No longer a smoke-and-mirrors spectacle enjoyed on a grand scale, entertainment is now indivisible from our daily life. From cricket matches to blockbuster shows, amusement is the name of the game.
- Artist, Curator, Producer, RMIT University
A culture of ‘managerialism’ has bled the arts of originality and purpose. We need a changed mindset and an arts and culture think-tank that is separate from the Australia Council.
The arts sector has mobilised to highlight the damage inflicted by Coalition funding cuts and the value of art to society. It’s unclear how a narrowly elected Turnbull government will value culture but artists have found their voice.
Weiwei has taken Denmark to task for its asylum-seeker policy. Given Australia’s decision to return 267 asylum seekers to Nauru, he should surely consider pulling his current Melbourne exhibition.
What if Malcolm Turbull’s conception of “21st-century government” imagines a healthy civil society and a responsive economy that values debate, imagination, difference and surprise - all provided by the arts.
In live performance, when developing a new work and before getting to the final rehearsal period, previews and season, there is often a public showing. Enter the Senate Inquiry, stage left.
Momentum continues to build in the Australian art community’s response to changes to arts funding in last month’s budget. Is it now time for artists to consider direct action?
Our major performing arts organisations are Australian culture’s country clubs. Sponsored by a matrix of old money and old-school networks and infused with the new managerialism, the majors currently enjoy…
On the June weekend the Sydney Biennale closed, I arrived in Denmark to speak at a conference where the Greek theatre artist Alexandros Mistriotis proposed that “art liberates us from meaning”. A week…
The morning after budget night on May 13, independent artists woke to a familiar alarm. It was Groundhog Day for “the heavy-lifters”, the independent artists of Australia’s arts sector. Their miserable…
“George Bush’s paintings”? Three words, so unexpectedly and yet intimately and possessively arranged. This week the former US president unveiled an exhibition of 24 portraits of world leaders and spoke…
Over the last six months, I have been thinking, writing and talking about the artist’s role, value and agency in society. I’ve been speaking to the idea that an artist’s contribution to society is, in…
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