Art Guide Australia

Art Guide Australia is a print and online magazine exploring contemporary Australian art. Our editors and our team of writers and contributors know the local art scene and keep you informed through engaging and thoughtful articles. We speak with artists, curators and gallerists to learn more about their ideas and share them with an audience who want to know more about Australian art and what to see. We’re here to support a vibrant and diverse arts community and our aim is to provide independent, considered editorial coverage alongside a comprehensive picture of what’s happening in the visual arts across Australia.

Art Guide Australia • March/April 2023

Issue 142 Contributors

A Note From the Editor

Previews

Orange

Brisbane

Melbourne

Sydney

Adelaide

Hobart

Perth

Darwin

Melbourne

Archives of the Future • Based in North East Arnhem Land, The Mulka Project is centred on sustaining Yolŋu cultural knowledge—and now their exquisite 60-metre projection will be displayed at the National Gallery of Australia.

What We Decide To Value • Known for his photographic explorations of history, culture, and family, Michael Cook’s latest images tell the story of a travelling family—and how they begin to question everything around them.

Peter Tyndall • For over 50 years, Peter Tyndall has relentlessly explored what it means to look at art. Coming to prominence in 1970s Melbourne, his conceptual approach to painting is defined by the repetition of one image: an empty rectangle suspended by two lines, akin to an empty picture plane hanging in a gallery. With an extraordinary retrospective currently showing at Buxton Contemporary—which canvasses Tyndall’s earlier works through to his scenes of people looking at art, and his textual paintings—Tyndall talks about seriousness and humour, and how he looks at a work of art.

Disguise and Revelation • During his lifetime, Andy Warhol took more than 40,000 Polaroids. These are now showing across Australia, alongside images of Warhol himself, in all their glamour, intimacy, desire and loneliness.

Sarah crowEST • Sarah crowEST’s multidisciplinary practice blends a range of materials and techniques to create layered works with oscillating, fragmented forms; both geometric and soft, visual and textual. Of particular brilliance are her “strap-on paintings”—large, wearable objects on stretched cloth that can be exhibited on a gallery wall or worn, blurring the line between fashion and traditional art forms. Ahead of her inclusion in Melbourne Now and her solo at LON Gallery, we caught crowEST in the final days of her year-long residency at Brighton’s historic Billilla Mansion in Melbourne, where she talks through the importance of sustainability to her practice.

Art of Now • Ten years ago, the National Gallery of Victoria launched Melbourne Now, where the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia turned inward, showing Victorian gallery goers the important, brilliant art being made in their state, at that moment. Now it’s back with over 200 Victorian-based artists, designers and creatives, spanning almost every medium imaginable. We asked five of the exhibiting artists—Amalia Lindo, Anu Kumar, Christian Thompson, Jessie French and Mark Smith—to tell us about the work they’re showing.

20 Questions With Leyla Stevens • Leyla Stevens is an Australian–Balinese artist and researcher who works with photography and moving image. Having won the 66th Blake Prize in 2021, her art focuses on little-known histories, bringing these to light, while also centring cultural politics and rituals. Ahead of exhibiting in the TarraWarra Biennial 2023: ua usiusi faʻavaʻasavili, Stevens talks about creating from history.

Never Mind the Nepo Babies—Here Come the Crony Pals • The art world is an enterprise...