379425/original/file-20210119-13-i35aqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379425/original/file-20210119-13-i35aqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379425/original/file-20210119-13-i35aqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The curve of the bridge, by Grace Cossington Smith c. 1928-29.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AGNSW © Estate of Grace Cossington Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the same year the same gallery and the same curator presented Recent Australian Art, a major contemporary survey, “an attempt to show us the reality of the world”. There was only one work by a woman: Ewa Pachucka’s crocheted <a href="https://artsearch.nga.gov.au/detail.cfm?irn=14870">Landscape and Bodies</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-our-art-museums-finally-opened-their-eyes-to-australian-women-artists-102647">How our art museums finally opened their eyes to Australian women artists</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The men who ran the art schools, who gave the opportunities, who ran the exhibiting galleries and wrote the exhibition reviews did not see the many women art students as future artists. Some were told their presence at art school would make them “good wives” to future artists and architects. Others saw them as future patrons of their own art. </p>
<p>Nochlin reminds her readers of Betty Friedan’s <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/friedans-the-feminine-mystique-3528957">The Feminine Mystique</a> (1963) and how most women absorbed the message their “real” work was to serve their family, seeing their proper place as subordinate. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379168/original/file-20210118-23-10tb8ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An abstract art work, evoking rainbow steps leading up to a golden sun." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379168/original/file-20210118-23-10tb8ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/379168/original/file-20210118-23-10tb8ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379168/original/file-20210118-23-10tb8ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379168/original/file-20210118-23-10tb8ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=787&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379168/original/file-20210118-23-10tb8ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379168/original/file-20210118-23-10tb8ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/379168/original/file-20210118-23-10tb8ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hilma af Klint’s Altarpiece, No. 1, Group X, Altarpieces, c. 1907.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Albin Dahlström/Moderna Museet via Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This social conditioning is now known as the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9780470479216.corpsy0761">Pygmalion Effect</a>, where numerous research studies have shown that people are inclined to become what others see them to be. In pointing out the artificiality of this syndrome Nochlin enabled all those who do not fit the norm of “pale, male and stale” to consider that they too might reach for the stars. </p>
<p>She proclaimed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Disadvantage may indeed be an excuse; it is not, however, an intellectual position.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was time to change.</p>
<h2>The work continues</h2>
<p>50 years later, there have been transformations in the structures that govern fame. </p>
<p>Women are in leadership positions in some major art galleries and museums. We head several art schools and otherwise hold positions of power. It is no longer a novelty to see a woman art critic. Women artists are no longer invisible. </p>
<p>Australia’s Indigenous artists are now very much in the public eye. In 2016, the Ken Family Collaborative, five sisters from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, were awarded the <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/wynne/2016/29796/">Wynne Prize</a>, a signal that great art is sometimes a group enterprise.</p>
<p>In 2008, Elvis Richardson founded the <a href="https://countess.report/about">Countess Report</a>, a running statistical record of how Australian institutions treat women artists — and a tool in calling them to account. </p>
<p>Its 2019 report showed that, while there was a 10%-20% increase of women’s work being exhibited across all publicly available venues, there was a decrease of 36.9% to 33.9% in state run art museums from 2016-2019. The National Gallery of Australia’s 2020 <a href="https://knowmyname.nga.gov.au">Know My Name</a> initiative should progress those figures, but we still have a long way to go.</p>
<p>Nochlin didn’t so much write an essay as a battle plan.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beauty-and-audacity-know-my-name-presents-a-new-female-story-of-australian-art-150139">Beauty and audacity: Know My Name presents a new, female story of Australian art</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>
50 years ago Art News published Linda Nochlin’s essay, Why have there been no great women artists? It would change how we see art and its institutions, and still reverberates today.
Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/150139
2020-11-16T18:54:48Z
2020-11-16T18:54:48Z
Beauty and audacity: Know My Name presents a new, female story of Australian art
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369496/original/file-20201116-21-10r6prq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4087%2C2719&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tjungkara Ken, Sandra Ken, Yaritji Young, Freda Brady and Maringka Tunkin, Seven Sisters, 2018
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2020</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to now, National Gallery of Australia</em></p>
<p><a href="https://knowmyname.nga.gov.au/">Know My Name</a> is more than an art exhibition, although the exhibition attached to its launch is large, complex and wonderful. Described as a “gender equity initiative”, it is part of a strategy by NGA Director Nick Mitzevich to move towards a culture of inclusion in both collecting and exhibiting. </p>
<p><a href="https://knowmyname.nga.gov.au/events/australian-women-artists-1900-now/">The exhibition</a> begins with a massed display of portraits, hung like a 19th century salon, almost like an honour guard. The subjects are all people with a purpose. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369446/original/file-20201115-23-1iv11oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black and white photograph" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369446/original/file-20201115-23-1iv11oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369446/original/file-20201115-23-1iv11oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369446/original/file-20201115-23-1iv11oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369446/original/file-20201115-23-1iv11oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369446/original/file-20201115-23-1iv11oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369446/original/file-20201115-23-1iv11oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369446/original/file-20201115-23-1iv11oh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brenda L Croft, Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra People; Anglo-Australian/Chinese/German/Irish Heritage, Matilda (Ngambri/Ngunnawal), 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Australia, Canberra purchased 2020</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Brenda L. Croft’s intense monochrome portrait of <a href="https://www.portrait.gov.au/content/brenda-l-croft-and-dr-matilda-house">Auntie Matilda House</a>, the Ngambri-Ngunnawal elder, provides a welcome to country. Nearby, Julie Dowling’s iconic, heartbreaking portraits of her family and community’s grief and loss are placed alongside Violet Teague’s <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/60.1975/">Dian Dreams</a> (1909), a painting with a subject who does not need to bask in anyone’s approval. </p>
<p>Some of the works are well known, others less so. Inevitably, the eye is drawn to Grace Cossington Smith’s The Sock Knitter (1915), the work that first placed women artists at the centre of Australia’s art history. </p>
<p>A century before the first <a href="https://countess.report/">Countess Report</a> released its meticulously researched data on the inequitable treatment of women artists, <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/OA18.1960/?tab=history">The Sock Knitter</a> was exhibited at the 1915 Royal Art Society of NSW’s annual exhibition. It was ignored, as was the artist, long regarded as a “lady amateur” flower painter.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/still-counting-why-the-visual-arts-must-do-better-on-gender-equality-87079">Still counting: why the visual arts must do better on gender equality</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Sock Knitter remained in her studio until the late 1950s when it was discovered by Bernard Smith. Cossington Smith may now be recognised as perhaps Australia’s most important modernist artist, yet she spent most of her life in relative obscurity.</p>
<p>The exhibition is Mitzevich’s signal of a change in the NGA’s <a href="https://nga.gov.au/aboutus/press/pdf/mr_knowmynamegenderparity.pdf">collections policy</a> to one of affirmative action. Previously, the gallery only held 25% of works by women artists. What surprised him, he has said, is that despite the increased profile of female artists in the last four decades, the proportion of works by living women artists collected by the gallery over that time was less than in earlier years.</p>
<p>The gallery’s first director, James Mollison, may not have been prejudiced in favour of women, but he was not prejudiced against us. Key works by Rosalie Gascoigne, Joy Hester, Tracey Moffatt and Emily Kame Kngwarreye were all bought on his watch. Many more recent works in the exhibition come from elsewhere. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369448/original/file-20201115-15-1ga9tqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Close up photo: a motorbike and a boot" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369448/original/file-20201115-15-1ga9tqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369448/original/file-20201115-15-1ga9tqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369448/original/file-20201115-15-1ga9tqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369448/original/file-20201115-15-1ga9tqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369448/original/file-20201115-15-1ga9tqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369448/original/file-20201115-15-1ga9tqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369448/original/file-20201115-15-1ga9tqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tracey Moffatt, Something more #8, from Something more series 1989.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Naomi Milgrom AO Art Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It could be argued that it is not possible to reconfigure Australian art using only the work of one gender. There is, of course, an easy answer to this. For many years, almost all the art on public display was by men.</p>
<h2>Relationships, not history</h2>
<p>The beauty and the audacity of this exhibition is that it ignores any attempt to slot artists into specific movements. Instead, curators Deborah Hart and Elspeth Pitt have created what they rightly call “a new story of Australian art”, one of relationships, not history. </p>
<p>It is a magnificent, encircling argument of solidarity and inclusion. Works are grouped by thematic concerns; crossing cultural and chronological barriers. Traditional hierarchies between high and low art are dissolved.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369449/original/file-20201115-23-fqv2hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Installation shot" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369449/original/file-20201115-23-fqv2hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369449/original/file-20201115-23-fqv2hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369449/original/file-20201115-23-fqv2hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369449/original/file-20201115-23-fqv2hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369449/original/file-20201115-23-fqv2hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369449/original/file-20201115-23-fqv2hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369449/original/file-20201115-23-fqv2hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Know My Name doesn’t slot artists into specific movements. It is a new story of Australian art.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the salon-style entrance, the visitor moves on to different interpretations of that great creation myth, the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/songlines">Seven Sisters</a>. The space is dominated by the gallery’s recent commission, a large installation by the <a href="https://tjanpi.com.au/">Tjanpi weavers</a>. It is joined by paintings on the same subject, including works by the Ken sisters from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands. The message is of collaboration and generosity.</p>
<p>In the following room, Connection with Country, artists from different generations and cultures are linked to land and the environment. This includes a wall of Utopia batiks, a reminder that Jeanie Pwerle, Rosie Kngwarray and Emily Kame Kngwarreye first worked purely in textile. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369531/original/file-20201116-19-1wy53k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369531/original/file-20201116-19-1wy53k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369531/original/file-20201116-19-1wy53k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369531/original/file-20201116-19-1wy53k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369531/original/file-20201116-19-1wy53k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369531/original/file-20201116-19-1wy53k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369531/original/file-20201116-19-1wy53k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369531/original/file-20201116-19-1wy53k3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Installation view of Janet Laurence’s Requiem 2020, Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Australia, Canberra</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s great painting <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/229.1992/">Untitled (Alhalker</a>), (1992), from the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, tells of her country. </p>
<p>Rosalie Gascoigne’s <a href="https://nga.gov.au/exhibition/softsculpture/default.cfm?IRN=177908&BioArtistIRN=23052&MnuID=3&GalID=2&ViewID=2">Feathered fence</a> evokes the sparse beauty of the landscape around Canberra, while Janet Laurence’s installation, Requiem, mourns the loss of natural life. Fiona Hall’s <a href="https://learning.qagoma.qld.gov.au/artworks/tender/">Tender</a>, with its bird nests woven from shredded American dollar bills, provides a stern reminder of the transience and folly of money.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369495/original/file-20201116-13-19jryfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369495/original/file-20201116-13-19jryfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369495/original/file-20201116-13-19jryfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369495/original/file-20201116-13-19jryfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369495/original/file-20201116-13-19jryfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369495/original/file-20201116-13-19jryfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369495/original/file-20201116-13-19jryfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369495/original/file-20201116-13-19jryfj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rosalie Gascoigne, Feathered fence, 1979 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, gift of the artist 1994.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Rosalie Gascoigne/Copyright Agency</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the cavernous exhibition spaces it is possible to enjoy the intimate pleasure of getting up close and personal to Bea Maddock’s epic etched panorama, Terra Spiritus … with a darker shade of pale (1993-98), a painstakingly recorded circumnavigation of Tasmania, linking original names to those imposed on the land by the British invaders. </p>
<p>Then there are Narelle Jubelin’s exquisite reworkings of colonial photographs, all in petit point.</p>
<h2>A change of tempo</h2>
<p>In the room titled Collaboration and care, the tempo changes. A large wall is covered with activist posters and more incendiary works, including Phoenix (Frances Budden)‘s Relic, a savage, embroidered critique of Catholicism and its regard for women. </p>
<p>The sense of outrage and protest that permeates this wall is matched by <a href="https://artsearch.nga.gov.au/detail.cfm?irn=126719">R.E.A.’s Resistance</a> rework of the Aboriginal flag hanging opposite.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369450/original/file-20201115-21-s7b7uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photograph: woman carrying a man" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369450/original/file-20201115-21-s7b7uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369450/original/file-20201115-21-s7b7uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369450/original/file-20201115-21-s7b7uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369450/original/file-20201115-21-s7b7uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369450/original/file-20201115-21-s7b7uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369450/original/file-20201115-21-s7b7uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369450/original/file-20201115-21-s7b7uc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ann Newmarch, Women hold up half the sky, 1978.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, gift of the artist 1988</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These polemicist works are countered by the tranqullity of the Westbury Quilt, made by the <a href="https://www.daao.org.au/bio/group/biography/jane-and-mary-hampson-1/">Misses Hampson</a> in northern Tasmania in the early years of last century. The quilt’s small red and white squares, embroidered with details of daily life, are centred on an idealised vision of Queen Victoria.</p>
<p>Although they are exhibited in a different section, this quilt has perhaps more in common with <a href="https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/works/2008.46/">Esme Timbery’s Shell worked slippers</a> (from 2008) than other exhibits. They both speak of the domestic scale of traditional women’s work, and the way art can infiltrate into everyday spaces.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369536/original/file-20201116-15-1ipip5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369536/original/file-20201116-15-1ipip5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369536/original/file-20201116-15-1ipip5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369536/original/file-20201116-15-1ipip5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369536/original/file-20201116-15-1ipip5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369536/original/file-20201116-15-1ipip5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369536/original/file-20201116-15-1ipip5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369536/original/file-20201116-15-1ipip5t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Esme Timbery (Bidjigal people), Shellworked slippers 2008.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museum of Contemporary art, Purchased with funds provided by the Coe and Mordant families</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is a sense of familiarity in the room, Colour, Light and Abstraction, as the contribution of women artists to Modernism has been well recorded. Here are old favourites by the pioneers – Dorrit Black, Cossington Smith, Grace Crowley, Klytie Pate – informing later generations including Margaret Worth, Janet Dawson, Virgina Cuppaidge and Melinda Harper. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369451/original/file-20201115-19-1lpgvsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369451/original/file-20201115-19-1lpgvsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369451/original/file-20201115-19-1lpgvsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369451/original/file-20201115-19-1lpgvsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369451/original/file-20201115-19-1lpgvsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369451/original/file-20201115-19-1lpgvsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369451/original/file-20201115-19-1lpgvsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369451/original/file-20201115-19-1lpgvsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Virginia Cuppaidge, Lyon, 1972.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, gift of the artist 2012 © Virginia Cuppaidge</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-our-art-museums-finally-opened-their-eyes-to-australian-women-artists-102647">How our art museums finally opened their eyes to Australian women artists</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The room titled Performing Gender presents the full suite of <a href="https://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/exhibition/persona-and-shadow/rzzn8">Julie Rrap’s Persona and Shadow</a>, manipulated photographs based on both her body and the paintings of Edvard Munch. </p>
<p>These, along with Anne Ferran’s magnificent black and white Scenes on the Death of Nature, and Tracey Moffatt’s Something More, are probably the most familiar works for those who came of age in the 1980s.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369530/original/file-20201116-13-1kxxhhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369530/original/file-20201116-13-1kxxhhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369530/original/file-20201116-13-1kxxhhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369530/original/file-20201116-13-1kxxhhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369530/original/file-20201116-13-1kxxhhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369530/original/file-20201116-13-1kxxhhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369530/original/file-20201116-13-1kxxhhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369530/original/file-20201116-13-1kxxhhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Julie Rrap, Persona and Shadow: Christ 1984, Purchased 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Australia, Canberra</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Remembering is the most sober of rooms. Kathy Temin’s memorial gardens installation honours loss of family with faux fur architecture. Lindy Lee’s bronze fragments remind us that we are but specks in the universe, while flight research, Rosemary Laing’s series of photographs, shows bridal figures floating in a clear, blue sky.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369532/original/file-20201116-19-ayydx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369532/original/file-20201116-19-ayydx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369532/original/file-20201116-19-ayydx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369532/original/file-20201116-19-ayydx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369532/original/file-20201116-19-ayydx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369532/original/file-20201116-19-ayydx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369532/original/file-20201116-19-ayydx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369532/original/file-20201116-19-ayydx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kathy Temin, Pavilion garden 2012, Purchased 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Australia, Canberra</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The exhibition is so big only half of it is on display now. The second half is planned for July next year (it was preceded by an <a href="https://knowmyname.nga.gov.au/events/know-my-name-conference/">online conference</a>). That one may be more confronting as it will include the in-your-face works of <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/pat-larter/">Pat Larter</a>, for many years better known as the wife of Richard Larter.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-pat-larter-pioneering-femail-artist-who-gave-men-the-playboy-treatment-119804">Hidden women of history: Pat Larter, pioneering 'femail' artist who gave men the Playboy treatment</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Twenty four years after her death she is finally being honoured with a small survey exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW.</p>
<p>There is still a lot of catching up to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150139/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from The Australian Research Council </span></em></p>
For many years, almost all the art on public display was by men. The National Gallery of Australia aims to redress that imbalance.
Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146837
2020-10-26T04:16:22Z
2020-10-26T04:16:22Z
Dobell Biennial showcases drawing today as we consider its future in the real world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365445/original/file-20201026-13-u70dsb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=100%2C38%2C2393%2C1728&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Danie Mellor's A Time of World's Making (2019) detail</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Danie Mellor/AGNSW</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Real Worlds: Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial 2020, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney</em></p>
<p>Why do drawers draw?</p>
<p>Drawing is historically connected to creative practice, but also truth and accuracy. It helps materialise story and culture, perhaps because it’s often the fastest way to get an idea down on paper. But drawing can also be <a href="https://www.thinkingthroughdrawing.org/">slow, meditative and reflective</a>. When the artist is in the <a href="https://www.headspace.com/articles/flow-state">flow state</a>, a drawing can take hours and hours to resolve itself. </p>
<p>The 2020 <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/real-worlds/">Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial</a> is an insightful window into the active compulsion of drawers. With the theme of Real Worlds, this wonderful array of work turns our minds back to representational forms of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/apr/21/make-your-mark-enduring-appeal-of-drawing-draw-art-fair-london-saatchi-laura-cumming">drawing</a> and the way in which the medium envelops our connection to self, place, and country.</p>
<p>The works provide pause to consider the visual narrative and what the future of drawing might look like given new technologies — but less government support — at the tertiary level. </p>
<h2>Real versus abstract</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.dobellartfoundation.org.au/">Sir William Dobell</a> won the Archibald Prize for portraiture <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/dobell-william/">three times</a> but his <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dobell-sir-william-10025">day job as a draughtsman</a> is often referred to. Perhaps this is an attempt to legitimise his skills. Since the controversy of his 1943 Archibald prize — an image of fellow artist Joshua Smith <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-william-dobell-portrait-that-broke-a-friendship-and-divided-a-nation-20141016-10r84z.html">derided by some vocal critics</a> as caricature — his work has always made us question what is drawing today?</p>
<p>The Dobell Biennial, which ran from 1993—2012 alongside the Archibald as a prize worth A$30,000 before being reinvented as a curated exhibition, continues the conversation. The Dobell Drawing Prize, now hosted by the National Art School, was won last year by <a href="https://nas.edu.au/dobell-drawing-prize-21/">Justine Varga</a> for a work entitled Photogenic Drawing (2018). </p>
<p>Real Worlds exhibits a tight selection showcasing the ideologies and technical skills of eight artists. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364758/original/file-20201021-15-p5pmhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=127%2C104%2C2252%2C973&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="pencil drawing of fern undergrowth" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364758/original/file-20201021-15-p5pmhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=127%2C104%2C2252%2C973&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364758/original/file-20201021-15-p5pmhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364758/original/file-20201021-15-p5pmhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364758/original/file-20201021-15-p5pmhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364758/original/file-20201021-15-p5pmhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364758/original/file-20201021-15-p5pmhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364758/original/file-20201021-15-p5pmhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Becc Ország Fantasy of virtue / All things and nothing 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.beccorszag.com/gallery/">© Becc Ország/AGNSW</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Curator Anne Ryan points provides a litmus test of drawing now. The eight artists featured are <a href="https://tolarnogalleries.com/artists/martin-bell/">Martin Bell</a>, <a href="https://www.mattcoyle.net/">Matt Coyle</a>, <a href="https://www.chalkhorse.com.au/artists/nathan-hawkes">Nathan Hawkes</a>, <a href="https://daniemellor.com/">Danie Mellor</a>, <a href="http://www.alcastongallery.com.au/artist/read/1321-peter-mungkuri">Peter Mungkuri</a>, <a href="https://www.beccorszag.com/">Becc Ország</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/jackstahel/?hl=en">Jack Stahel</a> and <a href="https://www.bettgallery.com.au/artists/wright/index.htm">Helen Wright</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/great-time-to-try-learning-to-draw-135298">Great time to try: learning to draw</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Traditional boundaries</h2>
<p>On the whole, they use tried and true methods. </p>
<p>The work of Ország requires us to evaluate the role of observation and composition. Her work expresses our longing for a Utopian pre-technological society. </p>
<p>Stahel’s drawings and made things to draw <a href="https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=625818363684626;res=IELAPA">show how boundaries can be crossed</a> between scientific thought and visual beauty. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3lLFx987G2c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The drawings ‘reflect our capacity to imagine something better and different’ says Dobell Biennial curator Anne Ryan.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mellor’s work connect us to ecology, history and Dreaming narratives while Bell’s impressively sized, interwoven type, line drawing and nostalgic drawn-on-paper tapestry recalls the 80s. </p>
<p>Mungkuri’s large layerings of Country in ink captivate and pull the viewer into a mesmerising cartography. Coyle wants you to dream alongside him, while Hawkes provides a splash of colour. Finally, Wright’s drawings tap into human fears of excess consumption. </p>
<p>The sheer scale of the works is striking and the time involved is impressive. Each artist shows us the deeply cognitive nature of their practice. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365112/original/file-20201022-21-8hncbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black and white fern drawing in bold lines" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365112/original/file-20201022-21-8hncbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365112/original/file-20201022-21-8hncbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365112/original/file-20201022-21-8hncbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365112/original/file-20201022-21-8hncbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365112/original/file-20201022-21-8hncbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365112/original/file-20201022-21-8hncbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365112/original/file-20201022-21-8hncbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1096&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peter Munkari’s Punu Ngura (Country with trees) 3 (2019).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Munkari/AGNSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Learning to draw and think</h2>
<p>The skill and technique of drawing has been diminished in schools and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/nov/16/artistic-skills-are-being-lost-a-critic-says-but-is-there-any-such-thing">university curricula</a>. </p>
<p>People aren’t sitting around drawing all day like they once did, (<a href="https://www.thinkingthroughdrawing.org/">slowly thinking</a>), and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/25/squeezing-out-arts-for-commercially-useful-subjects-will-make-our-culture-poorer">new funding models for the arts</a> suggest they won’t anytime soon. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-governments-funding-changes-are-meddling-with-the-purpose-of-universities-141133">The government's funding changes are meddling with the purpose of universities</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The newly formed <a href="http://dita.soci.org.au/">Drawing Education Network</a> seeks to understand the potential of drawing across all forms of education and to counter this shortsightedness. </p>
<p>As noted at a <a href="http://dita.soci.org.au/">recent event</a>, the dynamic of drawing within universities has dramatically shifted over the last 20–50 years. We might be losing a generation of learning for “<a href="https://www.dese.gov.au/job-ready">job ready</a>” visualisation skills — despite operating in a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42438-019-00099-y">visual era</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7RmcJHNGgtc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Keynote Presentation ‘un-thinking Drawing and un-drawing thinking’ with Stuart Medley and discussion with Alan Male.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet drawing continues to be widely utilised across journalism and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34297594-reportage-illustration">reportage</a>, education and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267305591_Drawing_on_Education_Using_Drawings_to_Document_Schooling_and_Support_Change">knowledge transference</a>, persuasive <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10641734.2005.10505176">advertising and marketing</a>, <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/1672917/the-8-steps-to-creating-a-great-storyboard">strategic planning</a>, and <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Art_of_Movie_Storyboards.html?id=Bp91nAEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">narrative fictions and entertainments</a>. </p>
<p>The future of drawing lies in its ability to persist throughout time, notes University of Newcastle creative industries head <a href="https://www.newcastle.edu.au/profile/paul-egglestone">Paul Egglestone</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Drawing continues seemingly unfazed — even energised — responding to and feeding off copious new ways to make images — electronically and mechanically — on film, video and computers. Images are being made today we can legitimately call drawing that would not have been possible or even imaginable at one time. </p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-teaching-kids-to-draw-not-a-more-important-part-of-the-curriculum-60379">Why is teaching kids to draw not a more important part of the curriculum?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Following the Art Gallery of NSW exhibition, <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/real-worlds/">Real Worlds: Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial 2020</a> will tour regionally to Lismore Regional Gallery (27 February–25 April 2021) and Museum of Art and Culture Lake Macquarie, yapang (8 May–18 July 2021).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146837/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Chand does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Works by eight artists in the Dobell Drawing Biennial draw on dreams, history and reality. But drawing has escaped the gallery and will scribe on despite less government support for the arts.
Ari Chand, Lecturer in Visual Communication Design and Creative Industries, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/141297
2020-06-30T19:10:19Z
2020-06-30T19:10:19Z
The Body Electric review: an erotic centring of the female gaze at the National Gallery of Australia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344675/original/file-20200629-155339-jiybyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C538%2C370&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Claire Lambe. Untitled (red Emily) 2017, chromogenic photograph, 94 (h) x 140 (w) cm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the artist and Sarah Scout Presents</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: The Body Electric, National Gallery of Australia</em></p>
<p>In 1992, the legendary American writer Kathy Acker <a href="http://www.altx.com/io/acker.html">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The students who come to my class are very closely related to all the evil girls who are very interested in their bodies and sex and pleasure.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“I learn a lot from them,” she revealed, “about how to have pleasure and how cool the female body is.” </p>
<p>Undoubtedly, the students who attended Acker’s classes at the San Francisco Art Institute were learning from her. They were learning from her radical openness to creating stories about sex, pornography, desire, pleasure, pain and violence – from a woman’s perspective.</p>
<p>When I visit <a href="https://nga.gov.au/bodyelectric/">The Body Electric</a> at the National Gallery of Australia, I can feel Acker shadowing me. Her influence is ever present in a brilliantly curated exhibition by Shaune Lakin and Anne O’Hehir. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/staff-cuts-will-hurt-the-national-gallery-of-australia-but-its-not-spending-less-on-art-its-just-spending-it-differently-141314">Staff cuts will hurt the National Gallery of Australia, but it’s not spending less on art. It’s just spending it differently</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Two decades have passed since Acker’s death, but the eroticism she brought to art remains central to women artists. </p>
<h2>Women’s experiences of the erotic</h2>
<p>The Body Electric features ground-breaking photography and video from the 1960s, 70s and 80s alongside more recent work from Australian and international artists. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344477/original/file-20200629-155353-2oaowb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344477/original/file-20200629-155353-2oaowb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344477/original/file-20200629-155353-2oaowb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344477/original/file-20200629-155353-2oaowb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344477/original/file-20200629-155353-2oaowb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344477/original/file-20200629-155353-2oaowb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344477/original/file-20200629-155353-2oaowb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jo Ann Callis, Untitled (woman with flashlight) c 1976, pigment inkjet print, 40.6 (h) x 50.8 (w) cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of ROSEGALLERY © the artist</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is an intelligent and daring visual exploration of women’s erotic experiences from the domestic to the pornographic. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.rosegallery.net/joanncallis">Jo Ann Callis’</a> Untitled (nude with towel) (1976) portrays an anonymous woman seated on the long arm of a living room sofa, presumably using it to masturbate. </p>
<p>Nan Goldin’s photo series, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/04/nan-goldins-the-ballad-of-sexual-dependency">The ballad of sexual dependency</a> (1986), renders the traces of love’s violence. Its most powerful image, <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/goldin-nan-one-month-after-being-battered-p78045">Nan one month after being battered</a> (1984), is an honest self-portrait showing the wounds of physical assault by her then-lover. </p>
<p>Annie Sprinkle’s comically pornographic <a href="http://anniesprinkle.org/projects/archived-projects/post-modern-pin-up-pleasure-activist-playing-cards/">Pleasure Activist Playing Cards</a> (1995) features porn stars posing as characters with wildly inventive names: “Horny Biker Shutterbug”, “The Mother Theresa of Female Ejaculation”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344476/original/file-20200629-155330-1qx6miz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344476/original/file-20200629-155330-1qx6miz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344476/original/file-20200629-155330-1qx6miz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344476/original/file-20200629-155330-1qx6miz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344476/original/file-20200629-155330-1qx6miz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344476/original/file-20200629-155330-1qx6miz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344476/original/file-20200629-155330-1qx6miz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christine Godden, Self. Sunny day in winter 1974, gelatin silver photograph, 14.9 (h) x 22.6 (w) cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Gift of the artist 1987. © the artist</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Christine Godden mischievously reveals her belly button in a humble black and white self-portrait titled <a href="https://artsearch.nga.gov.au/detail.cfm?IRN=62674">Self. Sunny Day in Winter</a> (1974). Collier Schorr’s <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artwork/56973/Collier-Schorr-Ass-and-Leaf">Ass and leaf</a> (2015), a simple but subversive image, reveals a backside with stretch marks. </p>
<p>Such bodily traces rarely appear on the airbrushed bodies dominating visual culture. </p>
<p>The more powerful works question the ways women and sexuality have historically been – and continue to be – represented from the perspective of white hetereosexual men. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344478/original/file-20200629-155339-1k4wizu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C538%2C411&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344478/original/file-20200629-155339-1k4wizu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344478/original/file-20200629-155339-1k4wizu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344478/original/file-20200629-155339-1k4wizu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344478/original/file-20200629-155339-1k4wizu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344478/original/file-20200629-155339-1k4wizu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344478/original/file-20200629-155339-1k4wizu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pixy Liao. Some words are just between us from Experimental relationship, 2010, chromogenic photograph, 40.6 (h) x 50.8 (w) cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the artist</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.eai.org/titles/head">Head</a> (1993), by Cheryl Donegan, mimics a woman performing oral sex in heterosexual pornography. Donegan simulates the “money shot” (the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=RpSBDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=pornography:+a+philosophical+introduction&ots=-MCTsgChr_&sig=Jn7238BeuLaVhJGEYGPAknIf-DA#v=onepage&q=pornography%3A%20a%20philosophical%20introduction&f=false">pornographic trope</a> of ejaculation, usually into the woman’s mouth) with a green plastic bottle spewing milk. </p>
<p>Directly alongside Head is <a href="http://www.vdb.org/titles/female-sensibility">Female sensibility</a> (1973), a recording of the artist Lynda Benglis kissing her friend and colleague, Marilyn Lenkowsky. The camera captures the thrill of their touch. In close detail we see Benglis use her tongue to searchingly caress the inside of her friend’s mouth. </p>
<p>But the work is more complicated than a kissing performance between two women: their eyes are not focused on each other, but instead follow a moving camera. </p>
<p>The camera – and therefore the viewer – becomes proxy for the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-male-gaze-mean-and-what-about-a-female-gaze-52486">male gaze</a>”: the positioning of women in visual media as sexual objects for the visual pleasure of heterosexual men.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-male-gaze-mean-and-what-about-a-female-gaze-52486">Explainer: what does the 'male gaze' mean, and what about a female gaze?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>By being in control of the camera, in charge of her representation, and in charge of her pleasure, Benglis actively resists this male gaze. </p>
<p>Viewing Benglis and Donegan’s videos simultaneously side-by-side is mesmerising, their collective power amplifying the critique of the male gaze at the heart of the exhibition. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344479/original/file-20200629-155312-1c54guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344479/original/file-20200629-155312-1c54guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344479/original/file-20200629-155312-1c54guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344479/original/file-20200629-155312-1c54guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344479/original/file-20200629-155312-1c54guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344479/original/file-20200629-155312-1c54guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344479/original/file-20200629-155312-1c54guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nan Goldin. Nan and Brian in bed, NYC, 1983, dye destruction photograph, 39 (h) x 59.9 (w) cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1994. © the artist</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Evil girls</h2>
<p>When Acker talked of the “evil girls” who came to her class, she (like the artists in this exhibition) was rejoicing in them – while mocking outdated patriarchal standards that repress female representations of sexual pleasure.</p>
<p>The Body Electric visualises Acker’s legacy of the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/feb/22/the-female-gaze-brings-a-welcome-touch-of-reality-to-art">female gaze</a>” in art: a female perspective of sex, desire and pleasure beyond patriarchal limits of passivity and reproduction. The artists in this exhibition position women as powerful creators, acutely conscious of their sexual agency as women and as artists.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344480/original/file-20200629-155303-ilfckm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344480/original/file-20200629-155303-ilfckm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344480/original/file-20200629-155303-ilfckm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344480/original/file-20200629-155303-ilfckm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344480/original/file-20200629-155303-ilfckm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344480/original/file-20200629-155303-ilfckm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344480/original/file-20200629-155303-ilfckm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Polly Borland. MORPH 9, 2018, pigment inkjet print, 200 (h) x 162.5 (w) cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the artist and Murray White Room, Melbourne. © Polly Borland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People can find the body disturbing, especially when it is a woman’s body performing in ways that challenges social expectations of the private and the public. </p>
<p>But what of fake bodies? In the far corner of the exhibition is an iconic Cindy Sherman work <a href="https://www.kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de/collection/cindy-sherman/untitled-255-en-us/">Untitled #255</a> (1992), featuring a mannequin doll equipped with anatomically detailed sexual parts.</p>
<p>The doll is crouched on her knees with a ready and waiting plastic orifice. Her pose reminded me of an instructional video I once watched on how to give birth. </p>
<p>All our stories begin at the site of the female body.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141297/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cherine Fahd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Body Electric features ground-breaking photography and video from the 1960s, 70s and 80s, alongside more recent work from Australian and international artists.
Cherine Fahd, Director Photography, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/141444
2020-06-25T02:44:06Z
2020-06-25T02:44:06Z
The arts needed a champion – it got a package to prop up the major players 100 days later
<p>It is now over 100 days since the country went into lockdown as a result of COVID-19. Overnight, all arts venues had to close, and arts activities essentially ceased because of the need for social distancing. </p>
<p>On March 19, three days after the lockdown, the Federal Arts Minister Paul Fletcher <a href="https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/fletcher/media-release/communique">convened a meeting</a> with state arts ministers to talk about the dire situation facing thousands of unemployed arts workers. </p>
<p>In late March, we waited for an announcement that the federal government would be offering targeted forms of support. We knew already that the sector provides enormous economic value to the country because the government <a href="https://www.communications.gov.au/departmental-news/economic-value-cultural-and-creative-activity">published figures</a> saying so. </p>
<p>And we waited. </p>
<p>Yet apart from <a href="https://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/fletcher/media-release/targeted-support-indigenous-arts-regional-arts-and-respected-charity-support-act">a package announced</a> in early April, of A$27 million for regional artists, indigenous visual arts organisations and mental health, the federal government announced nothing. Until now. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-25/arts-industry-to-receive-250-million-coronavirus-rescue-package/12390282">A new directed package</a>, part of the JobMaker scheme, has been allocated $250 million. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our JobMaker plan is getting their show back on the road, to get their workers back in jobs … This package is as much about supporting the tradies who build stage sets or computer specialists who create the latest special effects, as it is about supporting actors and performers in major productions.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is an emphasis in this statement that workers in the creative economy are not just “artistic” types, but seemingly more palatable “workers”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/government-unveils-250-million-for-creative-economy-141383">Government unveils $250 million for 'creative economy'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What’s in it for the sector?</h2>
<p>There are five aspects to the package:</p>
<ul>
<li>$75 million in competitive grant funding, providing capital for performing arts events (Seed Investment) </li>
<li>$90 million in concessional loans through commercial banks to assist new productions and events in job creation (Show Loans) </li>
<li>$50 million to support local film and television production and administered by Screen Australia (Kick Start)</li>
<li>$35 million to provide financial assistance to support significant Commonwealth-funded arts and culture organisations to be delivered by the Australia Council (Supporting Sustainability)</li>
<li>a Creative Economy Taskforce to partner with the government and the Australia Council to implement the JobMaker plan for the creative economy.</li>
</ul>
<p>This package, while clearly welcome, preferences larger events, significant arts organisations (read organisations included in the major performing arts framework) and film and television production. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1275952865941413888"}"></div></p>
<p>These packages will boost employment for artists and arts workers in the longer term. Given how the packages are described though, it is unlikely small to medium arts organisations will receive much benefit. </p>
<p>It is good the federal government has finally responded to pleas from the arts sector for help. It is disappointing it has taken so long and doesn’t acknowledge the breadth of the sector. </p>
<p>Fletcher adds in the press release that the federal government is providing $100 million per month to the arts sector through the JobKeeper program and other cash flow assistance. What this entails is hard to calculate. </p>
<p>We know many artists and arts workers have been unable to access JobKeeper. Many arts workers fell through the gaps of both schemes, given the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-says-artists-should-be-able-to-access-jobkeeper-payments-its-not-that-simple-138530">nature of employment</a> in the sector, which relies on short term contracts and often multiple sources of employment. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-says-artists-should-be-able-to-access-jobkeeper-payments-its-not-that-simple-138530">The government says artists should be able to access JobKeeper payments. It's not that simple</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While aware of these anomalies, the government rejected a <a href="https://greensmps.org.au/articles/govt-must-do-more-australian-artists-and-creatives">move by the Greens</a> to widen eligibility for JobKeeper. </p>
<h2>State support</h2>
<p>All the states have provided <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/may/26/australias-cultural-sector-is-haemorrhaging-money-but-its-not-the-federal-government-stemming-the-flow">additional support</a> to the arts sector, but some are offering a great deal more than others. </p>
<p>Both Victoria and Queensland, and more recently New South Wales, have offered generous support to both individuals and arts organisations. Until now, South Australia and Western Australia have offered very little. </p>
<p>The Australia Council <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/may/26/australias-cultural-sector-is-haemorrhaging-money-but-its-not-the-federal-government-stemming-the-flow">redirected $5 million of its funding</a> towards special grants (of $5,000 to $10,000) for individual artists and small organisations. </p>
<p>Though these small grants are unlikely to make a massive difference overall, the council has been trying in other ways: running training webinars for artists and arts workers to upskill themselves in the digital arena. It has also been more flexible in managing its grant agreements. </p>
<p>Yet in early April 2020, the council cut funding to over 30 small-to-medium arts organisations, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/apr/06/we-are-witnessing-a-cultural-bloodbath-in-australia-that-has-been-years-in-the-making">bringing the toll</a> to more than 90 organisations cut over the past four years. </p>
<p>The ability of artists to adapt creatively to the changing situation is laudable, but they may have been too generous in this process, by <a href="https://theconversation.com/giving-it-away-for-free-why-the-performing-arts-risks-making-the-same-mistake-newspapers-did-139671">giving away</a> their talent for free. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/70AKjJOxLYY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In March, industry leaders said $850 million in assistance was needed.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The federal government’s slow response has caused many commentators to argue it <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-politics-of-dancing-and-thinking-about-cultural-values-beyond-dollars-139839">doesn’t seem to value either arts or culture</a>. </p>
<p>Further, the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/5676.0.55.003Main%20Features7June%202020?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=5676.0.55.003&issue=June%202020&num=&view=">latest figures from the ABS</a> note that 78% of the sector has had a major decrease in income and only around 18% of the sector is operating normally. The capacity for parts of the sector to reactivate are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2020/jun/25/the-arts-and-recreation-sector-stimulus-was-long-promised-it-is-probably-too-little-far-too-late">now bleak</a>. </p>
<h2>Don’t call it culture</h2>
<p>This latest announcement signals the government is more comfortable if the sector is framed as the “creative economy” rather than arts and culture. </p>
<p>Raising the cost of tertiary creative arts and humanities education implies the government believes they are expensive indulgences and <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-the-government-listened-to-business-leaders-they-would-encourage-humanities-education-not-pull-funds-from-it-141121">not to be taken seriously</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343893/original/file-20200625-190478-1u2f4gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343893/original/file-20200625-190478-1u2f4gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343893/original/file-20200625-190478-1u2f4gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343893/original/file-20200625-190478-1u2f4gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343893/original/file-20200625-190478-1u2f4gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343893/original/file-20200625-190478-1u2f4gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343893/original/file-20200625-190478-1u2f4gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/343893/original/file-20200625-190478-1u2f4gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anthem, performed at the Melbourne International Arts Festival in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pia Johnson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The devastating destruction of unique indigenous cultural heritage and the threat of further destruction by mining companies, with no formal protest from government, is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/17/culture-warriors-obsessed-with-statues-ignore-rio-tintos-vandalism-of-indigenous-heritage">another warning sign</a>.</p>
<p>The hits keep coming with job cuts at the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/jobs-and-content-cut-in-abc-shake-up-designed-to-save-40-million">ABC</a> and the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-23/national-gallery-australia-to-cut-jobs-union-calls-for-help/12384150">National Gallery of Australia</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-politics-of-dancing-and-thinking-about-cultural-values-beyond-dollars-139839">Friday essay: the politics of dancing and thinking about cultural values beyond dollars</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Through this period of lockdown, we have all benefited by the books we could read, the music we could listen to, the exhibitions we could visit online and the films and television we could watch. </p>
<p>This work is made by artists and facilitated by arts workers. They have our support, they deserve government support too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141444/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Caust has received funding from the Australia Council and Arts SA previously. She is a member of the Arts Industry Council (SA) and NAVA. </span></em></p>
The arts and cultural sector was plunged into crisis three months ago and pleaded for help. Now a federal rescue package has been announced – but who is it for and is it enough?
Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/141314
2020-06-24T06:58:24Z
2020-06-24T06:58:24Z
Staff cuts will hurt the National Gallery of Australia, but it’s not spending less on art. It’s just spending it differently
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/343636/original/file-20200624-132410-1y4qvr7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5419%2C3042&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thennicke/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On September 10 1965, Sir Robert Menzies commissioned the <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22publications%2Ftabledpapers%2FHPP052016000736%22;src1=sm1">National Art Gallery Committee of Inquiry</a> to consider the establishment of a national gallery for Australia.</p>
<p>The resulting <a href="https://nga.gov.au/collection/pdfs/acquisitionsstatementofintent.pdf">Lindsay Report</a>, published in 1966, is an ambitious document, describing an art gallery to serve the nation through the quality and range of its collections and exhibitions. </p>
<p>It emphasised the need to have an all encompassing collection of Australian art. The report recognised, in the second half of the 20th century, it was not possible to acquire a significant collection from European art history and advised a focus on modern art, including from Indigenous Australian artists, south and east Asia, and the Pacific Islands.</p>
<p>James Mollison became the gallery’s first director and began collecting work in 1971, construction began in 1973, and the National Gallery of Australia <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/116475320">finally opened</a> in 1982. The Lindsay Report was most recently reviewed in 2017, and is still the guiding document for the gallery’s foundation and continuing collection policies.</p>
<p>Menzies <a href="https://www.humanities.org.au/2019/06/24/50-years-on-a-golden-moment-for-the-australian-academy-of-the-humanities/">understood</a> a culture that supported the arts and the humanities was essential to Australia’s development. Although his aesthetic taste was conservative, often described as reactionary, he greatly valued the arts. </p>
<p>For many years, his successors showed equal enthusiasm for seeing the National Art Gallery grow into international prominence. </p>
<p>Now, with subsequent efficiency dividends, the gallery is facing a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/23/national-gallery-of-australia-to-shed-staff-and-slash-acquisitions-from-3000-to-about-100-a-year">budgetary shortfall</a> and will lose 10% of its staff. The gallery has also recently reduced the number of new acquisitions, leading some to assume a connection to the loss of funding. This is not the case.</p>
<h2>A $6 billion collection</h2>
<p>In the late 1970s, after the prices paid for American and European art became a <a href="https://theconversation.com/blue-poles-45-years-on-asset-or-overvalued-drip-painting-102639">political issue</a>, the Fraser government placed <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/127535017?searchTerm=Braque%20Grand%20Nu%20Fraser%20National%20Gallery&searchLimits=#">restrictions</a> on the price the gallery could pay for international art. Any major purchases would now require permission from parliament. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blue-poles-45-years-on-asset-or-overvalued-drip-painting-102639">Blue poles 45 years on: asset or overvalued drip painting?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As the gallery’s acquisition budget was not otherwise constrained, the gallery redirected its purchases to create an encyclopaedic collection of Australian art. Over the years, the collection has matured into a balance between Australian, American, European, Asian and Pacific art, still keeping the bias towards art of the 20th and 21st centuries as proposed by the Lindsay report</p>
<p>The collection now comprises almost 160,000 works of art valued at <a href="https://nga.gov.au/aboutus/reports/nga_ar_18-19.pdf">A$6 billion</a> – a remarkable achievement for a collection that began only fifty years ago. </p>
<p>Over the last decade, the gallery has added an average of 2,134 items to its collection each year, including 863 new purchases.</p>
<p><iframe id="zjBzJ" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/zjBzJ/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In the early years, under James Mollison’s directorship, there was a need to build the collection from a very small base of works that had found their way into the hands of the old Commonwealth Art Advisory Board. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/james-mollison-the-public-art-teacher-who-brought-the-blue-poles-to-australia-130285">James Mollison: the public art teacher who brought the Blue Poles to Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Collections policy is not governed by numbers of works but by the nature of what is available, and how it relates to other works already in the collection. Once the collection was established, acquisitions could be focused on areas of particular need. Ron Radford expanded the Pacific collection; current director Nick Mitzevich is focused on contemporary art. </p>
<p>The gallery’s significant budget cuts will not impact the acquisitions budget. Gallery director Nick Mitzevich tells The Conversation the $16 million annual spend on buying art will be maintained, and cannot be appropriated for other purposes. </p>
<p>With such a collections base to work from, he says the gallery will focus on the quality, rather than quantity, of works which can be purchased from the same budget: collecting major works, or, as Mitzevich describes, “absolute excellence”.</p>
<p>But while the acquisitions budget is being maintained, other gallery departments are facing serious budget cuts.</p>
<p>With the exception of the Australian War Memorial, which will receive a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/16/former-war-memorial-heads-join-call-to-redirect-500m-for-grandiose-expansion-to-veterans">controversial</a> $500 million expansion, Australia’s national cultural organisations have been hit <a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-budget-2014-arts-and-culture-experts-react-26638">exceptionally hard</a> by a succession of conservative governments. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/federal-budget-2014-arts-and-culture-experts-react-26638">Federal budget 2014: arts and culture experts react</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The gallery’s operations budget must comply with the Australian Public Service’s <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2012-2013/EfficiencyDividend">efficiency dividend</a>. This year, operating revenue is reduced by $1.5 million. To counteract this reduction, the gallery <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/23/national-gallery-of-australia-to-shed-staff-and-slash-acquisitions-from-3000-to-about-100-a-year">will cut</a> 10% of its total staff, beginning with voluntary redundancies. </p>
<p>This will inevitably mean a loss of senior staff, some of those with the greatest expertise. </p>
<h2>Shifting worlds</h2>
<p>It has been a difficult year for the gallery. Due to smoke from the bushfires on January 5 and 6, the gallery had to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/galleries-grapple-with-climate-change-and-unprecedented-closures-20200106-p53p7r.html">close</a> for the safety of its collection, including the major summer blockbuster Picasso and Matisse.</p>
<p>It was the first time the National Gallery of Australia has ever closed for more than one day.</p>
<p>Then, COVID-19 struck. The gallery shut its doors on March 23, not re-opening until June 2. Visitor numbers remain small. Yesterday, only 250 came through the doors. This time last year they were in the thousands.</p>
<p>Mtizevich has yet to calculate the full cost of these dual disasters to the gallery’s revenue. He told The Conversation the act of keeping to budget while keeping faith with the National Gallery’s objectives is “not an easy job, a tightrope”. </p>
<p>He is adamant the collections policy will remain unchanged.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn has in the past received funding from The Australian Research Council </span></em></p>
The National Gallery of Australia is facing a 10% reduction in staffing, but will maintain its $16 million acquisitions budget.
Joanna Mendelssohn, Principal Fellow (Hon), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/138300
2020-05-21T20:00:41Z
2020-05-21T20:00:41Z
Friday essay: the Melbourne bookshop that ignited Australian modernism
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336603/original/file-20200521-102651-tdk7bk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=59%2C23%2C3870%2C3122&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Artists Matcham Skipper and Myra Gould on a Melbourne footpath, circa 1940. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://rosetta.slv.vic.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_func=stream&dps_pid=FL16009327">Albert Tucker/State Library of Victoria</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The origin story of Australian modernism often centres around <a href="https://www.heide.com.au/">Heide</a> – the Melbourne artistic community where, from 1934, bohemian art patrons <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/reed-lelda-sunday-14395">John and Sunday Reed</a> nurtured talents such as Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester and John Perceval. </p>
<p>But nestled in the heart of Melbourne’s city laneways was another birthplace of Australian modernism. At 166 Little Collins Street, near the “Paris End” of Collins Street, was the Leonardo Art Shop – a bookshop that during the 1930s and 40s inspired a generation of young artists to create a homegrown avant-garde. </p>
<p>The bookshop was the creation of <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nibbi-gino-11233">Gino Nibbi</a>, born in Fermo, Italy, in 1896. Nibbi trained as an accountant, but his passion was modern art. He migrated to Melbourne with his wife in 1928 and established Leonardo Art Shop several months later. </p>
<p>First in Post Office Place, then on Little Collins Street behind King’s Theatre, Nibbi stocked the shelves with imported foreign-language books and colour prints of contemporary European paintings, exposing his customers to images and ideas never before seen in Australia. For the next two decades, Leonardo Art Shop – also known as Nibbi’s – was a “<a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-216049296/listen">direct link to Europe</a>” for artists and intellectuals ravenous for avant-garde culture. </p>
<h2>An intellectual salon</h2>
<p>Melbourne then was a far cry from today’s sophisticated and cosmopolitan metropolis. The interwar decades were the heyday of the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/white-australia-policy">White Australia policy</a>, and the non-Indigenous population was calculated as <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-global-history/article/treated-like-chinamen-united-states-immigration-restriction-and-white-british-subjects/9F00CF85D565BBB114FEBD68BE333AB8">98% “British”</a>. With little diversity and few outside influences, Melbourne was a staid and conservative city, suspicious of new ideas that might challenge the status quo. “The dictatorship of the smug” was how cultural critic P. R. Stephensen <a href="http://home.alphalink.com.au/%7Eradnat/stephensen/prs5.html">summed up</a> the local culture in 1936. </p>
<p>In the art world, this conservatism manifested as a fierce antagonism towards the modernist aesthetics revolutionising art in Europe. Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Gauguin – artists we now revere as visionaries – were dismissed by Australian critics as degenerates whose abstracted and expressionist forms threatened the principles of academic painting. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335595/original/file-20200518-138634-ymb69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335595/original/file-20200518-138634-ymb69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335595/original/file-20200518-138634-ymb69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335595/original/file-20200518-138634-ymb69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335595/original/file-20200518-138634-ymb69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335595/original/file-20200518-138634-ymb69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335595/original/file-20200518-138634-ymb69o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While celebrated internationally, artists like Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) were dismissed by the Australian artistic establishment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Under the directorship of arch-conservative <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/macdonald-james-stuart-jimmy-7338">J. S. MacDonald</a>, the National Gallery of Victoria refused to acquire post-Impressionist art (this position was <a href="http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01045b.htm">slowly reversed</a> when MacDonald was replaced in 1941). Throughout the 1930s, art world gatekeepers like MacDonald and critic Lionel Lindsay <a href="https://emajartjournal.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/rees.pdf">spurned modernism</a> as an “imported and perverted art” hailing from “the dead hand of European decadence”. </p>
<p>Although local painters <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/520/">Arnold Shore</a> and <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/1857/">William “Jock” Frater</a> had begun to experiment with modernism, the nationalist pastoral landscapes of <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/streeton-arthur/">Arthur Streeton</a> and <a href="https://www.agsa.sa.gov.au/collection-publications/collection/creators/hans-heysen/2592/">Hans Heysen</a> remained the gold standard of Australian art. When <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/allen-mary-cecil-5005">Mary Cecil Allen</a> returned home to Melbourne from New York in 1936, she was excoriated by local critics for exhibiting “distorted” and “bizarre” abstracts that exemplified “the superficial nature of modern painting”.</p>
<p>Melburnians were cut off from the latest artistic and cultural trends. Although mass media circulated modern ideas and aesthetics via design, advertising, cinema and magazines like <a href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/blogs/home-1920-42">The Home</a>, the “high culture” fine art world remained wedded to 19th century ideals. </p>
<p>This is where Nibbi’s played a crucial role. Prior to the explosive <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/degenerates-and-perverts-20050416-gdzzgp.html">1939 Herald exhibition</a> of contemporary European painting, Nibbi’s was the only place in Melbourne where it was possible to view high quality colour reproductions of post-Impressionist art. </p>
<p>Local artists flocked to Little Collins Street to feast on the latest Cezanne, Gauguin or Van Gogh prints newly arrived from Europe, marvelling at the bold colours and abstracted forms. Although the original artists were long dead, their work was little known in Australia. In 1930s Melbourne, avant-garde art from the late 1800s was still breaking news. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335594/original/file-20200518-138665-1kmjh5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/335594/original/file-20200518-138665-1kmjh5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335594/original/file-20200518-138665-1kmjh5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335594/original/file-20200518-138665-1kmjh5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335594/original/file-20200518-138665-1kmjh5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335594/original/file-20200518-138665-1kmjh5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/335594/original/file-20200518-138665-1kmjh5p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Although van Gogh died in 1890, in the 1930s his use of colour and abstract shapes was still shocking and new to Melbourne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Future giants of Australian modernism – including <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/boyd-arthur/">Arthur Boyd</a>, <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/469/">John Perceval</a>, <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/drysdale-russell/">Russell Drysdale</a> and <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/?artist_id=friend-donald">Donald Friend</a> – had their minds and eyes opened at Leonardo Art Shop. As the artist <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/1808/">Len Crawford</a> <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-216049296/listen">recalled</a>, Nibbi’s had a “powerful effect” on local artists, introducing them to things “you’d never dreamed of”. Crawford regularly stopped by to pour over the displays. When funds allowed, he’d splash out on a six-penny postcard to take home. </p>
<p>The shop boasted an unparalleled range of books and magazines in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Norwegian and Dutch, as well as English works by risque writers such as Casanova and Norman Lindsay. A great supporter of the local literary scene, Nibbi stocked small poetry <a href="https://bookriot.com/2019/07/08/what-are-chapbooks/">chapbooks</a>, magazines and plays by Melbourne writers. For writer and broadcaster <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kershaw-alister-nasmyth-29642">Alister Kershaw</a>, Nibbi’s <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1303440543/view?partId=nla.obj-1303563046">was</a> simply “the most enchanting bookshop in the world”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334586/original/file-20200513-156641-qcuwwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334586/original/file-20200513-156641-qcuwwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334586/original/file-20200513-156641-qcuwwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334586/original/file-20200513-156641-qcuwwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334586/original/file-20200513-156641-qcuwwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334586/original/file-20200513-156641-qcuwwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334586/original/file-20200513-156641-qcuwwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sidney Nolan and John Reed, c1944-1945.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Albert Tucker Photographic Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art & State Library of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Meals and mentors</h2>
<p>Nibbi’s was a gathering place and intellectual salon, where modernists-in-the-making could meet like-minded souls. Stimulated by the images on display, patrons would linger for hours, chewing over the latest trends in contemporary culture. Heide’s John Reed and poet and artist Adrian Lawlor were both regulars, haunting Nibbi’s to talk art, ideas and politics. </p>
<p>After working up an appetite, the Nibbi’s crowd would head to a Chinese cafe at 201 Lonsdale Street known as <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-216049296/listen">Dooey Din’s</a>, the best place in town to catch up on art-world gossip. Also in the neighbourhood was Albert Tucker’s Little Collins Street studio and <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nolan-violet-cynthia-11251">Cynthia Reed’s</a> interior design shop. At 367 Little Collins, Cynthia Reed’s was notorious in the mid-1930s for exhibiting controversial modernists like <a href="https://artsearch.nga.gov.au/search.cfm?view_select=1&order%5Fselect=1&showrows=40&creirn=23291">Sam Atyeo</a>. Just a few doors down was another independent bookshop, run by <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/webber-margareta-louise-15794">Margareta Webber</a>, whose “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/206720730">delightful store</a>” at 343 Little Collins sold imported literary fiction to a similar clientele as Nibbi’s. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336233/original/file-20200519-152315-pmtpt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336233/original/file-20200519-152315-pmtpt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336233/original/file-20200519-152315-pmtpt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336233/original/file-20200519-152315-pmtpt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336233/original/file-20200519-152315-pmtpt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336233/original/file-20200519-152315-pmtpt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/336233/original/file-20200519-152315-pmtpt4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For a time, Little Collins street was the centre of Melbourne’s art world conversations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Albert Tucker Photographic Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art & State Library of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nibbi himself was a beloved figure, a polymath who knew everyone and – as artist Len Crowford put it – “<a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-216049296/listen">had his fingers in everything</a>”. </p>
<p>Nibbi mentored emerging painters, writers and musicians, providing an informal education in modern culture and giving feedback on their work. One of his greatest discoveries was the painter <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/fairweather-ian/?tab=works">Ian Fairweather</a>, who went on to have his first exhibition at Cynthia Reed’s in 1934. In Crawford’s <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-216049296/listen">words</a>, Nibbi was a “most valuable man”, who “did more for general education in Melbourne than anyone I knew of”.</p>
<p>Alongside his wife Elvira, who taught Italian at the Melbourne Conservatorium and the Berlitz School of Languages, Nibbi was a leader in Melbourne’s Italian community. The couple even developed an Italian course for ABC radio, which broadcast on Saturday evenings. Nibbi promoted the Italian language through his <a href="https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE2150467&mode=browse">Italian-English Reader</a>, self-published in 1936. </p>
<h2>The culture wars</h2>
<p>Nibbi was an active critic who regularly went into battle for modern art in the press. As he <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/242900946">wrote</a> in the Melbourne Herald in 1931, modernism was not a “capricious vogue” but rather an “expression of the spirit of the time”. </p>
<p>He faced considerable resistance in the trenches of Australia’s culture wars. In 1930, he was <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4071656">fined £20</a> for importing an unnamed “obscene book”, while his art criticism attracted a barrage of reactionary ire. </p>
<p>Most notoriously, in 1937 Nibbi was <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/81294705">thrown</a> into the national spotlight when Australian customs seized 50 prints of Modigliani’s Lying Nude (1917) imported for sale at Leonardo Art Shop. Although Modigliani nudes hung in the world’s leading galleries, customs officials deemed the image pornographic and earmarked the prints for destruction. Officials <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/37902638">feared</a> the nude would “appeal to other than art collectors”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334570/original/file-20200513-82361-1kf6alv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334570/original/file-20200513-82361-1kf6alv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334570/original/file-20200513-82361-1kf6alv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334570/original/file-20200513-82361-1kf6alv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334570/original/file-20200513-82361-1kf6alv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334570/original/file-20200513-82361-1kf6alv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334570/original/file-20200513-82361-1kf6alv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334570/original/file-20200513-82361-1kf6alv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lying Nude, Modigliani’s expressionist painting from 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikiart</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This incident outraged artists and reignited a larger debate about censorship in Australian culture. The notoriously combative Adrian Lawlor leapt to Nibbi’s defence, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232011966">condemning</a> the “bumble-foots” with “ridiculous powers of censorship” working in the customs department. In his view, Modigliani’s nude was a great work of art, “entirely innocent of the least breath of pruriency”. </p>
<p>The Victorian Artists’ Society also <a href="https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=232628">protested</a> the decision. In a letter to the customs minister, the society insisted Lying Nude contained “no hint of obscenity”, and was instead the work of a “consummate artist”.</p>
<p>Nibbi himself appealed the seizure of his prints, which he had obtained at great effort and expense during a visit to Italy. In November, the matter was referred to the <a href="https://westerlymag.com.au/digital_archives/westerly-314/">Book Censorship Board</a>, established in 1933 to advise the customs minister on the censorship of imported books. Under Section 52(a) of the Customs Act, anything judged blasphemous, indecent or obscene would be banned. </p>
<p>The archive is silent as to the board’s final decision regarding the Modigliani prints, but records in the National Archives of Australia <a href="https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=232628">suggest</a> it was unmoved by artists’ protests. Although board member <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/garran-sir-robert-randolph-410">Sir Robert Garran</a> admitted the original Modigliani painting was not obscene, he advised Customs that a “crude reproduction” sold at “picture-postcard price” would attract buyers more interested in titillation than “artistic merit”. </p>
<p>Nibbi was not cowed by the controversy. The following year, 1938, he helped establish the <a href="https://www.contemporaryartsociety.org.au/">Contemporary Art Society</a> alongside Lawlor and George Bell. It was a bold organisation that hosted exhibitions and public lectures about modern art. Over the next decade, the CAS battled against the <a href="http://www.menziescollection.esrc.unimelb.edu.au/biogs/E000045b.htm">Australian Academy of Art</a>, a Canberra-based conservative stronghold established in 1937 that was much resented for - in Bell’s <a href="https://www-jstor-org.ez.library.latrobe.edu.au/stable/20629531">words</a> - its “sanctification of banality” and “strict preservation of mediocrity”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334588/original/file-20200513-156637-awglub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334588/original/file-20200513-156637-awglub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334588/original/file-20200513-156637-awglub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334588/original/file-20200513-156637-awglub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334588/original/file-20200513-156637-awglub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334588/original/file-20200513-156637-awglub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334588/original/file-20200513-156637-awglub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yoselle Bergner’s The Pie Eaters photographed at the Contemporary Art Society c1940.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Albert Tucker Photographic Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art & State Library of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The end of an era</h2>
<p>In 1947, the lease on Leonardo Art Shop was not renewed. Melburnians <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/245390546">mourned</a> the demise of a local institution that had “fostered a cosmopolitan atmosphere” and “didn’t bother with meretricious sidelines”. Unable to secure alternative premises, Nibbi returned to Italy, where he lived until his death in 1969. </p>
<p>He maintained links with Australia, a country he had come to love. In Rome, he opened a bookshop and art gallery called <em>Ai Quattro Venti</em> (To the Four Winds) that became popular with Australians visiting Europe. In 1952, Nibbi <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nibbi-gino-11233">hosted</a> a Sidney Nolan and Albert Tucker exhibition, introducing Australian modernism to Italian audiences. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334571/original/file-20200513-82353-1pydbig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334571/original/file-20200513-82353-1pydbig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334571/original/file-20200513-82353-1pydbig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334571/original/file-20200513-82353-1pydbig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334571/original/file-20200513-82353-1pydbig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334571/original/file-20200513-82353-1pydbig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334571/original/file-20200513-82353-1pydbig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gino Nibbi’s Galleria ai Quattro Venti in Rome, c 1953.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Albert Tucker Photographic Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art & State Library of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2020, as our independent booksellers are <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/tense-times-for-bookshops-as-an-unwelcome-chapter-opens-20200320-p54c4w.html">threatened by coronavirus</a>, it is timely to reflect on their importance to Australia’s cultural life. </p>
<p>In the internet age we’re no longer reliant on bookshops to bring news from overseas, but they remain vital incubators of fresh ideas and creative community. </p>
<p>Leonardo Art Shop seeded a homegrown modernism. Who knows what innovations our contemporary booksellers are bringing into life? We’ll only find out if we give them sufficient custom to survive the pandemic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yves Rees does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Nestled in the heart of Melbourne’s city laneways, Leonardo Art Shop - also known as Nibbi’s - provided inspiration and education to a generation of young artists.
Yves Rees, Lecturer in History, La Trobe University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/131214
2020-05-05T04:16:26Z
2020-05-05T04:16:26Z
Dorothea Tanning - an unusual surrealist with a unique female gaze
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318509/original/file-20200304-66078-u9zswi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C2%2C1824%2C1682&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Voltage (1942)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dorothea Tanning Estate</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Woman? All they knew for sure was that they desired her. Désir, a gigantic five-letter word. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>So <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=zDl5Y9w3crgC&pg=PA80&lpg=PA80&dq=Woman?+All+they+knew+for+sure+was+that+they+desired+her.+D%C3%A9sir,+a+gigantic+five-letter+word&source=bl&ots=JCNQEwQkPY&sig=ACfU3U2rq6QVHTxsq6olMRkoeWRUvZmmog&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi0zbCPkpHoAhVxIbcAHb2uDXMQ6AEwAHoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=Woman%3F%20All%20they%20knew%20for%20sure%20was%20that%20they%20desired%20her.%20D%C3%A9sir%2C%20a%20gigantic%20five-letter%20word&f=false">commented</a> American artist <a href="https://www.dorotheatanning.org/">Dorothea Tanning</a> recalling her time in the <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-what-is-surrealism">surrealist</a> milieu of New York in the 1940s. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319754/original/file-20200311-116275-dsz2ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319754/original/file-20200311-116275-dsz2ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319754/original/file-20200311-116275-dsz2ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319754/original/file-20200311-116275-dsz2ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319754/original/file-20200311-116275-dsz2ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319754/original/file-20200311-116275-dsz2ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319754/original/file-20200311-116275-dsz2ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319754/original/file-20200311-116275-dsz2ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On a New York rooftop in 1938.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dorotheatanning.org/life-and-work/2/">Dorothea Tanning Estate</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She had met German artist Max Ernst one day in 1942 when he came to her Manhattan apartment to look at some paintings for an all-woman show at Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery. He selected the only two completed works she had; they played chess and he never went home. </p>
<p>By the time Max knocked on her door, Tanning had seen the <a href="https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2008/dadaatmoma/">Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism</a> exhibition at Museum of Modern Art in 1936 and was already a convert to surrealist imagery. She <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=zDl5Y9w3crgC&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=the+infinitely+faceted+world+I+must+have+been+waiting+for&source=bl&ots=JCNQEwQmSV&sig=ACfU3U2L4Ob0hDdR9P7QF4Wo8yRr4nBOOQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwim54H8kpHoAhWwIbcAHQgRAu8Q6AEwA3oECA4QAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20infinitely%20faceted%20world%20I%20must%20have%20been%20waiting%20for&f=false">described</a> it as “the infinitely faceted world I must have been waiting for”. </p>
<p>The fact the imagery of Dali, Man Ray and Duchamp and their ilk emphasised a “male gaze” did not deter her. While the male surrealists of the time objectified the female body and revelled in desire, Tanning’s work was notable for its interest in actual female experience while also exploring the unconscious – our inner most dreams – as well-springs of creativity. </p>
<h2>From a place where nothing happened</h2>
<p>Tanning was born in 1910 in Galesburg, Illinois, a town in which she <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/dorothea-tanning/dorothea-tanning-family-portrait">declared</a> “nothing ever happened but the wallpaper”. A self-taught creator, she sustained herself as a successful commercial artist while pursuing her own painting. </p>
<p>She was in New York as the surrealists began to arrive, exiled or rescued from a ravaged Europe, and she forged deep friendships with the likes of John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Cornell and Lee Miller. </p>
<p>She and Ernst (who’d previously been married to Peggy Guggenheim) married in 1946 in <a href="https://www.max-ernst.com/biography.jsp">a double ceremony</a> with Man Ray and Juliet P. Browner. The couple moved to France in 1950s after Ernst <a href="https://www.si.edu/object/AAADCD_coll_209252">relinquished his American citizenship</a> in the rigid conservatism and nationalistic Cold War fervour of the McCarthy Era. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318534/original/file-20200304-66078-15829ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318534/original/file-20200304-66078-15829ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318534/original/file-20200304-66078-15829ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318534/original/file-20200304-66078-15829ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318534/original/file-20200304-66078-15829ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318534/original/file-20200304-66078-15829ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318534/original/file-20200304-66078-15829ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318534/original/file-20200304-66078-15829ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (1943)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dorothea Tanning Estate</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fluid spaces</h2>
<p>Tanning developed her own visual language to explore her experiences in a world alive with emotional and psychological complexity. She <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=RVOPnrEcKKsC&pg=PA655&lpg=PA655&dq=to+capture+the+moment,+to+accept+it+with+all+its+complex+identities&source=bl&ots=yvc6qfTqLH&sig=ACfU3U3EBG-FN5O_2wo7PiW5k8_CSUX6jQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiSvaHB0v_nAhUpzDgGHS9xCqsQ6AEwAHoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q=to%20capture%20the%20moment%2C%20to%20accept%20it%20with%20all%20its%20complex%20identities&f=false">aimed</a> “to capture the moment, to accept it with all its complex identities”. She was interested in the fluid spaces in between realities – places of infinite possibility. </p>
<p>Accordingly, her characters are often caught in states of physical, emotional or psychological transformation. Her work demonstrates a preoccupation with thresholds, liminal and transitional spaces in which fantasy, reality, sensation and imagination converge. Her 1976 work <a href="https://www.dorotheatanning.org/life-and-work/view/98/">Murmurs</a> illustrates this. </p>
<p>Her repeated motifs of doors, wallpaper and cloth are symbols of these thresholds that create otherworldy spaces. She was interested in how irrational events are folded into mundane, everyday interiors. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319755/original/file-20200311-116281-eprizq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319755/original/file-20200311-116281-eprizq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319755/original/file-20200311-116281-eprizq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319755/original/file-20200311-116281-eprizq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319755/original/file-20200311-116281-eprizq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319755/original/file-20200311-116281-eprizq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319755/original/file-20200311-116281-eprizq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319755/original/file-20200311-116281-eprizq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202 (Poppy Hotel, Room 202) 1970-73.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dorotheatanning.org/images/originals/73.5.00HotelduPavot.jpg">Dorothea Tanning Estate</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tanning’s work satellites around the feminine form, its boundaries, movements, abstractions and sensations. She was fascinated with the lived experience of the female body in maternity or when confronted by violence. She depicted childhood and puberty in works like <a href="https://www.dorotheatanning.org/life-and-work/view/71/">The Guest Room</a> as both <a href="https://repository.asu.edu/items/17400">desired and dreaded</a>. </p>
<p>Tanning explored relationship dynamics – in families, among strangers, in the bond between human and animals (particularly dogs) – through voluptuous surfaces of paint, cloth or tissue paper that convey a sense of perpetual transformation. In works like <a href="https://www.dorotheatanning.org/life-and-work/view/521/">Family Portrait</a> (1977) she visibly collapses the boundaries between her figures to engage the imagination of any viewer. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/92LvYigLMLc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Tanning was the subject of a retrospective at London’s Tate last year.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Always creating</h2>
<p>Tanning returned permanently to New York in 1980 soon after Ernst’s death. While she continued to make visual artwork, she increasingly turned her hand to writing, becoming an accomplished and well-published poet. </p>
<p>In a career spanning more than 70 years, her prodigious output included: painting, drawing, print and etching, sculptures, fabric installation, etchings, jewellery, costume and set designs, collage, memoirs, fiction and several volumes of poetry. </p>
<p>She was still producing extraordinary work when I met her in 2000 and began a friendship that lasted until her death in 2012. Her consummate skill as an artist was acknowledged among her peers throughout her life, and her work features in international galleries including Tate, San Francisco and New York Museums of Modern Art and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. </p>
<p>Tanning’s work has recently returned to the spotlight in recognition of its unique contribution to visual art. The first major retrospective of her work in 25 years was held at <a href="https://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/exhibitions/dorothea-tanning">Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía</a> in Spain and London’s <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/dorothea-tanning/dorothea-tanning-family-portrait">Tate Modern</a> last year. Her work was also included in the 2013 Venice Biennale. </p>
<p>Scholars have also begun paying attention to her work. In November, my monograph <a href="https://www.lundhumphries.com/products/75468">Dorothea Tanning: Transformations</a>, the first devoted to her, traced her career’s recurrent themes and preoccupations. As an artist interested in exploring the richness of human experience from a feminine viewpoint, Tanning’s work occupies a singular position in the history of modern art.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131214/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victoria Carruthers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
At a time when surrealists were objectifying women’s bodies, American artist Dorothea Tanning was looking deeper at the transformative potential of female experience and the unconscious.
Victoria Carruthers, Senior lecturer, Australian Catholic University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/129688
2020-04-28T20:32:43Z
2020-04-28T20:32:43Z
Terra nullius interruptus: Captain James Cook and absent presence in First Nations art
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311023/original/file-20200121-69535-lot4sr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4000%2C2000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vincent Namatjira, Western Arrernte people, Northern Territory, born 1983, Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Close Contact, 2018, Indulkana, South Australia, synthetic polymer paint on plywood; Gift of the James & Diana Ramsay Foundation for the Ramsay Art Prize 2019</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, photo: Grant Hancock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/cook250-78244">here</a> and an interactive <a href="https://cook250.netlify.app/">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In Vincent Namatjira’s <a href="https://www.adelaidereview.com.au/arts/visual-arts/2019/05/24/vincent-namatjira-2019-ramsay-art-prize/">Ramsay Award winning</a> Close Contact (2018), the artist construes Captain James Cook as the reverse image of his own self-portrait. The colonising presence of Cook looking toward a colonial future is satirised by making another present: Vincent Namatjira’s self-portrait looks out in a diametrically different direction. </p>
<p>Towards what, exactly?</p>
<p>Australia’s link to Cook has always been mediated by iconography. Cook was a promise recollected in pigment, bronze and stone to a nation at war with its first inhabitants and possessors. </p>
<p>Cook, and the violence of colonisation in his wake, embodied a claim to a vast inheritance: of Enlightenment and modernity at the expense of peoples already here.</p>
<p>Since his foundational ritual of possession, First Nations people have called for a reckoning with Cook’s legacies, and in recent years First Nations artists have reinvigorated this call.</p>
<p>By invoking the presence of Cook, they ask their audience to recognise how colonisation and empire rendered them all but absent – and his celebration today continues to do so. </p>
<h2>Taking possession</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/artist/3971/">Samuel Calvert</a>’s 1865 print, Cook Taking Possession of the Australian Continent on Behalf of the British Crown, the noisy presence of the newcomers’ industry and weapons drives two huddled Aboriginal men into the bush. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309367/original/file-20200109-80144-173vy1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309367/original/file-20200109-80144-173vy1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309367/original/file-20200109-80144-173vy1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309367/original/file-20200109-80144-173vy1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309367/original/file-20200109-80144-173vy1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309367/original/file-20200109-80144-173vy1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/309367/original/file-20200109-80144-173vy1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Captain Cook taking possession of the Australian continent on behalf of the British Crown A.D. 1770 (c. 1853-1864), colour process engraving.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Wathaurung Elder <a href="https://www.thecourier.com.au/story/6337673/the-gilson-family-are-telling-wathaurung-stories-to-thousands-at-white-night-melbourne/">Aunty Marlene Gilson</a> re-worked Calvert’s image in The Landing (2018): widening the lens to show peoples living in the landscape. </p>
<p>Gilson imaginatively runs together Calvert’s imagery with accounts of Governor Phillip’s <a href="https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/arthur-phillip-bicentenary">later landing</a>. As the flag is hoisted ships hover in the bay. Colonisation was a process of denying who was already there, the First Nations families and figures Gilson captures in lively habitation on land and water. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311718/original/file-20200124-162240-vhmbl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311718/original/file-20200124-162240-vhmbl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311718/original/file-20200124-162240-vhmbl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311718/original/file-20200124-162240-vhmbl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311718/original/file-20200124-162240-vhmbl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311718/original/file-20200124-162240-vhmbl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311718/original/file-20200124-162240-vhmbl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The landing, 2018, Marlene Gilson, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Marlene Gilson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gilson challenges the mythology of empire: that empty territory needed no treaty.</p>
<p>Gilson’s image is also a homage to <a href="https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/artists/gordon-bennett/">Gordon Bennett</a>’s earlier reworking of Calvert in <a href="http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2007/important-aboriginal-art-au0712/lot.100.html">Possession Island</a> (1991). Bennett deliberately obscured Cook and his companions, with the exception of one dark-skinned servant. The presumptuous act of possession is only glimpsed behind a <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-looking-at-blue-poles-by-jackson-pollock-51655">Jackson Pollock</a>-like forest of lines. Visual static intervenes. Terra nullius interruptus. </p>
<p>This obscurity stands in marked contrast to <a href="https://www.christianthompson.net">Christian Thompson</a>’s Othering the Explorer, James Cook (2015). Part of his Museum of Others series, his images invite us to consider the effacement of First Nations people by colonial authority and knowledge. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311890/original/file-20200125-81336-e9e19q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311890/original/file-20200125-81336-e9e19q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311890/original/file-20200125-81336-e9e19q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311890/original/file-20200125-81336-e9e19q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311890/original/file-20200125-81336-e9e19q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311890/original/file-20200125-81336-e9e19q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311890/original/file-20200125-81336-e9e19q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dr Christian Thompson AO, Museum of Others (Othering the Explorer, James Cook), 2016. c-type on metallic paper, 120 x 120 cm, from the Museum of Others series.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the artist & Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thompson superimposes Cook’s head and shoulders on the artist’s own. His choice of images is deliberate, the 1775 <a href="https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/14102.html">Nathaniel Dance</a> portrait of Cook in full naval regalia glowering over his Pacific “discoveries”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311024/original/file-20200121-69559-13qugo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311024/original/file-20200121-69559-13qugo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311024/original/file-20200121-69559-13qugo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311024/original/file-20200121-69559-13qugo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311024/original/file-20200121-69559-13qugo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311024/original/file-20200121-69559-13qugo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311024/original/file-20200121-69559-13qugo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Official portrait of Captain James Cook, c 1776, by Nathaniel Dance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Maritime Museum, United Kingdom</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since European colonisation, the assertion of the discoverer’s right to possess has erased the rich tapestry of prior ownership and belonging. In Thompson’s wry self-effacement, Cook’s superimposition is a reminder of someone already there. This was always the coloniser’s ploy. Presence as absence is a conceit of colonisation.</p>
<p>The presence of absence informs <a href="https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/artists/daniel-boyd/">Daniel Boyd</a>’s re-imagination of Cook’s landing in We Call Them Pirates Out Here (2006), a re-working of <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/fox-e-phillips/">E. Phillips Fox</a>’s Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay (1902). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311025/original/file-20200121-69568-wbcnm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311025/original/file-20200121-69568-wbcnm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311025/original/file-20200121-69568-wbcnm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311025/original/file-20200121-69568-wbcnm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311025/original/file-20200121-69568-wbcnm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311025/original/file-20200121-69568-wbcnm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311025/original/file-20200121-69568-wbcnm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">E. Phillips Fox, Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, 1770, c1902.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Gallery of Victoria</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Phillips Fox portrayed Cook restraining his men from shooting the distantly pictured “natives”. This was empire as it wished to be seen: peaceful, British, white and triumphant. </p>
<p>Boyd plays on the flattery of imperial self-imagining by exposing the wilful piracy of colonial possession. Boyd’s Cook cuts the same imperial dash, but with an eye patch and skull and crossbones on the Union Jack behind him empire is revealed as the pirate’s resort. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311309/original/file-20200122-117943-1yvwuxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311309/original/file-20200122-117943-1yvwuxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311309/original/file-20200122-117943-1yvwuxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311309/original/file-20200122-117943-1yvwuxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311309/original/file-20200122-117943-1yvwuxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311309/original/file-20200122-117943-1yvwuxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311309/original/file-20200122-117943-1yvwuxc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Daniel Boyd, We Call them Pirates Out Here, 2006, oil on canvas, Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the Coe and Mordant families, 2006.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Daniel Boyd</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Challenging mythologies</h2>
<p>The growing First Nations challenge to Cook’s iconography highlights his continued presence in our nation’s colonial mythology. </p>
<p>It is a challenge to Cook’s elevation as hero of the modern Australia built on Indigenous erasure. Jason Wing’s bronze bust of a balaclava-wearing <a href="https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/25.2019/">Captain James Crook</a> (2013) symbolises that challenge. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312184/original/file-20200128-81395-u39p2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312184/original/file-20200128-81395-u39p2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312184/original/file-20200128-81395-u39p2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312184/original/file-20200128-81395-u39p2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312184/original/file-20200128-81395-u39p2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312184/original/file-20200128-81395-u39p2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312184/original/file-20200128-81395-u39p2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jason Wing, Captain James Crook, 2013, bronze, 60 x 60 x 30cm, edition of 5. Photograph by Garrie Maguire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of the Artist and Artereal Gallery.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Wing’s addition of the balaclava forces us to confront Cook’s legacy not as the projected shining icon of Enlightenment, but as a mythic presence built on deliberate theft, dispossession and violence. </p>
<p>These are only a small collection of artists reconsidering the place of Cook in our collective memory. Provocative, challenging, arresting, often satirical and sometimes funny, First Nations artists powerfully challenge us to reconsider Cook and our nation’s iconography.</p>
<p>Within the art lies an open invitation to reflect on who we have become and where we are headed. </p>
<p>This invitation is highlighted in Fiona Foley’s <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/artist-fiona-foley-explores-how-opium-was-used-to-control-aboriginal-labour-20191230-p53niv.html">most recent retrospective</a>, named for a song by Joe Gala and Teila Watson performed in Badtjala and English: Who are these strangers and where are they going? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tall-ship-tales-oral-accounts-illuminate-past-encounters-and-objects-but-we-need-to-get-our-story-straight-129978">Tall ship tales: oral accounts illuminate past encounters and objects, but we need to get our story straight</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The song weaves together the narratives of the First Nations people who first saw the Endeavour make its way along the coast. Together with the photographs and installations drawn from across Foley’s long career, the retrospective is a powerful affirmation of continuing presence: in 1770, in 1788, and today. </p>
<p>As we confront the Cook commemorations, Foley’s and the Badtjalas’ question, like Namatjira’s double-sided self-portrait, is a nudge to our nation’s future. Who are these strangers and where are they going? </p>
<p>By reminding us that the question was asked of Cook’s sudden presence in 1770, we must ask it again of ourselves to confront the absence his possession still makes present for us 250 years on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129688/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruce Buchan receives research funding from the Swedish Foundation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and from the Swedish Research Council, for two projects with Dr Linda Andersson Burnett: ‘The Borders of Humanity: Linnaean Natural Historians and the Colonial Legacies of Enlightenment’ (P15-0423:1) 2016-19, and 'Collecting Mankind: Prehistory, Race and Instructions for ‘Scientific Travelers’, circa 1750-1850' (2019-03358) 2020-24.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eddie Synot does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For too long, Cook was a promise recollected in pigment, bronze and stone. Contemporary First Nations artists are challenging this imagery.
Bruce Buchan, Associate Professor, Griffith University
Eddie Synot, Centre Manager, Indigenous Law Centre, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/134153
2020-03-25T18:43:22Z
2020-03-25T18:43:22Z
Virtual zoos, museums and galleries: 14 sites with great free art and entertainment
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322802/original/file-20200325-181239-myebk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C80%2C6659%2C4335&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/O7kjKKuUyCA">Kerensa Pickett/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the coronavirus outbreak forces the closure of museums, art galleries, libraries and theatres around the word, the concept of “on demand culture” is gaining momentum. </p>
<p>Institutions – museums, galleries and concert halls, which by their very nature rely on in-person visits – are seeking out digital solutions in the form of live-streamed performances, virtual tours and searches of online collections. The Sydney Biennale announced a <a href="https://www.biennaleofsydney.art/?gclid=CjwKCAjw3-bzBRBhEiwAgnnLCh7Dci4zUp2TZ2UWAdSHNyu4crESwT52p0og5UA-FouEesZ8lzZ_7xoCD3AQAvD_BwE">shift to digital</a> display this week and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has streamed a <a href="https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/culture/music/online-and-on-song-mso-keep-the-music-going-20200322-p54cm2.html">performance</a> of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony to a live audience that peaked at 4500 and gathered thousands of subsequent viewers. </p>
<p>The current pandemic is dragging cultural institutions into the 21st century, forcing them to catch up with technological solutions to replace on-site experiences. But many institutions are already well down this path. They have already found the shift online has benefits and dangers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322799/original/file-20200325-181239-1y93ctg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322799/original/file-20200325-181239-1y93ctg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322799/original/file-20200325-181239-1y93ctg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322799/original/file-20200325-181239-1y93ctg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322799/original/file-20200325-181239-1y93ctg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322799/original/file-20200325-181239-1y93ctg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322799/original/file-20200325-181239-1y93ctg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322799/original/file-20200325-181239-1y93ctg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wandering Netherlands’ Museum Voorlinden will have to wait.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1525067445930-5968dc619dfb?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=765&q=80">Christian Fregnan/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Crossing technical boundaries</h2>
<p>From as early as the 1920s, museums have been using the technologies of the day. Back then, it was presenting <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=XDZ7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT78&lpg=PT78&dq=1920s+museum+lectures+on+public+radio&source=bl&ots=gD-dFO6UN8&sig=ACfU3U2pXdZIo3UGAnTODDW7VUcvtJvjbA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjDreuvu7ToAhX-zzgGHb-3CfMQ6AEwA3oECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=1920s%20museum%20lectures%20on%20public%20radio&f=false">public lectures on broadcast radio</a>. </p>
<p>From the early to mid-1950s, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology collaborated with CBS to produce <a href="https://www.penn.museum/collections/videos/playlist/list.php?id=7">What in the World</a>, a program that presented storeroom objects to a panel of industry specialists who had to figure out what in the world the objects were and who made them. </p>
<p>A more recent turn is towards cultural institutions partnering with digital media organisations to deliver access to mediated cultural content. <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/">Google Arts & Culture</a>, a digital platform, makes the collections of over 12,000 museums available online. Web portal <a href="https://www.europeana.eu/en">Europeana</a>, created by the European Union, hosts over 3,000 museums and libraries.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322803/original/file-20200325-181185-1q0v6i2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322803/original/file-20200325-181185-1q0v6i2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322803/original/file-20200325-181185-1q0v6i2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322803/original/file-20200325-181185-1q0v6i2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322803/original/file-20200325-181185-1q0v6i2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322803/original/file-20200325-181185-1q0v6i2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322803/original/file-20200325-181185-1q0v6i2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322803/original/file-20200325-181185-1q0v6i2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You can visit The British Museum via Google Arts & Culture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1577729507926-78897cc4de05?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80">Nicolas Lysandrou/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Well before the coronavirus closed ticket desks and moved some experiences onto digital media platforms, virtual gateways had become an important means of generating awareness and engagement with culture. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.annefrank.org/en/">Anne Frank House</a> has illustrated how online visitors can take part in holocaust remembrance without travelling to Amsterdam. Anne Frank House now uses a chatbot to create personalised conversations with users globally via Facebook messenger. Similarly, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/eva.stories/?hl=en">Eva.Stories</a> is an Instagram page that recounts, via a series of 15 second videos, the diary of a 13-year-old girl killed in a concentration camp.</p>
<h2>Doors shut</h2>
<p>The forced closures as a result of coronavirus will accelerate and amplify this shift towards digital transformation. </p>
<p>At a time of social distancing, individual artists, small private companies and major public cultural institutions are quickly re-purposing technology in creative ways. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.artscentremelbourne.com.au/festival-and-series/morning-melodies">Morning Melodies</a> is an online broadcast of the usually popular live performances offered by the Victoria Arts Centre. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/music-reads/features/isol-aid-festival-review-2020-covid-19-julia-jacklin-spacey-jane/12082228">Isol-Aid</a> live streamed a music festival over the weekend, with 72 musicians across Australia each playing a 20-minute set on Instagram. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/events/melbourne-cinematheque/">Australian Centre for the Moving Image</a> has set up an online weekly film nights, while acknowledging it “can’t replace the joy of being in the cinema”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322805/original/file-20200325-181185-1nshnab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322805/original/file-20200325-181185-1nshnab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/322805/original/file-20200325-181185-1nshnab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322805/original/file-20200325-181185-1nshnab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322805/original/file-20200325-181185-1nshnab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322805/original/file-20200325-181185-1nshnab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322805/original/file-20200325-181185-1nshnab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/322805/original/file-20200325-181185-1nshnab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has opened its doors online.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1514905552197-0610a4d8fd73?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80">Ståle Grut/Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What might be lost</h2>
<p>Despite the benefits of this mediated content, social media scholars Jose Van Dijck and Thomas Poell <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2309065">point out</a> digital technologies come with a set of core logics or rules that shape users, economic structures and institutions. These underlying rules of online engagement have long-term implications for how we engage with culture. For future generations, it’s conceivable that a visit to the library, museum, theatre or art gallery won’t be something experienced in person but rather through a digital media platform. </p>
<p>With the “on demand culture” comes a dispersal of audiences into online spaces. In those spaces, their private contemplation of art and culture can become fodder for data mining and analysis. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"952726132377509889"}"></div></p>
<p>This data then feeds into the repurposing of cultural content according to the priorities of social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. In 2018, Google Culture launched a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/15/578151195/google-app-goes-viral-making-an-art-out-of-matching-faces-to-paintings">face match app</a> that matched user selfies to images drawn from cultural collections. It expanded access for new global audiences, but questions remain about the extent to which phone camera images were used to train Google’s facial recognition algorithm. Some users were critical of the collection’s <a href="https://twitter.com/KaraBTweets/status/952572084076646400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E952572084076646400&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fsections%2Fthetwo-way%2F2018%2F01%2F15%2F578151195%2Fgoogle-app-goes-viral-making-an-art-out-of-matching-faces-to-paintings">lack of diversity</a>.</p>
<p>The mediation of culture highlights a new set of ethical dilemmas as content goes online. </p>
<h2>What we gain</h2>
<p>This isn’t to say the availability of “on demand” cultural content isn’t a good thing. At “normal” times it can allow people to virtually visit exhibitions or enjoy performances they can’t access in real life. Online presentations can enhance understanding with “explore more” links or additional information. </p>
<p>During times of crisis, online cultural experiences can be a <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90478442/for-artists-the-show-must-go-on-and-zoom-is-their-venue">lifeline for both art audiences and creators</a>. It is vital that we create avenues through which the community can access culture and seek out technological solutions to keep artists and cultural workers employed during what could be a long hiatus. </p>
<h2>14 art & culture links</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://abiawards.com.au/">Australian Book Industry Awards</a> will be awarded online, as will the <a href="https://thestellaprize.com.au/prize/2020-prize/">Stella Prize</a> for female authors.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1143946145941832/">Born to Boogie Dance Connection</a> is hosting a much-needed online groove this week. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/dnice/">Club Quarantine</a> is where DJ D-Nice or Derrick Jones from 90s hip-hop group Boogie Down Productions is spinning tracks for 100,000+ viewers. Guest appearances include Michelle Obama, Naomi Campbell, Chaka Khan, Halle Berry, Rihanna, and Diddy.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en">Europeana Collections</a> are celebrating Women’s History Month.</li>
<li><a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/">Google Art and Culture</a>
Explore collections from around the world, from the British Museum to Macchu Pichu.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/">Guggenheim Museum Bilbao</a> in Spain is the place for Mark Rothco, Jeff Koons and Richard Serra. </li>
<li><a href="https://karaoke.camp/">Karaoke Camp</a> uses Zoom to connect singers worldwide.</li>
<li><a href="https://museumsvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/at-home/">Melbourne Museum</a> has virtual tours of the Phar Lap, dinosaur and First Peoples displays. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.mmca.go.kr/eng/">National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art</a>, South Korea is showing meet the curators chats on YouTube. </li>
<li><a href="https://nowadays.nyc/">Nowadays</a> live music lounge in New York is streaming DJs online. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en">Rijksmuseum</a> is home to Dutch masters: Vermeer’s Milkmaid, Van Gogh’s Self-portrait and Rembrandt’s most well-known painting: the Night Watch. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.socialdistancingfestival.com/">Social Distancing Festival</a> is drawing live streaming performances together in one place.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.zoo.org.au/animal-house">Zoos Victoria’s Animal House</a> is livestreaming lions, giraffes, snow leopard cubs, penguins and the occasional <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/headlines/52000441/coronavirus-melbourne-zookeeper-s-livestream-dance-goes-viral">dancing zoo keeper</a>.</li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Caroline Wilson-Barnao does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
COVID-19 is dragging some arts institutions into the 21st century. Others are already well down this path. What we win and lose when culture goes online and a bunch of links you can enjoy today.
Dr Caroline Wilson-Barnao, Lecturer, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.