There is a long history of cultural silence on the frontier wars that characterised Australia’s colonisation. Peta Clancy’s exhibition invites us to see this history in the Victorian landscape.
Artist Janet Laurence is ferocious and uncompromising in her work.
Jacquie Manning
A new Science Gallery Melbourne exhibition offers a set of reflections, calculations and speculations that engage with ideas about the perfect body, mathematical precision, quantum physics and a post-human world.
Sidney Nolan’s Steve Hart dressed as a girl 1947 from the Ned Kelly series 1946 – 1947 enamel paint on composition board 90.60 x 121.10 cm.
Gift of Sunday Reed 1977 National Gallery of Australia
As a bushranger in the Kelly gang, Steve Hart took to dressing as a woman and riding side-saddle to avoid detection. Sidney Nolan’s painting captures Hart’s adolescent cockiness, bravery, and foolhardy bluster.
The lively reconfiguring of the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman exhibitions means it is harder to work out which paintings the judges are considering as potential winners.
Detail from William Barak, Figures in possum skin cloaks, 1898, pencil, wash, charcoal solution, gouache and earth pigments on paper, 57.0 x 88.8 cm (image and sheet)
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Purchased, 1962
Clay Stories, a travelling exhibition, showcases ceramic art from Indigenous artists across the country. It is a triumphant display of specific stories and Dreamings, standing against cultural and political amnesia.
The paintings in Del Kathryn Barton’s new show at NGV Australia are visually stunning and painstakingly executed. But the women depicted are often de-personalised objects or headless cauldrons of destructive passion.
Detail from Divide 2011 by Sam Jinks. Mixed media, 86 x 60 cm,
collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
The quest to create a robot that is indistinguishable from humans has become all-consuming for some scientists, engineers and technicians. The consequences could be both beneficial and catastrophic.
Chris Levine’s iy_project at Hobart’s Dark Mofo.
Dark Mofo/Lusy Productions, 2017 Image Courtesy Dark Mofo, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Many great artists died in 2016: Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Paul Cox, Shirley Hazzard. It was a year of creative foment and as always, intense debate about the importance of the arts to a thriving, democratic society.
Indian artists such as Bhupen Khakhar may be gaining international acclaim, but more is needed to help build and maintain a strong infrastructure for artists at home.
Tableaux Vivants Devonport c. 1892-1893.
Wilson Centre for Photography
Sentimental, high-class illustrators – or a revolution in British art?
Artworks by deceased South African artist Helen Martins. The cultural and creative industries are key for social and economic development.
EPA/Kim Ludbrook
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne