Exhibition: Wardrobing Artist: Mitchel Cumming Gallery: Disneyland Paris In a recent piece for Artlink art historian and critic Tara Heffernan raises suspicions around the ubiquity of care discourse as a subgenre of contemporary art discourse. Heffernan observes that ‘talk of care in the arts—like earlier theories buttressing relational aesthetics—echo the benevolent language that similarly glosses […]
Exhibition: Ruu – Examination Artist: Curtis Taylor Gallery: Sweet Pea ‘Ruu is the Martu word for examination, mainly coming from the old Manyjilyjarra language’, explains Curtis Taylor. It means ‘to have a look, reveal something, or to sort of look at miscellaneous things’. It’s the day before the opening and Taylor has just unwrapped a […]
Artist: Warsan Mohammed Curator: Anna Emina El Samad Exhibition details: SchoolHouse Gallery, 12 – 25 November The walls of SchoolHouse Gallery are painted green and brown. I catch a glimpse of this through the window of the gallery, which looks out onto the SchoolHouse parking lot from where I stand. It is the first time […]
The following texts and filmic references were instrumental in the creation of In a World Full of Angels (2022), a short film commissioned by Gertrude Contemporary that is currently available to view online as part of their Digital Commissions program. Channelled by the film’s main character, a pilgrim skydiver, these texts and filmic references have […]
by Gabrielle Bergman Earlier this year I joined an art theory reading group. In between work commitments, navigating a pregnancy, completing a second university degree and managing an interstate relocation, I was determined to find time to meet with a group of students to learn and engage in art discourse for the pure purpose of […]
Exhibition: To companion a companion Artist: Fernando do Campo Gallery: Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts Somewhat negentropically, it takes a moment for the meticulous repetition of motifs and formal logic to register. A tight palette sourced from archive item number 12, ‘Colour Studies’ attributed to James Fredrick Archen, is elaborated throughout the exhibition: from the […]
Exhibition: methods for collapse (m4c)Artist: Gabriella ImrichovaPerformers: Roslyn Orlando, Sophie Gargan, Mara Galagher and Anika de RuyterExhibition details: BLINDSIDE, 29 June – 16 July Gabriella Imrichova’s methods for collapse (m4c) ends with no capital E. Closure is a myth after all. After three, maybe four loops of the live performance score 0, I exit BLINDSIDE […]
Artists: Quishile Charan and Zaiba Khan Gallery: West Space During my time indoors I’ve taken to using mycelium as metaphor. Mycelium, a root-like structure comprised of hyphae —fine white filaments — is the part of a fungus that gathers nutrients from which the fruit — the mushroom — can grow.[^1] A complex network, mycelia are […]
Précis – In December 2021 ad agency Clemenger BBDO announced a collaboration with art collective Glue Society and the University of Tasmania for Earth’s Black Box, a large steel vault recording ongoing climate data much like a plane’s flight recorder. Drawing on this project, I reconceptualise the ‘black box’ – as container of knowledge but […]
I am a descendant of south-eastern Europe, a prisoner of war refugee and a post-war migrant: a second-generation Australian. I am conscious that while I am Australian, I live on the landsof Aboriginal Australians. Over two decades, I have sustaineda curatorial practice that honours this awareness. Travelling Australia from the lands of the Gimuy-walubarra yidi […]
Artists: Bridget Chappell and Debris Facility Pty Ltd Gallery: Cool Change Contemporary halalbutch · 2 Many DJs [B2B Hextape 4.eva.FM] If you were there spinning the dial like an Ouroboros on Tuesday and hesitated somewhere between Triple M and Nova maybe you heard it. A shaky broadcast, the Amen break, mistransitions and meandering, unconcerned art […]
Artists: Liv Moriarty and Emma BerryExhibition: Starting in the MiddleGallery: Woven Projects, Naarm/Melbourne16 – 25 May 2022 Four years ago, artists Emma Berry and Liv Moriarty began emailing poems, lists and observations to each other. In this pre-pandemic era, where for the two artists, communication in the digital sphere was more playful than necessary, an […]
Justin ShoulderAEON †: TITAN ARUM26 March – 5 September 2021The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land where I’m writing from – the sovereign land of the Bunurong and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nations. I pay my respects to their elders past and present and stand behind […]
Exhibition: Frances Barrett: Meatus Artists: Frances Barrett with Nina Buchanan, Debris Facility Pty Ltd., Hayley Forward, Brian Fuata, Del Lumanta and Sione Teumohenga. Commissioning Curator: Annika Kristensen Gallery: Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) The external acoustic meatus is the passageway that leads from the outside of the head to the eardrum membrane of each […]
Artists: Anna May Kirk, Naomi Blacklock, Sundari Carmody, Manisha Anjali, Orson Heidrich, Anna Pogossova, Meng-Yu Yan 颜梦钰 Curator: Johanna Bear Gallery: KINGS Artist Run I’m writing on the eve of a waning crescent Moon. As my fingers summon the symbols on the keyboard in a proprioceptive séance of transmission, I’m struck with an overwhelming sense […]
Rationalisation Writing in 1983, George Ritzer argues that McDonald’s exemplified the accelerated rationalisation of the broader society. As constantly reiterated in The Founder,[^1] a biopic focused on Ray Krok’s franchised expansion of the fast-food restaurant, McDonald’s became a ‘symphony of efficiency’. Over the years, Ritzer’s definition of ‘McDonaldization’ as a process that emphasises efficiency, predictability, […]
Mutual debt, debt unpayable, debt unbounded, debt unconsolidated, debt to each other in a study group, to others in a nurses’ room, to others in a barber shop, to others in a squat, a dump, a woods, a bed, an embrace.— Fred Moten and Stefano Harney Today, a brief lull between lockdowns, is for writing. […]
Atlantis Marine Park is an abandoned theme park and the centrepiece of the Yanchep Sun City development. It was built by notorious criminal entrepreneur Alan Bond in the small fishing community of Two Rocks in 1981, sixty-something kilometres north of Boorloo/Perth. Atlantis seems a curious name for a theme park in settler-colonial Australia — for […]
Artists: Grace Ferguson, Emma Phillips, Trevor Santos and Annika Koops Curator: Josephine Mead Coming to Naarm/Melbourne from Western Australia, a trip to the ocean does not feel like an item to tick off a list of things to savour; instead, it became a marginally experienced activity during the warmer months. Victorians have their park picnics, […]
The coalition emerges out of your recognition that it’s fucked up for you, in the same way that we’ve already recognised that it’s fucked up for us. —Fred Moten Under a Burning White Sky As my experience of social life has become less and less about seeking or gaining approval from outside forces, a burden […]
Franz Kafka’s short story ‘The City Coat of Arms’ (1931), begins with a group of people who all agree that it would be a great idea to build a tower. ‘At first all the arrangements for building the Tower of Babel were characterized by fairly good order … perhaps too perfect.’ Arrangements are made for […]
For a week now I’ve had a file saved to my computer titled ‘Notes on Hobiennale 2017’. It contains fragments of thoughts, passages copied out from gallery room sheets, quotes from artist and curator talks, headings in caps lock with no writing yet to follow – ECOLOGY, CULT, SITE, WALKING. The list goes on. I […]
Emile Zile is an artist, performer and filmmaker crafting poetic turns about the relationship between digital media and social conditions. His work provides a penetrating critique of how the manufactured outputs of the mass media and technology industries interact with our bodies, behaviours and feelings. It offers, in the artist’s words, ‘damaged optimism’ for humans […]