It was the 1960s when a curator — who shall remain nameless — was ordered to hang Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira’s work in his gallery. He hung the painting next to the ladies toilet with a vase of…
Simon Crean has set out a forward-looking proposal for the future of Australian arts. But will it last?
AAP/Alan Porritt
By Ben Goldsmith, Queensland University of Technology
The first major national cultural policy in 19 years was unveiled by Minister for the Arts Simon Crean yesterday. Minister Crean has called it “a national cultural policy for the decade.” Uncharitable…
Opera Australia and the Sydney Opera House need to work together to secure opera’s future.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
It was built for the art form but you’d be forgiven for thinking the Sydney Opera House is a little ashamed of opera.
Months go by without any mention of opera performances on the Opera House’s Facebook…
A high number of artists and writers meet the diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder.
Eddi van W.
Does some fine madness yield great artists, writers, and scientists? The evidence is growing for a significant link between bipolar disorder and creative temperament and achievement.
People with bipolar…
No war was photographed like Vietnam and many of these images still speak to us today.
Photographer: Michael Coleridge. Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial EKN/67/0130/VN.
An unprecedented level of media coverage made the Vietnam war a watershed moment in the discipline of photography.
The images by official military photographers, photojournalists, and individual soldiers…
Art history is falling out of favour with universities but why? We need to look at the reasons behind this change.
AAP Image/Warren Clarke
The impending closure of art history at La Trobe University has drawn sharp criticism from academics. They have pointed out that students enjoy art history: it is economical, has enduring value and demonstrably…
The true value of art cannot be measured by economic standards.
Flickr/TruShu
In 2012, public debate over the value of art and culture has reignited as conservative state governments in Victoria and Queensland cut arts funding from their budgets.
Queensland Premier Campbell Newman…
Cutting the art history department at La Trobe university is short-sighted.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
La Trobe university’s art history department is set to be abolished, with a consultation period over the changes to the university’s humanities program to end this month.
While one art history department…
Australia has to take the initiative if we want to build a relationship with Asia based on the arts.
AAP
WHAT IS AUSTRALIA FOR? Australia is no longer small, remote or isolated. It’s time to ask What Is Australia For?, and to acknowledge the wealth of resources we have beyond mining. Over the next two weeks…
Courageous dissent? “The MTC is patting itself on the back for staging The Heretic. But the MTC is not being bold … it is being cowardly.”
Flickr/Carlton Browne
Who would have thought the Melbourne Theatre Company would get into bed with Andrew Bolt?
The MTC’s new play The Heretic, which premieres on 17 May, tells the story of climate scientist Dr Diane Cassell…
Mitchell has been investigating ways to get Australians to give more to the arts.
AAP/Alan Porritt
By Wendy Scaife, Queensland University of Technology
Harold Mitchell’s review of private sector arts support is a bit like Ian Thorpe in his swimming heyday.
He’s a big presence, and has dived in with a determined goal and a strategy to win “gold” for the…
The following is a poem commissioned by The Conversation from Sydney City Poet, Kate Middleton on the year that was.
Did you read about the MARS-500 simulation?
Six men in isolation sharing a broken English…
aapone file switzerland britain literature julian barnes original.
Julian Barnes’ 11th novel represents an interesting choice for the judges of this year’s Booker Prize, and it goes without saying that a prize like this is always going to arouse criticism and even controversy…
It’s fourth time lucky for Julian Barnes in the Booker Prize.
EPA/Alessandro Della Bella
Julian Barnes today won the Man Booker Prize for his novel about a childhood friendship and the fragility of memory, The Sense of an Ending. This is the fourth time he’s been nominated, and Barnes declared…
Ballet Revolucion perform in Perth – one of Australia’s most culturally affordable cities.
AAP
Australia’s dispersed population and its vast tyrannies of distance has created a major, ongoing, cultural divide.
The relative costs of consuming culture between bush and city are starkly skewed in favour…
Art nation: Australia is developing a new national cultural policy to position us for the next decade.
AAP
Australia is on a promise to develop a National Cultural Policy, the first since Creative Nation in 1994.
Minister for the Arts Simon Crean has released a discussion paper designed to examine how Australia…
Art galleries need to measure visitors' engagement with modern works, like this one by Tomas Saraceno at the Museum for Contemporary Art in Berlin.
EPA/Maurizio Gambarini
There seems little doubt that the rise of widespread international interest and investment in contemporary art and contemporary art museums has stimulated a demand for diverse and compelling programs that…
Ben Quilty’s portrait of Margaret Olley won the Archibald Prize this year.
Art Gallery of New South Wales: www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au
Margaret Olley, one of Australia’s best known artists, has died at her home in Sydney. She was 88.
The Conversation asked Christopher Menz, the Acting Director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art at University…
Under the Milky Way is an iconic Australian song.
flickr/Doug Klembara
Sometimes we just get sucked into a story. Reason, caution and scepticism sometimes just get swiftly sidelined for a story that’s captivating. And sometimes, along the gay girl in Syria, Colorado balloon…
Kim Scott’s tale of early settler relations has been applauded by the literary community.
The Trust Company
Western Australian author Kim Scott won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for the second time last night with his fifth novel, That Deadman Dance.
Described by one judge as “post-reconciliation” fiction…
Conversation is civilized speech. It is more purposeful than chatter; more humane than gossip; more intimate than debate. But it is an elusive ideal.
In our verbal exchanges we often flip from one topic…
Chris Lilley’s Gran character is written too large to be ignored.
ABC Television publicity
Last night’s premiere of Chris Lilley’s third mockumentary series, Angry Boys, was a reminder that television comedy in Australia as we once knew it has changed forever.
In the wake of the popular successes…
Ben Quilty’s “Margaret Olley” has divided the critics.
Art Gallery of New South Wales: www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au
This year’s Archibald prize has gone to Ben Quilty’s portrait of Australian artist Margaret Olley.
It’s an award often criticised for being populist or irrelevant, and there’s no reason to think that…
