As human beings, we are able to feel and make sense of the world around us. We know what it is to experience joy and freedom and pain, and, most importantly, sympathy or empathy when we witness suffering. Yet when it comes to animal suffering, many of us are indifferent or can’t properly connect…
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ONOMOllywood, is a project that challenges our perceptions of race in classic films. Unfortunately, looking back at the well-known classics brings to mind protagonists who are almost exclusively white. But Dakar-based photographers, Omar Victor Diop and Antoine Tempe, are changing the way we think about this. ONOMOllywood consists of a series of 20…
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German artist Georg Baselitz has sparked backlash, recently telling a newspaper that women cannot paint well. Baselitz has dismissed female painters – even the most iconic like Frida Kahlo – saying that they ‘simply don’t pass the market test, the value test.’ Despite making up the majority of art students, Baselitz claims that women lack…
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Mona Foma (or MOFO) is the summer art and music festival hosted by Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art (better known as Mona). Held each year in January, the festival has a national reputation and is considered to be a stalwart of Tasmania’s cultural fabric. Reviewing a whole festival is a difficult task- every aspect…
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The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) is under pressure to return a painting claimed to have been looted by the Nazis. Swiss Lawyer Olaf Ossman claims the painting “Head of a Man” is a Van Gogh sold under duress by wealthy Jewish industrialist Richard Semmel in 1933 when he fled the Nazis. Although tests have…
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The awesome art collective that recently enlightened us all to the glory of vaginal knitting has an early Christmas present for you. Melbourne based ‘craftivist’ group, Craft Cartel, want to challenge the shame and censorship around women’s genitalia, in particular, through the word – “cunt”. They claim that the word, ‘despite being the descriptor of…
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New York artist, Sebastian Errazuriz, has released a collection of women’s shoes inspired by his ex-girlfriends. The collection, 12 Shoes for 12 Lovers, debuted at the annual Miami Beach Art Basel. There is a shoe to represent each of Errazuriz’s past girlfriends, and each one has a nickname that highlights the quirks and charms of…
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You walk in through the cavernous foyer, conscious of the sound of your footsteps and the echo they make. The door, with the number 19 lettered across it, is open. Looking in down a short corridor, there are exposed concrete walls and a sign with crooked lettering. You walk down the corridor and are steered…
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Most women could say that they have been harassed on the street in one way or another in their lifetime. Whether that be in the form of unwanted verbal slurs, or eyes that tend to linger and follow you. I myself, just a couple of weeks ago, while walking my dog during the day in…
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Last Thursday I visited the highly anticipated Melbourne Now exhibition, which, as the Director of the NGV’s Tony Ellwood elicits in the forward to the catalogue, sets “out to explore how Melbourne’s visual artists and creative practitioner’s contribute to the dynamic cultural diversity of this city.” Spanning expansive territory across the Ian Potter Centre and…
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Ben Brooker’s The Lake was first performed in a rehearsed reading by five.point.one last year. This year it premieres with a full production by five.point.one in The Arch, a small old church at Holden Street Theatres. Before entering we are given a small torch and told to use it to find our chairs and to…
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A couple of days ago, the National Gallery of Victoria announced next year’s Melbourne Winter Masterpieces Exhibition – “Italian Masterpieces from Spain’s Royal Court, Museo del Prado”. Excuse me while I struggle to contain my excitement. The Museo del Prado boasts a large collection of Italian paintings originating largely from the royal collection (as the name…
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Ellipsis is a photography exhibition by four talented Canberra-based emerging artists exploring narrative and truth. Natalie Azzopardi, Holly Granville-Edge, Katherine Griffiths and Amy McGregor share a common urge to explore the limitations and opportunities of the value of truth in photography. ‘Drawing inspiration from what is not written, but remains suggestive, Ellipsis features incomplete, cinematic,…
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2013 is the year of the 1920s love-in. Since the release of Luhrmann’s film adaptation of The Great Gatsby, elements of the Jazz Age have infiltrated themes of countless parties, fashion, television and art. The opening of Edward Steichen & Art Deco Fashion at the National Gallery of Victoria either capitalises on this trend or…
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