John Maitland is the sole director of Energy Architecture, an Adelaide architecture firm committed to environmentally sound and socially responsible architecture established in 1990.
Concertina is a group of seven artists, Katrina Weber, Ros Miller, Wendy Rushby, Kathryn Hill, Wendy Todd, Dana Kinter and Anny Gooden, who for six years have been working as a collective creating within self-prescribed boundaries. Once a year they set aside their own practices and embark upon a major collaborative project leading to an exhibition. Their latest venture meant one artist Anny Gooden stepping outside the group, she was overseas, and providing instructions to the others. The resulting exhibition, Text as Muse, was shown at Light Square Gallery from 27 June - 26 July 2007.
A fascinating participant report on an exciting collaborative project of great vision and experimentation. Reskin 2007 was developed by the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), the Australian National University School of Art, the Centre for New Media Arts (CNMA) and Craft Australia. It brought twenty international and national artists, designers and technologists together under the guidance of seven professional wearable technology specialists at the forefront of their respective fields. The idea of Reskin, co-ordinated by Alexander Gillespie was to design wearable technologies for the body using the latest materials and methods.
Justine Khamara uses a scalpel to cut out tens of thousands of images from magazines. She then joins the often identical images to make very large assemblages. The artist sees the obsessive busywork that she does with her hands as providing her with space to dream and do the real work of sifting through the stuff in her head.
The CDEP (Community Development Employment Program) was axed by the Howard Federal Government throughout the Northern Territory though is still current in South Australia and Western Australia. The Program was launched in 1977 by the Fraser Government and has been a very valuable way of getting Aboriginal people to be engaged productive community memes in art centres and other activities. A number of key Aboriginal art centres rely on CDEP staff for printing, administration, preparators, artists and craftspeople. It is a vital component in building community self-reliance and pride.
Michael Keighery, current Chair of Viscopy and past chair of NAVA and the Crafts Council of Australia reviews the apathy and ignorance of artist about their industrial, copyright and taxation rights. He draws attention to the hard worn, by NAVA and Artslaw, ruling by the Tax Office in 2005 that all kinds of artists can now claim their art business expenses against all forms of income.
What does obsessive artwork mean? Is this a new compulsion among artists and what does it mean? The work of Hossein Valamanesh, Fiona Hall, Zhuang Hui, Zhang Huan, Shen Shaomin, Katsuhige Nakahashi are referenced.
The latest work by Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro, artists who have been fruitfully collaborating for over seven years was shown at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2007. Called The Paper Trail it explores Paul Virilios ideas about dromology (the science and logic of speed especially in relation to war) through thinking about the Mongolian Empire. A fantastic Mongolian Ger (a nomadic structure ordered on the internet), government archives, Johnson Solids and the Trailer of Death are some of the features of the installation which suggests complex and recurring layers to all globalisation.
Reveries: Mortality and photography was curated for the National Portrait Gallery by Helen Ennis and shown from 27 April to 5 August 2007. This touring show will be at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery from 19 March to 18 May 2008. It includes a wide range of approaches from the harrowing to the humorous. It includes work by Axel Poignant a self-portrait with his last roll of film, Anne Ferran, Carol Jerrems, Craig Potton, William Yang, Anne Noble, Ruth Maddison, Bernie ORegan and Jonathon Delacour who stopped taking photographs after this series of babies and their carers in intensive care.
The Quote Generator is a three year public art project where the artist only speaks in quotes which she instantly attributes. For the first year Danielle Freakley will quote from commercial products, the second year from friends and acquaintances and the last year from herself in the past.
Carly Fischer's work is on the cover of the Work issue of Artlink. Her latest exhibition at Helen Gory Galerie of everyday cleaning items and broken fluorescent tubes made from blue paper is art that is almost invisible but critiques consumerism and the culture of waste.