Bad hair day
A blockbuster exhibition showcases supernatural tales from Japan
Disgustation
‘Would you like the cat consommé?’ The waiter passes me a spoon. I swallow the broth in one go, deciding…
Sneak peek
When Rone first conceived of Empire – his vast sensory installation in an abandoned Dandenong Ranges mansion – he never…
Live and don’t die
Nakhane was twenty-years old when, in the eyes of his community, he became a man. It was aged 20 that…
Illuminating
The Bruce Munro interview
Charles Darwin’s latest voyage
Gazing over the grand central gallery in London’s Natural History Museum – over the thousands of punters that visit daily…
Body parts
Walking around Patricia Piccinini’s Melbourne studio, we could be on a tour at the Natural History Museum. ‘And here we…
Black mass
That Dark Mofo, the Tasmanian festival dedicated to the dark arts, has courted controversy once again is no surprise. Just…
Murphy’s lore
Murphy – the Australian Ballet’s tribute to choreographer Graeme Murphy, surely their brightest star – kicks off with a scene…
Save the last dance for Li
As a child growing up in rural China during the punishing years of the Cultural Revolution, Li Cunxin felt like…
Darwin’s puppets
When I was young, like many teenagers, I considered science dull. At a Passover dinner one year, I declared this…
Beats at the barber shop
If there is one prop that sticks out in the Barber Shop Chronicles it is the mirror. At the end…
Blasphemy or art?
When Indonesian artist Arahmaia-ni Feisal first exhibited Lingga-Yoni, she received death threats. Against scrawled Arabic script, the 1994 artwork showed…
Bopping with Bippera
In 2012, as James Morrison was collecting his trumpet from the baggage carousel at Cairns airport, a fan approached to…
Communicating hope
They’re so small you might not notice them. Sitting side by side on a white wall in Brisbane’s Gallery of…
Decaying one day, enchanting the next
The private island resort of Bedarra was once a byword for excess: champagne baths were not unheard of. But when…
But is it art…?
In the 1950s a childless couple in the deserts of California set about creating their own family. Calvin and Ruby…
Woolf works
‘What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you,’ Virginia Woolf composed in…
Done to death
‘I’m bored!’ declares my companion while yet another naked body is hoisted – like Jesus – onto a makeshift cross.…
Time bandits
‘Oooooo,’ coos the middle-aged box office lady with a wink, as I pick up my tickets to the World Science…
Mao’s music
Smog is making me cough and I feel my eyelids smart and redden. High-rises are swaddled in a soupy haze…
Revealing nudes
Nude begins with that most perfect of bodies: champion archer Teucer drawing his bow, his youthful face absorbed in concentration,…
Revealing nudes
Nude begins with that most perfect of bodies: champion archer Teucer drawing his bow, his youthful face absorbed in concentration,…
Laughing at the devil
‘Prison did not touch me,’ declares Pussy Riot’s Maria ‘Masha’ Alyokhina, raising her eyebrows with a sardonic smirk. I am…
Laughing at the devil
‘Prison did not touch me,’ declares Pussy Riot’s Maria ‘Masha’ Alyokhina, raising her eyebrows with a sardonic smirk. I am…
