SURREALISM | ART │REVIEW

Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art presents a large exhibition of surrealist paintings, sculpture, objects, films, photographs, drawings and collages, writes Sue Smith

June 11, 2011 ─ October 2, 2011
Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane

A large exhibition, drawn from the collection of Paris’s Musée National d’Art Moderne, of 180 works by European artists René Magritte, Victor Brauner and many other surrealists working from the 1910s to the late 1960s has been drawing delightedly puzzled crowds to Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art (the exhibition’s only Australian venue).
Paris in the early 20th century saw the growth of a new art form called surrealism.  Both a formal movement and a spiritual orientation, surrealism embraced ethics and politics as well as the arts.  Surrealist artists sought to create a medium that liberated the subconscious mind, making use of automatism, paranoia or the exploration of dreams.

ART │REVIEW

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art reunites some unparalleled holdings of modern art, writes Sue Smith

May 21, 2011 ─ September 6, 2011: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

AMERICAN expatriates in bohemian Paris when the 20th century was young, the Steins – writer Gertrude, her brothers Leo and Michael, and Michael’s wife, Sarah – were among the first to recognise the talents of avant-garde painters like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.  Through their friendship and patronage, they helped spark an artistic revolution. 

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art exhibition has drawn on collections from around the world to reunite the Steins’ unparalleled collections of modern art, bringing together, for the first time in a generation, some 60 works by Matisse, 40 by Picasso and another 100 by Bonnard, Cézanne, Gris, Picabia and Renoir, all once owned by various Steins.

ABORIGINAL ROCK ART - PRESERVATION CALL

ABORIGINAL | ART | NEWS

AUSTRALIA'S priceless Aboriginal rock art sites may be decimated within the next fifty years.

That is the view of Griffith University's first Chair of the Aboriginal Rock Art Research Centre, Professor Paul Tacon, who is widely acknowledged as one of the world's leading experts on the subject.

Professor Tacon and passionate supporter, Australian actor Jack Thompson, launched the campaign "Protect Australia's Spirit" in Sydney on 31 May 2011.

The Australian actor first saw Aboriginal rock carvings as a child in Bondi:  "I said, 'Holy mackerel, look at that'," said Thompson of his first experience of one of the world's oldest art forms.

Prof Tacon is seeking support and funding for a joint initiative of Griffith University, the Australian National University and the University of WA to document and shield the estimated 100,000 rock art sites around Australia.  The project would initially identify one hundred of the most significant rock art sites and aims to digitally archive and categorise sites to  develop strategies for rock art site management and preservation.

WILLIAM ROBINSON│ART│REVIEW

Brisbane’s QUT Art Museum surveys a consummate Australian landscapist, writes Sue Smith

William Robinson: The Transfigured Landscape
April 17, 2011 ─ August 14, 2011
QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia
www.artmuseum.qut.edu.au

Rainforest and romantic time travel...

Living in the country everything moves - the seasons, the clouds, nothing is set.
There are things all around you and you are in it. Everything is constantly moving.… You begin to realise that you are in a landscape that is really the crust of the earth. It is air and ground.  We’re all just spinning through space.  There is something about the painting that is indefinite, not solid. We don’t really have an orientation in this infinity. … You begin to question what time is.  Time isn’t something that is just measured on a clock.  Time can also be a mind thing - you can be a time-traveller with your mind in a painting.
William Robinson