Word: art
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...Art lovers visiting the designer washrooms at Brisbane's stunning Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) over the next few months may wonder what Taiwan artist Charwei Tsai's video projection Hand Washing Project 1 signifies. It's one of over 500 recent and commissioned works (313 pieces of art, and 261 feature-length and short films) in the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT6) at the twin sites of the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) and GoMA. Charwei Tsai will project images onto the washbasins of, well, people washing their hands. Go figure...
...never before been represented." These include Cambodia, Turkey, Burma and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K.). Representatives of the latter have been "in conversation" with APT6 lead curator Suhanya Raffel via an intermediary - the Beijing-based British filmmaker Nicholas Bonner. His connections with the Pyongyang-based Mansudae Art Studio helped secure 70 works: paintings, prints and mosaics influenced by the socialist-realist styles of Russia and China. Raffel says their inclusion recognizes "different, parallel art histories that have developed in the region in local specific ways...
...question of whether such a work exists at all is a valid one. If it does, the church has remained mum. As insistent as it is on passing judgment, the Vatican remains troublingly resistant to singling out any genuinely serious modern art or literature to criticize. Hand-waving vaguely at “contemporary representations of beauty,” or straw-manning Ron and Harry, is far easier than starting a real debate about what role religion can play in the arts. So far, the church’s reaction to complex—if provocative—creative...
Even if it had taken aim at any truly idea-rich art, the church would do well to be wary. Nearly every time the clergy has tried to peg something as “illusory and deceitful” in the past, it’s been forced to engage in copious backtracking—picking out “good art” is always something of a dice toss. For proof, the Pope would simply have had to look up. Michelangelo’s altar fresco “The Last Judgment,” a fundamental background...
...spirituality or beauty may be missing the point. Often, it’s actually the most “sacrilegious,” boundary-testing works that most stretch thinking—and ultimately strengthen belief. In some sense, Benedict’s get-together did acknowledge this; if art can “enslave” us, it can also save us. (The Pope even floated the idea of a booth at the Venice Biennale next year: one can only wonder the contents of the goody bags he’d pass out.) But it takes a startling lack...