If you’ve been reading the weekend papers, you will have seen both John MacDonald and Sebastian Smee competing to qualify their appreciation of the NGA current exhibition Turner to Monet: The Triumph of Landscape. Now to enjoy a really fine exhibition review by Holland Cottier (in the NYT 14 March 2008) of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Anatomy of a Masterpiece: How to read Chinese Paintings click here, and then click the RELATED article button to The Art is in the Detail. Thanks to Max for alerting us.

Congratulations to two ex postgrads Catherine Woo (Painting) and Ken Yonetani (Ceramics) who’ve been selected for Handle with Care: 2008 Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art, currently on show as part of the Adelaide Festival of the Arts. Ken’s work is featured on the cover of the Broadsheet, Catherine gets a rave in Sebastian Smee’s review (Weekend Australian Review, p18-19). Ken will also be profiled on the ABC program ‘Sunday Arts” feature story, on air between 5:00pm and 6:00pm on Sunday.

“Sweet Barrier Reef” ‘Handle with Care’ The 2008 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Contemporary Art, 3.6mx12.5m, Sugar, Icing Sugar, Polystyrene foam, Ceramics with a performance by 2 costumed girls serving edible sculptures (coral shaped cakes).

Ken gives the following account of the work: Sweet Barrier Reef focuses on the event of coral bleaching. Coral bleaching refers to the process leading to coral death. River waters containing high levels of suspended sediment cause coral death and bleaching. This sediment often comes from harvesting sugarcane, and is known to be one factor leading to bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef. Many large sugarcane fields are located beside coral reefs, leading to coral damage across the globe. In this project, I focus on the connections between consumption and human impact on the environment by creating a reef out of sugar. Here, I do not focus only on the impact of the sugarcane industry; rather sugar is used as a much larger metaphor for our desire to consume and its environmental impact. Sugar becomes a metaphor of human desire. It is also strongly connected to processes of “colonization”, “modernisation” and “consumerism”.

…is to the National Gallery of Australia Sculpture Garden as the Dubbo Zoo is to Taronga Park. It’s where the wild things are. ANU School of Art postgraduate sculptors (Amanda Stuart, Hanna Hoyne, Sally Simpson), together with alumnae Rachel Bowak, Rosalind Lemoh, and Jacqui Bradley and erstwhile Graduate Convenor Nigel Lendon, all headed east to participate in the weekend’s events. And refugee from Sculpture to Glass Workshop, alumnus Phil Spellman was also an invited artist, and Rachel and Nigel also spoke at the Sunday Symposium.

Curiously, the metaphor of the edge stimulated the Canberra artists to contribute works which evoked limits and boundaries in more ways than one. Testing the limits of the park-like setting of Bermagui’s Endeavour Point Headland, Amanda Stuart’s pack of wild dogs (Bush Pack) tore along the edge of the escarpment beyond the lawn, causing fright to the local puppies and their owners, reminding us of forms of life beyond the city limits. Hannah Hoyne’s spectacular Soulsearchanaut about to be Born is an angelic astronaut in a bubble threatening to fly out over the bay, towards Mt Dromedary. And sculpture graduate Rachel Bowak’s work Container terrorized the grey nomads in the caravan park next door with simultaneous images of paradise, and a way to get there… Cryogenics is not everyone’s idea of the perfect holiday destination!

Your reporter thought he was hallucinating when his view of the Bermagui Community Centre Hall from the world-famous Bermagui Gelati Clinic was momentarily eclipsed by some of the participants in the Bermagui Seaside fair, which was all happening at the same time. When the effects of his extraordinary gelato (fig with lemon lime and bitters) had worn off, he visited the site of the second part of the Sculpture event, an exhibition of small scale works.

Here he found Sally Simpson’s work Duality B , the Islamic reference of which complemented the Christian iconography of her other work. And Rosalind Lemoh put her fist down with Hands Like a Hammer, one of the three works she contributed to the exhibition.

Now click across to glasscentralcanberra and ArtWranglers for more images and commentary…

Some wag has suggested Robert Guth (PhD, Photomedia) ’s thesis must be about the embodiment of both global warming and post-colonialism? I’m sure you can book a spin around the block in this particular boundary object, and contribute to his relational aesthetic…

Taking another approach to mobile art, ecowarrior Mark Frith well and truly put the boundaries of art to the test when he took his mobile sculpture Climate Change Express in Bermagui’s Main Street parade on Saturday and nearly lost it on the downhill stretch. Unusual in the artworld, Mark is happy to deny his artistic ego, seeing Sculpture on the Edge more as an opportunity for creative activism in “Sculpture on the Edge” last weekend. See ArtWranglers and glasscentralcanberra for more pics and reflections on the event.

The third and final exhibition of the Graduate Season 2008 opens at the ANU School of Art Gallery on March 6th. All sculptures in various media and modes of installation. The artists in this season are Masahiro Asaka (Master of Arts, Visual Arts, Glass), Margaret Carlin (Master of Visual Arts, Ceramics), Linda Davy (Graduate Diploma of Art, Ceramics) and Ayako Saito (Master of Visual Arts, Sculpture). The show is up until Friday March 14 and the ANU School of Art Gallery is open Wednesday to Friday from 10am to 5pm. Phone 02 6125 5841. Please wait for titles and more images in the the artists’ galleries —–>

Masahiro Asaka (Master of Arts, Visual Arts, Glass: Surge 1, 2007 (cast glass, cold-worked)

Margaret Carlin (Master of Visual Arts, Ceramics): Regeneration series 2 (1-6), 2008, (mixed clay, glaze, timber)

Linda Davy (Graduate Diploma of Art, Ceramics: from the Shift series (porcelain, terrasigillata)

Ayako Saito (Master of Visual Arts, Sculpture): from the ground, 2007, (plaster for bronze)

here’s Ayako Saito, in the Sculpture studio three weeks ago, and she’s still working. Wait and see the outcomes this week in the third exhibition of the graduate season…

Two ANU PhD Sculpture students Hannah Hoyne and Amanda Stuart, together with a graduate from 2007, Rosalind Lemoh, have all been invited to participate in the third Bermagui “Sculpture on the Edge” exhibition, which will be held in and around the town of Bermagui from March 7th to 12th. ANU School of Art faculty member Phil Spellman has also been invited to exhibit and together with Nigel Lendon will be participating in the exhibition symposium, to be held on Sunday 9th March from 10.00am (enquiries and bookings phone Jan Ireland, 02 64933808). Watch this site for photographs of the event!

PhD candidate David Wills (Photomedia) is showing work in progress in an exhibition titled “Salad Days” at the National Art School Gallery in Sydney. His exhibition is the outcome of an Artist in Residency and will run from March 6th to 15th, beginning with an “event” on the evening of March 6th, from 6.00 to 9.00 pm. David’s work is characteristic of his use of photography to create multi-thematic archives. For a better idea of the (extraordinary) scope of his work, and his methods, go and explore his website turnstile.

The second exhibition of the Graduate Season 2008 opens at the ANU School of Art Gallery on February 20. The show is up until February 29. The artists in this season are Leila Feuer (Master of Visual Arts, Painting), Daniel Flood (Graduate Diploma of Art, Painting) and Frank Lindner (Master of Visual Arts, Photomedia). The Gallery is open Wednesday to Friday from 10am to 5pm. Phone 02 6125 5841.

Leila Feuer: Got My Eye On You Mr. – puff-paint, iron-on transfer, rhinestones on baby singlet: 17 cm x 27 cm, 2007. Lazy Daisy – puff-paint, iron-on transfer, googly eyes, paper on men’s underwear: 34 cm x 36 cm, 2007

Frank Lindner: Shaving Time, Matted to aluminium, no border C print, 65cm x 80cm

Daniel Flood: the arrival, 2007, digital painting, Photoshop

The Graduate Season 2008 was launched at the ANU School of Art Gallery on February 6. The show is up until February 15. The featured artists are Judith Fuller (Graduate Diploma of Art), Kerrie O’Dea (MVA) and Isadora Mack (MVA). The Gallery is open Wednesday to Friday from 10am to 5pm. Phone 02 6125 5841.

Judith Fuller, Stages of Death, photogram, 2007. 49 cm x 92 cm. Photograph by ANU Photography - and see more images in the online gallery

Kerrie O’Dea, The Spirit of Airlie, still image from digital video, “The Spirit of Airlie”, 15 minute multi-screen archival documentary - and see more images in the online gallery.

Isadora Mack, Atmospheric Light II, acrylic on canvas, 1m x 1m, 2007 - and see more images in the online gallery