How important is the 'social license' provided by arts events to fossil fuel companies? How significant is the money provided to art festivals by those companies? A recent study examines the current involvement of coal, gas, and oil corporations in arts sponsorship in Australia. Daniel speaks with the report's co-author Dr Adam Karg, Anna Weekes from a group that spearheaded a campaign to end fossil fuel funding of the Darwin Festival, and filmmaker Alex Kelly. My Thing is... nuclear test sites....
Sep 27, 2023•54 min
How do the much-talked about principles of care ethics apply to visual arts? Whether it be the treatment of others in the commercial art world, the trope of the lone male genius, or the practices of contemporary artists navigating political and environmental crisis. Jacqueline Millner has co-edited the book Care Ethics and Art and joins Daniel in convo with artist Jesse Boylan. Social societies make the happiest, so why don’t more artists join artist collectives? Even better, a festival of artis...
Sep 20, 2023•54 min
Newell Harry is one of those people that finds the connections, the invisible networks and chance encounters - that link us all. In his exhibition Esperanto Newell makes use of found objects and sourced materials alongside his own original artworks. The story it weaves is full of cross-cultural connections --from South Africa, where his family fled Apartheid, to Oceania. But also driven by moments of serendipity and linguistic twists and turns. My Thing is... the colour wheel. Jim Moginie is bes...
Sep 13, 2023•54 min
Hoda Afshar is a photo media artist known for examining people denied a voice, or those risking everything for freedom, or truth. At the same time, Hoda is is also concerned with the politics of traditional documentary photography, and centres the humanity of her subjects. From her portraits of refugees detained on Manus Island, to immortalising whistleblowers as classical Greek statues and a series inspired by Iran's feminist uprising. Hoda's first major solo exhibition at an Australian institu...
Sep 06, 2023•54 min
Kara Walker is one of America’s most significant living artists, known for cut-paper silhouettes and gigantic public sculptures, using the visual artefacts of slavery in nightmarish black and white scenes. At the heart is an exploration of race, sexuality and gender, and a critique of white supremacy. Could the black-humoured delivery of the message get lost on Australian audiences? Hopefully not – two of her works, Your World is About to Change and a film, Testimony: Narrative of a Negress Burd...
Aug 30, 2023•54 min
There's an enduring appetite for novels about artists and their muses. Australian writers Kylie Needham ( Girl in a Pink Dress ) and Edwina Preston ( Bad Art Mother ) have written books centred on women artists who are navigating ambition, doubt, and freedom in art scenes where men wield the power and where women are routinely cast as muses rather than as creators. Recorded for RN's Big Weekend of Books 2023 . Larrakia artist Gary Lee has led a powerfully creative life including pioneering work ...
Aug 23, 2023•54 min
A life-size sculpted tree complete with parrots and a wandering dog won the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Art Awards (NATSIAA). Every element has ceremonial significance, says Thu' and Apalech artist Keith Wikmunea , from Western Cape York. Brenda L Croft's 19th Century-style photograph tells a multi-layered story of family bonds and forced child removal. While Anne Nginyangka Thompson's ceramics contain a message about Anangu self determination and the everyday consequences of colonisat...
Aug 16, 2023•54 min
Finnish artist Tove Jansson lived a richly unconventional life as a visual artist and writer and is best known as the creator of the troll characters, The Moomins . The Moomins were a hit children's book, cartoon strip, tv show and eventually theme park. The biggest exhibition of Jansson work will show in Paris in September 2023. Her biographer Prof Boel Westin talks about her bohemian life and enduring legacy. Filmmaker Adéla Komrzý spent a week filming the gruelling entrance exams for Czechia'...
Aug 09, 2023•54 min
Since 2008 CoUNTess has been commenting and reporting on art institutions, prizes and journalism, exposing the unequal gender representation in the Australian visual arts sector. A new book about the pioneering blog and later, data project Countess Report , started by Elvis Richardson has been co-written by Melinda Rackham . Using the current of water as a metaphor for family memories, history and existential threats such as climate change, Gail Mabo along with Dominic White and Lisa Waup, are i...
Aug 02, 2023•54 min
In 1989 photographer Anne Zahalka recreated a well-known painting of stylised, muscular white Australians frolicking on the beach, into a multi-ethnic tableau of an Australia that was more recognisable to her. Deconstructing the identity of the characters in famous Australian artworks is just one strand of her four-decade career. Anne talks to Rosa about using old-school museum dioramas to imagine climate crisis scenarios, and her immigrant Jewish mother’s story of survival. My Thing is…the comm...
Jul 26, 2023•54 min
Badiucao is a Chinese-Australian political cartoonist and artist who makes work primarily about China's human rights record and role in international politics. But with a rising profile has come a loss of anonymity, reported intimidation and attempts to have international exhibitions of his work closed . He talks to Rosa about Chinese government censorship, cartooning, his art heroes and his filmmaking lineage. My Thing is… the Sydney Harbour cocktail cabinet . Woodworker Michael Gill has been m...
Jul 19, 2023•54 min
Painter Prudence Flint has a career spanning 35 years, best known for enigmatic pictures of female protagonists in surreal domestic scenes. Despite a serious local following, her paintings have proved much more popular overseas, and she only produces around eight a year. All situate the viewer in an interesting psychological space. A Beginner’s guide to art openings. The art exhibition opening is a rite of passage for artists and art lovers alike, but it can be an intimidating and exclusive soci...
Jul 12, 2023•54 min
Maree Clarke is a key figure in the reclamation and revival of South East Australian Indigenous art, over a three-decade career. For Between Waves at the Australian Centre of Contemporary Art (ACCA), she’s created a wall of multicolour microscopic images of river reeds, that once grew on the wetlands where ACCA now stands, on Wuruendjeri Woi Wurrung land. She's one of ten artists from South East nations that curator Jessica Clark has commissioned to explore the "shapeshifting ecologies within, b...
Jul 05, 2023•54 min
When did artists begin doing ‘residencies’? From the patronage system of Renaissance Italy, to artists’ colonies of the 19th Century and the decades-long stint of an artist-in-residence at the NYC Sanitation Department, researcher Amaara Raheem tells us the history and ideas behind the Artist-in-Residence. Producer Lisa Divissi catches up with the artist-in-residence of Melbourne’s Footscray Railway Station, David Wells . And artists Nicole Barakat , Nikki Lam and Gegee Ayurzana share messages f...
Jun 28, 2023•54 min
Gunditjmara artist Hayley Millar Baker sets her latest film work at the witching hour, when the spirit world and physical overlap. Hayley previously worked in black and white photography, exploring the psychic scars of frontier violence and dispossession. Ghosts have always been present in Hayley’s work – and in her life. She’s part of the acclaimed new exhibition Shadow Spirit , on at at Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station. Marc Chagall is the quintessential 20th Century European artist. Born i...
Jun 21, 2023•54 min
Pierre Bonnard was a key artist in a movement that came after Impressionism: Les Nabis. Influenced by the flat colour and decorative elements of Japanese wood prints and Gauguin’s pure colours, Bonnard forged a style that was both radical and beautiful. Curator of the NGV’s winter blockbuster , Ted Gott and Musee d’Orsay’s Isabelle Cahn, discuss Bonnard’s life and long relationship with his wife and muse Marthe de Meligny. Enter the studio of Michaye Boulter , a nipaluna/Hobart-based painter who...
Jun 14, 2023•54 min
Daniel Browning travels to London's Tate Modern, to speak with artist Richard Bell about his ongoing installation Embassy, inspired by the original Aboriginal Tent Embassy pitched in 1972. Embassy offers a space for dialogue about the continuing struggle for Aboriginal land rights. Rosa visits the studio of designer and experimental woodturner Makiko Ryujin , who torches her creations until they're charred and transformed into new forms. When great artists pass, how do you ensure their legacy an...
Jun 07, 2023•54 min
Artist Louise Zhang uses a multi-hued palette and traditional Chinese symbols to explore the horror genre, spiritual beliefs and her own cultural history, on her own terms. Louise's latest exhibition is No dust left in the lilies . My Thing is… Frying Pan. The frying pan is a new recording studio built around an iconic mixing desk that once lived at Abbey Road Studios, London from 1958 to 1980. Now it has a permanent home at MONA in lutruwita/Tasmania. Chris Townend is the sound engineer behind ...
May 31, 2023•54 min
Indian conceptual artist Mithu Sen talks about the idea of 'radical hospitality' and how she pokes fun at the art world's hierarchies. Plus, science reporter Belinda Smith explains why she creates GPS art on the run. And painter Danelle Bergstrom on a journey to Sweden that altered the course of her life and art.
May 24, 2023•54 min
Mark Valenzuela makes magical sculptural installations based on a military upbringing and living in two worlds - Australia and the Philippines. Plus, we hear from the curator of the Rijksmuseum's blockbuster Vermeer show. And Liss Fenwick photographs her Top End hometown, Humpty Doo.
May 17, 2023•54 min
Julia Gutman won Australia's most prestigious painting prize for a portrait sewn with fabric. She chats to guest host Rosa Ellen about her winning work and the gendered view of textiles and craft. Plus, meet sculptor Renee So and delve into the secret life of Clarice Beckett, the modernist master almost lost to history.
May 09, 2023•54 min
The Portrait of Mai (Omai) by Sir Joshua Reynolds depicts a youthful Polynesian man who visited England in the 1770s and spent time on James Cook’s third voyage. The work has been the subject of UK government export bans, a feverish fundraising campaign, millions in donations and some panhandling by Britain’s elites, in a desperate bid to keep it on British soil. Daniel speaks with Professor Kate Fullagar, who’s written a book about the Raiatean subject of the painting Mai, and artist Reynolds, ...
May 03, 2023•54 min
Charmaine Papertalk Green writes poetry inspired by individual paintings of the late Nyoongar artist Shane Pickett. The ancient Greeks called this genre 'ekphrasis'. Plus, sculptor Heather B. Swann takes a different perspective on the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan, putting the female Leda at the psychological centre of the story.
Apr 26, 2023•54 min
Daniel speaks with the pioneering US photographer, activist and UCLA Professor Catherine Opie , whose early portraits of her genderqueer community challenged homophobia and moral panic during the heightened atmosphere of the AIDS epidemic. Catherine has gone to become one of America's foremost contemporary fine art photographers. Binding Ties is the first survey of her work in Australia. Plus, meet a musician who improvises music to artworks she encounters at galleries and artists' studios....
Apr 18, 2023•54 min
Environmental artist Janet Laurence tells us the story behind her latest exhibition, based on life-changing trips to Antarctica and Iceland. Plus, fashion designer Kiel Rogers on why a sense of being 'anti-fashion' drives him. And what's happening with Melbourne's Nicholas Building? A plan to buy back the iconic artists' hub is now on hold, while the last remaining artist-run gallery in the building says it can't afford the rent.
Apr 11, 2023•54 min
It’s a bit like the art world State of Origin: two rival cities go head to head with big exhibitions showcasing the best of Australian contemporary art and design. The prize? Your attention, column inches, buzz and kudos. Daniel takes a tour of Melbourne Now and The National, held across Sydney's major galleries..
Apr 04, 2023•54 min
On this highlights episode of the show, Daniel speaks to guests Sally Scales and Nici Cumpston about the meteoric rise of the Pitjantjatjara artist Betty Muffler. Betty is a ngangkari (a traditional doctor) — a fact intrinsic to her work. Plus, we visit the studio of miniaturist Natasha Bieniek and speak to author Claire Roberts about the influence of China on the painter Ian Fairweather.
Mar 28, 2023•54 min
2023 is going to be the year of AI art . If you’ve been playing around with text-to-image apps like DALL-E 2 or Stable Diffusion, you know how remarkable the technology is and how fast it’s moving. UNSW AI Institute's Prof Toby Walsh talks about the history of artificial intelligence and art, artist Kim Leutwyler on the experience of having your artwork used to ‘train’ AI (without consent) and Rodolfo Ocampo sees a new type of hybrid artist emerging, as well as certain artforms completely transf...
Mar 21, 2023•1 hr
What can a new Andy Warhol exhibition teach us about social media and the cult of celebrity? Plus, an artist spends a year working at a 1930s Georgian mansion in Adelaide, making artwork about its ecological footprint and storied art collection.
Mar 14, 2023•1 hr
Hoda Afshar on the impact of protest art and photography in the Women, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran. Plus, the unconventional life of 19th Century painter Rosa Bonheur, and painter Marikit Santiago on ambition, conflicting identities and banana leaves.
Mar 07, 2023•1 hr
