As a young man, Wladyslaw Dutkiewicz joined the Resistance, helping Jews to escape Poland. After settling in Australia as a refugee, he became a pivotal artist, as a new show of his work attests.
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.
Philanthropists are creating new galleries to share their private collections with the Australian public. But these gifts do not ameliorate the deficit left by declining government arts fundings.
The Impressionists were obsessed with the science of colour, which is celebrated in a new exhibition in Adelaide. At least 50 of the paintings have never previously been exhibited in Australia.
Part human, part animal, Patricia Piccinini’s sculptures are uncannily familiar, yet alarmingly other. A major new exhibition creates a parallel universe in which viewers can encounter her work.
Artists have long tackled global issues, from war to human rights. While Picasso’s celebrated Guernica may not have stopped the Spanish Civil War (or any war), art still holds value, as witness and as truth teller.
In 1497 Girolamo Savonarola burned books and art in Florence in the most infamous act of European cultural desecration. A year later, he met the same fate.
The 21st Sydney Biennale is the first to be directed by a curator of non-Western heritage. While the number of artists is modest, lost quantity is made up by quality.
Today, beauty counts for little in the judgement of works of art. But our felt experience of beauty connects us with an object’s maker, revealing a pure moment of humanity.
Australian artist Elizabeth Durack became infamous for her use of an Aboriginal nom de plume in 1990s. But in the 1960s, when the country was striving for independence from Australia, she portrayed Papuan women with sensitivity.
The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, woven around 1500, have been called the ‘Mona Lisa of the Middle Ages’. While they make for breathtaking viewing, their threads are encoded with much meaning.
Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte’s ‘War on Drugs’ is estimated to have led to more than 13,000 killings. Artists - both in the Philippines and beyond - are helping communities work through their trauma.
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.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne