“Society has changed” – Gender representation and Kaldor Public Art Projects

by Jenna Price and John Kavanagh

Jenna Price and John Kavanagh have been going to Kaldor Art Projects together since 1984. They’ve been journalists for longer than that.

In October 2019, the latest Countess Report was released. Created by Australian artist Elvis Richardson, the Report has published data on gender representation in Australian contemporary visual arts since 2008. The 2019 Report indicates an increased interest from major institutions in dealing with issues of gender inequity in the Australian arts sector. In this article, inspired by the Countess Report, Jenna Price explores the historical inclusion of women in Kaldor Public Art Projects.

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Newspapers, free speech and activism in Sydney since 1969

by Wendy Bacon

Wendy Bacon has been an urban activist and journalist since 1969. She is a non practising lawyer & was previously the Professor of Journalism at the University of Technology Sydney.

In October 1969, while Christo, Jeanne-Claude and others were wrapping Little Bay, a small group of University of New South Wales students, academics and anti-censorship campaigners produced two ad hoc newspapers. I was part of that group. 

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Art Into Journalism

by Ian Milliss

Ian Milliss is an artist who worked on Wrapped Coast.

In 2018 the architect collective Forensic Architecture was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize. Although they didn’t win the jury praised them for their ‘highly innovative methods for sourcing and visualising evidence relating to human rights abuses around the world, used in courts of law as well as exhibitions of art and architecture’.

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Journalism into Art

by Chris Nash

Chris Nash was Professor of Journalism at Monash University, and previously Director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at UTS.

In 1970 Hans Haacke was invited by the Guggenheim Museum in New York to stage a one-person show.  Shortly before the exhibition was due to open in April 1971, the Museum Director, Thomas Messer, cancelled it on the grounds that three of the works produced for the exhibition were not art but journalism.  

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Nothing if Not Warm and Welcoming

by Mickie Quick

Mickie Quick has decades of tactical media activism under his belt. In his day job, he is Publications Manager at Honi Soit newspaper.

The artist Deborah Kelly was recently kicked out of an exhibition called How The City Cares at Customs House gallery because the City of Sydney, who produced the show as part of the Big Anxiety Festival, claimed that her work My Sydney Summer was “not suitable to be viewed by children”. The work, devised as a four metre wide print, depicts young people protesting against inaction on climate change.

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