Who says you need a frame to define the sublime? This from Howard Morphy, discovering a Courbet on King Island, and this from Max Allen in Toronto.
Entries from October 2009 ↓
framing the sublime
October 2nd, 2009 — CONTRIBUTORS, DIVERSIONS
Uhoh Art: Canberra’s contribution to Art History?
October 2nd, 2009 — AVERT YOUR EYES!, PUBLIC ARTEFACTS
Architecture has captured the Haha, once popular in lunatic asylums, so this movement towards public-sculpture-as-lame-joke needs another name. We’re surrounded by it. Humour-rage is the new aesthetic. Just when things seemed to be looking up (with new expertise on the public art panel) you discover where our Cultural Masters’ priorities tastes lie. Apparently we’re still catching up with earlier acquisitions by our ACT Public Art Connoisseurs who bought this Danish sculpture off-the-shelf at Sculpture by the Sea. What an extraordinarily focused policy. Not. Or is it April 1st?
Relating this acquisition to the “enormous political controversy… as a result of the percent-for-art scheme”, the Chief Minister continues to fudge the issue. What was unpopular was the ways in which the ACT Public Art funds have been spent. On excruciating kitsch, for example. Together with the GFC the two issues have been conflated to serve the interests of developers and to get Public Art off the political agenda. What a transparent subterfuge!
