Podcasts about Sidney Nolan

Aftershocks: Nolan and the Holocaust is an exhibition of paintings by Australian artist Sidney Nolan presented by Melbourne Holocaust Museum. The collection includes 56 works of Nolan's 1961 paintings of... LEARN MORE The post Saturday, 17th May, 2025: Dr. Steven Cooke – CEO, Melbourne Holocaust Museum; Aftershocks: Sidney Nolan and the Holocaust appeared first on Saturday Magazine.

Dr Breann Fallon, Head of Programming and Exhibitions at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, unveils ‘Aftershocks: Nolan and the Holocaust', an exhibition featuring a rarely seen series by renowned Australian artist Sir Sidney Nolan. The works which were created after Nolan watched the televised Eichmann trial raise profound questions about how society remembers atrocities and what justice means beyond legal trials.

Tom Roberts' Shearing The Rams and Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly series both feature on Lorraine's list 

Burren College of Art will host an upcoming exhibition of photocopy self-portraits by renowned (late) Australian artist, Sir Sidney Nolan, as well as an accompanying symposium on March 5. The exhibition runs from March 6-28 in the College Gallery. To discuss this further, Alan Morrissey was joined by Director of the Copy Collective, internationally exhibiting printmaking and collage artist, Professor David Ferry. Photo (C): Clare FM

John and Sunday Reed nurtured many of Australia's great artists, but relationships between the artists and their patrons were complicated. 

Les visiteurs ne se demandent pas, en principe, s'ils ont on non le droit d'entrer dans un musée. D'où l'étonnement de ce visiteur qui s'est vu refuser l'entrée de la salle du musée d'art ancien et nouveau, en Australie, sous prétexte qu'il était un homme.En effet, seules les femmes pouvaient pénétrer dans cette salle. De la surprise, le visiteur est passé à la colère. Et il n'a pas hésité à porter plainte contre le musée en question. Il a en effet jugé que, compte tenu du prix d'entrée, il avait le droit de visiter l'ensemble du musée.Mais que trouve-t-on dans cette pièce réservée aux dames ?Elle représente un bar dans lequel seules les femmes seraient admises. Il s'agissait pour l'artiste à l'origine de cette création de prendre le contre-pied des débits de boisson australiens qui, jusqu'en 1965, étaient interdits aux femmes. Ou du moins celles-ci n'avaient pas le droit d'y prendre un verre.Le lieu que n'a pu découvrir le visiteur refoulé a été nommé "Ladies lounge". On y marche sur un sol en marbre et, au mur, sont accrochées des toiles prestigieuses, signées Picasso ou Sidney Nolan.Les visiteuses peuvent s'asseoir sur un canapé en velours dont la forme évoque celle d'un phallus. Confortablement installées dans ce siège opulent, elles peuvent siroter une coupe de champagne apportée par des majordomes obligeants, qui filtrent aussi les visiteurs à l'entrée.L'artiste qui a imaginé la décoration de cette salle n'est pas vraiment fâchée de cette plainte. En effet, son œuvre serait inspirée par la notion de rejet, expérimenté, en l'occurrence, par les visiteurs masculins.Quant à l'avocate chargée par le musée de défendre ses intérêts, elle soutient qu'interdire l'entrée de cette salle aux hommes peut se justifier si cette mesure est de nature à améliorer la situation d'un groupe défavorisé, ici les femmes.Mais la direction du musée n'exclut pas, cependant, de trouver un autre lieu pour ces œuvres si la justice exigeait que la salle soit ouverte à tous les visiteurs, hommes compris. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Many thanks to Anthony white for a great chat over Zoom all the way from France. His upcoming show - OPENING/PRIVATE VIEW:SATURDAY 15 JULY12PM-4PMFLOOR TALK WITH DR PETER HILL SATURDAY 15 JULY EXHIBITION CONTINUES 30 JULY 2023 MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA Please note this event is free but booking is advised: contact@lennoxst.gallery or +61 409 409 239Lennox St. Gallery presents Manifestation, an exhibition of new works by Paris-based artist Anthony White. Marking a new direction for the artist, Manifestation consists of a series of 10 paintings responding to Sidney Nolan's 1966 Eureka Stockade mural in which White reclaims the painterly gesture as a form of dissent. This is White's third solo show with the gallery, his first in the new space as Lennox St. Gallery and his first body of work made as a response to a single work of art.White draws on new research into the 1854 Eureka Rebellion (Australia's only ever armed civil uprising), the personal papers of Sidney Nolan and recent protest events in France, highlighting the increasing importance of his engagement with material, concept and history. Painted in France during a period marked by widespread public protests, these ten new works continue White's wider thinking around the painterly gesture as a form of dissent, as well as the act of civil disobedience, or, in French, Manifestation – a protest, public event, action, or object which embodies an idea.Following White's recent creative fellowship at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, Manifestation responds to the anti-colonial spirit in Sidney Nolan's Eureka Stockade mural which White spent time with in Canberra at ANU's Drill Hall Gallery. Commissioned by the Reserve Bank of Australia, the mural depicts the pivotal event of the Victorian gold rush – a crucial point in Australia's democratic history. White's research into the papers of Sidney Nolan at the National Library, uncovered correspondence which reveals Nolan's response to the only first hand account of the Eureka rebellion written by the Italian revolutionary Rafaello Carboni. Manifestation considers Nolan's engagement with that European vision of the event, the legacy of Eureka and the development of a particular Australian psyche typified by a defence of democratic values. Each work incorporates an event or individual element from the Eureka battle as depicted in the Nolan mural: Hotham incorporates imagery resembling mounted policemen; Eureka Hotel and the largest work Manifest (After Eureka) 125 x 235 cm [shown above] depict the epic destruction of Bentley's Eureka Hotel caused by a fire started by rioting miners on the 12th of October 1854. In each work White finds equivalent ways of harnessing the energy and dissenting spirit of the battle.“I went to the Nolan archive to capture this anti-colonial spirit inherent in some of the images of the mural to emphasize the sense of dissent but what struck me was the ethnic diversity of the period in Victoria. What I found was Chinese, Italian, African Americans, Jewish and Irish migrants revolting against the colonial government. It manifested as the Eureka Rebellion which became a crucial part of Australia's engagement with democracy” In the current moment we are seeing the increasing relevance of civil disobedience in movements such as The Yellow Vests in France and groups like Extinction Rebellion protesting for climate change, increasing class inequalities or retirement ages. In my mind there is no doubt that the power of democracy is diminishing internationally and I feel we need to voice our discontent with government policies that infringe on personal liberty, especially the right to protest peacefully.” – Anthony WhiteYou can find out more about Anthony on his website 

What role do the visual arts play in drawing upon history, activating democracy, and asking questions about what culture can do?Australian artist Anthony White lives and works in Paris. White's artistic work revolves around the notion of reclaiming the act of dissent through the production of cultural objects. His research is situated at the intersection of several fields in the social space including, politics, human rights, and postcolonialism. His practice is centered around concepts of design and its history as a form of social and political expression. He works with painting, drawing, collage, and printmaking. Through this practice, he tackles relevant questions to our time, to encourage emancipation and new ways of thinking.Anthony White's artwork has been exhibited in Australia, Europe, and Asia. He has received support through cultural agencies such as The Trust Company Australia, The National Association for the Visual Arts,(NAVA) and The Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). He has also received critical acclaim by recognition in the form of art prizes and reviews most notably The Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship (2007) The Creative Art Fellowship at The National Library of Australia (2020) and acknowledgements in The Australia Financial Review, Art Collector Magazine Australia and also Elle Décor US edition. His exhibition Manifestation is on show from the 12–30 of July at Lennox Street Gallery, in Melbourne."Not in terms of subject matter. Not in the fact that I've taken images from the Eureka Stockade. It was a point in history where there were some gold miners, and they revolted against the government because the government was enforcing licensing fees that were outrageously expensive at the time.So, I don't reproduce figurative paintings, but I wanted to take that energy of what dissent is about, and I wanted to reclaim the energy of the gestural mark as a signifier of dissent. So when I was doing the research in the library, I came across a Roman guy called Raffaello Carboni who wrote a book on the Eureka Stockade.It's actually the book that Sidney Nolan had been reading and his point of motivation for making this large mural. And I found it quite interesting that Carboni was a politically active guy. He was a supporter of Mazzini and Garibaldi who founded modern Italy. And then three years after Carboni fought in the movement that unified Italy, he went to Australia to Victoria. And he was also involved in that Eureka Stockade moment. So I thought, Oh, that's an interesting connection between my roots in Australia and my roots in Europe. So Carboni goes back, and he dies in Rome. And I see that this moment of civil disobedience is interesting and what's happening now with the rise of Fascism. It's an interesting thing that maybe there need to be other moments of civil disobedience where democracy is activated in a way. So I think that the visual arts, they have a role to play in terms of activating democracy. In terms of drawing upon history and asking questions about what culture can do."www.anthonywhite.artwww.instagram.com/anthony_white_paris/www.metrogallery.com.au/exhibitions/manifestationwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What role do the visual arts play in drawing upon history, activating democracy, and asking questions about what culture can do?Australian artist Anthony White lives and works in Paris. White's artistic work revolves around the notion of reclaiming the act of dissent through the production of cultural objects. His research is situated at the intersection of several fields in the social space including, politics, human rights, and postcolonialism. His practice is centered around concepts of design and its history as a form of social and political expression. He works with painting, drawing, collage, and printmaking. Through this practice, he tackles relevant questions to our time, to encourage emancipation and new ways of thinking.Anthony White's artwork has been exhibited in Australia, Europe, and Asia. He has received support through cultural agencies such as The Trust Company Australia, The National Association for the Visual Arts,(NAVA) and The Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). He has also received critical acclaim by recognition in the form of art prizes and reviews most notably The Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship (2007) The Creative Art Fellowship at The National Library of Australia (2020) and acknowledgements in The Australia Financial Review, Art Collector Magazine Australia and also Elle Décor US edition. His exhibition Manifestation is on show from the 12–30 of July at Lennox Street Gallery, in Melbourne."Not in terms of subject matter. Not in the fact that I've taken images from the Eureka Stockade. It was a point in history where there were some gold miners, and they revolted against the government because the government was enforcing licensing fees that were outrageously expensive at the time.So, I don't reproduce figurative paintings, but I wanted to take that energy of what dissent is about, and I wanted to reclaim the energy of the gestural mark as a signifier of dissent. So when I was doing the research in the library, I came across a Roman guy called Raffaello Carboni who wrote a book on the Eureka Stockade.It's actually the book that Sidney Nolan had been reading and his point of motivation for making this large mural. And I found it quite interesting that Carboni was a politically active guy. He was a supporter of Mazzini and Garibaldi who founded modern Italy. And then three years after Carboni fought in the movement that unified Italy, he went to Australia to Victoria. And he was also involved in that Eureka Stockade moment. So I thought, Oh, that's an interesting connection between my roots in Australia and my roots in Europe. So Carboni goes back, and he dies in Rome. And I see that this moment of civil disobedience is interesting and what's happening now with the rise of Fascism. It's an interesting thing that maybe there need to be other moments of civil disobedience where democracy is activated in a way. So I think that the visual arts, they have a role to play in terms of activating democracy. In terms of drawing upon history and asking questions about what culture can do."www.anthonywhite.artwww.instagram.com/anthony_white_paris/www.metrogallery.com.au/exhibitions/manifestationwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What role do the visual arts play in drawing upon history, activating democracy, and asking questions about what culture can do?Australian artist Anthony White lives and works in Paris. White's artistic work revolves around the notion of reclaiming the act of dissent through the production of cultural objects. His research is situated at the intersection of several fields in the social space including, politics, human rights, and postcolonialism. His practice is centered around concepts of design and its history as a form of social and political expression. He works with painting, drawing, collage, and printmaking. Through this practice, he tackles relevant questions to our time, to encourage emancipation and new ways of thinking.Anthony White's artwork has been exhibited in Australia, Europe, and Asia. He has received support through cultural agencies such as The Trust Company Australia, The National Association for the Visual Arts,(NAVA) and The Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). He has also received critical acclaim by recognition in the form of art prizes and reviews most notably The Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship (2007) The Creative Art Fellowship at The National Library of Australia (2020) and acknowledgements in The Australia Financial Review, Art Collector Magazine Australia and also Elle Décor US edition. His exhibition Manifestation is on show from the 12–30 of July at Lennox Street Gallery, in Melbourne."Not in terms of subject matter. Not in the fact that I've taken images from the Eureka Stockade. It was a point in history where there were some gold miners, and they revolted against the government because the government was enforcing licensing fees that were outrageously expensive at the time.So, I don't reproduce figurative paintings, but I wanted to take that energy of what dissent is about, and I wanted to reclaim the energy of the gestural mark as a signifier of dissent. So when I was doing the research in the library, I came across a Roman guy called Raffaello Carboni who wrote a book on the Eureka Stockade.It's actually the book that Sidney Nolan had been reading and his point of motivation for making this large mural. And I found it quite interesting that Carboni was a politically active guy. He was a supporter of Mazzini and Garibaldi who founded modern Italy. And then three years after Carboni fought in the movement that unified Italy, he went to Australia to Victoria. And he was also involved in that Eureka Stockade moment. So I thought, Oh, that's an interesting connection between my roots in Australia and my roots in Europe. So Carboni goes back, and he dies in Rome. And I see that this moment of civil disobedience is interesting and what's happening now with the rise of Fascism. It's an interesting thing that maybe there need to be other moments of civil disobedience where democracy is activated in a way. So I think that the visual arts, they have a role to play in terms of activating democracy. In terms of drawing upon history and asking questions about what culture can do."www.anthonywhite.artwww.instagram.com/anthony_white_paris/www.metrogallery.com.au/exhibitions/manifestationwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

The art of scenic design is a craft as old as the theatre itself. Painted cloths, gauze and scenery complete the illusion to which we attend so freely. However, with the advent of technologies, the theatrical experience, which essentially has a responsibility to transport us into other worlds, has seen new and often unsatisfying ways of conjuring this magical immersion. Rod Clarke and Stella Ginsberg are artists who have been constructing and executing the specific craft of the scenic artist for several decades. Their bespoke and alluring art has given dimension, atmosphere and life to stage settings in a most unique and hypnotic manner. It is an art form that is at some risk however, as a new generation of designers begin to explore other avenues of invention to tell their stories. Their craft was inherited from ‘old hands' who generously and responsibly passed on their knowledge of constructing huge canvases. This ensured a dying art was kept alive so that it could continue to enhance precious storytelling. Their work has been experienced and applauded across a range of disciplines and stages - Opera Australia, Bell Shakespeare, Bangarra Dance Theatre, The Elizabethan Theatre Trust, The West Australian Ballet Company, Jupiter's Casino and commercial musicals including Love Never Dies and South Pacific; they've worked with artists Charles Blackman and Sidney Nolan; and performers such as Crowded House and magician Joe Labero. Clarke and Ginsberg set up their own studio and theatrical business, Scenografic Studios, in the 1980s. Their headquarters in Newtown quickly became a location of enormous creativity and hive of activity as the couple and their staff were enlisted to prepare and paint scenery for a vast range of entertainments - pop concerts, operas, plays, dance and musicals. Their talent and experience preserving and celebrating this theatrical craft is to be applauded. Stella and Rod have keenly accepted the challenge of translating an idea on paper to a spellbinding realisation of dramatic effect on the stage. They have completed a magical experience for all of us who have ever sat in a theatre. The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au

The gestural marks in Anthony White's work are often bold and demanding of the viewer's attention. These abstract works vary from swirling lines in saturated colour, to textured surfaces and more formal collaged constructions. What is not apparent on the surface of the canvas is the time the artist has spent reading, writing and researching in the lead-up to their creation. Newspapers and books play as much a role in his work as the paint itself and writing his own thoughts on social and political issues and current events are crucial to his creative process. In this podcast conversation we touch on those ideas but Anthony also makes many insightful observations about the creation itself. Born in Australia, Anthony is now Paris-based and is represented by several galleries in Europe and Australia. His first museum show, titled 'Mobilising Material', was held at the Mark Rothko Art Centre in Latvia in 2022. He also returned to Australia last year on a creative fellowship at the National Library of Australia where he researched Sidney Nolan‘s commissioned mural of the Eureka Stockade. (See below for a link to his presentation relating to that research) He has been awarded the Marten Bequest Travelling scholarship, amongst other residencies, and his work is held in public and private collections internationally. A video relating to this interview will be uploaded to the YouTube channel in the coming months. Click on 'play' below the above photo to hear the podcast episode. Photo supplied by the artist Links Website Anthony White on Instagram Anthony White at Metro Gallery Anthony White at Boullier Fine Art Anthony White at Artscape Luxembourg Mobilising Material Exhibition at the Mark Rothko Art Centre, Latvia  National Library of Australia Creative Fellowship presentation 2022 (YouTube) Click here for my US highlights Instagram reel  Subscribe to the TWP newsletter  'Lampedusa', 2019, oil and ripolin enamel on linen, 150 x 120cm 'The Landscape is never Innocent (after Mannalargenna)', 2018, oil and ripolin on linen Finalist and Highly Commended in 2018 Glover Prize 'Sanctuary' 2016, oil and shellac on linen, 120 x 100cm 'Federation Peak II', 2020, oil on linen, 150 x 120cm Finalist 2021 Glover Prize 'Ghost series XIII' 2022, acrylic and flash on linen, 90.5 x 90.5cm 'Proletariat', 2017, 91.5 x 91.5cm

What happens when we see real events and meet well-known people on stage? Can the theatre shape our sense of our own history? Those questions are raised by a new Australian play called Sunday, featuring a knockout performance from Nikki Shiels as arts patron Sunday Reed.Also, we're joined by the writer of Sunday, Anthony Weigh, to discuss what responsibilities artists have to truth and accuracy in stories based on actual events, and we continue our discussion of Australian history and theatre with the writer of a new play inspired by the shocking true events that rendered an Australian town uninhabitable.

What happens when we see real events and meet well-known people on stage? Can the theatre shape our sense of our own history? Those questions are raised by a new Australian play called Sunday, featuring a knockout performance from Nikki Shiels as arts patron Sunday Reed. Also, we're joined by the writer of Sunday, Anthony Weigh, to discuss what responsibilities artists have to truth and accuracy in stories based on actual events, and we continue our discussion of Australian history and theatre with the writer of a new play inspired by the shocking true events that rendered an Australian town uninhabitable.

Best known for his bold modernist work, Sidney Nolan elevated the mythology of the Australian bush to global prominence and earned himself a place among the most significant artists of the 20th century. Yet his deeply expressive response to the Holocaust of the 2nd World War, where around 6 and a half million Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis, has until now remained pretty much unseen and unknown. An exhibition of the works at the Sydney Jewish Museum uncovers an important chapter in his life and work: a series of images painted with great intensity during 1961, as the Adolf Eichmann trial came to a close and as Nolan prepared to visit Auschwitz. Museum curator Roslyn Sugarman discusses the exhibition, the preparation, and the chance meeting that uncovered this otherwise unseen body of Sidney Nolan's work.  A transcript of this interview is available for download HERE. The transcriptions are made possible by the support from the Australian Arts Channel.

50 never seen before Sidney Nolan artworks are on display at Sydney's Jewish Museum for the new exhibition Shaken To His Core: The Untold Story Of Nolan's Auschwitz. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sidney Nolan remains one of Australia's most respected artists. His work can be found in museums across the country, and his iconic depiction of Ned Kelly was even used in the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics. But who was the man behind the icon? How did an intimate relationship with a married couple—and it's bitter end—shape Nolan's later life? And how do we grapple with Nolan's legacy today? Kendrah Morgan and Dean Cross discuss Nolan and two exhibitions at the Heide Museum of Modern Art.

Sidney Nolan remains one of Australia's most respected artists. His work can be found in museums across the country, and his iconic depiction of Ned Kelly was even used in the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics. But who was the man behind the icon? How did an intimate relationship with a married couple—and it's bitter end—shape Nolan's later life? And how do we grapple with Nolan's legacy today? Kendrah Morgan and Dean Cross discuss Nolan and two exhibitions at the Heide Museum of Modern Art.

It’s thirty years since David Marr wrote his landmark biography of Australian Nobel laureate, novelist Patrick White. In this provocative and revealing conversation, Marr reflects on his relationship with his subject and its enduring impact on him, admitting that although White could be a curmudgeon, Marr came to adore him. He talks about the significance of White’s snobbish Anglophile mother, the discovery of a substantial cache of letters after his death, the break up of his relationship with Sidney Nolan and the crucial role of White’s life partner, Manoly Lascaris while voicing strong opinions about the kinds of biographies that annoy him. Life Sentences is a Two Heads Media production Producers: David Roach and Jennifer Macey Audio Editing: Louise Osbourne Music: Amanda Brown www.carolinebaum.com.au All the books in this series are available from good bookshops and online.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sidney Nolan: Myth Rider brings together more than 100 works by Sidney Nolan from the period 1955–1966, during which the artist grappled with the subject of the Trojan War, its parallels... LEARN MORE The post Sidney Nolan – Tarra Warra Gallery appeared first on Sunday Arts Magazine.

Nestled in the bush on the banks of the Shoalhaven River, Bundanon is a gift, literally, made to the Australian people by artist Arthur Boyd and his wife Yvonne in 1993. Featuring a homestead, an education centre designed by Glenn Murcutt and a multi-million dollar collection of artworks by Boyd and contemporaries such as Charles Blackman and Sidney Nolan, the place has to date been mostly used for artist residencies and occasional open days. Now however, thanks to a new $33 million building designed by Melbourne architect Kirstin Thompson, it will be open a lot more often to a lot more of us, as Boyd initially intended.  Senior Good Weekend writer Amanda Hooton and Bundanon CEO Deborah Ely discuss the new gallery, the risks of fire and flood that it attempts to mitigate, Boyd's legacy and dream, and the role regional galleries can play in a COVID-constrained world. Read the story here. Become a subscriber: our supporters power our newsrooms and are critical for the sustainability of news coverage. Becoming a subscriber also gets you exclusive behind-the-scenes content and invitations to special events. Click on the links to subscribe https://subscribe.theage.com.au/ or https://subscribe.smh.com.au/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You might have once said “my kid could have done that!" But what if your computer could, instead? Computers are being taught to paint in the style of Rembrandt, Frida Kahlo and Sidney Nolan, but what will this mean for the future of artistic creation?

April 22 is the birthday of Australia's most famous artist, Sidney Nolan. This content is available in Russian only. - 22 апреля отмечается День рождения самого известного художника Австралии Сиднея Нолана. В связи с этим мы вспоминаем выпуск подкаста Arty об этом удивительном художнике.

Getting to know Sidney Nolan was a fascinating project for Sally Aitken, the award-winning director behind the ABC documentary Nolan. Sally talks about the incredible insight she uncovered during her deep dive into the life of the acclaimed Australian painter.Constant is a collaboration with the National Gallery of Australia. Read more at www.nga.gov.au/timross 

Thank you for listening to this recording, produced by the Art Gallery of South Australia. Join us as Tracey Lock, Curator of Australian Art, speaks about Sidney Nolan's painting, Antarctica. For further information visit www.agsa.sa.gov.au Image: Sidney Nolan, Australia, 1917-1992, Antarctica, 1964, London, oil on composition board; Gift of the Gwinnett Family, Helen Bowden, Ross Adler AC, The Hon. Justice Mark Livesey, Peggy Barker, Elspeth Doman OAM, Tom Pearce, Lady Potter AC, Dick Whitington QC and David and Jennifer Hallett, through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation Sidney Nolan Appeal 2019, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Estate of Sidney Nolan/Copyright Agency.

Professor Chris McAuliffe and his University of Queensland colleague are engaged in a project of modern archaeology, uncovering new insights about the late artist Robert Smithson by trawling through an archive of his belongings. Which raises the question: to what extent can we understand someone by examining what they own?We discover that the answer isn’t so simple. Our conversation takes us from our relationship to objects, to the degree to which we can truly know someone, to how much we even reveal about ourselves.Dr Chris McAuliffe is Professor of Art (Practice-led research) at the School of Art and Design, Australian National University and the Sir William Dobell Chair at the ANU Centre for Art History and Theory. From 2000–2013 he was Director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne. He taught art history at the University of Melbourne (1988-2000) and was Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University (2011–12). Dr McAuliffe has curated exhibitions on Australian and international art. Recent projects include the exhibitions Robert Smithson: Time Crystals, University of Queensland Art Museum, 2018; We who love: Sidney Nolan’s slate paintings, University of Queensland Art Museum and Heide, 2016; and America: Painting a nation, Art Gallery of NSW, 2013.…The theme music for Better Things is “One More Time” by Fab Beat.Better Things is a production of the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences. It’s produced by Evana Ho.You can find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @ANUCASS.

George Johnston, Charmian Clift, Leonard Cohen, Sidney Nolan - just some of those who 'dropped out' for some time to live on Hydra.

Plus, Sidney Nolan works about to go under the hammer, Justine Youssef, and FEM-aFFINITY.

Plus, Sidney Nolan works about to go under the hammer, Justine Youssef, and FEM-aFFINITY.

Plus, Sidney Nolan works about to go under the hammer, Justine Youssef, and FEM-aFFINITY.

Kellie O'Dempsey demonstrates her live performance drawing in studio, creating images to project on the wall, producer Julia Peters and Sidney Nolan's daughter Amelda Langslow on ABC TV documentary Nolan, acclaimed author Nick Earls on his new book about artist Brisbane artist William Robinson, and OzAsia Festival showcases installations by Chiharu Shiota and JeeYoung Lee, and a very unusual funeral by Anida Yoeu Ali.

Kellie O'Dempsey demonstrates her live performance drawing in studio, creating images to project on the wall, producer Julia Peters and Sidney Nolan's daughter Amelda Langslow on ABC TV documentary Nolan, acclaimed author Nick Earls on his new book about artist Brisbane artist William Robinson, and OzAsia Festival showcases installations by Chiharu Shiota and JeeYoung Lee, and a very unusual funeral by Anida Yoeu Ali.

Guest speaker Dr Jean Bou Special recording from the exhibition launch of The Light Horse: Australians in the Middle East 1916–18. The exhibition was launched in October last year and will be closing at the end of this week. It features works of art by Sidney Nolan, George Lambert and Susan McMinn as well as personal memorabilia from General Sir Harry Chauvel. The exhibition is on display to the public until Sunday 21 October and can be viewed from 10am daily. Last entry at 4.30pm. Discover more about the Australian Light Horse the special edition of Remembrance.

Dr Andrew Yip presented on 16 August 2018 'Immersive interactions: a new museology of consciousness in the age of virtual reality' This talk addresses the human and social potentials of immersive, interactive media installations to connect museum visitors to each other and to an expanded experience of cultural histories. Rather than focus on particular hardware types, or the novelty and marketability of in-vogue digital platforms, this lecture argues that immersive media platforms should be characterised by the paradigms of experience and emotion that they allow, rather than be pigeonholed museologically by their medium simply as ‘the digital’. How does this new museology of the virtual fit in with the mission of museums to collect and preserve material artefacts? Through recent case studies and audience research, I argue that new forms of immersive media are a natural fit for cultural heritage institutions, that allow them to speak to new audiences in their native languages, across time and place. Dr Andrew Yip is a research fellow and resident 3D artist at the iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research, University of New South Wales, where his research focuses on applications for experimental visualisation and embodied interaction platforms for the GLAM sector and cultural heritage studies. Andrew creates virtual reality installations for museums and artists. His virtual reality exhibition Henry VR is currently on show at the Art Gallery of NSW, and his Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly Unmasked: Virtual Reality 2017 won the 2018 Museums and Galleries Australia National Award for interpretation, learning and audience engagement. Andrew publishes widely in contemporary art and Australian art history. He was co-editor of the book The Legacies of Bernard Smith: essays on Australian art, history and cultural politics, which won the 2017 Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Book Prize for Best Compilation. Andrew holds a first class honours and PhD in art history from Sydney University and prior to joining UNSW held positions at the Art Gallery of NSW and Sydney University. This free public lecture was part of the History Trust of South Australia's Talking History series. For upcoming events visit: history.sa.gov.au/whats-on/events/

Join Shrine Curator Neil Sharkey as he unravels the many myths and legends of the Australian Light Horse in the Middle East. While Australian infantry served in the grim trenches of the Western Front, their Light Horse comrades fought a mobile war against the Ottoman Turks in the desert wastes of Sinai, Palestine and Syria. This special centenary exhibition extends beyond the legendary attack on Beersheba and features paintings by Sidney Nolan, George Lambert and Susan McMinn. The Light Horse: Australians in the Middle East will be on display at the Shrine of Remembrance until October 2018. The Shrine is open daily from 10am to 5pm.  

Synopsis: an afternoon at the Art Gallery of New South Wales; listening to Scaffold; galaxies; ghosts and telephones; an afternoon at the MCA; intermediary zones between public and private; and, forward, backwards, sidestep, sideways, abstracted. Characters (in order of appearance): Adrian Heathfield, Sidney Nolan, Aodhan Madden, Beth Caird, Adam Linder, Sarinah Masukor, Robert Wood. Biennale of Sydney: Fan Fiction has been written for The Bureau of Writing, a collaborative writing program designed for artists and presented alongside the 20th Biennale in association with Artspace, Sydney.

Inua Ellam's play Barbershop Chronicles has opened at London's National Theatre. It's about the intimate and almost-sacred masculine world of black barber shops around the world. French film Slack Bay is a comedy about a series of mysterious seaside murders. Starring Juliette Binoche, it mixes professional actors with complete novices and slapstick comedy with cannibalism and gender-fluid relationships Amanda Craig's latest novel The Lie Of the Land tells the story of a London couple who move to the country under straitened circumstances and uncover a grisly murder in their new home Birmingham's Ikon Gallery is staging an exhibition of a series of Sidney Nolan portraits, as part of the commemoration marking the centenary of his birth. He was an Australian who moved to the UK at the age of 32 but whose work never reflected his new home. GLOW is a new Netflix series from the makers of Orange Is The New Black, set in the world of women's TV wrestling in the 1980s. It's all big hair, power ballads, coke snorting and grappling. Emma Dabiri's guests are Catherine O'Flynn, Liz Jensen and Sarfraz Manzoor. The producer is Oliver Jones.

MP Jess Phillips on life in the public eye. Plus Ned Kelly, Lady Macbeth, one once flesh and blood, the other imagined into being, yet both have done sterling work as ciphers to the human condition. Anne McElvoy talks to Rebecca Daniels, curator of an exhibition marking the centenary of Australia's great myth-maker, the artist Sidney Nolan and to David Taylor, curator of an exhibition at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre about the way memorable images work and legends are made—they are joined by Lorna Miller and Kevin 'Kal' Kallaugher, who draw on their experience as political cartoonists.Transferences: Sidney Nolan in Britain runs at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester from 18th February 2017 – 4th June 2017 and part of centenary programming across 2017. You can find out more from http://www.sidneynolantrust.org/centenary-2017/centenary-programmeDraw New Mischief: 250 years of Shakespeare and Political Cartoons is in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre's PACCAR room: 25 February – 15 September 2017 Everywoman: One Woman's Truth About Speaking the Truth by Jess Phillips is out now. Producer: Karl Bos Editor: Robyn Read

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to the poet Elaine Feinstein about her work from over half a century of writing, from her early poems of feminist rebellion to reflections on middle age and marriage, to wry amusement on the fallibility of memory. The curator Rebecca Daniels looks back at the life and work of one of Australia's most celebrated modern painters, Sidney Nolan, and challenges the audience to look beyond his early depictions of the outback and the outlaw Ned Kelly, to see a world artist. The theatre director Trevor Nunn finds the comedy in pitting idealistic Hamlet-esque youth against a wealthy businessman in his production of Rattigan's Love in Idleness. The composer Ryan Wigglesworth has produced a new operatic interpretation of The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare's study of love, loss and reconciliation. Producer: Katy Hickman IMAGE: A section of 'Myself' by Sidney Nolan, 1988.

Gary Barlow has written his first musical with his long-time friend, the screenwriter Tim Firth. The Girls, like the film Calendar Girls, charts the true life story of a group of friends who meet at the Burnsall Women's Institute and decide to pose for a nude calendar to raise money for charity. Gary and Tim discuss stage nudity and body confidence, and meeting the real Yorkshire 'girls'.The new five-part TV drama series SS-GB imagines the UK under Nazi occupation in 1941 after the Germans won The Battle of Britain. The writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who wrote the last six James Bond films, discuss this adaptation of the 1978 Len Deighton thriller, and their approach to re-imagining history. Famous for his paintings of Ned Kelly, Sidney Nolan is often seen as the most prominent Australian painter of the 20th century. Yet he spent most of his life in Britain recreating the landscapes of his birth country from his imagination. Art critic Richard Cork reviews Transferences, a new exhibition at Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, which kicks off a year of events marking the centenary of the artist's birth.Veteran director Zhang Yimou and Hollywood star Matt Damon have teamed up to create The Great Wall, a film spectacular set in ancient China, which sees European mercenaries and Chinese soldiers working together to defeat a mythical horde of ravening beasts. It's the largest Hollywood co-production to be filmed entirely on location in China. Film critic Angie Errigo reviews.Presenter: Kirsty Lang Producer: Angie Nehring.

Forty years on from the tragedy of Gallipoli, Sidney Nolan reflected on the campaign and what it meant for the history of Australia and his own experience of the Second World War.

With John Wilson. Sting discusses The Last Ship, his latest album and the first original material he has released for nearly a decade. Based on Sting's experiences growing up in a shipbuilding community on Tyneside, The Last Ship is a narrative about the demise of the industry seen through the eyes of a range of characters. Sting talks about the autobiographical element of the songs, and how he is writing a Broadway musical about the same subject, which is due to open next year. Australia, at the Royal Academy in London, is the first major survey of Australian art in the UK for over 50 years, and includes work by early 19th century settlers, aboriginal artists, impressionists, and 20th century painters such as Sidney Nolan. Charlotte Mullins reviews. Front Row announces the winner of Gramophone magazine's Recording Of The Year 2013, and John talks to the winning artist. Producer Rebecca Nicholson.

Poet. Pacifist. PainterNot only is Sidney Nolan one of our most important artists, he was also a mad-keen St Kilda Supporter. NGV Deputy Director, Frances Lindsay

“In your stomach as well as your eyes” A pacifist, Sidney Nolan spent some of the war years in the Wimmera, the dominant sun inspiring some of his most famous works.

Sidney Nolan (1917 Australia – 1992 England), Ned Kelly 1946. Painting, enamel on composition board, 90.8 h x 121.5 w cm. Gift of Sunday Reed 1977.

Sidney Nolan (1917 Australia – 1992 England), Kiata c.1943. Painting, enamel on composition board, 60.9 h x 91.7 w cm. Purchased 1973. © Sidney Nolan Trust.

Sidney Nolan (1917–1992), Boy and the moon [Moonboy] c.1939-40. Painting, oil on canvas, mounted on composition board, 73.3 h x 88.2 w cm. Purchased 1976. © Sidney Nolan Trust.

Sidney Nolan recounts the experiences that led him to create this series while Curator Barry Pearce argues why Riverbend may be seen as Nolan’s greatest masterpiece.

Curator Barry Pearce and Sidney Nolan discuss Nolan’s initial lack of interest in the Australian landscape as a subject for painting and the circumstances that led him to change his view.

Barry Pearce, Head Curator of Australian Art from the Art Gallery of New South Wales, introduces the Sidney Nolan exhibition.

In 1939, Sidney Nolan showed his abstract Head of Rimbaud, executed with an inventive mixture of oil and Kiwi boot polish, and secured a commission as the designer for the ballet Icare.

The Army slouch hat and the blue eyes give the game away: this portrait of Ern Malley is Nolan confronting his demons – or perhaps his critics.

Curator Barry Pearce explains why Nolan’s Boy with the Moon, painted in 1940, was a controversial painting for the time and contained the seeds for Nolan’s future work.

The May 1944 edition of Angry Penguins trumpeted the discovery of a major Australian poetic talent – Ern Malley. Nolan painted the cover illustration, Arabian Tree, from one of the lines, and reflects here on his involvement.

Temptations of various saints have been a juicy subject for artists from the Middle Ages onwards but in Nolan’s painting, there is a suggestion that Saint Anthony’s will shall prevail.

African landscape, Rimbaud at Harar, Baboon, and Head of Rimbaud take us back to the awakening of Nolan’s inner eye during his youth, and forward to his last landscapes.

In Kelly and armour we finally see Kelly freed from his armour. Here, curator Barry Pearce finds some parallels between Nolan’s preoccupation with Ned Kelly and the poet Arthur Rimbaud.

Nolan’s second Kelly series shows a more intimate image of Kelly in which the mask has partially broken away to reveal a Christ-like expression of calm.

Anyone who has experienced that creaking, nearer-my-god-to-thee roller coaster at Luna Park, St Kilda, will identify with this colourful, rickety painting by Sidney Nolan.

Queensland was in the grip of a horrendous drought. Even so, Nolan drew inspiration from the trip, as Curator Barry Pearce recounts.

Little Dog Mine brought with it more than a little bit of luck for Sidney Nolan as its sale introduced his work to the world stage.

In his paintings about these ill-fated heroes, Nolan reaffirmed the possibility of history painting at a time when rampant modernism had virtually stamped it out.

Nolan’s painting Mrs Fraser, where treachery has reduced the woman to a beast, can be viewed as a metaphor for events in Nolan’s own life, as Curator Barry Pearce explains.

Curator Barry Pearce discusses the Kelly Series paintings which Nolan has said “are secretly about myself ... it’s an inner history of my own emotions”.

In 1946, Nolan was driving his father through Northern Victoria, when they saw a hare struggling in a trap, the inspiration for this painting that could be seen as a self-portrait.

The Ern Malley hoax threw some of his modernist friends off balance, but Nolan’s self portrait expressed his reaction to controversy. When attacked with words, Nolan fought back with paint.

Nolan painted some 75 versions of Leda and the Swan. Curator Barry Pearce offers some insights into the artist’s motivations for painting the series.

This is a first test show. It's about Sidney Nolan's painting 'Ned Kelly' (1946), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (enamel on composition board, 90.8 x 121.5 cm). You can view the picture at http://www.nga.gov.au/outandabout/images/LRG/44010.jpg

This is a first test show. It's about Sidney Nolan's painting 'Ned Kelly' (1946), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (enamel on composition board, 90.8 x 121.5 cm). You can view the picture at http://www.nga.gov.au/outandabout/images/LRG/44010.jpg

Fuelled by a keen interest in travel, Nolan’s personal experiences of the land are closely linked to the development of mythology within his work. The Burke and Wills paintings from 1949–50 emerged after a journey to Central Australia in 1949. Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills were explorers who died in an attempt to make the first organised crossing of Australia from south to north in 1860–61. In Burke at Cooper’s Creek the ghostly appearance of the ill-fated Burke compounds the notions of isolation, displacement and tragedy relating to the expedition. On leaving the Cooper’s Creek depot on 16 December 1860, Burke told his party that if he had not returned within three months he could be considered perished. Four months later he returned to the empty site, only nine hours after the rest of the party had departed. He died from exhaustion, south of the camp.1 Writing about the series some years later, Nolan said that: … wanting to paint Burke and Wills really comes from a need to freshen history and to make these remote happenings really belong to us now … There seem to be three elements in the paintings: the actuality of the landscape, which for Australians is intensified to the point of a dream; the strange conjunction of a man on a camel, from which he surveys the landscape as if he were walking on giant stilts; and always the birds, which make everything vivid … I doubt that I will ever forget my emotions when first flying over Central Australia and realising how much we painters and poets owe to our predecessors the explorers, with their frail bodies and superb willpower.2 1 Felicity Johnston, ‘Sidney Nolan’, in Anne Gray (ed.), The way we were 1940–1950s from the University of Western Australia Art Collection, Perth: Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, 1997 p. 24. 2 Sidney Nolan, letter to Geoffrey Dutton, London, 28 April 1967, Cynthia Nolan Papers. See Geoffrey Smith, Sidney Nolan: desert and drought, Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2003, p. 66.

We leaned over in our seats and straining down, our foreheads pressed against the glass windows, found our own land and heard its voice alone. Cynthia Nolan 19621 Between 1947 and 1950 Sidney Nolan spent months travelling through remote areas of Australia. Using money he had made from a successful exhibition of Queensland Outback paintings held at the David Jones Gallery in Sydney in March 1949, Nolan, accompanied by his wife Cynthia and stepdaughter Jinx, travelled through Central Australia, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia. This trip, from June to September 1949, inspired a body of work, including a series of paintings that depict inland Australia from an aerial perspective. Inland Australiais an extraordinary image of the heart of the continent, possibly of the Durack Range. The undulating shapes and intense colour of the red earth evoke an ‘otherworldly’ sensation – a feeling of the land’s inherent grandeur, timelessness and mystery. Nolan painted the work quickly, with the composition board lying flat on a table. Using sweeping brushstrokes he has pushed the paint around the surface of the work. In some areas the paint has been wiped back, exposing the white undercoat of the composition board. Nolan won the inaugural Dunlop Australian Art prize of £250 for Inland Australia.2 He described the work as ‘a composite impression of the country from the air’.3 Using photographs he took from the plane as a visual aid, Inland Australia is an example of Nolan’s technique of fusing elements from existing locations with a landscape remembered from experience. 1 Cynthia Nolan, Outback, London: Shenval Press, 1962, p. 206. 2 Arnold Shore, ‘Dunlop prize won by Sidney Nolan’, The Argus, Tuesday 6 June 1950, p. 7. 3 ‘Sydney artist wins big prize with landscape’, Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday 6 June 1950, p. 1.

Roy Plomley's castaway is artist Sidney Nolan. Favourite track: Les Illuminations by Benjamin Britten Book: Chinese language course Luxury: Snorkel mask