As governments gain greater access to private information there is a need to protect our freedoms. Artists can make a distinct contribution to this debate by offering alternative perspectives.
Saulal by Dennis Nona won the 27th Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Art Award.
Dennis Nona/Aboriginal Art Network
Indigenous artist Dennis Nona is currently serving a jail term for serious crimes. Should the work of the most significant artist to have emerged from the Torres Strait in the last 50 years be removed from gallery walls?
Betty Churcher, the first and only female director of the National Gallery of Australia, has died. Throughout her extraordinary career as an arts administrator, the art always came first.
A major photography retrospective opened at the Art Gallery of NSW on the weekend, but what does The Photograph and Australia tell us about our present and past?
A daunting task awaits.
Cedric Weber/from www.shutterstock.com
With past controversies ranging from restoration to public toilets and present ones from oil sponsorship to selfie sticks, Gabriele Finaldi has a daunting task on his hands.
One of the paintings that Brett Whiteley’s ex-wife Wendy insists is a forgery.
AAP Image/Genevieve Gannon
The current furore over a set of Brett Whiteley paintings has put art fraud back in the headlines. The bad news is that in Australia, the conditions are very favourable for art fakers.
A first-rate piece of political and economic provocation is to haunt Trafalgar Square over the election.
Some of the earliest applications of photography came in the fields of archaeology and botany. Pictured is a photograph from botanist Anna Atkins’ Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1843).
How do the judges of art prizes make their decisions? Contrary to popular perception, it’s not just a matter of personal opinion and effete connoisseurship.
Thangka painters have an entirely different conception of art to most Western painters. What should art do for us?
Rosino/Flickr
What is art for? The answer to this question changes depending on who you ask – and ultimately, it will help us measure ourselves.
A major exhibition of American video artist Bill Viola’s work is on display at the Adelaide Festival. Bill Viola, The Encounter, 2012. Color High-Definition video on plasma display mounted on wall. Performers: Genevieve Anderson, Joan Chodorow. Photo: Kira Perov.
Adelaide Festival
The work of American video artist Bill Viola is currently being shown in Adelaide, the broadest collection of his installations ever displayed in Australia.
Marlene Dumas, South African-born Amsterdam-based artist, is perhaps one of the most significant practising contemporary painters. And, according to the curators of The Image as Burden at the Tate Modern…
Picasso: most prolific and most stolen artist.
Anthony Devlin/PA Archive
The case of Pablo Picasso’s former electrician Pierre Le Guennec and his wife, Danielle, came to a close on February 12. The pair are accused of handling stolen goods – 271 of Picasso’s works. The French…
Dulwich Picture Gallery has ordered a cheap replica of an old master painting from a company in China, and are insinuating it into their array of masterpieces – without telling us which one it is. This…
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne