Right is Wrong: Bildmuseet Umea

Opening on 8 June Right is Wrong shows 40 years of Chinese contemporary art from the M+Sigg Collection
The exhibition runs to 12 October 2014. Link to website here

Wang Xingwei, New Beijing, 2001. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the M+ Sigg Collection.

19th century views of the European invaders

Rock paintings in Stone Country, Arnhem Land plateau, show observations of the incomers to Australia's north.
Link here

Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, 25 years ago

Artist Guo Jian arrested

artnet reports here
CNN report here

Tom Mitchell Lunch with the FT: Guo Jian
'Now an artist creating work out of minced pork and litter, the former soldier and Tiananmen Square protester recalls the horrors of that night in Beijing 25 years ago.'

BBC report on journalist detained

China journalist Gao Yu detained in Tiananmen lead-up

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo

June Fourth in My Body poem by Liu Xiaobo read in English here

CNN report

Ma Jian remembers Tiananmen Square Massacre 4 June 1989

On 4 June 1989, when the Chinese Communist party (CCP) sent 200,000 soldiers in armoured tanks to suppress the peaceful pro-democracy protest in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, causing hundreds if not thousands of fatalities, it was unimaginable to me and most of my compatriots that, 25 years later, this barbaric regime would still be in power, and the massacre would be rendered a taboo. But despite the party's most ardent efforts to wipe the episode from history, memories of the massacre refuse to be crushed. On the milestone 25th anniversary, Tiananmen is more important than ever.
The Guardian 1 June 2014

Vale Maya Angelou: 28 May 2014

Maya Angelou


 Photograph: Jane Bown

4 April 1928 - 28  May 2014
Family Tribute
 Obituary 

 Alice Walker's tribute:
'She was special, she was rare, she was more beautiful than perhaps even she realised, because she was, among other things, such an artist, that she could not only create worlds on paper, or in a listener's imagination, but she also managed, over and over again in her long life, to create and recreate herself.'

Lennie Goodings

Gary Younge heartfelt recollection of interview with Maya in 2002

'When I asked her how she dealt with people's response to old age, she recited the final verse of her poem, On Aging:

I'm the same person I was back then
A little less hair, a little less chin,
A lot less lungs and much less wind.
But ain't I lucky I can still breathe in.

And then the laughing would start again.'
 ----
'She described the 9/11 attacks as a “hate crime”, and said: “Living in a state of terror was new to many white people in America, but black people have been living in a state of terror in this country for more than 400 years.” '
--
Cook Book

Maya Angelou speaks: And Still I Rise

British Landscape

Link to Constable at the NGA in 2006

Review of Constable, Turner, Gainsborough and the Making of Landscape at the RA in 2012-13 by Mark Prodger in the Guardian

How to Speak Artspeak (Properly)

How to Speak Artspeak (Properly)

A History of Australian Art

New volume published
Australian Art: A History by Sasha Grishin, ANU and published by Melbourne University Press

Grishin: " I think the best contemporary Australian art, the best 20th century Australian art, really stands up to any international competition, and I thoroughly believe in that."

Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/grishin-shakes-the-tree-20140313-34oo3.html#ixzz2

Dan Rule reviews this new book in smh with visual references as here:


Fiona Hall, 'Paw Paw (Carica papaya)', 1989-90, NGA.

Visual art at the Adelaide Festival

Dark Heart at Tandanya in Adelaide until 11 May 2014

See gallery of images here

In May 2013, 28 life jackets belonging to asylum seekers washed up on Cocos Island, off the coast of western Australia. Alex Seton's installation, Someone died trying to have a life like mine, features 28 life jackets made of Wombeyan marble. Ben Quilty’s The Island is displayed on the wall behind
Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

The 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art taps into the hearts and minds of the nation – probing the personal, political and psychological dimensions of contemporary Australia. Titled Dark Heart, the 2014 Adelaide Biennialexplores Australia’s cultural identity through the lens of some of Australia’s leading contemporary artists.

Dark Heart presents twenty eight contemporary Australian artists and collectives, delivering their brave new visions in mediums that include photography, painting, sculpture, installation and the moving image. The issues and ideas explored by the artists encompass intercultural relationships, our ecological fate, gender and political power.

As Curator and Art Gallery of South Australia Director Nick Mitzevich explains: ‘My focus is on assembling an exhibition that connects with the viewer and provides a moving experience’.

Stuart Hall 1932-2014

Having been greatly affected by the life of Stuart Hall, I respectfully acknowledge his passing this week and the sorrow of so many colleagues and friends, and both his immediate and wider family.

Stuart Hall in the Stuart Hall Library at Iniva in Rivington Place

Obituary in The Guardian Education section here 

Martin Jacques in The Observer
'It is difficult to think of anyone else that has offered such a powerful insight into what has been happening to us over the past 70 years.'

Autograph ABP notice, photo and video interview here
Autograph ABP commissioned film by John Akomfrah The Unfinished Conversation is on at Tate Britain until 23 March 2014.

The Jacques Ranciere blog posting on remembering Stuart Hall here, and look for other entries. Paul Bowman calls for the project to continue, to us all to disrupt and reconfigure things

Mark Levine on Stuart's revolutionary legacy on Al Jazeera

The Stuart Hall Project (103mins, UK 2013) directed by John Akomfrah is available to rent online from the BFI player here

The Stuart Hall Project (2013) - trailer