Concrete Playground

art Dale Frank: Ice Age

Thursday, 11th February - Saturday, 6th March
@ Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery

Despite their lack of figuration, Dale Frank’s varnish paintings tell a story. The story of his process — layers of transparent varnish and pigment clashing and separating, creating whole new psychedelic phantasmagoria. Don’t be fooled. These seemingly random configurations, which will encourage different reactions (at his last show, one friend...

art Joseph Kosuth

Saturday, 13th February - Saturday, 10th April
@ Anna Schwartz Gallery

As a prodigy of sorts, with his work One and Three Chairs in 1965, Kosuth began a career of questioning the nature of art. He and his peers (the conceptual artists) championed not the formalist aesthetics and craftsmanship of the previous decades, but the notion that the idea behind a...

art free Chris Town: My Aid?

Friday, 5th March - Sunday, 7th March
@ China Heights

Chris Town has traveled the world and collected, well, bits and pieces. Posters, bandages, ticket stubs, cigarette packets and bodily fluids are all assembled in collages that remind one of the horror vacui of some Grateful Dead posters. I liken Chris Town’s work to the 'Poubelles' of Arman, a Nouveau...

art The Archibald Prize 2010

Saturday, 27th March - Sunday, 30th May
@ Art Gallery of New South Wales

The Archibald is to art writers what a solar eclipse is to human vision. Without fail, it captures the attention of art journalists all over the country. Some writers quickly articulate their dislike and even distrust of the prize (perhaps there is elitism here?). Other writers are like moths to...

art free Shaun Gladwell: Interior Linework/ Interceptor Intersection

Friday, 26th March - Sunday, 16th May
@ Campbelltown Arts Centre

Friday, March 26, saw Shaun Gladwell’s new exhibition Interior Linework/ Interceptor Intersection open at Campbelltown Arts Centre. Gladwell has become a ubiquitous presence in discussions of contemporary Australian art and may now also appear in conversations relating to that $64,000 question: ‘what is our national identity?’After studying at COFA, Gladwell...

art free Antony Gormley: Firmament IV

Tuesday, 11th May - Saturday, 3rd July
@ Anna Schwartz Gallery

In games of “would you rather?”, I was often asked “would you rather be blind of deaf?”; after seeing Antony Gormley’s Firmament IV, I wonder why the game never included “... or forego the ability to perceive space?” First installed in the below-ground gallery of White Cube Mason’s Yard in...

art film free Alfred Stieglitz Film Series

Wednesday, 9th June - 2PM - Sunday, 18th July - 2PM
@ Art Gallery of New South Wales Domain Theatre (Lower Level 3)

These films are centered on male protagonists about whom we cannot help but feel ambiguous. Perhaps a metaphor for politics of the time (and relevant for now, too?).

art free Isaac Julien: Ten Thousand Waves

Tuesday, 15th June - Saturday, 10th July
@ Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery

It seems that in the context of art, and especially Julien's multidisciplinary practice, this photographic series is the "sideshow" to his nine-channel video installation being shown at the Biennale.

art Fixed Up

Sunday, 4th July - Sunday, 15th August
@ The Galeries

Fixed geared bikes are hella fun, and they are proving to be a great tool to bring people together. This exhibition catalogues the main protagonists in the growing Sydney fixie scene - how they got started and even what is so unique about their machines.

film Sydney Underground Film Festival

Thursday, 9th September - Saturday, 11th September
@ Factory Theatre

Congratulations to whoever in the organisation of this event managed to schedule 89 films over a 54-hour period. Kudos, friend. Kudos. Catch Dali's [i]Un Chien Andalou[/i] and Harmony Korine's [i]Trash Humpers[/i].

art Rene Vaile: Just Treasure

Sunday, 29th August - Thursday, 7th October
@ Edition

If those in a century were to develop an understanding of the aesthetic of our time I would like them to do this with the help of Rene Vaile's photography. Death metal album covers, street brawls, constellations of stars - Vaile's taste for content is inspired.

art The Beautiful Brinks: Your Pictures Suck But I Like You

Thursday, 7th October - Monday, 15th November
@ Edition

Benedict once told me about how she stumbled upon photography. It was fortuitous for the rest of us I suppose, and for her friends who are often the subject of her work. Her objective is not to preserve the sense of these peoples lives, but rather to share common experiences,...

art Tracey Emin In Conversation

Saturday, 6th November - 3PM
@ Art Gallery NSW

Once described as an honest realist, her work is not always easy to look at, nor is it pleasant to think about where it came from. But much of the best art is like that, no?