Why do students still describe Australia as a ‘young’ country lacking culture? Are our universities doing enough to to teach Australian films, artwork and books?
Opera is treated differently to other artforms in Australia.
AAP Image/Tracey NearmyAAP Image/Tracey Nearmy
It is a strange reality but opera as an artform is always given special and arguably preferential treatment by governments and other influential forces in Western society. This happens, it seems, regardless…
Nearly three-quarters of Australians go to live art events, such as Dark Mofo in Hobart.
Stefan Karpiniec/Flickr
New survey from the Australia Council shows pretty much all Australians engage with the arts, and 8-in-10 do so online. However more people are ambivalent about public arts funding, and more people think the arts are too expensive.
Ken Thaiday’s dance machines layer people, animal, land and sea.
Carriageworks
Ken Thaiday Snr, an internationally-acclaimed artist from Erub Island in the Torres Strait, has been awarded a 2017 Red Ochre Award. Thaiday’s work draws on dance, the people and land of the islands to produce elaborate masks and headdresses.
Visitors take in Cameron Robbins’ Field Lines at Dark Mofo at the Museum of Old and New Art.
Mona/Remi Chauvin
Many great artists died in 2016: Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Paul Cox, Shirley Hazzard. It was a year of creative foment and as always, intense debate about the importance of the arts to a thriving, democratic society.
Sydney Opera House during this year’s Vivid Festival: now, more than ever, we need artists to tell us the truth.
Tibor Kovacs/Flickr
There was once a sense of excitement about creating a genuinely Australian culture and making our own way in the world. What’s happened to that optimism?
David Bowie was the master of reinvention. Can the arts sector follow suit?
Brandon Carson/Flickr
A culture of ‘managerialism’ has bled the arts of originality and purpose. We need a changed mindset and an arts and culture think-tank that is separate from the Australia Council.
A changing of the guard…will it make a difference?
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The organisation Senator George Brandis described as having an “iron wall” around it, is refreshing its sentinels. This week’s announcement of four new appointments to the Australia Council Board represents…
Why can’t an artist offer advice to politicians in the same way a scientist can?
David Gray/Reuters
In one of those abyssal silences that punctuate official Thinkfests when artists have to come up with new policy ideas that don’t involve asking governments for more money, I once facetiously suggested…
Individual artists continue to experience the brunt of arts funding cuts.
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In 1983, a groundbreaking inquiry into the economic circumstances of artists released a report containing a string of recommendations. Thirty three years on, the inquiry’s chair asks, what has changed?
The Mexican artist Diego Rivera was an early contributor to the Pago en Especie program, which allows artists to pay tax with art.
Detail of the Rivera mural El hombre en cruce de caminos (1934). Wikimedia Commons
Many Australian artists eke out a living, yet government funding is generally heading backwards. Can we learn from Mexico, where artists are allowed to pay tax in paintings or sculptures in lieu of cash?
In the words of Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger, “the injustice of it is almost perfect”. Last week, Jason Potts argued here that the cuts made to around 60 cultural organisations under the Australia…
Did Adam Bandt have the numbers right on arts funding?
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
Last night’s budget failed to offer a compelling overall policy framework and vision for the arts in Australia. Like a Beckett play, narratively not much is going on.
Malcolm is erudite and charming, but that doesn’t translate into a better deal for artists.
Mick Tsikas
The arts sector is in crisis and while many hoped the Turnbull Government would mark a new, enlightened beginning, this has not happened.
Something seems to be missing in the Australian art world.
French Street theatre company performing at the Santiago a Mil International Theatre Festival - Ivan Alvarado/Reuters
Ien Ang, Western Sydney University and Phillip Mar, Western Sydney University
Diversity is a vital part of a thriving art sector, yet only 8% of professional Australian artists come from a non-English speaking background. How can we beat “diversity fatigue”?
In many quarters, the arts receiving any government support is still a contested space.
Julie
With a change in prime minister and a new arts minister there has been an acknowledgement perhaps that the arts matter. But have the needs and concerns of the arts sector have been understood?
Senator Scott Ludlam said changes to arts funding will mean the minister will not need to publicly reveal funding recipients. True or false?
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
The Greens’ Senator Scott Ludlam said changes to arts funding will mean arts minister George Brandis won’t need to publicly disclose who he’s funding. He said it’s unbelievable – but is it true?
We need to consider what balance we want to achieve between the heritage and contemporary arts.
AAP Image/Julian Smith. Artists of the Australian Ballet rehearse for the The Dream.
Given the pressure being applied to the majority of people working in the arts sector, we would be foolish not to consider the roles and inherited rights of Australia’s major performing companies.
Arts organisations will be supported if they can contribute to a ‘confident, outward-focused arts sector’.
AAP Image/Paul Miller
The draft guidelines for the new National Program for Excellence in the Arts have been released – now begins the work decoding of what’s written in the text and implied in the subtext.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne