Art gallery

The PHI Foundation presents Sonia Boyce, Rajni Perera and Marigold Santos from May 3 to September 8, 2024

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Following its presentation in Montréal, the exhibition will travel to the Art Gallery of Ontario as part of the Toronto Biennial of Art in September 2024.

Key Points: 
  • Following its presentation in Montréal, the exhibition will travel to the Art Gallery of Ontario as part of the Toronto Biennial of Art in September 2024.
  • Sonia Boyce DBE RA (b. London, 1962) is an interdisciplinary artist and academic working across film, drawing, photography, print, sound, and installation.
  • The PHI Foundation gratefully acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec for their support.
  • Rajni Perera and Marigold Santos: Efflorescence/The Way We Wake
    Inhabiting the 451 Saint-Jean Street building, this duo exhibition showcases recent painting and sculpture works produced by artists Rajni Perera and Marigold Santos from 2021 to 2024, and begins with the collaborative piece after which the show is named.

Yhonnie Scarce’s glass works are a glistening, poignant exploration of how nuclear testing affected First Nations people

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Yhonnie Scarce, a Kokatha and Nukunu artist, has emerged in recent years as one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists.

Key Points: 
  • Yhonnie Scarce, a Kokatha and Nukunu artist, has emerged in recent years as one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists.
  • At the same time, it’s an opportunity for Western Australia’s art followers to see a range of works not previously assembled in Perth.

A translucent shower


The exhibition is installed across two levels, conjoined through an architectural void that invites spectacle. In this void, Scarce’s glistening Thunder Raining Poison (2016-17) hangs from the ceiling by hundreds of wires.
Scarce’s works are so steeped in the contemporary art idiom that, despite the centrality of glass throughout this exhibition, we might not at first consider her a “glass artist”. Yet in Thunder Raining Poison, and in her two other “cloud” works, Cloud Chamber (2020) and Death Zephyr (2016), the artist draws our attention to the fragility and beauty of the material.

  • This potato-like tuberous root vegetable, which urban-dwelling Australians may not be familiar with, grows throughout the bush.
  • The sensitivity of the exhibition’s themes, and perhaps the low lighting, seem to demand quiet in the space.
  • Born in Woomera, Scarce is descended from the Lake Eyre Kokatha people and the Southern Flinders Ranges Nukunu people.

Nuclear colonialism


Australian nuclear colonialism is a recurrent theme in the exhibition, with the upstairs gallery including three of Scarce’s Glass Bomb works from the Blue Danube series (2015).
Perhaps the most poignant work with this theme is Fallout Babies (2016). Set in a corner space, this work is partially surrounded by a floor-to-ceiling photograph of a graveyard with the buried bodies of children from communities that were exposed to the fallout from the bomb testing. The bodies are metaphorically represented by bulbous glass plums, which speak of fertility and promise.
Hollowing Earth (2016-17) is made of materials quite literally infused with trace amounts of uranium. It glows a luminous green under the black-lit gallery. The glass vessels in Hollowing Earth represent bush bananas, another recurrent bush food in Scarce’s aesthetic cypher. The glass surfaces of many of these voluminous glowing bodies are torn while the glass is still hot and malleable.

Read more:
As the world pushes for a ban on nuclear weapons, Australia votes to stay on the wrong side of history

Bush bananas also appear in the work In The Dead House (2020), a work previously installed in the old mortuary in Adelaide Botanic Gardens as part the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art. Laid out on a vintage mortuary trolley, fragile glass bodies are ripped wide open.
The work references early 20th century Adelaide coroner, Ramsay Smith, who profited from exporting Aboriginal remains to British museums. Smith is notorious for having decapitated the corpses – and the bush bananas echo heads and bodies that have been violently disgorged.

Moments of gentle beauty

  • Yhonnie Scarce: The Light of Day includes some moments of gentle beauty found in the love of family and tragic ancestry.
  • Both Remember Royalty (2018) and Dinah (2016) belong to stories of trauma, institutionalised racism and inhumane colonial abuse.
  • But these are also moments in this exhibition that actively seek to restore pride that was once brutally taken.
  • Read more:
    We sliced open radioactive particles from soil in South Australia and found they may be leaking plutonium
  • Art of Peace receives a Linkage Project grant (LP210300068) from the Australian Research Council over three years (2023-2026).
  • He is not involved in any way with the curation or exhibition of Yhonnie Scarce: The Light of Day at AGWA.

Artists bring human richness at times of strife — and need to be allowed to speak about the Israel-Hamas war

Retrieved on: 
Sunday, January 7, 2024

As reports of military machinations and diplomatic efforts have gained attention, the art world has struggled with responses to the horrors of this war.

Key Points: 
  • As reports of military machinations and diplomatic efforts have gained attention, the art world has struggled with responses to the horrors of this war.
  • For example, controversy and calls for transparency and accountability followed the departure of Anishinaabe-kwe curator Wanda Nanibush from the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).
  • After the Royal Ontario Museum tried to change a Palestinian American artist’s work, Jenin Yaseen staged a sit-in and others protested.

Endeavouring to speak truthfully, meaningfully

  • Rights, limits, regulation and the purpose of artists’ work are what is at stake in this discussion.
  • An investigation is underway to see how the gallery’s policies may have impacted the board’s decision-making.

People trying to create and speak truth

  • Some might suggest that artists should entertain and enlighten us but stay away from contentious issues.
  • I believe artists have a unique role, different than that of journalists, political leaders or even documentary filmmakers.

Art and our lives

  • Thinking about “art worlds” as “patterns of collective activity,” as Becker does, helps us to think about art in relationship to our social and political lives, and the conditions under which artists create.
  • Art schools, professional organizations, galleries and performance spaces all play a part in enabling some artists and their messages to shine, whether through financial support, attention or time — while constraining or even silencing others.
  • At the same time, they prescribe behaviours and actions that constrain both artists and the public perception of their work.
  • In this way, the support systems around artistic work have political implications, just as much as the art itself may have.

Discipline via funding

  • As I examined in my doctoral research, the Summerworks Theatre Festival briefly lost funding from Canadian Heritage in 2011 after staging playwright Catherine Frid’s controversial play Homegrown.
  • This was after a high-profile 2006 RCMP investigation saw 18 Muslim individuals accused of terrorism.
  • (Charges against seven people were stayed or dropped, while four people were convicted).

What do we want from our artists?

  • People around the world face what some scholars and activists have called a “polycrisis.” Artists represent and reflect this social and political upheaval.
  • Theatres across the world stage performances or screenings — like The Gaza Monologues — to try to represent Palestinian voices.
  • And we should be mindful of desires to discipline the art world at a time when its voices are so deeply needed.


Lowell Gasoi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

My life as a 'Jillposter': the radical feminist poster group that pasted prints around Melbourne in the ‘80s

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Jillposters was a self-funded radical feminist poster group active in Melbourne from 1983 until 1988.

Key Points: 
  • Jillposters was a self-funded radical feminist poster group active in Melbourne from 1983 until 1988.
  • Yet we produced an amazing range of posters and postcards, most of which are held in Australia’s national collection.


Read more:
From Duchamp to AI: the transformation of authorship in art

A medium for political messages

  • Women were at the forefront of postermaking in Australia in the early 1980s.
  • Silkscreen printing, as it was taught at art schools, was and is a laborious, hand-driven process.


But our posters were ideal as a medium for conveying political messages and disseminating information. Many poster workshops and groups were born in the 1970s and 80s in various locations; including Megalo Workshop in Canberra, Tin Sheds and Earthworks Poster Collective in Sydney, and Red Letter Press and Another Planet Posters in Melbourne.

Off to a flying start

  • Jillposters got off to a flying start in February 1983 when a group of friends met at the University of Melbourne student union to discuss forming a political poster group.
  • We each contributed the grand sum of A$10 to get things started and to open a bank account.
  • Our initial plan was to paste up all of our posters around the streets of Melbourne.
  • Going out late at night with a bucket of sloppy wallpaper paste, large brushes and a roll of posters was all very exciting.
  • Our aim was to find walls where our political posters wouldn’t be covered up by other groups pasting up band posters.

Shifting gear


We then shifted gear slightly and allocated a smaller portion for street paste up and the larger portion for sales through retail outlets such as galleries and bookshops in Australia and New Zealand. Poster production soon increased and our designs became more detailed and colourful.

  • We were also contacted by mainstream galleries wanting to acquire our posters for their collections.
  • Both the National Gallery of Australia and the Art Gallery of Ballarat bought posters in 1983 and then continued to collect all the posters we produced.
  • The State Library of Victoria also collected them and, in more recent years, the Ian Potter Museum at the University of Melbourne collected a range of posters.


Carole Wilson received government arts funding from federal and state arts bodies when she worked for Another Planet Posters between 1988 and 1990. She was a founding member of Jillposters and then went on to work at Another Planet Posters.

Kandinsky at the Art Gallery of New South Wales: a precious gem of a show celebrating the transformative power of art

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, November 8, 2023

His work and theories on art profoundly influenced the School of Paris, the American Abstract Expressionists, as well as the expressionist painters working in Australia.

Key Points: 
  • His work and theories on art profoundly influenced the School of Paris, the American Abstract Expressionists, as well as the expressionist painters working in Australia.
  • This is a precious gem of a show that celebrates the transformative power of art – its ability to transcend the material realm and to nourish us spiritually.

Russian imagery, spiritual realm and colour auras

  • He expressed a profound belief in Russian Orthodoxy as the sole true faith.
  • Building on the heritage of spiritualism inherent in Russian Orthodox icons and the inventive whimsical narratives in Russian folk art, Kandinsky also explored the spiritual realm and colour auras integral to theosophy.
  • He wrote the single most influential essay in 20th-century art, On the spiritual in art, in 1911.

Speaking directly to the soul

  • Kandinsky invites the viewer to take a walk in the painting and explore an enchanted landscape.
  • A mistrust of science was linked to a mistrust of the physical world observed through the senses and the desire to explore a spiritual reality that bypasses empirical observation and speaks directly to the soul.
  • The eye is the hammer, while the soul is a piano of many strings […] [harmony rests] on the principle of innermost necessity.
  • The eye is the hammer, while the soul is a piano of many strings […] [harmony rests] on the principle of innermost necessity.
  • Read more:
    Three questions not to ask about art – and four to ask instead


Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Infill Innovation Takes Centre Stage: Edmonton Launches #BuildingARTyeg Award

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, September 20, 2023

A Collaboration with IDEA Edmonton and Alair Edmonton: #BuildingARTyeg Award Celebrates Infill Excellence and Community Enrichment

Key Points: 
  • A Collaboration with IDEA Edmonton and Alair Edmonton: #BuildingARTyeg Award Celebrates Infill Excellence and Community Enrichment
    EDMONTON, AB, Sept. 20, 2023 /CNW/ - Infill Development in Edmonton Association (IDEA) and Alair™ Edmonton have collaborated to launch the #BuildingARTyeg award, awarded to an individual or organization that has positively contributed to the beauty of communities in and around Edmonton.
  • Alair Edmonton is no stranger to celebrating art in and around communities in Edmonton, and recognizing infill as art dates back to 2018, when artists were invited to create artistic renderings of 12 Alair projects within Edmonton.
  • In 2022, Alair Edmonton swept the Canadian Home Builder's Association – Edmonton awards for best infill in all three categories, positioning them as experts in curated, artisanal infill design.
  • The #BuildingARTyeg Award is open to all industry professionals, including architects, builders, developers, urban planners, and other advocates who have positively contributed to infill projects within Edmonton.

SIGGRAPH 2023 Conference Commemorates 50 Years of Innovations With Growth in Contributed Works and In-person Attendees

Retrieved on: 
Friday, August 11, 2023

CHICAGO, Aug. 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SIGGRAPH 2023, the premier conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques, marks its 50th year of breakthroughs and innovation.

Key Points: 
  • CHICAGO, Aug. 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SIGGRAPH 2023, the premier conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques, marks its 50th year of breakthroughs and innovation.
  • An international audience of more than 14,275 attendees from 78 countries enjoyed the conference and its Mobile and Virtual Access component.
  • "We've been a driving force for the expansion and growth in computer graphics for the last 50 years.
  • Mobile and Virtual Access showed strong engagement, with an average of 100 users per minute logging on to explore SIGGRAPH 2023 content.

Southern California-based Artists, Scientists, Engineers, and Creators Make Their Impact at SIGGRAPH 2023

Retrieved on: 
Monday, July 24, 2023

CHICAGO, July 24, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SIGGRAPH 2023, the premier conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques, marks its 50th year of breakthroughs and innovation. Several Southern California-based contributors will be showcasing their works and projects at this year's conference in Los Angeles. These contributors span different conference programs, including Art Gallery, Panels, Production Sessions, Immersive Pavilion, and Real-Time Live!, among others, to highlight the latest developments in their respective fields. The 50th annual conference runs 6–10 August 2023 in person in Los Angeles, with a companion Virtual Access component.

Key Points: 
  • Several Southern California-based contributors will be showcasing their works and projects at this year's conference in Los Angeles.
  • The 50th annual conference runs 6–10 August 2023 in person in Los Angeles, with a companion Virtual Access component.
  • "I'm exceptionally proud that SIGGRAPH is a global community, and how everyone is so involved with the conference every year," said Erik Brunvand, SIGGRAPH 2023 Conference Chair.
  • Learn more about these Southern California-based contributors, their backgrounds, stories, innovations, and the programs they are participating in by checking out the full program .

Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution is insightful and beautiful; a reminder of how Anglo-American our conception of modern art is

Retrieved on: 
Friday, July 7, 2023

But there’s much more to this exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia than a Frida Kahlo love-in.

Key Points: 
  • But there’s much more to this exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia than a Frida Kahlo love-in.
  • The context for the exhibition, aptly titled Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution, is set in its first gallery.
  • This is the backdrop to a high point in Mexican avant-garde art by Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and a host of other modern artists in this exhibition.

‘Mexicanidad’

    • His scenes of the everyday include Calla Lily vendor (1943), showing two traditionally dressed young girls nursing their gigantic basket of lilies.
    • The cultural vibrancy of post-revolution Mexico fostered the production of modern art by artists including Guatemalan/Mexican Carlos Merida.
    • Merida’s vibrant black and bronze abstract shapes dance across the canvas in Variation on an old theme (1960).

Enigmatic self-portraits

    • Her enigmatic self-portraits such as Self-portrait with monkeys (1943) have an undeniable ability to draw in the viewer, her introspection transferring itself to her audience.
    • Read more:
      Here's looking at Frida Kahlo's Self-portrait with monkeys

      She suffered polio as a child.

    • The point about her disability could have been made more gently by the photographs in the space.

Artistic vision

    • The exhibition is testament to the vision of two emigres, Jacques Gelman and Natasha Zahalka who settled in Mexico City.
    • They met and married, and from the 1940s began collecting and commissioning work from this exciting period in Mexican art.

An insightful exhibition

    • There is a delightfully intriguing side to this exhibition in Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura’s video Dialogue with myself (2001).
    • This is an insightful exhibition, beautifully curated by Tansy Curtin who weaves around the drawcards Kahlo and Rivera to present the breadth of modern Mexican art, situating it in its political and cultural context.
    • The exhibition catalogue with its fold-out Rivera mural is an indispensable aid.

Art and Design Merge With Science and Technology for Innovative Storytelling and Impact-based Experiences at SIGGRAPH 2023

Retrieved on: 
Friday, June 30, 2023

CHICAGO, June 30, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SIGGRAPH 2023, the premier conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques, celebrates its 50th year of breakthroughs and innovation. The advancements of art and science are on display through selected works from the Art Gallery and Art Papers programs. Artists will showcase projects that represent new approaches to unexplored stories through their artistic worldview. The 50th annual conference runs 6–10 August 2023 in person in Los Angeles, with a companion Virtual Access component.

Key Points: 
  • The advancements of art and science are on display through selected works from the Art Gallery and Art Papers programs.
  • By recognizing and commemorating underrepresented groups, the Art Gallery and Art Papers programs serve as inspiration for future generations of artists.
  • The future of art and technology, creative approaches, and powerful ideas can blur the boundaries between art and technology and many disciplines toward a more inclusive and vibrant future for digital art.
  • Bookmark the ACM SIGGRAPH Blog for interviews and deep dives into these fascinating topics on the forefront of art and technology.