ISSN 0004-301 X
129 pages | Softcover | B&W and colour images
RRP $19.99 (inc GST) Sale $10.00
2016
Editor: Edward Colless
Authors: Edward Colless, Brook Andrew, David Hansen, Jarrod Rawlins, Julie Ewington, Biljana Jancic, Darren Jorgensen, Rex Butler, Daniel Thomas, Doug Hall, Adrian Martin, Victoria Lynn, John Warwicker, Vikki McInnes, Su Baker, Eleonora Triguboff
Here is our challenge—and predicament. Art. Australia. Can either of these words today be considered unproblematic or uncontested? Both words, as we have to use them now, are unfixed or besieged: their 20th-century cultural delineations detonated and diffused throughout the globalised circuitry of financial and cultural markets; their perimeters corroding or complicating into fractal dimensions; their core characteristics in dispute when not in disrepute. It's either shamefully inane commodification or else sounds pugnaciously reactionary to conjoin these words in a pacified, summative, synoptic and unembarrassed cultural banner or brand. 'Australia Art': whether as metadata, export tag, biennale label, auction-house category, museum signage, funding priority, school curriculum heading or electoral slogan, does this not all sound grossly conformist, economically expedient, a laughably fossilised anthropological tariff and ideologically hollow?... —Plus, Edward Colless
...Contents
6-11_ Plus | Edward Colless
12-128_ passim_52 Portraits | Brook Andrew
14-19_ Journal of Record | David Hansen
22-27_ The Blind Watchmaker and the End of the World | Jarrod Rawlins
30-35_ Painting Then, Art Now: 1963-2016 | Julie Ewington
38-45_ Sculpture in the Present Tense | Biljana Jancic
48-53_ The Verbiage of Heritage, The Raunchiness of Rock Art: Russell Drysdale at Gallery Hill | Darren Jorgensen
56-63_ Fairweather After Fairweather | Rex Butler
66-73_ Australian Art of the Past: Its Past, Present and Future | Daniel Thomas
76-87_ The Many Guises of Empty-headedness | Doug Hall
90-97_ Oblivion: A Draughtsman's Contract | Adrian Martin
100-107_ This is Not an Exhibition: William Wright Leaves Australia | Victoria Lynn
108-115_ In Conversation | John Warwicker, Vikki McInnes
116-123_ Acknowledgements | Su Baker, Eleanor Triguboff