Cultural empowerment, artificial intelligence, the music biz, the ethics of criticism and the quest for perfection: these are just a few of the topics being explored by Vivid Ideas 2017.
With over 200 events from 400 speakers, the festival features a wide dialogue across art, design, music, film and social change, as well as insights into creative practices and careers. As a core component of Vivid Sydney, the ideas festival consists of public talks, professional development opportunities and panel discussions.
The artist is set to discuss his do-it-yourself approach and his signature blend between art, design and street culture.
Vivid Ideas is also marked by an interest in social and political issues and includes the visual art exhibition Cause and Effect, which explores the consequences of war, racism and environmental issues within Australian society. Other events take a more targeted approach towards arts practitioners, such as the Creatives Get Cooperative workshop, which thinks through the challenges and social opportunities of the sharing economy.
Of course the festival isn’t simply concerned with voicing interesting ideas, but exploring how innovative thoughts can be practically realised. Consequently Vivid Ideas entails a range of workshops exploring the alternative market of freelance work, start-up culture, the ethics of cultural criticism and professional insights into the film and arts industry. Also scheduled are frank discussions on the inevitable links between money and art-making and how young people can begin to establish their art career.
Vivid Ideas 2017
Various venues across Sydney
27 May – 17 June
65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art is an extraordinary account of the unique art of this continent, published alongside a landmark exhibition at the Potter Museum of Art. Necessary and urgent, it tells the story of Indigenous Australian art; a new art history unlike anything we’ve seen. For Jane O’Sullivan, it’s a remarkable and must-read book.
In a new series of illustrated postcards available as a free gift with purchase only at the Art Guide Bookstore, Oslo Davis takes on classic and contemporary art terms and genres and reimagines what they could be referring to.
With so much to choose from, we’ve rounded up the major summer exhibitions in each capital city, open all summer long. Spanning Yayoi Kusama, Magritte, the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, and many more.
About Face is a smart piece of marketing. The new book on portrait painting from Australia and New Zealand has a mission to change buyers’ minds about the field. But as Jane O’Sullivan discovers, any sales pitch wears thin if it’s repeated often enough, and the close attention to how portrait painting is received by the market means that other important conversations fade to the background.
Now showing at Home of the Arts (HOTA), the sophomore Gold Coast Triennial, Here and Now, brings together 42 contemporary artists to represent the depth and dynamism of the city’s artistic community.
bagan bariwariganyan: echoes of country, curated by Jonathan Jones and now showing at Bundanon, highlights a long history of Indigenous art on the New South Wales south coast, with works and installations from Jones, Aunty Julie Freeman, Aunty Cheryl Davison, and Mickey of Ulladulla.
