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Articles on Visual art review

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Lucy Kemp-Welch, Horses bathing in the sea, 1900. Oil on canvas. Estate of Lucy Kemp-Welch. National Gallery of Victoria

The Horse: reframing the history of human progress

The Horse, currently on display at the National Gallery of Victoria, celebrates the pivotal role the horse has played in the evolution of civilisation.
A detail from the north wall of Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry. Diego Rivera, 1932. Detroit Institute of Arts

Detroit, 1932: when Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo came to town

A new exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts highlights a controversial mural commissioned during a period fraught with social unrest.
Drawings by male warriors – like Black Hawk’s ‘Dream or Vision or Himself Changed to a Destroyer or Riding a Bufalo Eagle (1880-1881)’ – often depicted visions perceived during meditation and fasting. New York State Historical Association, Fenimore Art Museum/John Bigelow Taylor

From the Great Plains, Native American masterpieces emerged

A new exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art celebrates 2,000 years of artistic achievement.
Dóra Maurer, Seven Rotations 1–6, 1979. Collection of Zsolt Somlói and Katalin Spengler © Dóra Maurer

100 years on a black square is as adventurous as it was in 1915

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…
A new exhibition at New Norcia in Western Australia sheds new life on the extraordinary life of the historic township’s founder. New Norcia Museum and Art Gallery

New images of New Norcia, a Spanish mission in the bush

Driving from Perth to New Norcia to see a new exhibition devoted to the township’s founder, Bishop Rosendo Salvado, takes about two hours. It’s an enjoyable trip, cutting through the wide expanse of countryside…
We hear a great deal about China’s future – but how is it treating its past? Sangzhutse Fortress in Shigatse, Tibet – after restoration work. Photo: Tongji University

China’s future is bright, and that includes conserving the past

For most Australians, mention of China probably does not evoke preserved buildings and landscapes in the way the English countryside does or the Italian centro storico. But a new exhibition, Envisioning…
Gerrit Fokkema’s photographs of everyday Sydney and Canberra in the early 1980s are examples of Australian photography becoming more self-aware. These decisive snapshots of suburban life reveal an irony and conjure Fokkema’s own history growing up in Queanbeyan. Though captured in seemingly banal settings, the images intrigue, pointing to issues beyond what is represented in the frame. The housewife watering the road and a young tattooed man in front of a car are both depicted alone within a sprawling suburban landscape, suggesting the isolation and boredom in the Australian dream of home ownership. The sense of strangeness in these images is consciously sought by Fokkema, aided by his embrace of the glaring and unforgiving ‘natural’ Australian light. Purchased 1986 © Gerrit Fokkema

Australian Vernacular Photography offers a look at our reality

Opening this week, Art Gallery NSW’s latest exhibition, Australian Vernacular Photography, explores the Australian photographic landscape of the late 20th century. Hal Missingham, photographer and director…
Modern Australian exhibitions, like the recent “Turner from the Tate” exhibition, shows just how spoilt Australian audiences are. J.M.W. Turner's Regulus, 1828, reworked 1837. AAP Image/Supplied by the Art Gallery of South Australia

Art out of the wilderness: Turner exhibition shows how far we’ve come

When visitors come to the Turner from the Tate exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, the experience is to travel through time and space to early 19th century Britain. It was a time of social…
Monet’s Garden has already proved popular but why does it take so long for “new art” to be accepted and understood? AAP Image/David Crosling

Making an Impression: why does art take so long to be accepted?

As the curtains rise on the National Gallery of Victoria’s (NGV) latest blockbuster, Monet’s Garden, it is a good time to reflect on a connection between this acclaimed modernist painter and the art world…

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