Museums in the western world began their lives as the public face of the private fetish. The Vatican, the British Museum, the Louvre and the Hermitage all bear witness to this simple fact. When they opened their doors to the hoi polloi, both high-mindedness and naked trophy-seeking were seen as equal partners in the enterprise [  View article  ]

If Impressionism looks tame to us today, that is because in some respects it was. We associate the impressionists with loose paint, unruly brushstrokes and a new and brighter palette, when in fact they were not the first to do so. [  View article  ]

The Australian sculpture scene is a lively and expanding arena, and in this issue we have focused on five practitioners: two Australians (Peter Vandermark and Richard Blackwell); the Japanese sculptor Kensuke Todo; the Englishman Phillip King; and an American, Bill Thompson. [  View article  ]

In past issues, aAR has featured Aboriginal artists — both traditional and contemporary. This issue provides some insights into how this remarkable and original work (while not lacking the usual complement of formulaic, copycat, derivative and bandwagon examples) has for some time now occupied centrestage of Australia's art world [  View article  ]

Aesthetics? Like a troublemaker in the classroom, ‘aesthetics’ was the naughty word that was told to go and stand in the corner in the 1970s and, to this editor’s mind, no-one in the contemporary art world has given it permission to come out and sit down at its desk yet. [  View article  ]

As far back as our prehistoric cousins, man has always reflected on - and been confounded by - nature. Its mysterious, implacable and sublime elements have been endlessly reflected in art, music and poetry. [  View article  ]

For some time now, art collectors have been able to make their private collections a component of their personally managed superannuation funds. The Cooper Report's recommendations on superannuation, released on 29 April 2010, sought to overturn this, which would have reduced investors to buying for love, not for capital gain, so there was quite a lot at stake. [  View article  ]

Jean Clair argues that art has lost its cultural underpinnings and has been debased by being identified principally with a market value. In brief, he suggested that when art possessed some spiritual, religious or cult origins it had significance and meaning, and when its value became solely identified with marketplace gains, that value was entirely spurious. [  View article  ]

Our May issue has a particular focus on the art of still life - and it is by no means confined to painting. Alexander Seton, for example, has carved teddy bears and collapsed soccer balls from Carrara marble. [  View article  ]

What do we mean when we talk about abstract art? The most comfortable notion might be that nothing on the canvas - or paper - is immediately identifiable. The lines and shapes are entirely unfamiliar to us and, try as we might, we cannot trace them or place them in the context of images and scenes already known to us. [  View article  ]