Archibald Prize 2012, or “Smudge Storrier’s big day out”
Apr 27th
When Tim Storrier won the Archibald Prize on March 30, 2012, no one expected the occasion at the Art Gallery of NSW to become a doggy day out. But that’s exactly what happened when Storrier’s family cajoled the gallery attendants into giving the family pooch special access. And quite rightly so, because Smudge the rescued fox terrier is literally top dog in Storrier’s winning painting, sitting at the pinnacle of a pile of travelling requisites with which Storrier depicts himself. The painting is titled The Histrionic Wayfarer (after Bosch). The painting is reproduced at left.
The winning artist is always the centre of More >
William Kentridge talks to Artwriter about his latest Sydney exhibition
Apr 25th
South African contemporary artist William Kentridge is one of the world’s most extraordinary artists and, in recent years, one of the most celebrated. Kentridge’s work is inventive, poetic, dramatic, reflective, political, sincere and communicative of the human condition.
I interviewed Kentridge on March 9, 2012, when he came to Sydney for the opening of his Annandale Galleries exhibition, William Kentridge: Universal Archive (Parts 7-23).
Kentridge was also in Australia for the opening of his internationally travelling exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, in Melbourne. The show, Five Themes, was curated by Mark Rosenthal.
At Annandale Galleries, which has represented Kentridge in More >
Shaun Gladwell: Midnight Traceur and other recent works
Apr 1st
I interviewed Shaun Gladwell at Anna Schwartz Gallery in CarriageWorks on October 25, 2011, during the installation of his exhibition, Riding with Death: Redux. Here’s the text of our interview.
Gladwell, who has moved to London to live, talked about his parkour video titled Midnight Traceur.
This is the one that features this parkour artist, Ali Kadhim. He’s an amazing performer. He’s the star of the show really. He is unbelievable. It starts off in the day, sort of late afternoon, then it moves into these sequences within Sydney at night, so he’s doing these highly athletic performances in various (locations). [The More >
Unveiled: Biennale of Sydney 2012
Apr 1st
Today [February 29, 2012] I attended the official unveiling of the program for the Biennale of Sydney 2012 at the Art Gallery of NSW. It left me with the feeling that this could be a Biennale that speaks softly. It won’t yell or have a tantrum. It won’t try to attract your attention with empty provocation.
The two artistic directors are Gerald McMaster and Catherine de Zegher. McMaster spoke at length about the artists and about the Biennale theme, which is All Our Relations. His collaborator de Zegher was attending to a family matter in Belgium.
So here are the bare facts as outlined More >
Interview with Dr Michael Brand, new director of the AGNSW
Feb 11th
The Art Gallery of NSW has announced that Dr Michael Brand will take up the reins as the gallery’s director in mid 2012. Dr Brand replaces Edmund Capon, who retired as director in December 2011 after leading the gallery for an astonishing 33 years.
I interviewed Dr Brand about his appointment on the mornng of the announcement, by phone to Geneva. This is the edited transcript.
At the time you accepted this position, the National Gallery of Victoria was also seeking a new director. For you, was it a toss-up between the two positions?
It’s obviously a matter of interest when there are More >
Dr Michael Brand announced as new director of the AGNSW
Feb 10th
Dr Michael Brand has been appointed the new director of the Art Gallery of NSW
Read the official announcement here.
Michael Landy: first he destroyed every single one of his possessions, then he brought Acts of Kindness to Sydney
Jan 13th
Michael Landy is the English artist who, in 2001, created an assembly line whose sole function and purpose was to help Landy destroy every single possession he had at that moment in his life. His clothes, his papers, his passbook, his books, even his car. Everything Landy owned, everything that bound him to the consumer society he lived in, was destroyed and granulated, bagged up and sent to landfill.
Landy was left with just one thing — an enormous debt. Destroying his possessions, with the help of 10 people on the assembly line, had cost him 100,000 pounds.
The act of destruction was More >
Artwriter Interviews Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Dec 17th
I interviewed Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, the Mexican-Canadian artist, on December 1, 2011, in relation to the exhibition of his work, Recorders: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, which has just opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Lozano-Hemmer is fascinated by the technology of modern surveillance. But, for him, surveillance is not sinister. It’s just part of daily life. And he believes it’s time artists took the technology and made something poetic or strange from it. It was a fascinating interview. Here’s the edited text.
Do you have a scientific background as well as being an artist?
Yeah, I do. I have a degree in chemistry. So More >
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer media preview, MCA Sydney
Dec 16th
Ever get the feeling you’re being watched?
You certainly will at the MCA’s new exhibition, Recorders: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. All of the one dozen works on show are tracking, measuring, surveillance and recording devices, writ large.
Artwriter attended the media preview of the exhibition this week, and took the photographs included in this post. The picture at left is Lozano-Hemmer.
I will upload my interview with Lozano-Hemmer soon. These pictures, however, will give some idea of the extraordinary artworks in the show.
Lozano-Hemmer was a personable, warm, and rather funny narrator of his own works.
Here, then, are some of my pictures.
This is a detail of one More >
Picasso in Sydney: ArtWriter goes behind the scenes
Nov 13th
Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso, Paris, is on at the Art Gallery of NSW from this weekend.
Last week, I went behind the scenes to do a video for the Daily Telegraph on just how Sydney came to be seeing 150 works by such a great master as Pablo Picasso.
Elizabeth Fortescue
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