Provocative artworks, such as Wim Delvoye’s Cloaca, have drawn a steady stream of tourists to multi-billionaire David Walsh’s Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart.
AAP
It was March last year when I sat down in the chaotic New York office of a leading international tax attorney to conduct an interview for a book I was writing on the campaign against tax havens. But rather…
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…
Media commentators have been eager to paint Neandertals as artists – but why?
Federico Gambarini/AAP
An article published recently in Science sheds new light on paintings found in 11 cave sites in Spain. At 40,800 years old, some of these paintings could be among the oldest anywhere in the world. But…
The ghost-like image of Tupac captured the imagination of concert-goers … imagine if they’d seen a real hologram.
Last week the world watched on as a supposed hologram of the late rapper Tupac Shakur performed at the Coachella music festival in California. But was it a hologram? The term “hologram”, (“holos” meaning…
The collision of art and science is producing some impressive results.
CSIRO, Australian Synchrotron and National Gallery of Victoria
The ability to see through walls and other objects Superman-style is surely high on the wish-list for many children. Sadly, with the purchase of a child’s first pair of novelty X-ray glasses, such dreams…
UPDATE: Tim Storrier has won the 2012 Archibald prize for his self-portrait, The histrionic wayfarer (after Bosch). Shortly after noon today, Steven Lowy, president of the trustees of the Art Gallery of…
Religion has been the guiding force behind much great architecture.
flickr/etrusia
Following the publication of Alain de Botton’s new book Religion for Atheists, there has been a curious development: a fight between atheists. At one level the conflict looks crazy. The only condition…
Art reflects back the crisis we’ve created.
Simon Hennessey: Sunset over Metropolis
“Artists are shape-shifters and in this there is a perennial, ferocious hope; the hope which transforms, which whispers of possibility, of vision, of change and radical healing. Existing art about climate…
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…
Infamous street artist Banksy’s precursors have been found in South Africa.
Lord Jim
Could we have found the first artist’s studio in human history? We may well have. We all recognise the material signs of wealth. Fast cars, large yachts and sparkling bling all tell us who has more. Crowns…
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…
Margaret Olley, one of Australia’s best known artists, has died at her home in Sydney. She was 88. Art Gallery of NSW director, Edmund Capon, described her in a statement as “passionate, committed and…
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…
Photos with humans in them are more likely to be remembered than landscape shots without, a U.S. study showed.
Aan Anugrah, Fotopedia.
Photos of beautiful landscapes may be lovely while you look at them but it’s the photos of fellow Homo sapiens that you’ll remember long after the album has gone back on the shelf, a new study has found…
Could artists and scientists be enjoying a more fruitful union?
Ben Stansall/AFP
When art and science come together, the relationship tends to be uneven, and too often art becomes the unintended junior partner. As researchers working at the interface between art and science, we have…
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 this…
Many superannuation investors have been stung by investing in artworks.
AAP
Interested in art? Think it may be a good investment for your super? Think again - or at least be very very careful. More than 10 months since Jeremy Cooper’s independent superannuation review recommended…
Governments have a paradoxical approach to street art.
costa cobosta/flickr
Australia prides itself on its attractiveness to tourists, but for many, to the eternal frustration of Melbourne, visiting Australia is synonymous with the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney Opera House. It…
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne