There are as many ways to summarise a “year in art” as there are eyes to look at art with. Art had some shining – and not-so-shining – moments in 2015.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Visual art
Displaying 221 - 240 of 319 articles
Gough Whitlam’s government paid $A1.3 million for Jackson Pollock’s Blue poles in 1973. But why exactly is this ‘seemingly unintelligible mess of house paint’ revered as a masterpiece?
Lurid Beauty is the first major examination of Australian Surrealism and its profound impact on Australian art from the 1930s to the present day. So how does it all hang together?
The title of Parke’s current exhibition alludes to a 19th-century faith in the camera’s mechanical vision as superior to human vision – while also complicating that assumption for modern viewers.
Despite rhetoric positioning Australia as a clever and creative country, its artists, particularly in the visual arts, are doing it tough, and things are progressing from bad to worse. Why is that?
Many voices have united in claiming the toy giant Lego is censoring the provocative Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. There are so many things wrong with those arguments it’s hard to know where to begin.
What makes Ai Wei Wei so powerful? Critics say if he didn’t exist, he’d need to be invented: an artist who’s combined his life and art into a politically charged performance that helps define how we see modern China.
In the middle of a rose garden, on a leafy road in northwest London, nestles the Freud Museum – though the petals, in October, are tumbling. The house, at 20 Maresfield Gardens, is the proud bearer of…
At the opening night of her private view and book launch, poet and artist Frieda Hughes appeared at the door of the Belgravia Gallery in Mayfair, a small but striking figure in a pillarbox-red suit. In…
An exhibition of works by contemporary French artist Pierre Huyghe raises questions around the ethical treatment of animals by artists - and whether live animals have a place in the visual arts.
Shortlisted for the Turner in 1997, Christine Borland discusses the suffocating nature of the prize and its shortsighted attempts to branch out.
The Horse, currently on display at the National Gallery of Victoria, celebrates the pivotal role the horse has played in the evolution of civilisation.
What you should know about Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
Succeeding generations need to know where they are placed in the unfolding grand narrative of Aboriginal art. Those of us who are not Aboriginal need to understand the complex relationship between settler Australians and the people of the land.
Masterpieces from the Hermitage: The legacy of Catherine the Great is currently on show at the National Gallery of Victoria. But who, exactly was Catherine II, the Empress of Russia?
We have reached a point where apocalyptic vocabulary litters writing – but the end of the world has always populated paintings, and betrays a lot about contemporary concerns.
Artist Mike Parr’s career might be best described as a series of alarming acts - he’s cut his legs with a scalpel and used his blood as paint. His latest act is erase his work by painting it white.
If Kim Kardashian is being peddled to us as both art and feminism, we – and she – are in really dire straits.
Bold programming at the Edinburgh Fringe challenges the engrained tick-box culture, which at its worst, serves only to pay lip service to diversity.
Held annually in venues all over South Australia for the entirety of August, SALA’s magnitude and reach, its extraordinary range of exhibition venues, both conventional and left-of-field, make it unique.
Top contributors
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Joanna Mendelssohn is a Friend of The Conversation.Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
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Honorary Professor, Edith Cowan University
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Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University
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Professor in Art, Curtin University
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Senior Lecturer of art history, Griffith University
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Senior Industry Fellow, RMIT University
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Honorary Senior Lecturer, Australian National University
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Honorary Lecturer, School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Australian National University
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Author and Research Fellow, UNSW Sydney
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Emerita Professor, Art History and Curatorship, University of Adelaide
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Associate Professor at UNSW Art & Design, UNSW Sydney
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Senior Research Fellow, Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne
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Visiting Researcher in Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University
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Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Creative Practice, University of Tasmania
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Lecturer in Screen and Cultural Studies, The University of Melbourne
