12 Comments
User's avatar
Leon Trainor's avatar

A splendid article, always admired the way you speak in well-formed paragraphs (and probably think in finished articles).

John McDonald's avatar

There's a lot of polishing involved. The newspaper deadlines & word limits never allowed much leeway.

guymorganartist's avatar

Another terrific article John and illustrates why SMH’s loss is our gain. Your platform seems responsible, fair-minded and fearless (as free speech needs to be), unlike some of the individuals you mention. Regarding ACAR, I’m usually reasonably informed of upcoming art prizes but the first I heard of it was on Eaun M’s and Kingstreetgallery’s instagram account/s when he was announced as an ACAR finalist. Perhaps the publicist or marketing experts need to lift their game… like KAAF it seems such a worthwhile international partnership.

John McDonald's avatar

One of the problems Guy, was the very rapid turnaround from idea to realisation. Considering we got almost 300 entries in 3 months, from 2 countries, we're anticipating a big response next year. As mentioned in this column, it was extremely hard to get media support.

Jimpa's avatar

Any plans to review the new show in Newcastle

Interested in your opinion

John McDonald's avatar

I've got to get up to Newcastle soon!

Harry Georgeson's avatar

This show and the effort put into it appears to be spledid work on one level.

Although I was left wondering on a political level if the CCP's United Front was not behind the scene of the shows sponsorship.

John McDonald's avatar

Every art event is treated with suspicion by the Chinese govt. nowadays, unless it's strictly trad. The difficulty of showing in China is one reason why we got such a big response from Chinese artists.

Chetna Mahadik's avatar

I wondered what happened to Chinese art. As you said it was such a rage about 10 years ago. But you hardly see any major exhibitions of Chinese artists anymore. I just assumed that Xi jinping had limited the art exchange somehow.

John McDonald's avatar

Xi has limited artists' options in China, but in Australia, it's all our own work. This year's Archibald is another Chinese-free zone.

Chetna Mahadik's avatar

I don’t look at Archibald. It is just so bad and pointless. I went to an exhibition on Motherhood at the NGV and it was great. Even though superficial politics did make its way in, it still had so many artworks that were just heart-ful!

John McDonald's avatar

It would be more accurate to say Xi has limited artists' opportunities to show at home. In Australia, we've imposed our own restrictions. The big Chinese response to the ACAR prize is a measure of much the artists need the exposure.