More crits

The ABC's summary of crits of Australia at the RA here

Marianne Templeton in Artslant Blinded by the light: Myths and Visions of the Australian Landscape says: There's something vaguely unsettling about a once-mighty colonial power filling gallery after gallery with visions of its captured lands, without engaging in any sustained dialogue about the controversial and traumatic history that has shaped this body of work.

Ed Noel in Spiked online

Finally saw the Januszczak review (p 8&9) in the Culture magazine of The Sunday Times in real life at the Hackney Library (the review is online behind a pay wall, since its published by Murdoch). His dismissive review of 'Australia' is placed within an issue of the magazine that is almost celebratory about Australian performance and music showing in the UK.
    The cover of the Culture magazine, 22 Sept 2013, has a full page photograph of Barry Humphries and Dame Edna Everage - famous Australian(s) in Britain. Inside is an interview (of sorts) with Barry Humphries on the occasion of his upcoming farewell UK tour Eat Pray Laugh . In the article Adieu Possums, the author Tanya Gold is frustrated by Humphries ducking and diving in response to her questions. The opening page of the interview is opposite a full page ad for Woody Allen's 'Blue Jasmine' consisting of text and a large photograph of Australian actor Cate Blanchett - old and new possums in a 'face-off'. Further on in this same magazine is a short article, 'Bands Down Under', by Gareth Cartwright about two popular bands (p.31). Cartwright says: 'Here they come, with their strangled vowels and year-round tans and endless good cheer - the Antipodeans are about to land'. He's writing about The Cat Empire from Melbourne and Fat Freddy's Drop from Wellington NZ and notes that they are '... unlike any British or American outfits' ..' fiercely independent- running their own record labels, rather than hoping for a recording deal here.'
    This last comment makes me wonder if that's part of the problem with the Australia show: that it's been brought here looking for the artworld equivalent to a 'recording deal'. The RA curator, Kathleen Soriano, commented that she hoped that Australian artists would have a larger audience in the UK as a result of the exhibition. Largely the local UK critics are negative about the exhibition, although Januszczak also noted that it was a 'useful and pertinent show' (pertinent to what?) and noted Namatjira's work as : 'Full of insider knowledge, they are the most sensitive works in the entire show.' Despite this  'crassness characterises these repetitive responses to Australian landscape.' Fiona Hall's work 'exquisitely crafted'; a reproduction of Robert Campbell Jnr painting Abo History(Facts) 1988 was lazily attributed to Robert Campbell. These things matter, they say something about what's not being said as well. Marianne Templeton has summed it up well ( see above). For an Australian viewer there is something uncomfortable about being represented by such a lot of colonial oil painting and so little contemporary work in comparison. Given that art history is under scrutiny here, why not use the 'Australia' show to review and complicate teleological histories driven by Euro/western canon and views of time.