ABC Unleashed: Whip it Good!

2009-09-04T04:28:00.021Z

As the Spring Racing Carnival begins in earnest this weekend, Michael Hutak says new rules restricting how jockey's whip their horses are causing controversy. Outside Melbourne Cup time, Australia's multi-billion dollar horse racing industry usually attracts the attention of the wider general public for all the wrong reasons: betting scams, race fixing, money laundering, "colourful" racing

‘Reality’ bites at the La Budget Biennale

2009-04-14T13:54:00.005Z

Displays of unbridled wealth are tipped to give way to retro recession chic at this year's Venice Biennale, the world's oldest, most-venerated annual contemporary art event. Held this year in the shadow of the global financial crisis, the international art market, a luxury market, is set to be reminded that collecting art is mostly discretionary. Michael Hutak reports.Like last year’s return to

Race Invaders

2008-11-03T03:41:00.007Z

Michael Hutak writes about our responses to the globalisation of that distinctively Australian event, the Melbourne Cup...

The Meltdown Cup

2008-10-10T16:30:00.005Z

When John Howard dedicated his government to transforming Australia into the world's greatest share-owning democracy, the sly fox was tapping into that kink in the national identity that we love to gamble. That the nation "stops" for the Melbourne Cup is often cited as key evidence in this claim. But if the share market maintains its current trajectory, Cup Day may roll around to find a nation

Russian Pavilion, Venice Vernissage

2007-06-18T22:59:00.001Z

Grand Tour: stop, revive, survive

2007-05-16T00:10:00.000Z

This Northern summer offers an once-in-a-decade opportunity for collectors to sample the latest trends in international contemporary market. Michael Hutak previews a blockbuster European season.It swings round every ten years, the "harmonic convergence of super exhibitions", according to Artnet, that has signposted the phenomenal growth of the international market since the 1970s. 2007 will see

Turner Prized

2007-05-11T23:17:00.000Z

Michael Hutak profiles Australian critic and curator Jonathan Turner.While the international success of Australian artists has become commonplace, it's much rarer to encounter a writer/curator making their mark in the rarefied circles of the international contemporary art scene. Which is what makes Sydney-born's Jonathan Turner Continental presence so noteworthy. Turner, working out of Rome and

d/Archive: Michael Hutak

2007-01-01T14:32:00.000Z

Archive of super 8 films courtesy d/lux/media/arts.

Quai to the Kingdom

2006-07-11T21:34:00.000Z

TEARS flowed freely at last week’s press preview of the landmark Aboriginal art commission at the Musée du Quai Branly, the new museum in the heart of Paris dedicated to non-western art. Surrounded by the media and basking under the artwork that has colonised the ceiling of one wing of the complex, East Arnhem Land artist Gulumbu Yunupingu broke down as she contemplated the moment. “I can’t

Dead Aphorism [1991 - 2006]

2006-05-24T09:02:00.000Z

Dead Aphorism [1991-2006]Colour photocopy on foamcore.Exhibited at "Metaphysical TV [still]", May 2006, Loose Projects, Sydney

Metaphysical TV [still]

2006-05-24T08:44:00.000Z

"Metaphysical TV" was the name of a group of film makers working inSuper 8 in the 1980s who generated their content by shooting directly off the tvscreen. The work in this show will not be screen-based but will bestills and prints relating to the original obsessions of the group.This show is also the first in a series of Loose Weeks at LooseProjects.---May 24 to May 27, 2006. Opening Wednesday,

Death on a Wing

2005-08-11T14:20:00.000Z

A flu pandemic that could strike without warning and kill millions is on its way.With the world economy locked into open trade and globalisation, and security wracked by terrorism and fundamentalism, you could forgive the planet’s leaders for being distracted. It’s hard to conceive of anything so tumultuous that it could deliver us beyond the post-September 11 era of suicide bombers and chronic

Venice Biennale: It's the thought that counts

2005-06-29T15:05:00.000Z

The invisible, the maudlin, the magic at the 51st Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte - AKA the Venice Biennale.“Ohhh! This is so contempory [sic], contempory, contempory.” So mocked the fake gallery attendants in a singsong that greeted art lovers who wandered into the German Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, the world’s oldest and most prestigious contemporary art festival.Employed by 29-

Market penetration

2005-05-12T09:12:00.000Z

A LONG time ago, in a land far away, The Blob was one of my favourite movies. Apparently they're doing a remake. That's about all I can be bothered finding out about the remake of the The Blob at this stage.If you want to know more go and look it up yourself. There are stacks of online resources where you can get all the information you could ever possibly want - and never possibly need - about

Mona Hatoum: Exile from main street

2005-03-22T15:55:00.000Z

Endoscopy, electricity and estrangement drive the thought-provoking art of Mona Hatoum."I don't know where this is going," interjects Mona Hatoum during an exclusive interview with The Bulletin last month. "Is this about me or is it about the work?" Well, when you're one of the most lionised figures in contemporary art, about to mount your first Australian show, and it's called Over My Dead Body,

Art Market Notebook: Summer 2005

2005-01-01T22:52:00.000Z

Chalk up another astounding performance for the Australian art market in 2004, begging the question, just how long can these good times roll? The most transparent barometer of artworld economic activity remains the auction scene and 2004 continued the stellar growth that has marked the longest upward trend in the domestic market's history. In terms of total sales at auction, the market has been

Deal Me In: Shaun Dennison

2005-01-01T22:35:00.000Z

Christie’s entered the burgeoning fray of the indigenous art market in October with a 168-lot auction in Sydney. The man plotting the strategy for the venerable French firm is tyro auction specialist, Shaun Dennison. Melbourne-based Dennison, a management consultant by trade and an art collector by passion, has only been collecting himself since 1996 – the year Emily Kame Kngwarreye died.

Ricky Swallow: Wood for Thought

2004-11-23T15:57:00.000Z

Australian sculptor Ricky Swallow, a mastercraftsman carving out a significant niche in the artworld, joins hallowed company with his appearance at the Venice Biennale, writes Michael Hutak.TIME is running out for rising art star Ricky Swallow. The Venice Biennale is only eight months away and Australia's official representative is feeling the pinch. Two large blocks of jelutong, the Malay

Aboriginal art in Paris: In your dreaming

2004-10-12T01:58:00.000Z

A select slice of Paris’s art collecting elite gathered at elegant rooms on Avenue Matignon earlier this month for auction house Christie’s first-ever exhibition of Australian Aboriginal art. Thirty or so works on preview had been selected especially to tempt European tastes, pulled from 168 lots to be auctioned in Sydney on October 12. Last week another tranche of dots-and-dreaming lots from the

Deal Me In: Rex Irwin

2004-10-01T18:24:00.000Z

Rex Irwin has been dealing in works by “important Australian and international artists” from his first floor rooms in Queen Street, Woollahra, since 1976. Irwin’s business is built around a stable of respected, mostly mid-career local artists, and a trade in works by some of the world’s most famous modernists, from Picasso, Hockney, Freud and Auerbach, to Australian icons like Fred Williams and

Art Market Notebook, Spring 2004

2004-10-01T18:02:00.000Z

Fierce competition heats up Aboriginal sectorSotheby’s is moving to meet the challenge of competitors snapping at its heels in the lucrative and ever-growing market for fine Aboriginal artIt had to happen. After nearly a decade of stellar growth, Sotheby’s failed for the first time to set a new Australian turnover record for an Aboriginal art auction, at its 2004 sale in Melbourne on July 26. But

Collectables: Carbine upstages auction heavyweights

2004-09-01T11:34:00.000Z

Sales of racehorse art often ride on the animal rather than the artist, as the auction of a portrait of the great Carbine attests.Carbine, the 1890 Melbourne Cup winner and the greatest racehorse to grace the Australian turf before Phar Lap, made a brief return to the spotlight last week – as Lot 62 at Sotheby’s Sydney sale of fine Australian art. The handsome, if flattering, portrait of “Old

Collectables: Rover Thomas

2004-08-11T23:35:00.000Z

Doubting Thomas: After the high-profile failure of a 'million-dollar' Rover Thomas painting, Sotheby's are questioning the state galleries' commitment to Aboriginal art.It looked a cinch on paper. An exceptional painting by Australia’s most famous indigenous artist, Rover Thomas, depicting the country’s most mythical physical feature, Uluru. The perfect work on which to hang publicity for the

2004 - Australian Culture Now, Fed Square

2004-07-06T16:38:00.000Z

"Now" is the operative word in this new survey of Australian contemporary art, the most ambitious mounted in five years, say co-hosts NGV Australia and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). 2004 - Australian Culture Now represents the first major collaboration between the two principal tenants of Federation Square in Melbourne, the former one of Australia's oldest cultural

Collectables: End result: lots

2004-06-02T17:02:00.000Z

With the share price of troubled Tempo Services hitting a five-year low of $1.02 on May 4, its chairman, John Schaeffer, could at least survey the recent dispersal of his art collection warmed by the knowledge he was getting top dollar. However, as the dust settles from the "garage sale of the century" at Rona, Schaeffer's $28m Bellevue Hill mansion in Sydney's eastern suburbs, collectors are

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