Menu Close

Arts – Articles, Analysis, Comment

Displaying 3576 - 3600 of 5066 articles

The use of live animals in the visual arts provokes important ethic questions. Pictured: Pierre Huyghe Untilled (2011-2012). Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris; Esther Schipper, Berlin.

Contemporary art, animals and ethics: Pierre Huyghe’s interspecies worlds

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.
The anti-communist pogrom in Indonesia 50 years ago not only destroyed human lives but also significant cultural works made by the country’s left-inspired artists. Molodec/www.shutterstock.com

Death of a film legacy: remembering Indonesia’s Bachtiar Siagian

Arguably Indonesia’s most significant leftist film director and theorist, Bachtiar Siagian, was among the millions who fell prey to the communist purge carried out between 1965 and 1966.
Young actresses Georgia Taplin, Bella Thomas, Sasha Rose and Molly Barwick share the title role in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Matilda The Musical. David Moir/AAP

Marvellous Matilda: the child on stage

Can you fake innocence? The four professional actresses playing Mathilda are part of a long tradition of idealised childhood.
At the film premiere of Suffragette, Sisters Uncut’s Dead Women Can’t Vote campaigners protested against Britain’s domestic violence policies by featuring the colours of the Women’s Social and Political Union. Will Oliver/AAP

The suffragettes were rebels, certainly, but not slaves

When Meryl Streep and the stars of the upcoming film Suffragette donned t-shirts emblazoned with the quote “I’d rather be a rebel than a slave,” they reignited a contentious debate in feminism.
Film festivals are not the only venues where the film industry produces all male panels. AAP/Javier Etxezarreta

The league of men: why are there so few female film critics?

Next time you’re looking for a film to see at the cinema, take note of the reviews you’re reading and who wrote them. How much is the gender and age of the author influencing what you see?
The niche television market is now the place to be. Fred Mantel/www.shutterstock.com

New rules for a new generation of television producers

Mass media is on its way out, and the pursuit and influence of niche audiences has fundamentally reshaped everything from the music industry to publishing. Now it’s reshaping television.
Magda Szubanski in one of her most famous roles - Sharon Strzelecki - in Kath and Kim, with actors Gina Riley, Peter Rowsthorn, Glenn Robbins and Jane Turner. Paul Jeffers/AAP

Magda Szubanski’s Reckoning: A Memoir

Magda Szubanski’s engaging debut memoir, Reckoning, is an exercise in precisely that: reconciling the past. It is also a celebration of the life and career of one of our greatest comedians.
Fanfiction: all it takes is to imagine a story beyond the canonical work. Kristina Alexanderson/flickr

Explainer: what is fanfiction?

Fanfiction is nebulous, confusing and often mocked. It’s also explosively popular. So what is it?
Christina Hendricks with the Mad Men costume sketches being archived by the Smithsonian. But academics were interested in television long before Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Mad Men. Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Mad Men, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the ‘Golden Age’ of television

Before Buffy The Vampire Slayer intrigued academics, shows like I Love Lucy dominated the cultural conversation. This is worth remembering, because Mad Men and The Wire didn’t emerge from nowhere.
Rabbits transgresses the increasingly porous boundary traditional opera and contemporary musical theatre to great effect. Jon Green

A genre-hopping triumph: The Rabbits

The Rabbits has adapted Shaun Tan’s evocative paintings and John Marsden’s spare storytelling into a rich and compelling “opera”.
As regional television flounders, a new approach to deregulation is needed. www.shutterstock.com

To save local voices we need a different kind of deregulation

The Save Our Voices campaign argues that existing media rules are “squeezing the life out of our regional TV networks”. But the real story is more complex. Reform is necessary, but so too is local content.
Circus posters. flickr

Circus and politics: a very Australian mix

Contemporary circus and circus-infused physical theatre are amongst Australia’s most innovative and in-demand cultural exports. It’s a performance craft with a proud history behind it.
Camp kitchen with the Australian and Light Horse Regiment Queensland, Queensland 1914. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

Feeding the troops: the emotional meaning of food in wartime

Food is central to experiences of war - think of the humble ANZAC biscuit - for both soldiers and those on the home front. Yet we are only just beginning to understand its emotional, social and political significance.
Part protest, part dance party, part autobiography, Flexn tells stories of police brutality and racism in dance. Stephanie Berger, Courtesy of Park Avenue Armory

A new protest movement: Flexn your message through dance

Flex, a dance style that originated in Jamaica in the 1990s, has evolved into a protest movement in the US that enables its practitioners to articulate their experiences of racism, police brutality and violence.
To bring arts policy into the 21st century, we need to update and correct the basic economic flaws that were baked into the mid-20th century model. Fabrik Bilder/Shutterstock

Leaving legacies behind: arts policy for the here and now

Turnbull’s 21st century vision for government provides an opportunity to fundamentally rethink arts and cultural policy from the ground up and move beyond its 20th century legacy.
The ills that afflict any society can be dealt with much more effectively when the arts are integrated into the national conversation. John Gollings/AAPONE

Finding our identity: arts policy and the future

What if Malcolm Turbull’s conception of “21st-century government” imagines a healthy civil society and a responsive economy that values debate, imagination, difference and surprise - all provided by the arts.