By Lauren Carroll Harris — 25 May, 2018
Soda_Jerk are bomb-throwers. For more than fifteen years, the Australian, New-York-based collaborative unit have made an art practice out of cutting, collaging and appropriating—watching for the blind spots in the official narratives of culture, politics and history, fascinated less by what’s present than what’s omitted. Now, in their 55-minute video work, Terror Nullius (2018), they…
By Lauren Carroll Harris — 4 May, 2018
A sweaty young Kiwi woman in sneakers and leggings is perched on a mountain over Anzac Cove, tracing the same steps as 12,000 other Australian and New Zealand pilgrims every year. Her great-uncle died at age 19 on the Western Front, and she has travelled here to remember his generation. But in a moment of…
By Naomi Riddle — 20 April, 2018
‘Dear to me is sleep, dearer still being made of stone.’ Michelangelo Buonarroti, Buonarroti’s Reply (1545-46) I kept thinking of two of Jenny Holzer’s most well-known phrases whilst watching Geng Xue’s video work Poetry of Michelangelo (2015), now showing at Artspace as part of the Sydney Biennale: the first, ‘it is in your self-interest…
By Sam Dickson — 29 March, 2018
Coming in from the blistering heat, you find yourself beholding an Arcadian vision on the gallery walls. ‘Antidote’ (2005) is comprised of seven looping videos of a waterfall, and there’s comfort to be found in the playback of soft splashing and the air-con’s regulating flow. But looking across the video channels, a textural disharmony is revealed….
By Em Size — 2 March, 2018
I’m not a bad employee. But since my day job is in an office full of straight cis-men, I inevitably spend more time than I should covertly texting the only gay male in the department. Fortunately we have more in common than just a shared distrust of the heteropatriarchy, so we also text outside of…
By Talia Smith — 23 February, 2018
I look down upon the earth as I’m flying high above, from Sydney to Auckland, and back again. I will repeat this trip in a few months’ time, and then again at Christmas. The ocean always seems to be at its bluest from this height. I think of the Māori legend of Papatuanuku and Ranginui….
By Cleo Mees — 5 January, 2018
I go into Sip My Ocean, the Pipilotti Rist retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, expecting to encounter some ‘Big Time Sensuality’. This was the title of an earlier review of Rist’s work published in 2011 by The Guardian, and it struck me at the time as a direct reference to the Björk song…
By Paul Kelaita — 21 December, 2017
I used to think the Princes Highway was called the Princess Highway. I was disappointed when I found out it wasn’t. I vaguely remember having a muted argument with one of my sisters about it, incredulous at the news. It was surprising because I hadn’t given the name much thought, so had taken it as…