Writing about the act of writing – or more specifically, to write about the field of what we commonly call ‘arts writing’ and to ponder what this might mean – is perhaps setting a thorny task for myself here.
Frankly, living artists are a bore. I prefer dead artists.
God this is tedious, my wife observed, and I had to agree – what is with Australia’s obsession with art? Everywhere you look in the media it’s art, art, art.
“Celebrities are our sun gods and we don’t really need to see them brought down to our level by ill-advised forays into art. I, for one, accept my celebrity overlords but I’d prefer them to stay where they are.”
“It was blunt but to the point: is the art world full of posers? I had to think about that for a second…”
“What do you say when you’re not a painter? Say you’re a video artist – how do you explain that to your accountant? Your mechanic?”
“In the modern fibre-optic world of today, every artist is busy professionalising their practice, building a personal brand across multiple media platforms while synergising their opportunities.”
“By the time I was in my teens in the mid-70s, the optimism of the 1960s had faded into the dystopian grime of the late Cold War.”
“I had never heard of Bob Ross when I first encountered his smiling face looking out from the ranks of recommended TV shows, but I am sure my reaction to him was typical of the reason his show is now so popular.”
“Not every country town or city thought to build a permanent local gallery, or if they had, many didn’t survive to the present day. To travel around to experience Australia’s wealth of regional galleries is to be presented with the architecture of make-do.”
“It’s an oft-repeated truism that the art market is the largest unregulated money market in the world.”
“Architecture is about order and standing in the landscape for decades, maybe even centuries, whereas art is usually too unruly and ephemeral to be left out in the rain or in direct sunlight. Architecture has permanency; art doesn’t last.”
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