Ching Chong China Girl launch

I launched the memoirs of former ABC China correspondent Helene Chung, "Ching Chong China Girl" - at Asialink, Melbourne University March 2008

`Totem Maker' Tom Bass -

interviewing veteran sculptor, Tom Bass at his retrospective, Sydney Opera House Nov.2006

with pianist Michael Kieran Harvey after Hartley Newnham concert, Daylesford Vic. 2006

Crooked Members

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's most controversial leader since Mussolini, has blocked plans for a dramatically curving skyscraper designed for Milan by one of the world's most original architects, Daniel Liebskind - on the grounds the tower is not `manly' - ie. erect - enough.

According to The Art Newspaper Liebskind hit back, calling Berlusconi `abominable', while Italian cultural guru Umberto Eco's view on the building was: " Milan is full of people with crooked members, there will simply be one more in need of Viagra".

NOT Paying Tribute to Robert Rauschenberg

it's brave to speak ill of the (recently) dead but writing in The New Republic, Jed Perl opines that like "contemporary con-artists such as Damien Hirst, Mike Kelley, and Jeff Koons - Rauschenberg put a high-art style price tag on the ordinary. . As for his art, it stank in the 1950s, and it doesn't look any better today." read more here

Art: the Best Place to Park Your Millions?

While the GP puzzles over just what is art and experts make perilous judgements over whether it's `good' or `bad' - the art market's gone ballistic, with Christies' breaking the record auction price for a living artist, $33,641,000US for Lucian Freud's portrait of a fleshy naked woman: "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping".
(Freud has a penchant for painting either very thin or very large bodies, eg. the Australian performance artist Leigh Bowery) .

$348 million worth of art was sold at Christies' New York, & interestingly, Americans bought 70% of it .

Meanwhile, over at rival auction house Sotheby's, Mark Rothko's "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) set a record for any contemporary work at auction - selling for $72.84 million! more

Polar Bears & Publishing

You have to love the literature-savvy Jessa Crispin for founding a site titled Bookslut.com

Recent features include a look at the proliferation of polar bears on eco-book & magazine covers .

It all started with that little cub Knut; check out Annie Liebowitz's cover shot for Vanity Fair's Green issue of the particularly irresistible bear on a melting ice floe with Leonardo di Caprio: view


Meanwhile, fellow Booksluts will enjoy the editor's entertaining account of being at the London Book Fair; three days of earnest discussion on the future of the book, or how to make publishing sexy, in between her desperate search for a cup of coffee for less than four pounds, or a stiff drink. more

Too Many Notes

The first draft of a book which changed the world - Darwin's theory on evolution- goes online for the first time.
The BBC reports the prodigious 19th century naturalist's draft notes, previously only available to scholars, join the 20,000 items on the Charles Darwin online archive which is so vast it would take two months to view it all if you downloaded one image per minute. details

The Bilbao Syndrome

Ever since the Guggenheim Museum put the Basque town of Bilbao on the map, everyone wants one.
In Australia, both Geelong & Perth once put in a bid.
The Guggenheim's long-time, entrepeneurial head Thomas Krens has just departed into the Arabian desert to oversee The Latest and Biggest One yet in Abu Dhabi.

Meanwhile, another star architect Zaha Hadid is set to design the new Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius.

As one opens for business, another closes; as the Art Newspaper reveals, the Guggenheim space in Las Vegas will be transformed into a mega-luxury, Louis Vuitton handbag and accessories store.

After the Show

ABC Classic FM colleague Mairi Nicolson & I after a great concert with virtuoso pianist Angela Hewitt & the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Melbourne Concert Hall 2006.

Art Without Borders

Monash University's art museum in Victoria (Campbelltown Arts Centre NSW in Aug) is about to host an intriguing collection of what's known as ‘outsider art’ - created by Australian and NZ artists who are driven to express their individuality in painting, sculpture, photography, books, film and animation - outside the art world.

The idiosyncratic styles of these artists just don't fit within any categories of mainstream cultural production. Which raises the question of just how/who decides what will be taken up & promoted as the next Big Thing. After all, collectors now pay millions for the images of Jean-Michel Basquiat, & more recently Banksy - who both started off as `outsider artists'.

Exhib. opens 16 April - 21 June 2008.

My day

...at work today I've been reading/researching across: politics & South African artist William Kentridge; contemporary Chinese architecture & architect Quinyang Ma; 16th. C England.

Welcome

Welcome to Julie Copeland's Culture Club....

Julie Copeland is a longtime arts broadcaster, radio presenter and producer with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.