The anthology Art Writing: Art in Adelaide in the 1990s and 2000s, presents twenty-five years of writing by Adelaide-based art critic (and well-known poet) Ken Bolton. Alan Cruickshank, CACSA Director and publications commissioner, says in his Foreword, 

Ken Bolton is rare if not peerless, in that residing in Adelaide for more than twenty-five years and observing and writing about art, he has been witness to successive generations of South Australian artists and their waxing/enduring/waning careers... He has been and remains one of the very few long-term, one-city domiciled art critics in Australia, his analytical evaluations over this period being more than a valuable resource in a national landscape that has seen Art's epicentre of activity and importance easterly determined and historicised. Ken explains in his Introduction,

All of it I have written because I like thinking about art, or because I sometimes find it impossible not to. Trying to get it right, to formulate one's thinking precisely... I have always been interested in pinning down the aesthetic issue... It is a habit of thought and appreciation that seems to me philosophical (in that it seeks to generalise and abstract aesthetic rules, goals, categories, 'moves') but also idealistic (in that it is continuous with one's earliest discussions of, say, pop music-then, later, of novels, poems, art and philosophy and criticism...

Ken Bolton is a poet, art critic, editor and publisher. After studying Fine Arts at University of Sydney, he relocated to Adelaide in 1982 where he has since lived and worked. He won University of Melbourne's Michel Wesley Wright Poetry Prize for 1990. More usually he is short-listed-'Two Poems: A Drawing of the Sky' for the 1991 Victorian Premier's Award, and 'Untimely Meditations' for the NSW Premier's Award in 1999. In 2000 he spent six months in Rome courtesy of the Literature Board of the Australia Council. Associated with the Dark Horsey Bookshop at the Experimental Art Foundation in Adelaide, Bolton has published his art criticism in Broadsheet, Artlink, Otis Rush, The Advertiser, Photofile, Art and Text, Art Monthly, Meanjin, Agenda, Like and Eyeline. His major literary collections to date are a Selected Poems (Penguin/ETT, 1992), and Untimely Meditations and At The Flash & At The Baci (Wakefield Press, 1997 and 2006).

Artists featured include: Ian Abdulla; Mehmet Adil; Akira Akira; Micky Allan; Craige Andrae; John Barbour; Bianca Barling; Lynne Barwick; Andrew Best; Annette Bezor; Olive Bishop; Tony Bishop; Matthew Bradley; Katherine Brennan; Kristian Burford; Antonio Colangelo; Sarah Crowest; Alan Cruickshank; Bridget Currie; Jonathan Dady; James Dodd; Sonia Donnellan; Nicholas Folland; John Foubister; Kerry Giles; Simryn Gill; Agnieszka Golda; Richard Grayson; Kim Guthrie; Fiona Hall; Anton Hart; Louise Haselton; Paul Hewson; Hewson/Walker; Paul Hoban; Simone Hockley; Sunday Hopkins; Teri Hoskin; Larissa Hjorth; Aldo Iacobelli; Bronia Iwanczak; Kab-101; Yoko Kajio; Mimi Kelly; Simone Kennedy; Shaun Kirby; Macin Kobylecki; Yvonne Koolmatrie; Michael Kutschbach; Michelle Luke; Max Lyle; Peter McKay; Malcom McKinnon; Monte Masi; Vivienne Miller; Kelly Milton; Katie Moore; Kerin Murray; Michael Newall; Michelle Nikou; Roger Noakes; Bridget Noone; Ian North; David OÕHalloran; Anna Platten; George Popperwell; Deborah Paauwe; Geoffrey Parslow; Andrew Petrusevics; Sonia Porcaro; Anne Robertson; Mark Rogers; Manne Schulze; Mark Siebert; Paul Sloan; Samantha Small; Jyanni Steffensen; Tim Sterling; Suzanne Treister; James Strickland; Jim Thalassoudis; Angela Valamanesh; Hossein Valamanesh; Irma Van Niele; Warren Vance; Linda Marie Walker; David Watt; Gerry Wedd; Steve Wigg; Laura Wills; Clint Woodger; Lisa E. Young; Zafari Art 



ISBN 978-1-875751-34-1
RRP: $25 
SOFT COVER, 200 PAGES WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
PUBLISHED JULY 2009

 

Painstkin Survey: Paul Hoban

This artist catalogue Paintskin Survey, published for the artist's first survey exhibition for the 2009 SALA Festival, is the first comprehensive overview of Paul Hoban's art practice, exploring in particular the development of his unique paintskin method from 1992 to 2007. Paintskin Survey, starting with early experiments and continuing through to his most confident recent works, aims to demonstrate the sheer scale, inventiveness and the bristling intelligence of Hoban's achievements. Considerably more than just a competent painter, Hoban's body of work is significantly distinct from that of every other artist currently working in Australia.

Hoban's sentiment toward his paintings is revealing, describing the creative process as a mutual undertaking with the work itself. 
The paintings seem to make themselves. There is no totally anticipated result. They do what they like... They tell me what to do, where to look and how to proceed. It's a symbiotic relationship—the work needs to be fed and I need to be surprised.

The catalogue presents an introduction by Peter McKay, and an 'in conversation' text between writer and art critic Wendy Walker and Paul Hoban.

ISBN 978-1-875751-35-8
RRP: $10
SOFT COVER, 48 pages WITH COLOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
PUBLISHED JULY 2009

 

 

 

Texts by Ian North, Jim Moss, Richard Grayson and Russell Storer

"George Popperwell's work is subtle and poetic. It is concerned with the most humanist values - the importance of physical and psychological experience, the quietude of loss, the necessity of a full and sensitive engagement with the world." - Chris Chapman, Meridian: focus on contemporary australian art, catalogue, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2002.

"His influence on a certain kind of conceptual work has been significant... the effect of his work has been so, that the term "popperwellian" has been ascribed to a range of work by other local artists. Popperwell's work is generally thought to be enigmatic... but the high level of consideration and resolution he brings to his work is held in high esteem. He's rightly seen as a mentor to several generations of artists." - Chris Chapman, broadsheet vol 29 no 4, 2000.

 

ISBN 978-1-875751-33-4
RRP: $24.95
SOFT COVER, 76 PAGES WITH 40 PAGES COLOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
PUBLISHED 2009

 

 

 

The CACSA's first international exhibition Flipside was a strategic export project presented at The Substation, Singapore to coincide with the 2008 Singapore Biennale and ARTSingapore (Art Fair). This catalogue presents texts and images on the participating artists–Roy Anada, Bianca Barling, Matt Bradley, Louise Haselton, Sean Ruiz and Mark Siebert; text by curator Peter McKay.
Other than being the b-side of a vinyl record, the term 'flipside' indicates a contrasting point of view that describes a completely opposite imaginary world. As an artistic device, such a vantage-point enables an artist to expand their audiences' capacity to perceive and comprehend their world by distinguishing it against what it is not. These Australian artists of growing reputation incorporate such acute stances in their work, in many varied ways and for different purposes. In many respects these artists can be seen to question the nature of reality such that they emerge somewhere out the 'other side'—and then return to us with their discoveries of what might be possible for our world.
Essayist Peter McKay

 

ISBN 978-1-875751-32-7
RRP: $10
SOFT COVER, 48 PAGES WITH COLOUR ILLUSTRATION
PUBLISHED 2008

 

 

Bringing together a number of key researchers in disciplines usually working at a tangent to each other - notably art history, analytic philosophy and bioaesthetics - to discuss new or revised concepts of art that may influence current approaches to the writing of global art history

Contributors include Brian Boyd, Marcello Costa, Ian North, Ian Mclean, Denis Dutton, Jennifer Mcmahon, Donald Brook, Linda Williams, Rex Butler, Jill Bennett, Peter James Smith, Rod Taylor, Stephen Loo, Ihab Hassan

 

ISBN 978-1-875751-31-3
RRP: $35
SOFT COVER, 190 PAGES WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 2007

 

 

2005 CONTEMPORARY ART CENTRE OF SA LECTURE SERIES

As a major presentation of the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia's program CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ART PROJECTS SA 2005, the 2005 Lecture Series was presented at the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, 26-28 May, in partnership with The Substation Arts Centre, Singapore, and in conjunction with the Helpmann Academy, the University of Adelaide and the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.

CULTURAL FAULTLINES is an anthology of texts (taken from the Lecture Series) - by Indonesian poet, critic and journalist Goenawan Mohamad; Malaysian social historian Sumit K. Mandal; Sydney lecturer in Anthropology Yao Souchou; University of NSW lecturer David McNeill and University of Queensland lecturer Rex Butler.

 

ISBN 978-1-875751-30-3
RRP: $25
SOFT COVER, 102 PAGES WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
PUBLISHED APRIL 2007

 

 

Editors: Alan Cruickshank, Michael Newall, Ian North

BLAZE is an anthology spanning the years 1990-2002, drawn from the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia's exhibition and publishing programs - both exhibition catalogues and its arts and cultural magazine, CONTEMPORARY VISUAL+CULTURE Broadsheet.

'blaze', verb [t], 'to make known, proclaim, publish, to exhibit vividly' - is a succinct articulation of the CACSA's desire to reveal the quality and breadth of its creative output during this period - not only to record this collective endeavour, but also to serve as a partial record of South Australia's developing contemporary visual arts culture.

The anthology's contents reflect both the substantial archives of the CACSA and a desire to encompass as much as possible the essence and scope of visual art culture as demonstrated by the organisation's activities.

The artist pages illustrate a selection of works created in a multiplicity of media, styles and visions, representing just over half the exhibitions produced in the CACSA's gallery and externally sited projects during the period. The catalogue and Broadsheet texts reproduced, demonstrating a substantial diversity in writing and writers, represent only ten per cent of commissioned writing over the same period.

The images and texts are ordered chronologically, delineating the shifting concerns, developments and trends of the artworld - locally, nationally and internationally - over the period, from a perspective distinctive to the CACSA.

The texts range from the informal to the academic in style, highlighting the diversity of literary expression encompassed by both Broadsheet and other CACSA publications. Some of the artworks and texts reproduced here may take on the air of classics and period pieces, while others seem prescient of emerging trends.

These texts are not limited to CACSA activities, but also report on South Australian exhibitions and events outside the organisation. They embrace both major and minor undertakings, from Adelaide Festival of Arts exhibitions and all Adelaide Biennials of Australian Art [excluding 1998] at one end of the spectrum - to one night ventures in informal spaces at the other.

Their selection though, is weighted towards local artists and exhibitions held at the CACSA - establishing a further reference to exhibitions illustrated in the artist pages. South Australian art and artists have always been the predominant focus of the CACSA - the organisation having as its primary missions the development and support of South Australian contemporary visual art and to raise the profile of South Australian artists and arts writers nationally and internationally.

'blaze' verb [i], 'to burn with flame'. This collection demonstrates something of the remarkable passion, commitment and energy demonstrated in the South Australian visual art community. These qualities are more often than not taken for granted by participants, while being insufficiently known to others. This situation BLAZE will help redress.

 

ISBN 0-9750239-0-X
RRP: $15
SOFT COVER, 120 PAGES WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 2003

 

 

Complementing the three-exhibition Jacky Redgate Survey 1980-2003 in 2004, the CACSA has published the monograph Jacky Redgate 1980-2003 to coincide with the Survey's exhibition at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, November 2005 - the first CACSA-initiated exhibition to show at such a major national institution and the first such outcome for a non-Sydney contemporary art space.

The monograph comprises 120 pages, 52 colour images and with a major text by ex-Powerhouse Museum (Sydney) curator Michael Desmond. This publication is the first artist monograph published by the CACSA - a significant undertaking as part of our future vision to become a major contemporary visual art publisher.

Director of the CACSA and designer of the monograph Alan Cruickshank says in his Foreword: Michael Desmond writes... about Jacky Redgate, "Given the relationship she has brokered between photography and sculpture, Redgate occupies a unique position in Australian art. Her work critiques the genres within photography and deconstructs the conceptual systems that support it... With a mixture of innate sensuality and stylistic intelligence, Redgate guides the eye to the perceptual fissure separating mind and matter, object and subject". It is in recognition of these qualities that this monograph has been conceived - a natural progression from and complement to the Jacky Redgate Survey 1980-2003 exhibitions organised by the Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia [CACSA] in 2004.

Elizabeth Ann Macgregor, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, writes in her Foreword: Jacky Redgate's elegant and considered works demonstrate a sustained analysis of form and structure within the disciplines of photography and sculpture. From her early work, which refigured snapshot and portrait photography, to her more recent series such as STRAIGHTCUT, Redgate's interest has been in how photographs represent reality and order the world. The spatial dimension of the photographic image has been extended by the artist into sculptural works that investigate perception, colour, volume and mass. By shuttling between the two disciplines, Redgate has developed a singular practice that poses fundamental questions about art and life, and the systems that underpin them.

This monograph has been sponsored by the Gordon Darling Foundation, Melbourne and the University of Wollongong, NSW

ISBN 0-9750239-2-6
RRP: $49.55
SOFT COVER, 120 PAGES WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 2005