Australian Art Research Articles

‘Effeminate arty boys and butch soccer girls’: investigating queer and trans-affirmative pedagogies under conditions of neoliberal governance

In this paper, we draw on conversations with two English teachers in an Australian government speciality arts focused school to investigate possibilities for envisaging trans-affirmative and queer pedagogies in the classroom. It draws from two studies that are concerned to investigate how gender and sexually diverse students are being supported in the education system. Our study employs queer and trans-informed epistemological insights into the pedagogical limits of heternormativity and cisgenderism in high schools. The data involved engaging with teachers who responded to a range of multi-literacy resources that addressed the politics of queer and trans representation, recognition and visibility in their classrooms. We tease out several themes which pertain to the institutionalisation of heteronormativity and cisgenderism, and how it is entwined with neoliberal governance in one particular case study school. Our purpose is to illustrate how this gender and sexuality politics works in tandem with a particular manifestation of neoliberal governance in the public education system, and plays into a specific policy discourse with particular consequences for schools, students and teachers in terms of impression management and its calculative and performative effects.

Camera, Colony, Künstlerroman: Photography in Three Australian Novels

ABSTRACTThis article traces the practices of photography that have been portrayed in three Australian artists’ novels: Patrick White’s The Vivisector, David Malouf’s Harland’s Half Acre, and Gail Jones’s Sixty Lights. Photography’s shifting status in relation to art, modes of knowledge, modes of production, and methods of relating to space suggest a growing discomfort in the nation’s literary imagination towards colonial art’s mobilisation of the imagination to authorise “sacred” settler belonging.

After the Solidarity and Consensus Debates: Habermas, Rorty and Fraser as Pragmatist Sources for Activist Dialogical Art

This paper poses a relationship between pragmatist understandings of intersubjective communication and long-term “dialogical art” practices promoting social change. Art historian Grant Kester contends that two dialogical art projects by Suzanne Lacy and Austrian Art collective WochenKlausur reflect Habermas’ theory of communicative action through which the “better argument” is universally validated. Kester simultaneously acknowledges such projects inculcate non-competitive modes of intersubjective exchange that appear contrary to Habermas. I look at the “philosophical narrative” debates between Richard Rorty and Habermas to suggest that Rorty’s eschewal of Habermasian rationalization in favor of affective modes of contingent solidarity, taken with Nancy Fraser’s understanding of enmeshed public/private discourse in the context of feminist counterpublics, draws out the political-ethical orientation of activist dialogical art practices.

Perceiving the Past: From Age Value to Pastness

Abstract:According to the Austrian art historian Alois Riegl (1857–1905), cultural heritage possesses age value (Alterswert) based on the perception of an object’s visible traces of age. His 1903 essay “The Modern Cult of Monuments” became a classic, and age value has ever since been constitutive for cultural heritage. Closer scrutiny, however, reveals that clever copies, reconstructions, and imaginative inventions can possess age value too. I therefore suggest “pastness” as a useful term for denoting the perception that a given object is “of the past.” Pastness is not immanent in an object but, rather, results from its appearance (for example, patina), its context (for example, in a museum), or its correspondence with preconceived expectations among the audience. In this article, I review the concept of pastness and discuss its implications for the global heritage sector. Age value emerges as being less universal than Riegl thought and was linked to a very particular intellectual and cultural context.

Hugh Ramsay’s Self-Portrait: Re ections on a Spanish Master Painter

The interest in European masters from the past was a phenomenon related to the development of the artistic careers of many artists in Australia at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. More than that, the copying or emulation of great works of art was seen to be a necessary part of an artist’s training1. This paper looks at Hugh Ramsay and his fascination with the painting Las Meninas (1656) by Velázquez as part of a larger study into understanding how the Spanish in uence was re ected in Australian art. Ramsay introduced elements from Las Meninas into his Portrait of the artist standing before easel, which took him to personify the role of the painter as Velázquez.

Art, Cold War Diplomacy and Commonwealth: Australian and Canadian Art at the Tate Gallery 1962–1964

ABSTRACTThis article analyses the formation, presentation and reception of two seminal exhibitions: Australian Painting: Colonial, Impressionist, Contemporary (1962–1963) and Canadian Painting 1939–1963 (1964). The presentation of these exhibitions at London’s Tate Gallery reflected the institution’s support for “old dominion” Commonwealth members. The exhibitions also highlight the differing visions of the Canadian and Australian governments concerning the relationship between art, diplomacy and politics during the Cold War. In Canada, Vincent Massey (Governor General 1952–1959) played a key role in ensuring that all forms of Canadian art were promoted internationally. Massey wanted to connect with the European and American avant-garde and to be part of a multiracial Commonwealth. This contrasted with the rather “old-fashioned” views of the Australian prime minister, Robert Menzies, and the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board. They supported a Commonwealth dominated by the “white dominions” and the initial exhibition plan for Australian Painting recalled previous British Empire art shows. The British response to the Canadian and Australian exhibitions is also discussed. British critics preferred the nationally identifiable “exotic” art found in Australian art to the transnational forms of international abstraction in Canadian art. Eventually, Australia “caught up” with Canadian cultural policy following the establishment of the Australia Council.

P for PROJECTION

Abstract This text laces the parenthetical comments from an essay on female spectatorship by a key figure in feminist film studies - Mary Ann Doane - taken from a 1982 issues double issue of SCREEN Magazine on ‘Sex & Spectatorship’ with Austrian artist Valie Export’s narrative of her 1969 performance work, Genital Panic.

Rethinking Social Norms Through Performance Art

A student essay for the Special Student Issue of the Journal of Extreme Anthropology accompanying the art exhibition 'Artist's Waste, Wasted Artists', which opened in Vienna on the 19th of September 2017 and was curated by the students of social anthropology at the University of Vienna. This essay focuses on the role of performance art in challenging established social norms and the work of the Austrian artist Michael René Sell.

Braque and Kokoschka: Brain Tissue Injury and Preservation of Artistic Skill.

The neural underpinning of art creation can be gleaned following brain injury in professional artists. Any alteration to their artistic productivity, creativity, skills, talent, and genre can help understand the neural underpinning of art expression. Here, two world-renown and influential artists who sustained brain injury in World War I are the focus, namely the French artist Georges Braque and the Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka. Braque is particularly associated with Cubism, and Kokoschka with Expressionism. Before enlisting, they were already well-known and highly regarded. Both were wounded in the battlefield where they lost consciousness and treated in European hospitals. Braque’s injury was in the left hemisphere while Kokoschka’s was in the right hemisphere. After the injury, Braque did not paint again for nearly a whole year while Kokoschka commenced his artistic works when still undergoing hospital treatment. Their post-injury art retained the same genre as their pre-injury period, and their artistic skills, talent, creativity, and productivity remained unchanged. The quality of their post-injury artworks remained highly regarded and influential. These neurological cases suggest widely distributed and diffuse neural control by the brain in the creation of art.

Looking back: reception as creative sparagmos. Oskar Kokoschka’s Orpheus und Eurydike revised

Early twentieth-century avant-garde theatre has been mainly interpreted within the cultural frames of aesthetic revolution and social transformation. Its experimental scope, however, also draws upon archaic traditions. Exemplary in this regard are parallels drawn between Expressionist theater's ecstatic and ritualistic performance style and ancient Greek theatre. However, the contribution of Expressionist artists to the reception of antiquity is still in need of further investigation. Therefore, this article addresses the concepts of sight, (in-)visibility, and visual perception in Oskar Kokoschka's (1886-1980) play Orpheus und Eurydike (1918), with particular regard to (classical) reception as an act of 'looking back' and of 're-visioning'. I connect Kokoschka's theatre's 'visual scope' to its dramatic text by appealing to reception studies, since a major theme in the ancient Orpheus myth is the notion of the transgressive gaze and (visual) curiosity. I argue that the Austrian artist, whose thoughts on vision and sight are centralized in Orpheus und Eurydike, thus develops a poetics of artistic self-awareness and - transformation which enables the artist and 'receiver' to revise the (or their own) past and to actively construct the future. In this way, I want to demonstrate that Expressionist theatre's artistic search for renewal hinges on its profound engagement with 'traditional', ancient material.

A bold expressionist Brand of art therapy

Following her breast cancer diagnosis in 2004, Australian artist Marika Brand underwent an emotional rollercoaster of surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, which she likens to going to “hell and back”. Encouraged by her husband, she channelled her emotions into her paintings, and the results of her journey of artistic and personal discovery are currently on display at Blue Dog Gallery, in the bayside suburb of Beaumaris in Melbourne, Australia.

Gombrich’s critique of Hauser’s Social History of Art

ABSTRACTThis article examines E.H. Gombrich’s critical appraisal of Arnold Hauser’s book, The Social History of Art. Hauser’s Social History of Art was published in 1951, a year after Gombrich’s bestseller, The Story of Art. Although written in Britain for an English-speaking public, both books had their origins in the intellectual history of Central Europe: Gombrich was an Austrian art historian and Hauser was Hungarian. Gombrich’s critique, published in The Art Bulletin in 1953, attacked Hauser’s dialectical materialism and his sociological interpretation of art history. Borrowing arguments from Karl Popper’s critique of historicism, Gombrich described Hauser’s work as collectivist and deterministic, tendencies at odds with his own conception of art history. However, in his readiness to label Hauser a proponent of historical materialism, Gombrich failed to recognize Hauser’s own criticism of deterministic theories of art, especially formalism. This article investigates Gombrich’s reasons for rejecting Hauser’s sociology of art. It argues Gombrich used Hauser as an ideological counterpoint to his own version of art history, avowedly liberal and individualist in outlook.

At the End of Night: explorations of Antarctica and Space in the sound art of Philip Samartzis

This article explores the work of Australian sound artist Philip Samartzis, who documented the eco-acoustic characteristics and atmospheric effects of Antarctica and its environs during two field trips in 2010 and 2016. It begins by situating his work within the context of other compositions that engage with Antarctica, the atmosphere and Outer Space, before focusing on examples of two of his compositions. At the End of Night is based on sound recordings of a Medium Frequency Spaced Array radar used to measure upper atmospheric conditions through the transmission and reception of coded sine tone pulsations, while Aurora Australis is derived from the sonification of digital data generated by auroral activity produced over one calendar year. The article concludes with a section in which the composer reflects on Antarctica and its soundscape ecology, as well as the methods and processes he has employed whilst conducting field work in this extreme environment. In doing so, it aims to reveal the approaches and methods behind his sound art and to show how his compositions can not only enhance general understanding of Antarctica and the Earth’s atmosphere, but also encourage us to engage with these spaces in new, and powerfully affecting, ways.

Negotiated Outcomes: Investigating Comparative Colour Change of Proprietary Artist Coating Materials for Contemporary Paintings

A new practice is emerging in Australian contemporary art where an epoxy resin is applied as a poured coating onto paintings to obtain a glassy, high-gloss surface layer. However, as the epoxy resin ages it causes undesirable aesthetic and structural issues for the artworks, including yellowing and delamination. As epoxies are known to have limited reversibility, remediation treatment is problematic. In response to artists’ increased usage of epoxy resin coatings as a finish for paintings, various commercial brands have released epoxy-based products, advertised to be resistant to yellowing. In addition, other proprietary brands of artists’ materials have released acrylic emulsion-based products formulated to create a high-gloss surface similar to the epoxy coatings. The primary aim of this research was to evaluate and compare the deterioration characteristics of several proprietary epoxies and an acrylic resin, known to be used as coatings on contemporary paintings, using accelerated ageing and colourimetry analysis. In addition, a contemporary artist who uses these materials was interviewed regarding their practice and expectations of the coating material. This study aims to inform artist selection regarding the performance and stability of the tested proprietary epoxy or acrylic resin coatings for contemporary paintings.

Claiming Chinatown: Asian Australians, Public Art and the Making of Urban Culture

ABSTRACTChinatowns have traditionally functioned as ethnic enclaves that were despised by the dominant Western culture, while functioning for Chinese immigrants as a refuge from the hostile white society they were surrounded by. In today’s globalised world, the meaning of Chinatowns has been transformed, as they have become more open, hybrid and transnational urban spaces, increasingly interconnected within the broader Asia-Pacific region. For Asian Australians, Chinatown may be a site of conflicting memories of Australia’s racist history and of cultural marginalisation and ethnic survival, but it is also—in today’s multicultural and cosmopolitan age—an area to be claimed for the expression of new Asian Australian identities. In Sydney’s Chinatown, public art projects by Asian Australian artists such as Jason Wing and Lindy Lee articulate some of the complexities and ambiguities of what it means to be Asian in Australia today.

At the Movies: Contemporary Australian Indigenous Cultural Expressions – Transforming the Australian Story

Cinema is an art form widely recognised as an agent to change the social condition and alter traditional norms. Movies can be used to educate and transform society's collective conscience. Indigenous Australian artists utilise the power of artistic expression as a tool to initiate change in the attitudes and perceptions of the broader Australian society. Australia's story has predominately been told from the coloniser's viewpoint. This narrative is being rewritten through Indigenous artists utilising the power of cinema to create compelling stories with Indigenous control. This medium has come into prominence for Indigenous Australians to express our culture, ontology and politics. Movies such as Samson and Delilah, Bran Nue Dae, The Sapphires and Rabbit-Proof Fence for example, have highlighted the injustices of past policies, adding new dimensions to the Australian narrative. These three films are just a few of the Indigenous Australian produced films being used in the Australian National Curriculum.Through this medium, Australian Indigenous voices are rewriting the Australian narrative from the Indigenous perspective, deconstructing the predominant stereotypical perceptions of Indigenous culture and reframing the Australian story. Films are essential educational tools to cross the cultural space that often separates Indigenous learners from their non-Indigenous counterparts.

Writing as Praxis: Catherine Ryan Interviews Nina Power

Abstract A discussion between British philosopher, writer and activist, Nina Power, and Australian artist and writer, Catherine Ryan, about topics including: writing as a praxis; the political capacity of the polemical form; the politics of debate; the need to return to grand, structural terms for socio-political analysis; the role of the public intellectual; the effects of the Internet on the role of the public intellectual; and the relation between art and politics.

The Legacy of Alois Riegl: Material Authenticity of the Monument in the Digital Age

The Austrian art historian Alois Riegl (1858–1905) revolutionised the European concept of the monument and paved the way towards the codification of the historicity of artefacts at the international level. Today, conservation work and relevant terminology still build upon the principles first outlined in his work Der moderne Denkmalkultus (1903) more than a hundred years ago. And yet, modern information/communication technologies have long challenged the idea of ‘age value’ (Alterswert), of a monument possessing value simply because it shows ‘signs of age’ (Altersspuren), through their ability to digitally recreate historical architecture in its original form and thereby to transcend the boundaries of time and space. This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities for monument preservation in the 21st century in the light of Riegl’s thoughts on how to perceive (‘visualise’) the past. It investigates the validity of Riegl’s theories in the context of today’s virtual reality/ies at a theoretical level, and their potential for advancement in preservation theory, expanding on historical thoughts rooted in 18th and 19th century preservation theories. By analysing Riegl’s commemorative values, stratigraphic picturing of history’s material debris, and fear of formlessness, this paper explores digitisation as the driving force for change in attitude from traditional, restrictive thinking to a modern way of thinking which is receptive to new technological developments, including, for example, exploring augmented and virtual realities as a means of achieving the sensory aesthetic experience required by age value.

The Incarnation of Eddie Burrup: A Review of Elizabeth Durack, Art & Life, Selected Writings, Perpetua Durack Clancy (Editor), Brisbane: Connor Court

Elizabeth Durack (1915–2000) was a prolific Australian artist. She spent much of her life in Western Australia. Her subject of choice was most often aboriginal life. The book, Elizabeth Durack, Art & Life, Selected Writings (2016, edited by Perpetua Durack Clancy, Brisbane: Connor Court, 276 pp., A$29.95) presents a chronological selection of her writings in nine chapters, one decade per chapter. There are personal letters and extracts from her diaries, along with some published and unpublished essays. The style is frank, sometimes irreverent, and she rails against political correctness. In her 80th year, Elizabeth was gripped with a manic burst of creativity. She produced a remarkable suite of works in the thrall of her new muse, Eddie Burrup. The book throws light on her relationship with Eddie Burrup and the unfolding controversy. The presenting of art works of a white woman as those of an aboriginal man caused grief for some of the local artocrats. The first 80 years of Elizabeth Durack can be regarded as a long art apprenticeship and at the culmination of which she graduated to be Eddie Burrup. In this guise and in the twilight of her life, she produced the masterworks of her career, scores of remarkable paintings. The Eddie Burrup suite of paintings are big and bold, fresh and expansive, and uniquely Australian. They reveal Australia’s ancient landscape as a playground for the spirits and totems of the land. This book reveals some of the story of Elizabeth Durack and Eddie Burrup.

“House Fathers” and “People of the Fields” in Art and Folk Literature Since the Reformation

Themes related to humanity’s relationship to nature as technological change led to the Industrial Revolution are evident in early modern German and Austrian art and literature. Authors of popular Hausväterliteratur (house fathers’ literature) associated with the Protestant Reformation advocated the rudiments of agricultural “improvement” through division and specialization of agrarian labor, plant selection, crop rotation, and other changes that upper class landowners adopted for their own economic benefit. By the nineteenth century, authors of Volksliteratur and Dorfgeschichten(village stories) composed novels and short stories celebrating aspects of rural culture and land stewardship as both values were increasingly threatened by modernity. In his writings on Die Gute Gesellschaft (The Good Society), Peter Rosegger cautioned against preoccupation with technical progress that was contributing to rural depopulation and erosion of the sustaining Volksgeist (folk spririt) of locale, community, and obligation.