And so, for 2020, we have a brand new batch of contenders who’ve refreshed not just our line up, but who’re also doing the actual good work in the real world.

What do we mean by power? There’s the influence that money can buy; the administrative power of government departments and private organisations; the influence of influencers; and the power of artists. Our 2020 list has its fair share of representatives of these categories, but in a break with the lists of the past seven years, we also note that this isn’t just the art world that we want, it’s the art world we deserve.

 There are lots of new names here, and quite a few who’ve hung on, or shot up the list. We’ve also retained a few names as honourable exceptions to the rule. Please enjoy.

…

100. Lauren Carol Harris [New]

Video art in your email, Twitter rants, many hats. 

99. Anneke Jaspers [New]

Swapped teams, now Senior Curator of Collections at the MCA. 

98. Team PARI [New]

We need a new artist-run space at Parramatta? Done! 

97. Spence Messih and Archie Barry [New]

Artists responsible for the new NAVA guidelines on working with trans, non-binary and gender diverse creatives.

96. The Cementa Team [New]

Ace regional arts collective leading the way,

95. Lisa Havilah [Return]

Guess who’s back…

94. Kylie Kwong [New]

Celebrity chef and now BoS 2020 artist – we hoping for green ants for dessert.

93. Anouska Phizacklea [New]

Unsung Director of MUMA. 

92. Mariam Arcilla [New]

Writer and gallery manager at Station (Syd). If you haven’t met her yet, you will soon. 

91. Danielle Renshaw [New]

Coming soon in Brisbane. 

90. Susi Muddiman [Return]

Head honcho at Tweed Regional Gallery, now member of the Create NSW Visual Arts Board.

89. Bec Dean [LY 89 | – ]

She’s in charge of most things – and a dab hand with a hammer.

88. The MEMO Review Team [LY 88 |- ]

Where would Melbourne art criticism be without them?

87. Amy Barrett-Leonard [New]

Doing great things at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. 

86. Olivia Radonich [New]

We’ve heard good things about The Reading Room and that’s good enough for us. 

85. Amala Groom [New]

Artist, activist. 

84. Amanda Rowell [ LY 95 | + 9]

Great artists going places.

83. Naomi Riddle [LY 83 | – ]

Everything we know we learned from Running Dog. 

82. Emily Cormack [New]

Melbourne Art Fair’s artistic director 2020.

81. TEAM This Is No Fantasy [LY 84 | + 3]

If only they could stop talking to each other at art fairs.

80. Amanda Love [LY 82 | + 2]

Hyper connected super advisor.

79. Maree Di Pasquale [LY 79 | – ]

Has the CEO and 2020 Melbourne Art Fair Director got the recipe right this time?

78. Byron School of Art team [LY 85 + 7]

Moving into the twenties their ‘artists teaching artists’ model continues to evolve. 

77. Fiona Lowry [LY 77 | – ]

Top notch.

76. Liz Nowell [New]

From Adelaide’s ACE Open to Executive Director of Brisbane’s IMA means Nowell has plenty on her plate. 

75. Teresa Biet [New]

Incubating emerging artists.

74. Jo Holder [New]

Continually producing innovative shows at Cross Art Projects. 

73. Natalie King [73]

Über-curator.

72. Isobel Parker Philip [New]

Moving in with a bullet in her new position as Senior Curator of Australian Art at AGNSW.

71. Julie Gough [New]

Artist, researcher and curator based in Tasmania.

70. Barbara Flynn [LY 70 |- ]

Public art City of Sydney

69. Jasmin Stephens [New]

You know who she is even if you don’t know who she is.

68. Julie Ewington [New]

Writing, tour guiding, mentoring and more. 

67.  Joanna Mendelssohn [New]

Academic, critic, and co-author of Australian Art Exhibitions: opening our eyes – and keeping the bastards honest.

66. Nell [LY 67 | + 1]

New public art.

65. Joan Ross [New]

Artist, mentor, perfect party guest.

64. Chloe Wolifson

Breaking into the mainstream art reviewing game is no easy task.

63. The Lockup Curators [LY 60 | – 3]

Freeing the arts in Newcastle.

62. Maud Page [New]

Deputy Director and the human face of AGNSW.

61. Katrina Sedgwick [New]

ACMI boss taking the show on the road…

60. Wendy Whiteley [LY 63 | + 3  ]

You still have to ask Wendy if it’s ok.

59. Alison Kubler [New]

Vault, boards, etc. Power in her own right.

58.  Angela Tiatia [New]

Artist on the rise.

57. Sally Smart [New]

Major show for 2020 with some up-and-comer named Matisse.

56. Gina Fairley [LY 56 | – ]

Got it covered for Artshub. 

55. Lisa Slade [New]

AGSA, head curator of Quilty.

54. Del Kathryn Barton [LY 54 | – ]

Every high school kid knows who she is.

53. Emma O’Neill [New]

Festival Director, Art Month Sydney.

52. Georgia Hobbs [New]

She’s moved beyond the Draft to be the new Artistic Director at Art Month Sydney.

51. Nicole Durling [Return]

M.O.N.A.

50. Yhonnie Scarce [New]

A must-have for most exhibitions 

49. Dr. Gene Sherman [LY 49 | – ]

Big bubbles no trouble

48. Tracy Cooper-Lavery [LY 51| + 3]

No one hotter at HOTA

47. Karla Dickens [LY 75 | + 28 ]

On the way to the top

46. Nina Miall [New]

Tarrawarra Biennial 2020

45. Team Countess Report [New]

Taking names.

44. Karen Quinlan [LY 98 | + 54]

From Bendigo to the National Portrait Gallery

43. Tracey Moffatt [LY 46 | + 3]

Old school. 

42. Clothilde Bullen [New]

Senior Curator Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Collections and Exhibitions, MCA. And that’s offical.

41. Susan Borham [LY 41 | – ]

Art edit empire.

40. Carolyn Fletcher [New]

The Board at the National Art School must be doing something right.

39. Miranda Wallace [LY 44 | +5]

From MoMA at NGV to…

38. Soda_Jerk [LY 39 | +1]

Terror Nullius among the best of the decade.

37. Brook Andrew [LY 76 | +39]

Rethinking who is an ‘artist’ for the Biennale of Sydney. 

36. Deborah Kelly [New]

Women with knives! 

35. Victoria Lynn [LY 35 | – ]

Tazzawazza!

34. Leigh Robb [New]

2020 Adelaide Biennial.

33. Kate Mills [New]

Top job at BoS board

32. Agatha Gothe-Snape [New]

No other artist appears nine times over three years in The National.

31. Gabrielle Mordy [New]

CEO and Artistic director at Studio A supported studios.

30. Lisa Fehily [New]

Female artists only.

29. Janet Whiting [New]

Chair of the Board, The National Gallery of Victoria.

28. Sarah Cottier [LY 25 | – 3]

Keen direction, cool space. 

27. Penny Clive [New]

Detached, Hobart.

26. Lauretta Morton [New]

In charge of Newcastle.

25. Rhana Davenport [LY 84 | + 59]

Still catching her breath at AGSA.

24. Rachel Kent [Return]

The Chief Curator MCA + Cornelia Parker. 

23. Kaylene Whiskey [New]

Prominent APY artist and winner of the 2019 John Sulman Prize.

22. Roslyn Oxley [LY 22 | – ]

Rock on at Roxley

21. Eva Besen [LY 13 | – 8]

Keeping the lights on. 

20. Lesley Harding [New]

Artistic Director at Heide MoMA – where they’ve included at least one male artist in their 2020 exhibition line-up. 

19. Jan Minchin [LY 19 | – ]

Hanging tough. 

18. Naomi Milgrom [LY 20 | + 2]

Foundation and empire.

17. Fiona Foley [New]

A 30-year career survey of Foley’s work opens in January at the National Art School. 

16. Ursula Sullivan & Joanna Strumpf [LY 23 | +7]

Slowly, gradually, surely, one of the best line ups on the commercial scene.

15. Daniel Mudie Cunningham [LY 45 | + 30]

Katthy Cavaliere scholarship.

14. Patricia Piccinini [LY 26 | + 12]

While some non-Australians still haven’t heard of her, in 2020 she’ll introduce Skywhalepapa…

13. Alexie Glass-Kantor [LY 52 | + 39]

Venice +

12. Kerry Gardner [LY 59 | + 47]

“Boardrooms full of older men are the wet blanket of exciting cultural planning.” – K. Gardner, The Age.

11. Penelope Seidler [New]

Old school philanthropy.

10. Janet Holmes a Court [LY 27 | +17]

AC, HonFAHA, HonFAIB

9. Anna Schwartz [LY 16 | + 7]

[Singing] Mem-ori-eeeeees!

8. Esther Anatolitis [LY 53 | + 45]

Although the Feds think the arts should be invisible, they just can’t silence the head of NAVA. 

7. Lindy Lee [LY 34 | + 27]

Artist, mentor.

6. Catriona Mordant [LY 12 | + 6]

The better half of the Mordant duo.

5. Judith Neilson [LY 2 | – 3]

Throw some of that sweet sweet art money over here! 

4. CJ Hendry [LY 78 | + 74]

Name another Australian artist whose last exhibition had queues around the block, who appeared in the New York Times, and has bought an English church to show in 2020…

3. Nick Mitzevich [LY 11 | + 8]

The head of the National Gallery of Australia embraced the #knowmyname faith with gusto for 2020.

2. Nici Cumpston [LY 69 | + 67]

Was the 2019 iteration of Tarnanthi at AGSA the best reviewed show of the year? 

1. Elizabeth Ann Macgregor [LY 9 | +8]

‘From pariah to popular’ the MCA head and CIMAM President also breezed in to the Art Review Power 100. 

For about the last 14 years UNSW  Art & Design – the Faculty Formerly Known As COFA – has been a quiet leader in the achievements of both its Aboriginal students and those from minority backgrounds. This hasn’t been because it has put major funding towards supporting equity outcomes, but because of the efforts of one staff member, Tess Allas. She was originally employed at the University as the research assistant for Vivien Johnson’s Storylines ARC project. As a result she wrote hundreds of biographies of Aboriginal artists who lived and worked below [>] the Rowley Line. These are now freely available on [>] Design and Art of Australia Online.

While she was working on Storylines both research and coursework students found Tess to be a source of information, ideas and encouragement on Aboriginal art. Indigenous students and those from unconventional backgrounds discovered that there was a person willing to listen to them and to nurture their careers. She began to teach courses on Aboriginal art which transformed the lives of many students, and changed career paths. When the research project was over she was appointed Associate Lecturer.  She did far more than teach. Her contacts and her generosity opened many doors. Major Aboriginal artists began to appear on campus, befriending students. Donors gave scholarships.  CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) students found that Tess was their best confidant and advocate. 

With the change of Dean and a new regime, it decided that only those with PhDs could be given even junior academic positions. Tess has a masters in curatorship, has been responsible for many exhibitions including the groundbreaking With Secrecy and Despatch at Campbelltown Arts Centre as well as many articles in [>] Australian art magazines. She was appointed Director of Indigenous Programs, a non-academic position, but continued to teach.

Last week, without warning, Tess Allas was told her position will be terminated at the end of this year. Other than the loss of someone so crucial to the well-being of students and staff alike, this decision further entrenches the white-bread homogeneous composition of an art & design faculty that was once reaching towards diversity.

The student response was instantaneous. Within hours a petition was launched [>] Please sign here

Art Market: Beep Beep Beep

One thing you can count on in the Australian art market is the never-ending boosterism and hype. As to whether the optimistic predictions for Sydney Contemporary that it might add another $5 million on top of its 2018 record have yet to be announced, overall, the market is maintaining an equilibrium well below it’s heyday in the late aughts. So where is the market, really? According to two Melbourne University academics David Challis and Anita Archer, the market has flatlined. Writing for The Conversation they observe [>] “In the market parlance of boom and bust cycles, the Australian art market has long been leaning towards the latter. Over the past decade, it has performed very poorly. According to Australian Art Sale Digest, the combined volume of secondary market sales through Australian auction houses was $107 million in 2018. This amount has remained essentially unchanged for the last ten years and is 39% lower than its apex in 2007. Prices for Australian artwork in the secondary market have followed a very similar pattern. Commercial art galleries, traditional representatives of artists’ new work, are struggling to counteract declining foot traffic… “

Middle Class Art Collectors RIP

Meanwhile, in overseas secondary art markets awash with speculation, price ramping and celebrity artists doing an end run around the commercial gallery system, one notable trend has been the demise of the middle class collector. These aren’t just people who have a few nice works for their big McManison walls, but deep collections that survey important art movements. The celebrated example are Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, who collected conceptual and minimalist works and amassed a sizeable and important collection which they eventually donated to the National Gallery of Art in Washington rather than sell. They also had a documentary made about their modest lives and their great eyes for art. According to the Art Newspaper, that kind of collecting is now very rare, if not impossible [>] “…In an era of growing income inequality, in which the wealthy have embraced art—particularly contemporary art—as an alternative asset class, pushing gallery and auction prices ever-higher and hollowing out the middle market, is it still possible for professionals of relatively modest means to become serious collectors? “If they exist, I haven’t seen them,” says Douglas Walla, the founder of the New York-based contemporary dealers, Kent Fine Art. “In large part, the entry part of the market for young artists, where the price point would be very accessible, has been consumed by speculators,” Walla says, adding that much of this activity is currently focused on “artists of colour—long neglected—and older women artists of merit. The endgame is profit.”

Best Exhibition Title for 2019…

In what has to be the best exhibition title of the year, artist [>] Jenny Reddin debuts her contemporary abstraction under the banner The Very Stupid Man. Exhibiting her latest paintings at Melbourne’s Tacit Galleries, opening October 18, the connection between the title and the subject is fascinating [>] “The works are reminiscent of fragments, scraps and fossils of very early life at a time when the earth was pristine. There is an inverse correlation between the expansion of human intelligence, developments in technology, improvements in the standard of living, and the degradation of the earth. Prehistoric man was stupid because he only knew enough to survive. Time will tell whether modern man is clever enough to reverse the damage that our prosperity has caused…”

Borrowed Landscapes

[>] “With a practice that spans more than thirty-five years, Marian Drew is one of Australia’s most influential and significant photo-media artists. Her artistic career is characterised by innovative photo-media explorations and her distinct use of painterly light and long exposure. Throughout her work, Drew acknowledges the pictorial relationships of landscape and history to cultural identity. Drew has said, “‘Landscape’ is often represented as something apart from ourselves and yet it is an idea we carry with us, culturally forming our relationship to the natural world.” Tweed Regional Gallery, until January 26, 2020.

Dream Dance: The Art of Emsh

[>] “Dream Dance: The Art of Ed Emshwiller is the first major monographic exhibition of the artist’s groundbreaking work in film, video, and visual art. With an immensely diverse body of creative work, Ed Emshwiller (1925-90) is perhaps one of the most significant yet under-recognized artists of the latter half of the 20th century. Emshwiller’s career spanned abstract expressionist painting, commercial illustration, film, video and computer art, and collaborations with dancers, choreographers, and composers.  Dream Dance includes the preservation of two of Emshwiller’s earliest films, Dance Chromatic (1959) and Lifelines (1960), which will be screened at Lightbox along with 19 of his other films—some of which have never been publicly presented in Philadelphia—as well as notable films by other filmmakers for which he served as cinematographer. A concurrent exhibition at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery highlights Emshwiller’s visual and fine art background, including video works, early paintings, notes, sketches, ephemera, and many early science fiction cover paintings. Dream Dance is a full scale investigation of the artist’s legacy, presenting his multidisciplinary oeuvre to a new generation of audiences.”

Assorted Links

Pointless appointments pointing to apparent perfidy: [>] Tony Abbott appointed to board of Australian War Memorial

Aichi Triennale exhibition [>] may trigger legal battle, meanwhile [>] rally held against govt. decision on cultural affairs agency’s decision to withhold subsidies for the Triennale…

The Gray Market [>] Why Opaque Pricing in the Gallery Sector Makes Museum Collections Less Diverse

“From a person dropping old TV sets onto people’s doorsteps while wearing one on their head, to a cougar slinking across a porch, to a 5-year-old reciting the Pledge of Allegiance [>] Ring is documenting facets of suburban existence that once went unnoticed…”

“Hertzian Landscapes [>] is a new interactive installation that visualizes large swaths of radio spectrum as a realtime electromagnetic landscape.”

“A recent protest at the Whitney that drummed out a vice chairman exposed the symbiotic, but potentially problematic, relationship that museums have with some trustees…” [>] New Scrutiny of Museum Boards Takes Aim at World of Wealth and Status

What the Hell Was Modernism? [>] The Museum of Modern Art tries to open itself up.

“A sort of liveliness…” Sally Ross’s Large Scale Landscapes

Its hard to believe that it has been 15 years since Sally Ross‘s last commercial exhibition in Sydney, but her latest self-titled exhibition with Martin Browne Contemporary is a major new body of work, that’s also a substantial increase in scale. [>] “I’ve loved making something that’s bigger than me,” Ross says. “It’s nice to be overpowered by the scale but there’s still an intensity of detail all over it, so it’sreally quite beautiful. I’m thrilled with it and can’t wait for people to see it.” Ross says that as well as including the largest works she has created, the dozen paintings in the exhibition celebrate a new painterly freedom.“There are still the absolute classic, really strong greens and ultramarine blues. But you’ve also got a lovely looseness, with this new feathering technique and some other departures from previous landscapes in larger plains of white and softer pastels of pinks and blues. There’s a sort of liveliness that’s coming in; it’s a little less tight, a little more painterly.” Until October 13, Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney.

To infinity, and beyond…

For those with a brain wired into science fiction, contemporary art and experimental film, James Gray‘s just released epic Ad Astra was an intriguing combination of standard space movie visuals and something rather special. In an otherwise enjoyable but ultimately dumb space movie, there were extended moments of glorious abstraction. Riffing no doubt on Stanley Kubrick‘s use of expanded cinema filmmakers to help produce 2001‘s last act star-gate sequence, Gray’s movie likewise pushes abstraction as a dubious equivalence for the infinite. But on a more mundane level, what’s fascinating is the director reached out to a couple of film academics specialising in avant garde film and video to serve as advisors. [>]“It’s a rare thing for scholars to be asked to serve as advisors on studio films of any size, no matter the topic. (Hell, we’re usually not even asked to authenticate representations of academia itself.) So, it came as a pleasant surprise indeed for Brooklyn-based scholar and curator Leo Goldsmith and Georgia Tech film and media professor Gregory Zinman when they were asked by director James Gray to serve as advisors on his latest film, Ad Astra, scheduled for a September release by 20th Century Fox. Said to be a moody, existential science fiction film (Zinman and Goldsmith have read the script but are sworn to secrecy, and the film hasn’t screened at press time), Ad Astra posed certain challenges for Gray that, in the director’s mind, could possibly be addressed by exploring the world of avant-garde media. So, he turned to two experts in the field…”

Banksy, the profitable sequel…

[>] “Almost one year after Banksy made auction history for shredding one of his paintings moments after it sold, the anonymous street artist is once again back in auction and breaking records. His largest known oil-on-canvas, depicting a chaotic scene in the U.K. parliament, will soon be shown and auctioned off at Sotheby’s in London ahead of a Brexit talk during an EU summit next month. The piece, titled Devolved Parliament is expected to sell between £1.5 million and £2 million at Sotheby’s evening sale of contemporary art on October 3 in London. The work will be on display starting Sept. 28…”

Exploring the cinematic

[>] “My photography work is mostly about exploring the cinematic and narrative possibilities of a single still frame, while also using weather conditions as a way to affect the emotional state of a photograph“ – Henri Prestes, images via [>] Twitter.

Assorted Links

‘Everybody Watches Porn’ [>] Dealer Michele Maccarone on Why She Teamed Up With PornHub For Her Explicit New Show in LA

Dept. of Coals to Newcastle: “Join Grayson for one night only this January at the Australian Premiere of Grayson Perry: Them & Us. A ‘brilliantly clever’ evening of laughter and intelligent discussion with one of the most celebrated artists of his generation…” [>] Grayson Perry’s Sydney talk fest tickets on sale, cheap seats from $90

Meanwhile, Perry says [>] ‘I wonder if the whole art market isn’t a money-laundering scheme’

[>]“The Bio-Integrated Design Lab at the Bartlett School of Architecture has created a modular system of tiles inlaid with algae that can filter toxic chemical dyes and heavy metals out of water…”

On Line [>] The Pulse of Agnes Martin

“In the past decade, only 11 percent of all work acquired by top museums in the US was by women…” [>] Female Artists Made Little Progress in Museums Since 2008, Survey Finds

“Patrick Tresset is an artist who was not a fan of his own work. So, he came up with an idea… [>] program a bunch of robots and let them do all the drawing.“

RIP Gianfranco Gorgoni. [>] “Gorgoni captured some of best-known images of Land Art masterpieces from the 1970s onward, contributing immeasurable value to the movement.” ?

And finally…

BoS 2020: NIRIN 98 Named

In the midst of all the excitement around last week’s Sydney Contemporary, the Biennale of Sydney used the event as a stage for the announcement of all 98 participating artists, creatives and collectives for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, 2020, under the title NIRIN. In a throw back to Biennales past, Bos2020 is sited across a range of venues, including stalwart institutions the Art Gallery of NSW, Artspace, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, with the new addition of the National Art School. And welcome back to the group Campbelltown Arts Centre! [Buses leaving every now and then from somewhere or other, or a fun drive down the M5!] The 22nd Biennale of Sydney [>] “…is artist- and First Nations-led, presenting an expansive exhibition of contemporary art that connects local communities and global networks. The urgent states of our contemporary lives are laden with unresolved past anxieties and hidden layers of the supernatural,’ said Brook Andrew. ‘NIRIN is about to expose this, demonstrating that artists and creatives have the power to resolve, heal, dismember and imagine futures of transformation for re-setting the world. Sovereignty is at the centre of these actions. I hope that NIRIN (edge) gathers life forces of integrity to push through often impenetrable noise.’ For the first time, artists from Nepal, Georgia, Afghanistan, Sudan and Ecuador will participate in the Biennale of Sydney…”

“I’m interested in giving science fiction and overdue sex change..”

[>] “The future is fleshy, according to Lucy McRae. As a new exhibition of her work opens at NGV in Melbourne, the designer explains why she believes the human body holds the key to the development of technology. Lucy McRae: Body Architect on show at NGV Australia is the first career retrospective for the Los Angeles-based, Australian designer, whose work uses the body to speculate on the future. Speaking to Dezeen, McRae said that the world of science fiction is too dominated by male perspectives. She wants to explore how the future, from a female point of view, can be “messy, visceral and human”.

Exhibition: Satellite of Love in Six Verses

[>] “Robert Moore is a nationally acclaimed artist who has also designed for Mambo. In this new exhibition he collaborates with the cultural entrepreneur Dare Jennings (Mambo and Deus ex Machina), who in conversation with Sydney vinyl king Jules Normington, made a selection of essential 7 inch singles from the period of 1970 to 1980. Robert will exhibit enamel painted boards of the selected vinyl labels.” At PASS_PORT STORE, 16 Oxford Square, (near Riley Street) DARLINGHURST. SEPT 19 – 29, 2019

Inevitable equipment failure!

[>] “The tension of cheap materials pushed to breaking point, inevitable equipment failure, and imminent physical demise lead to horrific scenarios. Safety and wellbeing are de-prioritised in new and liberating ways. HPPT faces fear, self preservation and risk management to create enthralling new possibilities for physical performance. HPPT was created in collaboration with visual artist Mickie Quick, sound artist Phil Downing, BN co-directors Mirabelle Wouters and Lee Wilson. This work brings all of their practices together to present an epic, visually and aurally rich and immersive experience. With the stage and objects miked up, and the live sound edited and layered live through a surround sound system, HPPT places the audience right into the action. The tension builds from the moment the audience enters and takes their seats, with the performer lying on stage blowing up a large balloon way beyond its stated capacity, to the inevitable explosion. Each scene thereafter continues to build with further wind-ups and releases, all the while maintaining edge of the seat suspense, leavened with deadpan humour.”

Follow: @a.jones_2019

When I first met Alan Jones I asked him if he was that Alan Jones. He said, yes, he was. Since then he has become even more famous, eclipsing all other namesakes. His Insta account @a.jones_2019 is a benchmark for how artists can create an unobtrusive online presence. Must follow.

Time Hole: Leaving Home, Coming Home

“Director Gerald Fox‘s documentary Leaving Home Coming Home: A Portrait of Robert Frank features intimate interviews with the filmmaker and photographer. The artist discusses his feelings about how his adopted hometown of New York City has changed over the course of his 50 years living there. The director showcases Frank’s work, including clips of some of his films including Pull My Daisy, Me and My Brother, and the little-seen Rolling Stones documentary Cocksucker Blues.”

Assorted Links

A painting at the Centre Pompidou [>] was stabbed by a knife-wielding museumgoer.

Designer Luigi Colani dies [>] after decades of curving the world

“The world’s oldest desert is to be blessed with one of the most listened-to songs – Africa by Toto. Namibian artist Max Siedentopf has set up a sound installation in the coastal Namib Desert to play on loop, in tribute to the soft rock classic…” [>] Africa by Toto to play on eternal loop ‘down in Africa’

For Cindy Sherman’s 2016 Harpers Bazaar commission the artist created a set of ‘street-style stars’ [>] flamboyant characters that would not look out of place at a fashion show.

“The British sculptor says he wants to transport visitors to “the threshold between the known and the unknown” at his ambitious new show in the Royal Academy of Arts, London…” [>] An Indoor Sea and Miles of Metalwork: Antony Gormley’s Crowning Moment

Design files: [>] driverless cars will lead to more sex in cars, study finds Of course, it’s already happened [>] Reckless couple filmed sex tape in DRIVERLESS Tesla while it cruised down motorway on its own

“A sense of mystery surrounds the keyhole-shaped kofun tombs in Japan. Although the iconic Mozu Tombs in Sakai city, Osaka have recently been awarded UNESCO World Heritage status, surprisingly little is actually known about these intriguing monuments [>] kept under lock and key by the Japanese government...” 

This is [>] what future San Francisco was supposed to look like… 

“I think it’s possibly the best fair yet. Onwards and upwards!” – Barry Keldoulis

“It is definitely the bestfair to date” – Tim Etchells (correcting Barry K)

 “You’re a real reporter. You just peeled me back like a banana!” – Art lover to TAL

“I’m going to make friends with nuts” – hungry artist on VIP night

“They should make the alcohol free so everyone would get pissed and buy more art” – gallerist on VIP night

“Fuuuuuuck! …why don’t they just add three bucks to the ticket price and give everyone a free drink!” – woman on Opening Night in ridiculously long bar queue 

“Immersive… well, …semi immersive” – Art lover on installation work

“That woman is resting her wine glass on the Alex Seton I just bought!” – art collector

“Shame about the bright yellow planter boxes” – art media trying to get a proper view of Nell’s Rock Gate

“It’s a sort of death in custody comment you might say” – gallerist to art media

“Last year we did $21 million in sales and I expect this year it will be over $25 million” – Tim Etchells

“I’ve heard it described as the ‘Galleries Christmas’” – Tim Etchells

“Whoever chose that colour palette should be shot!” – Fair visitor on Sydney Contemporary decor 

“The galleries are just a con to get everyone’s email addresses” – art collector

“I’m so disoriented now I don’t know which was is up” – Fair visitor lost somewhere around Aisle F

“Are you a pelican or a tour guide” – Fair visitor to art mag attendant

And on Twitter…

“Was planning on going to the Sydney contemporary at carriageworks today but I’m already getting stuff through my Instagram feed reminding me I wasn’t invited to the artists day and all the slick work there makes mine look like chicken scratchings on toilet paper” – @RobbieHBK

“We don’t know art but we know what we like: art.” – @monsterchildren

“The peerless Sally Gabori via ??@alcastongallery? at #sydneycontemporary. 
MyPOV: She’s better than Pollock.” – @steve_lockstep

Monster Mash

The Adelaide Biennial of Art is the Art Gallery of South Australia’s flagship event. Like most large museum shows it’s both a survey but also organised thematically, and its success rises or falls on the ingenuity of that uniting theme. For the 2020 iteration, opening February 29th and running until June 8, the AGSA has just announced the new curatorial idea, namely, monsters… [>] “Titled Monster Theatres, the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art invites artists to make visible the monsters of our time. Curator Leigh Robb says ‘Monsters ask us to interrogate our relationships with each other, the environment and technology. They force us to question our empathy towards difference across race, gender, sexuality and spirituality’. The term ‘monster’ comes from Latin monere, to warn, and monstrare, to show or make visible. The exhibition title hints at a double narrative which also resonates through the multiple meanings of ‘theatre’. An operating theatre is a room in which to examine, dissect as well as heal; it is also a theatre of war, a site of conflict where clashes between nations and ideologies play out all too frequently, but a theatre is also an arena – an active social space. Curator Leigh Robb says ‘Monster Theatres proposes an arena of speculation, a circus of the unorthodox and the absurd, a shadow play between truth and fiction. The title is inspired by a group of provocative Australian artists. Their urgent works of art are warnings made manifest. These theatres are theirs.’”

Banksy: Completely Unauthorised

Opening on September 13th is The Art of Banksy, [>] a ticketed event at that noted venue for the visual arts, the Entertainment Quarter at Moore Park, Sydney. While pre-publicity has played up the artist’s street cred and his provocative work, and a range of art including “…canvasses, screen-prints and sculptures from 1997 to 2008, a period during which the anonymous artist produced some of his most recognisable and best-known pieces..”  it’s worth noting that the show is totally unofficial. As per Broadsheet [>] “The show, which has toured the world and was in Melbourne in 2016, is unauthorised – the British street artist has not given the curator Steve Lazarides, Banksy’s first art dealer, foamier manager and photographer, permission to put on the exhibition.” 

Raw Language @ Orange Regional Gallery

Curated by Henry Sisley for Orange Regional Gallery, Raw Language: esotericism in outsider art continues the institution’s tradition of championing Outsider artists with an examination of the esoteric in Outsider art. [>] “The esoteric is that which is understood by only a small number of people who possess specialised understanding. It references occultism, mysticism, and alternative understandings of mainstream religion. Sacred or profane, it is an enthralling subject, as people have an innate desire to learn the secrets that are kept from them. Focussing on Australian art, this exhibition allows the viewer to glean an insight into the secret and mystical knowledge possessed by these artists, whether it be the artists’ take on esoteric Christianity, occultism, or their own secret language and understanding of the world.”

Follow: Lego Lost At Sea

This is not an art Twitter account, although it sometimes looks like it. @LegoLostAtSea documents plastics that wash up on the shores of the United Kingdom. And they explain: “Nearly five million bits of #Lego fell into the sea when a huge wave hit the cargo ship Tokio Express, washing 62 containers overboard. One contained over 4.7 million pieces of Lego, much of it sea themed. The Lego is still washing up.” Fascinating and sobering at the same time.

Catherine Blake, artist

Being the partner of an artist when you’re an artist yourself is often a difficult life, especially when the other half is vastly more famous than you are. Catherine Blake, wife of Bill Blake, was an artist in her own right and produced a number of notable works. However, her legacy is that of the colourist to her husband’s books. A major exhibition just opened at Tate Britain in London of William Blake’s work makes an overdue feature of Catherine’s involvement. [>] “Rather than celebrating Catherine by displaying the handful of surviving works known to have been made by her alone, the gallery has chosen instead to point out her unacknowledged daily involvement in her husband’s idiosyncratic work. Prominent among the exhibits to go on show this week, alongside previously unseen illustrated pages bearing his most famous lines, “Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,” will be a book cover coloured by Catherine. “We have not sufficiently trumpeted Catherine’s involvement before, and this book, Europe: A Prophecy, dates from 1794 and its cover was coloured by her,” said curator Amy Concannon. “It makes it clear how she worked by his side.”

“Tolerant, patient…”

It has been awhile since we checked in with the weekly musings of Christopher Allen. He’s a busy man, dividing his time between his scholarly art reviews for The Australian, his day job as Senior Master in Academic Extension at Sydney Grammar School, and conducting tour groups for [>] Renaissance Tours where one happy customer described him as “…very patient and tolerant; knowledgeable and enthusiastic about art, history as well as languages.” Of course, he’s tolerant and patient, but even those fine qualities have their limits. In a strange aside in a recent review of Bill Henson‘s latest outing, a predictable account of the artist’s work, Allen let rip on the parents of the kids he presumably teaches… [>] “Henson, perhaps needless to say, is not engaged in the ‘celebration of suburban life” that seems to be a recurrent theme in Australian culture: a world of big houses and backyard pools and four-wheel drives and barbecues and fathers taking sons to football while mothers take daughters shopping and initiate them into the rituals of female consumerism, and boys and girls gradually turn from hopeful, lively and curious little beings into caricatures of their sex and class…” The whole review [>] is here, but of course, it’s behind a pay wall.

The visual language of Smart Cities

Who doesn’t love a sleek visualisation of tomorrow’s urban environment? The global smart cities trend is said to be worth as much as $238 billion USD by 2025, and while few can agree on what exactly a ‘smart city’ actually is [a kind of glossy world-of-tomorrow where convergent media and marketing meet to produce a metropolis that looks great on Insta], an article on City Lab argues that for now, it’s all just a bunch of images [>] ” Despite some stylistic difference, these images all speak the same basic language—sleek and a bit soulless, but striking enough to perk up any boardroom […] The city shown is stuffed with technological enhancements, none of which actually exist yet. But […] what is being sold here is an idea of a smart city, crowning the exponential slope of runaway technological progress. The point of this idea is to give the vague, watery idea of technological progress a bit of real-life heft by packing any possible “future tech” into the head of a pin, where all problems have been solved and the technochauvinist scheme has been totally vindicated. All these images are illusions of progress or spaces where progress can be hosted. Just as suburbs were sold to postwar America as an idea of living, the smart city is a vehicle to sell a focus-grouped future. But these marketing images aren’t selling smart cities to you and me—they’re made to demonstrate that the city is a place where profits stand to be made. The smart city isn’t a technological utopia, or an environmental lifeboat. It’s a few PowerPoint slides in a conference room demonstrating that there’s money to be made. And it’s coming to you soon…”

The Unending Attraction of Nature

[>] “Three hundred trees are growing in a soccer stadium in Austria in an epic work of Land Art that aims to raise awareness about the world’s climate emergency, and the dangers of deforestation. The remarkable installation organized by the Swiss curator Klaus Littmann is the realization of a long-held dream based on an artist’s drawing he saw more than three decades ago. Littmann confesses that Max Peintner sounded skeptical that his vision, which he created in 1970, could be ever be realized. But the Basel-born curator, unveiled the meticulously planned art project in the city of Klagenfurt in southern Austria on September 8. Called For Forest–The Unending Attraction of Nature, it has transformed the Wörthersee soccer stadium into a temporary forest of trees native to Austria and Central Europe.The curator has transplanted hundreds of specimens, some of them fully grown and weighing up to six tonnes each, to create the living work of art inspired by Peintner’s work, which predates Beuys’s proposal to plant 7,000 oak trees at Documenta in Kassel in 1982.”

Time Hole: Poodle Fitness

“Mariko Takahashi’s Fitness Video for Being Appraised as an “Ex-fat Girl” is a short film by renowned art director and commercial film director Nagi Noda who created spots for Nike and Coca-Cola and starring Mariko Takahashi, a California born model”

Assorted Links

[>] R.I.P. Robert Frank

Guerrilla Girls endorse an art fair?? [>] Australasia’s Largest International Art Fair, Sydney Contemporary, Is Back, but Not Like You’ve Seen It Before

“Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says a controversial painting depicting the Virgin Mary holding a male appendage should have never been hung in an art gallery. “My staff won’t show it to me because they said it’s too obscene and I won’t be looking at it,” she said” [>] Virgin Mary painting ‘Holy Family’ sparks outrage

Oh no, not again! [>] X-Rated Painting Of The Virgin Mary Is Causing A Stir!

Australian artists reveal how [>] they maintain a living wage and a creative practice

The spelling of Georgia O’Keeffe’s name [>] is now the subject of an internet conspiracy theory about parallel universes

[>] I didn’t steal £1 million: art advisor pleads not guilty in Yayoi Kusama theft case.

“The artist Sterling Ruby, who recently launched a fashion line, worried that his new venture would have a negative effect on his career. “I know that there are people who have paid millions of dollars for my work who might find this banal,” he said.” [>] Sterling Ruby’s Mixed Media

David Hartt’s installation The Histories blends flowers, film, and music [>] Frank Lloyd Wright’s Only Synagogue Gets a Major Art Installation

[>] Malaysian designers propose building colony on Mars from locally grown bamboo

Has anyone every considered the possibility that Anish Kapoor is a Joker-style super villain? [>] Commissioned by Boris Johnson as the Eiffel Tower of London, Anish Kapoor’s ‘Orbit’ Is Now More Than $15 Million in Debt

What Ada Lovelace can teach us [>] about digital technology

“French street artist JR is helping the Louvre celebrate the 30th anniversary of its famed glass pyramid by surrounding it with a dramatic optical illusion…” [>] Street Artist JR Turns the Louvre Pyramid into an Incredible Optical Illusion

And finally…

Inclusive and polyphonic spaces: what is a museum?

On occasion the media lets the directors of art museums some space to think out loud what museums mean in the contemporary context. Are they the dusty galleries for the venerated works of long dead artists? Or are they super exciting activated spaces that are both social media friendly zones for young folks and curatorial serious endeavours? Maybe the reality is the in the middle… The Australian gave over some space for the Museum of Contemporary Art director Elizabeth Ann Macgregor to reflect on her recent visit to the recent International Council of Museums conference in Kyoto, where the definition of a museum is “…a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.” While the last 30 years have seen a significant shift in how museums are funded by government, their role questioned by cultural conservatives, and sometimes vexed questions of philanthropy, the market and arms-length museum board involvement in curatorial decisions, Macgregor argues that a new definition of a museum is needed [>] “All museums face the challenge of staying relevant and perhaps it is this that has led to the recent concerns about the new ICOM definition. Relevant to whom? Museums must attract new audiences, especially younger audi­ences, with different expectations. At the same time they have a responsibility to their core audience, and the blending of the two is often a delicate balancing act. ICOM received more than 260 responses to its call for a new definition and the proposal presumably reflects the overwhelming concerns of those who took the trouble to respond.Some have seen the new definition — “Museums,” it begins, “are democratising, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and the futures” — as pandering to a new age of activism that will alienate as many as it embraces. But this raises the question of how a museum should reflect the current era. This is easier to answer for art museums, where the work will inevitably present ideas that deal with contemporary issues such as global warming and climate change, gender diversity and immigration…”

It’ll be here, eventually: Sydney Modern

Hey, remember how everyone got super angry about the Art Gallery of NSW expanding its empire northwards over some green space for their fancy new exhibitions spaces dubbed Sydney Modern? And remember how Paul Keating slammed the place saying it’d just be a convention centre? And how that Facebook person said the windows would be too big and ruin the works? No? Ok, well Sydney Modern is still happening, but just not as quickly as some had hoped. As the Sydney Morning Herald reports [>] “NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has promised to deliver the much-vaunted $344 million expansion to the Art Gallery of NSW “under budget” after her government was forced to go back to the market to find a builder. But the Sydney Modern project, which will double the gallery’s exhibition space, will be completed months behind schedule, with the opening pushed back to 2022 rather than late-2021 as initially planned. Ms Berejiklian announced on Sunday that Richard Crookes Constructions had won the contract to build the project, with construction to begin in the coming months. She said the government had made the right call in re-opening the tender process because it  had secured a better deal due to improved market conditions. “We took a difficult decision to go back to the market,” Ms Berejiklian said. “But know we know it was the right decision. We got a price under budget.”“

How many museums can we sustain?

In The Art Newspaper, intrepid arts reporter Elizabeth Fortescue looks at plans for two major new Indigenous art museums, one in South Australia, and the other in the Northern Territory, that are attracting high level support but also ‘controversy’ [>] “The Northern Territory government proposes a National Aboriginal Art Gallery for Alice Springs, a town with a population of 25,000 in the geographic heart of Australia. Under Michael Gunner, the chief minister, the territory committed A$50m ($34m) to the project in 2016, with the hope of attracting further funding from the federal government and private sources. The South Australian government under Steven Marshall, the state premier, allocated A$150m ($102m) in June to developing an Aboriginal Art and Cultures Gallery in Adelaide “with the final design and cost to be determined after receipt of the business case”. In March, the federal government pledged A$85m towards the Adelaide museum as part of a ten-year deal to boost the local economy. Announcing the idea as a campaign pledge before the 2018 South Australian election, Marshall said: “The absence of a national gallery for Aboriginal Australia’s cultural and artistic heritage is a significant omission by Australian governments and a fantastic opportunity for South Australia.” But the arts administrator Michael Lynch, the former chief executive of the Sydney Opera House and the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority in Hong Kong, has raised concerns that two museums would compete for collections, audiences and funding. He tells The Art Newspaper that his relationship with the Alice Springs and Adelaide projects had been “vexed”, citing political interference, a lack of Indigenous consultation and a wasted architectural competition…”

Ai Wei Wei says Western Art Museums in China are ‘a joke’

Meanwhile in Hong Kong, artist activity Ai Wei Wei has slammed Western art museums that are seeking to expand into China as a ‘joke’ as the galleries carefully avoid getting involved in the protests in Hong Kong. Reports Artnet [>] “Speaking as pro-democracy campaigners in Hong Kong defied a ban on anti-government protests, and after police fired tear gas and used water canons on demonstrators this past weekend, Ai mocked Western institutions for their silence on the crackdown, and self-censorship. “Western museums expanding in China is a joke,” the Chinese-born, Berlin-based artist told artnet News. “China is an authoritarian state under heavy censorship. By choosing to expand into China, you have chosen to obey these dictates; you are willing to be censored.” Several major institutions have formed partnerships as well as organized major loan exhibitions on the mainland and in Hong Kong in the past decade. These include London’s Tate, Victoria & Albert Museum, and British Museum as well as the Center Pompidou in Paris. “Partnering with Chinese museums while being involved with issues at the forefront of contemporary culture is laughable,” Ai said, referring to human rights, freedom of speech, and democratic values…”

Commrades! To the stars!

The Soviet Union may have lost the race to land a man on the Moon, but they certainly won the propaganda poster war, as US publications such as Open Culture are only now admitting. [>] “There were some things the Soviets just did better—and when it came to making space travel look like the most monumentally heroic and exciting thing ever, they excelled, as you can see in this early collection of Soviet space posters from 1958-1963…”

Time Hole: That time Johnny Farnham & Yoram Gross made a music video at Christo’s ‘Wrapped Coast’…

[>] “Commercial short film for John Farnham’s “One” by Yoram Gross, with introduction by Brian Henderson from the Bandstand television show. 1970.”

Follow: E S P E R 9 9 5

Unfortunately it’s impossible to grab GIFs from Twitter, otherwise our page would be graced with [>] ESPER 995’s gorgeous neo-cyberpunk 8 bit graphics, many their own, others lovingly curated from across the web. Nothing says tomorrow like a retro-future…

Assorted links

Dad! [>] Alex has dug another hole!

“As new technology is increasingly adopted by artists, can curators and collectors keep up?” [>] Getting digi with it: how the art world is grappling with new media

RSVP [>] Runway Journal: Issue 39: Oceans Launch Party

The artist who chronicled the [>] Bronx Graffiti Boom in the 1980s

[>] Dezeen Awards 2019 architecture shortlist reveals world’s best buildings

‘We Are a Blight on Nature’ [>] Machine Master Conrad Shawcross on Artificial Intelligence, Acid House, and Turning a Car Into a Kinetic Sculpture

Brilliant Visions [>] Peyote among the Aesthetes

What’s your favourite month of the year? [>] English painter Peter Brook made a lithograph for each one.

Sculpting Time [>] Will Self’s introduction to Tarkovsky’s Solaris.

Art Spiegelman [>] golden age superheroes were shaped by the rise of fascism

[>] Picturing Vermillion Sands

Video easy

Jeremy Deller‘s 2018 project Everybody In The Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992 is now available in its entirety online. It’s part lecture, part documentary, part hands-on music making experience in which the artist uses the emergence of the rave scene in the UK in the mid-80s to revisit some of his key interests, from the miner’s strike, Thatcherism and the long-simmering disputes the heart of English society, to their present day manifestations. Funded by Frieze and Gucci, the work premiered in mid-2018 but had not been available online. Better yet, it’s a work that can be experienced from the comfort of your own home. [>] “In the 30 years since acid house exploded into the UK’s consciousness, its myth as a sui generis phenomenon, dominated by a small vanguard of London-centric tastemakers, has become entrenched. With ‘Everybody In the Place’ artist Jeremy Deller turns this received wisdom on its head, situating rave and acid house at the very centre of the seismic social changes upending 1980s Britain. Rare and unseen archive materials trace a lineage from protest movements to abandoned warehouse raves, the white heat of industry bleeding into the chaotic release of the dancefloor. We join an A Level class as they discover these stories for the first time, viewing these familiar narratives from the perspective of a generation for whom it’s already ancient history.”

According to the web, Heman Chong is a Malaysian artist who is “an artist whose work is located at the intersection between image, performance, situations and writing.” Ironically perhaps, Chong is an artist whose work exists literally at intersections as much of his work is concerned with walking projects in both city and country, from short strolls across parks to epic treks across deserts. Chong has recently launched a collection of his walking videos on YouTube under the [>] Ambient Walking banner and they are very calming and soothing viewing. [>] “Ambient Walking is a depository of a series of long walks around the world shot with a DJI Osmo Pocket. All of my walks are distinctly personal in nature; they are places which means a lot to me. I will attempt to upload at least one walk a week. I will begin filming at the end of 2018, and hope to show you walks that I love in cities like Singapore, Tokyo, New York, Berlin, London, Kyoto, Sydney, Malmö, Lisbon, Shanghai, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taipei and many other sites which I have found immense pleasure in walking in. I’m doing this because I’ve always found refuge in watching first person perspective videos of walks. It’s very calming and therapeutic to let it run in the background while I work. Watch these videos when you’re on the thread mill! They’re such a great pleasure to watch when you’re exercising. I hope it’ll bring you to another place wherever you are. If you like this channel, and please subscribe!”

Too Much of a Good Thing

With Sydney Contemporary set to open in just under a fortnight, now is a good time to step back and consider the question: are there too many art fairs? Elizabeth Dee at Artnet argues that what we’re witnessing is the apocalyptic sounding ‘context collapse. [>] “There are too many art fairs. The proliferation of fairs over the past 15 years—from 68 in 2005 to more than 220 by 2015, according to one estimate—has resulted in an overcrowded system. Nearly every week of the year, multiple fairs open around the world, from experimental and intimate events to mass-market trade shows that are far more expansive than the market can support […] For participating galleries, the challenge remains the same: to build relationships and create value for developing artists. So lately, we find ourselves in the unsustainable situation in which the goals of the galleries that support the fairs, and the collectors that support the galleries, are at odds with those of the fairs themselves. The issues that result from this art-fair supersizing are complex, but they can be unified under one term: “context collapse.” [The term was] coined by the academic Michael Wesch in his 2008 lecture, “An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube.” He spoke of “content collapse” and “narrative deficiency” as phenomena that characterize social media, where users have multiple distinct communities—friends, family members, colleagues—collated into a single audience. The differences between traditional face-to-face relationship-based interaction and the potentially infinite audience of social media—or, we might logically extrapolate, businesses that scale in a parallel manner, such as big art fairs—is an issue that these industries are beginning to face…”

Starry starry night

[>] “An image that looks more like the night sky than the Great Barrier Reef has won a museum photographer one of the nation’s highest photographic awards as it captures a rare insight into the underwater world. Queensland Museum photographer Gary Cranitch recently took out gold in the Nature category at the Australian Institute of Professional Photography (AIPP) awards. The image captures a split-second moment of coral spawning on the Great Barrier Reef near Heron Island off the central Queensland coast. “Imagine looking at the stars in a night sky but in fact you’re looking at an ocean in the middle of the night,” Mr Cranitch said…”

Hot Dog! Blondell outta Berlin

Long-time readers of The Art Life will know our unfettered enthusiasm for veteran Australian pop artist Graham Blondell. So we’re happy to report that a new exhibition of Blondell’s work will be a part of the forthcoming Willoughby Visual Art Biennial, opening September 14. [>] “An exhibition of graphic prints, paintings and mixed-media works depicting vivid extracts of street graffiti and popular culture, inspired by Graham Blondel’s working visit to Berlin. A city famous for its street graffiti and dynamic popular culture, multi-culturalism, museums and art galleries. Berlin retains its number one status as the centre of contemporary art in Europe. It is also a city with a complex history. He found his experience of this city awe-inspiring and a revelation, its layers of its cultural and political past have provided a compelling source for Blondel’s artworks. Despite the collaged, colourful and graphic appearance of the artworks, they can be read as images of universal cultural and political issues.”

Why I Oughta!

In a brilliant reversal on the classic Looney Tunes gag, in which a painted black circle morphs into a hole, a black hole that looks like a 2D painting by trouble maker artist Anish Kapoor has claimed its first victim: [>] “…a man visiting the Fundação de Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, Portugal on Aug. 13 accidentally fell into the work of famed artist Anish Kapoor titled Descent Into Limbo — which features a hole in the ground made to look like a mere spot on the floor. The visitor — reportedly an Italian man in his 60s — allegedly wanted to see if the void was indeed just that and subsequently fell about eight feet to the bottom of the installation. To the illusion’s credit, there were multiple caution signs set up around the piece as well as a guard tasked with keeping visitors away from the hole.”

Assorted Links

Art Gallery of NSW [>] dips into collection for all women show

No victim: [>] Gallery for female artists opens

NGV accused of [>] censoring democracy activists over Hong Kong event

The verdict on White Night 2019 [>] Changes diminish singular achievement

[>] Studios as fertile ground for mid-career desert

The new version of Ishkur’s Guide To Electronic Music [>] has finally been released

A little touch of Maya Deren? “This supercut of director Sofia Coppola‘s shots, those through windows and those of characters looking through them, is filled with longing. As the Vimeo description notes, “whether they reflect themselves or the exteriors that surround them, it’s easy to get lost…” [>] As Life Flies By: Sofia Coppola Through Windows

Time Hole: JG Ballard’s High Rise as ’70s era BBC TV Drama…

Oh No, Big Bucks for Ono

It turns out that the NSW State Government will go to great lengths to conceal its behind-the-scenes deliberations when it comes to handing out great wads of cash in support of headline exhibitions. Former Fairfax journalist, and now Nine Media’s Andrew Taylor lodged an FOI application back in 2015 to find out how much Destination NSW had “…spent on major arts and cultural events in the state for the three years prior to 2015.” Destination NSW spent $100,00 trying to stop the FOI application but now, four years later, the truth: the State Government forked out $500,000 to support the Yoko Ono show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2013. But not everyone was that excited about it. The Art Newspaper reports that [>] “In a 2013 letter […] a senior bureaucrat in the NSW government called Yoko Ono a “well-known celebrity” but questioned her standing as an artist and suggested an exhibition of her work was unlikely to meet visitor targets. The letter was written by Sandra Chipchase, the chief executive of Destination NSW, the tourism arm of the state government, to Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, the director of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). In the letter, Chipchase unfavourably compared Yoko Ono with Anish Kapoor and Annie Leibovitz, two artists who previously exhibited at the MCA, suggesting that she was “not in the same echelon as these artists”. Despite the rebuke of Ono’s artistic standing and concerns about her ability to attract visitors, the letter coincided with a AU$500,000 contribution from Destination NSW towards the cost of the exhibition […] Chipchase’s private comments were in stark contrast to those issued by George Souris, the former NSW arts minister, in a November 2012 media release, in which Souris described Yoko Ono as an “internationally renowned avant-garde artist” and the exhibition as “a real coup for NSW”…”

Cataphiles Rejoice

[>] “The world beneath our feet is darkly alluring and terrifying. Ancient myths are replete with stories of underworld journeys. Humans (and even our ancestors, Homo erectus) have visited caves for hundreds of thousands of years and left traces of our presence there — art, graffiti, tools, and bones. In more recent history, we have ventured underground to retrieve valuable commodities (coal, oil, minerals) and treasure (gold, gems); buried things we hope to keep secure, from tombs to military bunkers; and entombed dark secrets below the surface, including hazardous wastes. “Underland” is an exploration of all of these human-underground interfaces. In its pages, the author — who also has extensive experience as a caver and climber — escorts his readers into many subterranean realms via a meandering, cave-like, and masterful narrative. And though he flirts with danger, entrapment, disaster, and even death, he returns safely to the surface each time with a new insight. The worlds he reveals are astonishing and dark. In Norway, Macfarlane views figures painted in red ocher on a cave wall 3,000 years ago, preserved and sheltered under rock, and so awe-inspiring that they move him to tears. Beneath Paris, he encounters the modern cave graffiti and underground sculptures of a subterranean counterculture, the “cataphiles,” who illicitly explore and keep watch over the city’s catacombs and sewers.”

Winogrand in Color

From The Guardian in the US, Garry Winogrand’s America in color [>] Winogrand’s rarely seen color photographs are on show at the Brooklyn Museum, showing his distinctive view of everyday life in America. On show until 8 December, takes him to the streets, to highways, to suburbs, to motels, to fairgrounds and to amusement parks…”

Have Duct Tape Will Travel

The art of make-do meets official signage. [>] “Tokyo’s cavernous train stations seem to be permanent construction zones. There is always some part or another shrouded in white sheets and skirted by a maze of endlessly shifting temporary paths. Walk the bowels of these stations long enough and you may come across Shuetsu Sato. Sixty-five year old Sato san wears a crisp canary yellow uniform, reflective vest and polished white helmet. His job is to guide rush hour commuters through confusing and hazardous construction areas. When Sato san realised he needed more than his megaphone to perform this duty, he took it upon himself to make some temporary signage. With a few rolls of of duct tape and a craft knife, he has elevated the humble worksite sign to an art form…”

But wait there’s more…

A call for papers for the conference The Non-Transparency of Language at the London based Association for Art History [est. 1974] is being passed around on social media as an example of the very thing it sets out to describe, ie, impenetrable art speak. Long time readers of The Art Life will know our occasional series But wait there’s more… which highlights the best in obscure art speak. Imagine our excitement when this CFP was being hailed as the new gold standard, and our disappointment when it turned out to be pretty straightforward [>] “The Non-Transparency of Language aims at exploring language-based art within the context of the contemporary gallery space. Hosted by Pavement Gallery and the Manchester School of Art, this event looks at exploring how this art form art has evolved within and the relevance that it still possesses the contemporary setting. Language-based art is a branch of Conceptual Art. Particularly associated with Art & Language (1968) is closely linked to the avant-garde art-works of the 1960’s. Words played an important role for artists; the emphasis being on ideas of visuals forms of work. The production of work maybe seen to be founded upon a linguistic basis. Artists such as Joseph Kosuth, Lawrence Weiner and Mel Bochner gave language a central role. Language had become subject to a further Minimalist reduction or had ‘dematerialized’. This notion of ‘Dematerialization’ appeared to be fetishist complexion, engaged with such thoroughly substantial materials as paper, and the spaces of gallery walls. The conviction which characterized Art & Language was that it was the inquiry which had to be the work, therefore ‘the work’ is the object of enquiry. Pavement Gallery has been known to display artists working with the medium of language such as John Cage (2019), Mark Titchner (2013), Antoni Muntadas (2012) and Lawrence Weiner (2010), examining the possibilities and complications of language and communication in both art and life. The impenetrability of the gallery is countered by the opening out of the exhibition into the outside world. Work which is shown in the gallery is viewable 24/7 by those passing by. This contained space affects the reception of the work, as potential viewers interact and perceive it in an individual manner…”

None more black

When it comes to colour, things are hotting up in London. When Anish Kapoor scored exclusive use of Vantablack, a pigment that’s touted as the blackest black ever created, more than a few artists were miffed at being barred from going to the dark side. In retaliation, it appears Kapoor is now personally banned from the use of other colours, including pink. As Artsy reports [>] “A new art store opened this weekend in London’s posh Mayfair district, offering premium paints and pigments to anyone, except for world-renowned artist Anish Kapoor. A security guard equipped with a photo of Kapoor is posted at the shop’s door at all times to ensure he doesn’t get in. All shoppers are required to sign a disclaimer certifying that they are not affiliated with Kapoor or there to buy paint on his behalf. The store, ArtShop, is the latest battleground in the color war between its creator, artist Stuart Semple , and Kapoor that began in 2016, when it was revealed that Kapoor had secured exclusive rights to artistic uses of Vantablack, the blackest synthetic material ever created. The fact that this new material with enormous artistic potential was only available to one artist incensed many in the artistic community, including Semple. In retaliation, he created a paint he dubbed the “Pinkest Pink” and made it available for anyone to buy online—except Anish Kapoor….”

One of the best bad paintings of all time

Jon McNaughton is rightly celebrated as the leading artist of Trump’s America. The natural heir to the crown of the kingdom of sentimentalia left vacant after the death of William Thomas Kincade, McNaughton has distinguished himself with ‘patriotic’ works that combine painterly realism with the fever dreams of the far right, such as in his picture [>] The Forgotten Man, which depicted Obama trampling on the constitution as the ghosts of former presidents looked on aghast, and the average man [the forgotten man of the title] quietly expires on a park bench. The cause of this scene? The passing of the Affordable Care Act. With Trump taking office in 2016 McNaughton found a president he can get behind, turning out more than a dozen allegorical portraits of the great man. The latest painting to cause an online ruckus is his magisterial Crossing The Swamp, a painting the needs little explanation except a legend to the who’s who of Delaware crossing Trumpites [>] “List of figures from left to right: Nikki Haley, James Mattis, Ben Carson, President Trump, Jeff Sessions, Mike Pence, Melania Trump, Mike Pompeo, Sarah Sanders, Ivanka Trump, John Bolton, Kellyanne Conway, John Kelly…” And lo, it is truly one of the worst paintings ever created!

Assorted links

Women artists take to the streets [>] to rattle ‘boys’ club’ with big, bold statements

Young Indigenous artists in outback New South Wales [>] choose to stay on country to further careers

Hey, it’s Ronny! [>] A ‘Hideous’ sculpture of a giant hand is sparking fear and confusion in New Zealand

From the Los Angeles Times [>] Spectacular aboriginal paintings from Australia burst with deep, sacred beauty

RIP [>] Artists Jin Shiu and Yi Joungmin, members of the Okin Collective, Found Dead

“Many visitors don’t look directly at the painting; they focus on their smartphone screens.” [>] Want to see the Mona Lisa? Get in Line

A piece of silo art that’s actually good [>] If you’re ever visiting Urana, make sure to pack brown pants

[>] HumanNature Series: The culture and politics of ice

Oopsie [>] Star Architect Must Pay Must Pay Venice for Bridge Too Fragile for Tourists

The lifts have been found: [>] David Lynch releasing 51 minutes of lost footage from ‘Blue Velvet’

Time hole: the first footage of earth from space…