Johnny Warangula Tjupurrula (fig. 1) came into national focus in 1997 when his Water Dreaming at Kalipinypa, 1972, created a record for the sale at auction of a work by an Aboriginal arti
The National Gallery of Victoria has just acquired two extremely important sketchbooks by the great nineteenth-century Kwat Kwat artist Tommy McRae, c.1836–190
In August 1968 when the National Gallery of Victoria in St Kilda Road was opened, reviews were mixed
The National Gallery of Victoria has recently acquired a major installation work, Leeawuleena, 2001, by Palawa artist Julie Gough
Shields bearing a large wooden face or mask at their centre were erected in the prow of large war canoes used in inter-village tribal wars along the Middle and Upper reaches…
Upright slit-drums standing in groups out in the open are unique to Central Vanuatu and occupy a focal position in the social life of the societies in which they are found…
Zen, usually translated as ‘meditation’, is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character chan, which had in turn entered the Chinese vocabulary as an abbreviated form of the Indian Sanskrit word dhyan
Like a sacred mantra the words ‘haute couture’ command a hushed silence of awe or generate a cynical sneer of irrelevance
Continuing a recent series of major commissions by leading international artists for Federation Court at NGV International, Paola Pivi’s You started it … I finish it is an installation encompassing…
At the age of seventy-five the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) defiantly referred to himself as ‘the old man mad about painting’ (gakyō-rōjin) as he railed against his mortality by declaring that…
In 1957 a photo-essay by Jeff Carter in People magazine represented seasonal hop-picking in the Ovens Valley in north–eastern Victoria in pastoral terms (fig.
In June 2004 the National Gallery of Victoria was given a superb contemporary La-sisi malagan canoe created in 1999 by the master carvers Edward Salle (born 1939) and his son Mathew…
Lola Greeno is a Tasmanian Aboriginal who combines the energy and improvisation of a contemporary arts practice with a tradition tracing back thousands of years.
AK: In Melbourne Now, one half of your artwork, Cloaked Combat, hangs directly next to my video West Park Proposition, and it strikes me as a wonderful and unexpected connection and…
In many Melanesian societies the traditional cultures are in transition. However, many stories have survived for thousands of years.