Review(s) of: Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939, by Christopher Wilk ed.London: Victoria... more Review(s) of: Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939, by Christopher Wilk ed.London: Victoria and Albert Publications, 2006, ISBN 1 851774 74 2 hardcover, ISBN 1 851774 77 7 paperback, HC 496pp, 400 colour illus., rrpAUD$125.00, 45.00. Includes endnotes.
Ian Burn's origins as an Australian landscape painter were an unlikely springboard into metro... more Ian Burn's origins as an Australian landscape painter were an unlikely springboard into metropolitan culture. His move to New York with his wife Avril led to help curate the first Conceptual Art exhibition in 1970. This book shows the relevancy and power of his work today. Ann Stephen is a curator at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum.
When does 1960s art begin and end? Certainly, aside from a few affinities, the decade’s artistic ... more When does 1960s art begin and end? Certainly, aside from a few affinities, the decade’s artistic output does not exactly correspond to its popular conception as the ‘Swinging Sixties’. While it was rare that psychedelic art was truly challenging, the decade saw a number of perceptions change regarding the aims, boundaries and possibilities of experiencing art. Thus, this era has come to represent a watershed or crisis in modernist art. While in the Australian context many of these nascent trends were properly realised in the 1970s – with the full force and impact of post-object art – other challenges were first articulated in the 1950s. So, like any other demarcation of a decade, its limits and boundaries are porous.
A signicant number of central European and German refugees and emigres sought refuge from war and... more A signicant number of central European and German refugees and emigres sought refuge from war and fascism in Australia during the inter-war and post-World War Two years. While many historical accounts of Antipodean modernism stress its distance from French avant-garde sources, this generation of refugees and emigres brought local practitioners into direct contact with aspects of the modernist endeavour. In particular, these refugees and emigres introduced an approach to modernism that was cross- disciplinary and derived its inspiration from a systematic approach to arts education. This conception tended to highlight the common elements between art, design and architecture.While there have been numerous, individual studies of this generation, this paper foreshadows a much larger research project that aims to link these individual histories into one coherent study. In this paper we offer an indicative sample of a select number of case studies in order to highlight some of these common...
A monograph on Ian Burn poses major problems and opportunities for art historical inquiry. A cent... more A monograph on Ian Burn poses major problems and opportunities for art historical inquiry. A central dilemma concerns the challenge that his Conceptual art raises for biography. How is it possible to turn a conversational practice into a monograph? In Looking Through Conceptual Art Bum's dialogical art is engaged in a series of imaginary and actual encounters with the work of other artists. The ten chapters mark out the passage of a life through a series of exchanges. Each chapter begins at a specific historical moment however its internal dynamic pursues a conversational rather than a temporal logic. Their breadth-from regional landscape with Albert Namatjira, self-portraiture with Bum's Australian masters, appropriation with Sidney Nolan, abstraction with Piet Mondrian, collaboration with Mel Ramsden, Conceptual art with Art & Language, provincialism with Jackson Pollock, the political legacy of Conceptual art with Fernand Leger and the readymade with 'Em Malley'-represents the challenge that Bum poses for Conceptual art. The structure loosens the diachronic inevitability of biography and traces instead a non-linear surface that articulates and frames the spacing between different cultures, practices and collaborations. Three fundamental questions inform all the conversations and are at the heart of Bum's practice: How is it possible to make art from a different (marginal) place? What role can painting and perception play in Conceptual art ? And what are the political implications of Conceptual art?
... America advertising was used to enforce 'americanness' on diverse immigrant culture... more ... America advertising was used to enforce 'americanness' on diverse immigrant cultures, such that consumption came to be seen as a palliative to the social crisis of US industrialisation and 'assumed an ideological veil of nationalism and democratic lingo'.! ...
This collection of essays deals with the issues that animated Conceptual art in the Anglophone wo... more This collection of essays deals with the issues that animated Conceptual art in the Anglophone world. It offers readers a wealth of new research on the earliest international exhibitions of Conceptual art, new interpretation of some of its most important practitioners, and a reconsideration of ...
Purpose To examine how art is shaped by war, outside of the official commemorative projects of th... more Purpose To examine how art is shaped by war, outside of the official commemorative projects of the First World War. The purpose of this paper is to examine the experience of a surgeon/artist who knew first-hand the horror of industrial scale of destruction. It speculates on how his medical education and surgical knowledge in the treatment of the casualties informed his art and considers how such scientific discourses may have contributed to a new modernist language. Design/methodology/approach The double career of J.W. Power – a surgeon then an artist – provides a case study to probe such questions. The paper speculates about the connections between these different careers, and considers the implications of becoming an artist for someone who had pre-war university-training, medical expertise and experience as a war surgeon. In particular, consideration is given to how surgical knowledge and contemporary medical debates may have informed a group of later paintings. Findings A group o...
Review(s) of: Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939, by Christopher Wilk ed.London: Victoria... more Review(s) of: Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939, by Christopher Wilk ed.London: Victoria and Albert Publications, 2006, ISBN 1 851774 74 2 hardcover, ISBN 1 851774 77 7 paperback, HC 496pp, 400 colour illus., rrpAUD$125.00, 45.00. Includes endnotes.
Ian Burn's origins as an Australian landscape painter were an unlikely springboard into metro... more Ian Burn's origins as an Australian landscape painter were an unlikely springboard into metropolitan culture. His move to New York with his wife Avril led to help curate the first Conceptual Art exhibition in 1970. This book shows the relevancy and power of his work today. Ann Stephen is a curator at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum.
When does 1960s art begin and end? Certainly, aside from a few affinities, the decade’s artistic ... more When does 1960s art begin and end? Certainly, aside from a few affinities, the decade’s artistic output does not exactly correspond to its popular conception as the ‘Swinging Sixties’. While it was rare that psychedelic art was truly challenging, the decade saw a number of perceptions change regarding the aims, boundaries and possibilities of experiencing art. Thus, this era has come to represent a watershed or crisis in modernist art. While in the Australian context many of these nascent trends were properly realised in the 1970s – with the full force and impact of post-object art – other challenges were first articulated in the 1950s. So, like any other demarcation of a decade, its limits and boundaries are porous.
A signicant number of central European and German refugees and emigres sought refuge from war and... more A signicant number of central European and German refugees and emigres sought refuge from war and fascism in Australia during the inter-war and post-World War Two years. While many historical accounts of Antipodean modernism stress its distance from French avant-garde sources, this generation of refugees and emigres brought local practitioners into direct contact with aspects of the modernist endeavour. In particular, these refugees and emigres introduced an approach to modernism that was cross- disciplinary and derived its inspiration from a systematic approach to arts education. This conception tended to highlight the common elements between art, design and architecture.While there have been numerous, individual studies of this generation, this paper foreshadows a much larger research project that aims to link these individual histories into one coherent study. In this paper we offer an indicative sample of a select number of case studies in order to highlight some of these common...
A monograph on Ian Burn poses major problems and opportunities for art historical inquiry. A cent... more A monograph on Ian Burn poses major problems and opportunities for art historical inquiry. A central dilemma concerns the challenge that his Conceptual art raises for biography. How is it possible to turn a conversational practice into a monograph? In Looking Through Conceptual Art Bum's dialogical art is engaged in a series of imaginary and actual encounters with the work of other artists. The ten chapters mark out the passage of a life through a series of exchanges. Each chapter begins at a specific historical moment however its internal dynamic pursues a conversational rather than a temporal logic. Their breadth-from regional landscape with Albert Namatjira, self-portraiture with Bum's Australian masters, appropriation with Sidney Nolan, abstraction with Piet Mondrian, collaboration with Mel Ramsden, Conceptual art with Art & Language, provincialism with Jackson Pollock, the political legacy of Conceptual art with Fernand Leger and the readymade with 'Em Malley'-represents the challenge that Bum poses for Conceptual art. The structure loosens the diachronic inevitability of biography and traces instead a non-linear surface that articulates and frames the spacing between different cultures, practices and collaborations. Three fundamental questions inform all the conversations and are at the heart of Bum's practice: How is it possible to make art from a different (marginal) place? What role can painting and perception play in Conceptual art ? And what are the political implications of Conceptual art?
... America advertising was used to enforce 'americanness' on diverse immigrant culture... more ... America advertising was used to enforce 'americanness' on diverse immigrant cultures, such that consumption came to be seen as a palliative to the social crisis of US industrialisation and 'assumed an ideological veil of nationalism and democratic lingo'.! ...
This collection of essays deals with the issues that animated Conceptual art in the Anglophone wo... more This collection of essays deals with the issues that animated Conceptual art in the Anglophone world. It offers readers a wealth of new research on the earliest international exhibitions of Conceptual art, new interpretation of some of its most important practitioners, and a reconsideration of ...
Purpose To examine how art is shaped by war, outside of the official commemorative projects of th... more Purpose To examine how art is shaped by war, outside of the official commemorative projects of the First World War. The purpose of this paper is to examine the experience of a surgeon/artist who knew first-hand the horror of industrial scale of destruction. It speculates on how his medical education and surgical knowledge in the treatment of the casualties informed his art and considers how such scientific discourses may have contributed to a new modernist language. Design/methodology/approach The double career of J.W. Power – a surgeon then an artist – provides a case study to probe such questions. The paper speculates about the connections between these different careers, and considers the implications of becoming an artist for someone who had pre-war university-training, medical expertise and experience as a war surgeon. In particular, consideration is given to how surgical knowledge and contemporary medical debates may have informed a group of later paintings. Findings A group o...
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