The 1973 purchase of Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionist painting – at a record price for the time – was a controversial moment in Australian art. Was it worth it?
Mathematics and art are generally viewed as very different. But a trip through history – from an Islamic palace to Pollock’s paintings – proves the parallels between the two can be uncanny.
Fractals are patterns that repeat at increasingly fine magnifications. They turn up in the natural world and in artists’ work. Research suggests they contribute to making something aesthetically appealing.
Gough Whitlam’s government paid $A1.3 million for Jackson Pollock’s Blue poles in 1973. But why exactly is this ‘seemingly unintelligible mess of house paint’ revered as a masterpiece?
There’s a two-storey warehouse wall in Melbourne’s western suburbs where man-made concrete uniformity has been transformed. On this enormous vertical surface is a complex, apparently natural scene that…