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.
The Greens’ Senator Scott Ludlam said changes to arts funding will mean arts minister George Brandis won’t need to publicly disclose who he’s funding. He said it’s unbelievable – but is it true?
There’s plenty of hand-wringing about the humanities being in crisis – but is that actually the case? In Australia, the sector is thriving, and policy should be made on that basis.
Artist Paul Gauguin is perhaps most famous for his colorful paintings of Tahitian life. But for years, art historians puzzled over his lesser-known prints: how did he form, layer and transfer images from one medium to another?
The major political parties seem captive to an ideologically driven obsession to privatise public spaces – including the Powerhouse Museum site in Ultimo and other harbour-front sites.
James Blunt is upset. He has objected – in terms neither civil, nor particularly well-argued – to the suggestion from shadow culture secretary, Chris Bryant, that people from working-class backgrounds…
After ten years of planning and six years of construction the Harvard Art Museums opens its doors to the public on November 16. The $350 million renovation combines the collections of three distinct museums…
On July 9, the annual Museum of the Year Prize, run by the Museum Prize Trust and sponsored since 2008 by the Art Fund, awarded £100,000 to the winner: the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, which shone in a shortlist…
It must have come as a relief to many Australian musicians that maligned guitar-pop genre tag “dolewave” met an untimely end the other week. I imagine it would have been the only relief Australian musicians…
“Wouldn’t you just die without Mahler?” This classic line from Willy Russell’s Educating Rita, spoken by the broken aesthete Trish, signifies both main character Rita’s entry into the realms of cultured…
Hollywood’s most celebrated actors, actresses and directors are, by now, finalising their outfits and having their manicures in preparation for the impending Oscars ceremony on 2 March. It’s considerably…
London has 15.4%, one eighth, of the population of England. It is well known that London receives a disproportionate amount of UK arts subsidies, but perhaps not the vast extent of this. Our independently…
Last week, Jude Kelly, artistic director of London’s prestigious Southbank Centre, was the most recent arts luminary to wonder in public why women in music are rarer than English cricket victories in Australia…
Prizes are a common feature on the cultural economy landscape. In Australia there is the famous Archibald Prize for portraiture, there are numerous prizes for literature and poetry, the AFI Awards in film…
This month I am trekking around Europe with my partner, and I had the good fortune to be in London on the night of the fifth Wild Rumpus event. In a gallery space in central London on a Saturday night…
Kingston-upon-Hull has been named the UK City of Culture for 2017; a spotlight has been thrown on a place that many people either don’t really know much about, sometimes falling prey to typical Home Counties…
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne