The latest filmmaker to try his hand at Macbeth, Justin Kurzel has delivered a cinematic masterpiece, but shies away from the wicked depths of his villains.
What does telling the story of the long-running conflict in the Congo through the lens of Verdi’s Macbeth teach us? Owen Metsileng and Nobulumko Mngxek in Macbeth.
by Nicky Newman
Brett Bailey’s Macbeth at Brisbane Festival is a powerful production that relocates Verdi’s opera (based on Shakespeare’s play) to the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Hearing HITnRUN as a ‘concept album’ rather than a collection of tracks, gives a different feel to the more awkward moments.
AAP Image/NPG Records
For some, this album will be a good-natured happy-go-funky tour through Prince’s famously diverse stylistic interests. Others will find some of the tracks poorly executed, or a bit passé.
What role does the philologist play in our ongoing engagement with great writing?
AAP image/Art Gallery NSW/ 'John Coetzee' by Archibald finalist Adam Chang, 2011.
David Attwell’s new book is the first extended investigation of the South African author composed since the recently-opened Coetzee archive at the University of Texas. So what does it teach us?
‘I once asked Terry why he hadn’t killed off a particular character. He looked at me askance.’
EPA/Alessandro Della Bella
‘I knew and counted Terry among my friends, and I watched Alzheimer’s slowly and insidiously strip him of attributes and faculty.’ So what can we make of his final Discworld novel, published posthumously?
Alison Bell as Emma, making the long, counter-intuitive journey from despair to hope, is perfect in every way.
Shane Reid
This production of a very great play by the State Theatre Company of South Australia is beautiful, clarified, and haunting. You will be relieved to know it is “excellent”. More to the point it is right.
Greek tragedy remains the most modern form of drama, unafraid to question everything we value.
Sarah Walker. Photo: Jane Montgomery Griffiths as The Leader and Aaron Orzech as Haemon.
Regardless of reasoning and the plethora of scholarship that exists, Greek tragedy remains the most modern form of drama. It is unafraid to question everything we value.
Anna Volska, Maggie Dence, John Gaden, Peter Carroll and Barry Otto in Seventeen.
Brett Boardman/Belvoir St
Seventeen is the story of teenagers on the brink of adulthood; its canny trick is a cast of actors in their 70s. Despite this, it’s a conservative play that adheres to a predictably happy ending.
It may be the best parts of this book are the tales that aren’t about Gudinski.
AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy
Although the intention is to tell the story of Mushroom Records founder Michael Gudinski, rather than a business, the two are never far apart. So what do we learn from ‘the book Gudinski never wanted’?
Liv Corfixen’s documentary seems motivated by a fascination and fear of immersion in the creative process.
Images courtesy of MIFF
Liv Corfixen’s documentary about her husband captures the creative pressure and mounting doubt following the unexpected success of his most commercially viable film, Drive.
Log Dog fits well within Aleks Danko’s body of radical – but fun – art.
Image courtesy of the artist and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia
‘Objects are to be punned into symbols. Words can be dissected and distorted to change or multiply their meanings.’ Welcome to Aleks Danko’s radical – and fun – body of work, on show at the VCA.
Works from the Hermitage Museum, the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, are on show in Melbourne.
Photo: Pavel Demidov. Images courtesy of NGV.
The selection of masterpieces from the Hermitage in Russia, currently on show at the National Gallery of Victoria, can be summed up by a single word: spectacular.
Avril Thomas - Female nude study (2015). Charcoal on paper. Magpie Springs Winery and Art Gallery.
Image courtesy of the author.
Held annually in venues all over South Australia for the entirety of August, SALA’s magnitude and reach, its extraordinary range of exhibition venues, both conventional and left-of-field, make it unique.
Men at Work were found liable for copying two bars from Kookaburra Sits on the Old Gum Tree – a ‘fair use’ exception would have prevented this.
Jolene Bertoldi
Nicolas Suzor, Queensland University of Technology and Rachel Choi, Queensland University of Technology
A new book and documentary tell us more about the story behind Men at Work’s song Down Under – and the court case it eventually led to. They also prompt questions about current Australian copyright law.
Atticus is not who we thought he was – but maybe who we thought he was was wrong.
Paul Walsh
Atticus Finch, we learn in Go Set a Watchman, once attended a Ku Klux Klan meeting, and welcomes pro-segregation speakers at local council meetings. But is he really so different to the man we know from To Kill a Mockingbird?
Diggers Wedding in Melbourne, 1869, watercolour.
ST Gill/ State Library Victoria
ST Gill may be the quintessential Australian colonial artist, yet he has never been the subject of a comprehensive retrospective exhibition. At least, not until now.
Brian Wilson’s music – the subject of Love & Mercy – is like a lesson we relearn each time we listen.
Francois Duhamel/image.net
Much like the music of the man it’s based on, Love & Mercy is beautiful, complex, somewhat melancholy, and thought-provoking. It also teaches us some things about creative genius, innovation, and art.
Exhibitions such as HERE NOW at the Lawrence Wilson Gallery show how local art museums can engage with the arts community in which they are based.
Lawrence Wilson Gallery
In a crowded and competitive market, how does an art museum located far from major centres of population – say, in Perth – make its mark? One obvious answer is to focus on what is distinctive about your…
Bondi’s highly popular Sculpture by the Sea has set up shop in Denmark – and the Aarhus event has proved to be an astonishing and very different success to its predecessor.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne