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…
Kazimir Malevich unveiled his now iconic pared down painting of a black square on a white background in 1915. This was a moment that not only represented a turning point in art, but in politics too. This…
Many adults believe they are not artistic and feel nervous about visual art. They vividly recall the moment when a teacher or family member discouraged their efforts to creatively express their ideas through…
James Turrell is a veteran Californian artist who throughout a career spanning almost half a century has employed light as a vehicle through which to manipulate the viewer’s perception of space. The Turrell…
With more than 200 prints on display, Chuck Close: Prints, Process and Collaboration is one of the biggest printmaking exhibitions to be held in Australia. The whole top floor of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary…
In the Art Gallery of NSW’s Pop to Popism, curator Wayne Tunncliffe has revealed himself as a master of illusion. With a sparkling magic wand he has created the impression of a big expensive summer blockbuster…
I still remember my first blockbuster art exhibition. Two Decades of American Painting came to Australia under the auspices of New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1967. This summer, art lovers can pick…
I was the lead of a team of computer scientists at Rutgers that published a paper this past August titled, “Toward Automated Discovery of Artistic Influence.” In that paper we reported on our research…
Duncan Campbell has won the 2014 Turner Prize. This is a well-deserved accolade for an extraordinary work (although I preferred Tris Vonna-Mitchell for many reasons, maybe a yearning for that clunking…
So the education secretary Nicky Morgan thinks that the arts and humanities run a poor second to the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) in the employability stakes. Over the past…
Australia’s art galleries are currently enthralled by fashion. In Melbourne Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk and Express Yourself: Romance Was Born for Kids, are both at NGV; Adelaide’s…
In 1919, Ivy MacKusick, an art student at UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art, completed a Portrait of a Man in His Shirtsleeves. We know nothing about the man of African descent depicted in this portrait…
On Remembrance Sunday, while in my native Germany a wall of white balloons dissolved into the air to mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, I joined thousands at the Tower of London…
Catalonia seems to have finally pardoned Salvador Dalí. Its gesture? To name a public square after the infamous surrealist. Spain has recently been paying considerable attention to the names of its streets…
There are currently four major museum exhibitions around the world that explore and demonstrate the work of the Austrian artist Egon Schiele (1890-1918). One of these, The Radical Nude, has just opened…
One of the biggest international art fairs is back. And London’s Frieze isn’t just about selling contemporary art, it’s an annual exhibition that defines and showcases the international art scene of today…
A bizarre one-off exhibition in Moscow was recently announced to celebrate Vladimir Putin’s birthday. An anonymous group of artists contributed paintings depicting the president as the Greek hero Heracles…
Manifesta is a nomadic European biennial exhibition of contemporary art that sets up camp in a different European city every two years. In 2012, Manifesta 9 was held in Limburg, Belgium, and considered…
Banksy is back. Back in the heart of Blighty (deepest Essex to be precise), spraying his musings on our walls. Cue the (now) habitual headlines and opinions. Cue the hysteria. This time, however, things…
Last Thursday, Melbourne artist Gosia Wlodarczak won the 2014 Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award with her work Process Capsule Situations Sofitel (below). Over the 39 years that the award has been exhibited…
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne