Australian Art - Contemporary Art

Contemporary Art

Richard Larter arrived in Australia in 1962 and started a long career in pop painting, with the female nude being the subject of many of his works. Mike Brown (1938–1997) and Peter Powditch were early Australian pop artists.

Psychedelia in 1960s Australian art was not common, a famous example is the cover of the Cream album Disraeli Gears (1967), created by Martin Sharp. Vernon Treweeke was briefly a star of psychedelic painting. Vivienne Binns exhibition of paintings at Watters Gallery in 1967 was notoriously genre defying and established her position as a contemporary of the Feminist art movement.

Definitive events in the late 1960s included the exhibition of Hard Edged Abstraction The Field at the National Gallery of Victoria, featuring several prominent painters who would later switch to figuraton, Gunter Christmann, Janet Dawson, Peter Booth and the celebrated Los Angeles muralist James Doolin (1932-2002). Indigenous painting art was still considered an area of anthropological interest, rather than as contemporary art. Charlie Numbulmoore was painting his famous Wandjina spirit figures, The Power Institute of Fine Arts was established in 1968 with Elwyn Lynn developing the collection, eventually leading to the establishment of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, and John Kaldor facilitated Christo and Jean-Claude's wrapping of Little Bay in Sydney.

In 1971-2 art teacher Geoffrey Bardon encouraged the Aboriginal people of Papunya to paint their Dreamtime stories on canvas, leading to the development of the Papunya Tula school, or 'dot art' which has become possibly Australia's most recognisable style of art worldwide. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1932–2002), Long Jack Phillipus Tjakamarra and William Sandy are some of the best known Papunya artists.

The abstractionist John Passmore (1904–1984) was part of the inspiration for the artist Hurtle Duffield in Patrick White's novel The Vivisector (1970). Decades later in 2003, Passmore's friends Elinor and Fred Wrobel converted a pub into the Passmore Museum. It is one of the few museums in Australia dedicated solely to one artist's life and work. Passmore was a teacher of John Olsen (1928-), an innovative and original landscape painter.

Artists founded alternate practices apart from commercial galleries and art museums. Performance art and interactive art in communities throughout Australia saw the development of public art and community projects. Vivienne Binns project "Mothers' Memories Others' Memories" at UNSW and Blacktown was a ground breaking participatory project. Other artists around Australia, such as Anne Newmarch in Adelaide were involved in these kinds of practices. Performance artists of the 70s included Ken Unsworth, Mike Parr, Mike Kitching, Philippa Cullen (1950–1975), Ivan Durrant, Pat Larter (1936–1996) and Jill Orr. Installation artists of this decade included Kevin Mortensen, Rosalie Gascoigne (1917–1999), Ti Parks and Tony Trembath.

Building on the innovations of photomontage and artists such as Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008), Man Ray (1890–1976), Gerhard Richter and Richard Hamilton, urban Australian artists were fascinated by the creative nexus of photography and painting. Painters combined painterliness with the look of photography (Carl Plate, Richard Larter, James Clifford (1936–1987), Ivan Durrant, Tim Maguire, Jill Orr, Ken Searle, Susan Norrie, Annette Bezor, Robert Boynes, Kristin Headlam, Ken Johnson, Julie Rrap, Louise Hearman, John Young, Sally Robinson, Lindy Lee, Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, Philip Wolfhagen, Leah King-Smith, David Wadelton). Those artists found limited but enthusiastic audiences. Contemporary Australian artists such as Patricia Piccinini, Tracey Moffat and Bill Henson were artistic leaders primarily using photography, using techniques of drawing, Scenic painting and Chiarascuro respectively. Julia Ciccarone circumvented the trend with her Trompe-l'œil paintings. In the world of Rock music, Richard Lowenstein was creating similar graphic effects using grainy overlays, as he did for the Hunters & Collectors video "Talking to a Stranger" (1982).

Experimental film and video was documented from the 1970s by Arthur and Corinne Cantrill, a couple of filmmakers with an interest in surrealist films publishing Cantrill's Filmnotes. In this format, innovative art was made outside of the commercial and public gallery system. Innovative and internationally recognised art videos from this era were Despair (1982) by industrial music innovators SPK and Human Jukebox (c.1986) by The Scientists.

Some depictions of angst and human suffering in the late 20th century were: Peter Booth's dystopian expressionist paintings. George Gittoes drawing and painting the anguish of the Rwandan Genocide. Steve Cox's Criminological paintings of youths and men lapsed into and out of True crime. David McDiarmid (1952–1995), Peter Tully (1947–1992) and society photographer William Yang used their art to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic. (Epidemic levels within Australia). Figurative painters Nigel Thomson (1945–1999), Stewart MacFarlane and Fred Cress (1938–2009) explored the seamy side of urban Australian life. Their styles were akin to cinematic Black comedy. Tracey Moffatt's series "Scarred for Life" treated psychological suffering in a camp but heartfelt way. Bill Henson's unsettling depictions of teenager's suburbia were grim depictions of revelry.

Ken Done's work has featured on the cover of the weekly Japanese magazine Hanako for over ten years. In 1999, Done was asked to create a series of works for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies programs of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Done and Hart became role models for artists who aspired to commercial success. Done's success is primarily as a designer of mass market goods, but he has gone on to be a painter, mainly of scenes of Sydney Harbour.

Redback Graphix produced some striking didactic poster art in the 80s and 90s, raising awareness of drink driving, sexually transmitted diseases, racism and workplace harassment.

The most famous performance piece of 1988 was Burnum Burnum's planting of an Aboriginal flag on the white cliffs of Dover in the United Kingdom. Burnum Burnum (1936–1997) was an Aboriginal rights activist protesting the lack of legal recognition of Aboriginal ownership of Terra Australis prior to British settlement.

The proliferation of Australia's big things developed an ironic cult following, and Maria Kozic took the joke a step further with her schlock billboard "Maria Kozic is BITCH" (1989). On the serious side, cultural historians in Australia joined the global vogue for writing about Car culture and roadside memorials. In public art there was the introduction of sculptural features on concrete noise barriers along freeways.

A grunge art movement occurred, mainly in Sydney in the 90s. It included Destiny Deacon, Nike Savvas, Hany Armanious and Adam Cullen, amongst others. Cullen's works evolved out of an unfortunate place he calls "Loserville". There had been a proto-grunge music scene in the 1980s with bands such as Lubricated Goat and The Scientists. Another angry artist was Gordon Bennett, whose paintings were of white Australia's mistreatment of Indigenous Australians. Many artists chose distinctly more cheerful subject matter but they did not earn the esteemed reputation of Margaret Olley, a painter of still life floral arrangements and domestic interiors.

Aboriginal artists using western medium such as Emily Kngwarreye (c.1910-1996), Rover Thomas (c.1926–1998) and Freddy Timms have become known internationally and Emily Kngwarreye is regarded as a "genius" by curator Akira Tatehata.

Ian Burn, the leading conceptual artist, died in 1993. He was one of the few Australian artists to contribute to a new international art movement (Art and Language).

Expatriate artists made their mark in Britain. In 1979, Russell Mulcahy directed the influential Video Killed the Radio Star for The Buggles. The story of that video is featured in a documentary by the same name. Leigh Bowery (1961–1994) was a performance artist working in London, famously called "modern art on legs" by Boy George. Ron Mueck became known for his oversize lifelike sculptures. Marc Newson is a particularly successful industrial designer.

Sculptor Rosalie Gascoigne was increasingly well known for her assemblages of cut up wood, most distinctively cut up road signs.

Howard Arkley (1951–1999), rediscovered culture in suburbia. Juan Dávila specialised in sensationalised statements about social hipocrisy. Guan Wei, an artist of the post-Tiananmen Square Massacre era, delved into geopolitical issues of the Asia-Pacific. Tracey Moffatt was arguably the most celebrated Australian contemporary artist of the 1990s, her work involved the slickness of advertising and accurately diverse artistic representations of women. Stelarc is one of the country's most prominent performance artists and was known for his technology inspired transhuman pieces in the 1990s.

The late Arthur Boyd had donated the Shoalhaven River property Bundanon to the Australian people, and this property became a new focal point for artists in residence. Artist residencies began there in 1998. Michael Leunig the cartoonist followed Arthur Boyd's prolific lyricism.

Garry Shead and John Kelly emerged as popular figurative painters in this decade.