A larger-than-life circular mirror angled to reflect the clouds above. The aptly-titled Sky Mirror (2006) graces the lawn outside Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), which is currently showing a major exhibition by the artist behind this intriguing work, Anish Kapoor. Provocative yet majestic, Sky Mirror makes a striking appearance in Circular Quay and,…
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‘I found her a woman of few words, not very friendly, a bit pouty, almost defiant.’ These are the initial impressions Diana had of the student-photographer who approached her at a gig at the Melbourne University’s student union. The photographer was Carol Jerrems and the year was 1968. Little did either young woman know…
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‘Melbourne is the epicentre of interesting dance and music’ observed choreographer Antony Hamilton during our interview. It seems fitting, then, that Melbourne is the home of the Sugar Mountain Music and Art Festival, which will take place at the Forum Theatre on January 19. I recently had a chat with Hamilton to discuss his collaboration…
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Recently, my four-year-old niece asked ‘where does Santa come from?’ I instinctively answered, ‘from the North Pole’, and she seemed convinced. While I was relieved she had not asked the dreaded question – ‘is Santa real?’ – she had got me thinking about just how the legend of Santa developed. Surely the festive season was…
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Opera is one of those things you either love or hate. For most members of Gen-y, the latter view prevails; we have all heard the jokes of ‘fat lady singing’ and the likes. Yet, if there was ever an opera to challenge the view of the genre as out-dated and inaccessible, Opera Australia’s production of Salome…
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A collection of seven short plays connected by the theme of water. This was the premise of the aptly-titled ReAction Theatre production At the Water’s Edge, which recently showed at St Kilda’s Palais Theatre. Composed of works penned by Australian and international playwrights, the show featured an eclectic mix of plays, some of which making…
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‘All the world’s a stage…’ wrote Shakespeare more than five hundred years ago. The works of American photographer Gregory Crewdson reveal that these sentiments have as much relevance to contemporary life as they did to Elizabethan England. In a Lonely Place, the first major exhibition of Crewdson’s photographs to tour Australia, features images that…
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Speak to Me may strike you as a curious choice for the title of a biennial of new media art. Today, we communicate with one-another through so many means that speaking seems old-fashioned. This tension between technology and humanity underlies Experimenta’s Speak to Me Fifth Biennial of New Media Art, currently showing in Melbourne, before…
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Tense, humorous, salacious and surreal. These words all ran through my head after seeing the Rabble’s Orlando at the Malthouse Theatre last week. Presented in association with the Melbourne Festival and Helium Productions, this adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s classic novel Orlando: A Biography (1928) is a visceral contemporary piece of theatre that expresses the unsettled…
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Over the past few years developments in technology and social media have caused major changes to how we engage with art, culture and each other. The role of the curator in facilitating creativity has also changed. Portable’s Curators Conference offered a platform to discuss just what it means to be a curator in the digital…
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