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Articles on Visual art

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Gladwell’s work will be displayed at the art school where he earned his Masters degree and the gallery where he was first represented. Untitled – Murramarang Plank, 2014. Photo: Lucille Gladwell

Shaun Gladwell is returning to Sydney, and may not shed tears

With two exhibitions opening in Sydney this week, Shaun Gladwell is returning home, with a star still in the ascendant.
Pictures drawn by children detained on Christmas Island, given to the Australian Human Rights Commission as part of the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention 2014. Australian Human Rights Commission Flickr Page

What can we draw from pictures by detained child asylum seekers?

Children’s drawings are an accessible and compelling image of the mandatory detention of children in isolated camps. Is that why they carry so much weight in the media?
A recent book of Brett Whiteley’s drawings reveals his extraordinary talents as a draughtsman. Wendy sleeping (1973). Pen, brush and brown ink. 29.9x33.4 cm. Brett Whiteley Estate © Wendy Whiteley. Beagle Press

Brett Whiteley’s drawings reveal the artist as a master draughtsman

Some 23 years after his death, Australian artist Brett Whitely’s vision continues to have resonance and will likely remain a defining representation of late 20th century Australia.
Alex Prager’s work invites belief in the vocabulary of hope. © Alex Prager, courtesy of the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong

The American Dream is yours, and this is your wake-up call

LA photographer Alex Prager is currently exhibiting short films and film stills at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne. There is something authentic behind the artifice of her highly staged…
Living Data: Evolving Conversations. Exhibition and Forum at the University of Technology Sydney, 2014. Curators: Lisa Roberts and Anita Marosszeky. Living Data

Living data: how art helps us all understand climate change

We hear so much about the integrity of scientific process and the role of data in driving action on climate change – but what role is there for artists in bringing about changes in understandings? Science…
Art fairs mean that the centre of the art world is now a very fluid thing. London Art Fair, James Champion

Paris, New York, London, Dubai: history of the modern art market

For four days in January, it could be argued that London is the centre of the global market for contemporary art, thanks to the London Art Fair, open from January 21 to 25. But this wasn’t always so. Such…
You float on a causeway in ‘The Light Inside’ through a field of illumination that gradually shifts from blue to crimson to magenta. James Turrell, 1999. Ed Schipul/Flickr

James Turrell, a mythic artist in the contemporary constellation

James Turrell: A Retrospective opens at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in Canberra on December 13. The show documents the Californian-born artist’s practice over almost 50 years, including his…
What mechanisms separate the art pantheon of Australia from the also-rans? AAP Image/Sergio Dionisio

How hierarchies happen in contemporary Australian art

There are about 30,000 professional practicing visual artists in Australia today (see note). By professional, I mean exhibiting regularly in recognised commercial or public galleries and represented in…
The winner of this year’s McLelland Prize, Matthew Harding’s Void (2014). Stainless steel, 650.0 x 800.0 x 260.0 McLelland Prize

Sculpture in the bush: a strong year for the McLelland Prize

In Australia’s somewhat subdued public sculpture scene, the McClelland Sculpture Survey – which runs until July 19, 2015 – provides a rare opportunity for witnessing contemporary public sculpture. This…
Nola Farman’s The Lift is a key piece of Australian media art history. Photograph: Richard Woldendorp. Nola Farman

Archiving new media art: Nola Farman’s Lift Project

Western Australian artist Nola Farman’s practice has never followed a predictable trajectory. Her major work, The Lift Project (1979-82), is an important and influential contribution to Australia’s new…
In the early 20th century, cubism seemed difficult and wild, and it was a favourite target of conservatives. Juan Gris, Fantômas, 1915, National Gallery of Art. Wikimedia Commons

Explainer: cubism

There’s a problem with the history of western art: we face it from the wrong side of decades of discursive dismantling. The conventional “story” of early 20th-century modernism, in which an advanced guard…
You’re in a gallery looking at Dani Marti’s It’s All About Peter. What do you do next? Photo: Jamie North. Image courtesy of the artist and BREENSPACE, Sydney.

Three simple steps to understand art: look, see, think

What’s the key to understanding art? Could there be some easy steps to unpacking the meaning of an artwork? The short answer is: yes. I recently wrote an article for The Conversation called Three questions…
Phallus face off. EPA/Christophe Karaba

McCarthy sex toy sculpture Tree piques prickly French right

Paul McCarthy, the granddaddy of shock conceptual art, has gone and done it again. In a globally reported move, part-installation and part promotional-stunt to mark the imminent opening of Paris’s Foire…
How does a woman make art history, asks !Women Art Revolution, an American documentary that screened at the Melbourne Festival. Melbourne Festival

Just name three female artists: !Women Art Revolution on screen

The central premise of American director Lynn Hershman Leeson’s film !Women Art Revolution (2010), which screened at the Melbourne Festival over the weekend, is summarised near its conclusion: “When artists…
Primavera 2014 displays many wonderful works by 13 young artists – but the hand of the curator is distracting. Lucienne Rickard, Some Old Waste 2014, 112 x 140 cm, graphite on drafting film, Image courtesy MCA and © the artist.

It’s too hard to love Primavera 2014 at Sydney’s MCA

Primavera is the Italian word for springtime, and each spring since 1992 the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney has a curated selection of emerging artists under 35 years old – in the springtime of their…
Why are Western Australian artists such as Flynn Talbot, whose work X Y is pictured here, left out of the bigger picture? Flynn Talbot Studio/Undiscovered Symposium

Western Australian art is excluded from the national conversation

Despite our interconnectedness through radio, television and the internet, the coverage of arts and cultural activities in Australia is viewed from a very close focus. This corrupts our understanding of…

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