It’s past time for a change in the Australian art world. So we decided that for this year’s Power Trip it was a chance to put some of that will to change into action, and in the spirit of solidarity and support for a righteous and just cause, we’ve rejigged the entire list. And so, for 2020, we have a brand new batch of contenders who’ve refreshed not just our line up, but who’re also doing the actual good work in the real world. What do we mean by power? There’s the influence that money can buy; the administrative power of government departments and private organisations; the influ ..read more

From Joanna Mendelssohn For about the last 14 years UNSW  Art & Design – the Faculty Formerly Known As COFA – has been a quiet leader in the achievements of both its Aboriginal students and those from minority backgrounds. This hasn’t been because it has put major funding towards supporting equity outcomes, but because of the efforts of one staff member, Tess Allas. She was originally employed at the University as the research assistant for Vivien Johnson’s Storylines ARC project. As a result she wrote hundreds of biographies of Aboriginal artists who lived and worked below [>] the R ..read more

Friday degustation: all cards accepted Art Market: Beep Beep Beep Healthier than ever! One thing you can count on in the Australian art market is the never-ending boosterism and hype. As to whether the optimistic predictions for Sydney Contemporary that it might add another $5 million on top of its 2018 record have yet to be announced, overall, the market is maintaining an equilibrium well below it’s heyday in the late aughts. So where is the market, really? According to two Melbourne University academics David Challis and Anita Archer, the market has flatlined. Writing for The Conv ..read more

Friday Degustation: now with anchovies “A sort of liveliness…” Sally Ross’s Large Scale Landscapes Sally Ross, Landscape (Hills and Blue Lake) 2019, oil on wood panel  110 x 130 cm Sally Ross, Landscape (Blue River), 2019, oil on wood panel  110 x 130 cm Sally Ross, Landscape (Green II), 2019, oil on wood panel  130 x 110 cm Its hard to believe that it has been 15 years since Sally Ross‘s last commercial exhibition in Sydney, but her latest self-titled exhibition with Martin Browne Contemporary is a major new body of work, that’s also a substantial increase in scale. [>] “I ..read more

Friday Degustation: in new, orange zest and classic flavours! BoS 2020: NIRIN 98 Named In the midst of all the excitement around last week’s Sydney Contemporary, the Biennale of Sydney used the event as a stage for the announcement of all 98 participating artists, creatives and collectives for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, 2020, under the title NIRIN. In a throw back to Biennales past, Bos2020 is sited across a range of venues, including stalwart institutions the Art Gallery of NSW, Artspace, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, with the new addition of the National Art School. And ..read more

Our reporters, on the ground, at Sydney Contemporary 2019, listening in… Joan Ross @ Bett Gallery “I think it’s possibly the best fair yet. Onwards and upwards!” – Barry Keldoulis “It is definitely the bestfair to date” – Tim Etchells (correcting Barry K)  “You’re a real reporter. You just peeled me back like a banana!” – Art lover to TAL “I’m going to make friends with nuts” – hungry artist on VIP night “They should make the alcohol free so everyone would get pissed and buy more art” – gallerist on VIP night “Fuuuuuuck! …why don’t they just add three bucks to the ticket p ..read more

Friday Degustation: scarf and barf edition! Monster Mash Abdul Abdullah, Understudy, 2019. Courtesy the artist and Yavuz Gallery. The Adelaide Biennial of Art is the Art Gallery of South Australia’s flagship event. Like most large museum shows it’s both a survey but also organised thematically, and its success rises or falls on the ingenuity of that uniting theme. For the 2020 iteration, opening February 29th and running until June 8, the AGSA has just announced the new curatorial idea, namely, monsters… [>] “Titled Monster Theatres, the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art inv ..read more

Friday Degustation: served together or seperate Inclusive and polyphonic spaces: what is a museum? What happens when you Google ‘Museum’ + ‘stock shot’ On occasion the media lets the directors of art museums some space to think out loud what museums mean in the contemporary context. Are they the dusty galleries for the venerated works of long dead artists? Or are they super exciting activated spaces that are both social media friendly zones for young folks and curatorial serious endeavours? Maybe the reality is the in the middle… The Australian gave over some space for the Museum of ..read more

Friday Degustation: full sit down menu Video easy Can’t see the video? Click HereJeremy Deller‘s 2018 project Everybody In The Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992 is now available in its entirety online. It’s part lecture, part documentary, part hands-on music making experience in which the artist uses the emergence of the rave scene in the UK in the mid-80s to revisit some of his key interests, from the miner’s strike, Thatcherism and the long-simmering disputes the heart of English society, to their present day manifestations. Funded by Frieze and Gucci, the work pre ..read more

Friday Degustation: ask about our wheat grass shots! Oh No, Big Bucks for Ono From the MCA’s War Is Over (if you want it): Yoko Ono in 2013 It turns out that the NSW State Government will go to great lengths to conceal its behind-the-scenes deliberations when it comes to handing out great wads of cash in support of headline exhibitions. Former Fairfax journalist, and now Nine Media’s Andrew Taylor lodged an FOI application back in 2015 to find out how much Destination NSW had “…spent on major arts and cultural events in the state for the three years prior to 2015.” Destination NSW sp ..read more