Garden of the East
Gael Newton, senior Curator of Photography at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, has given us a most delightful, and timely, view into Indonesia’s past with her exhibition ‘Garden Of The East: Photography in Indonesia 1850s-1960s’.
I saw history on the cusp; memorable photographs of places and people and animals, some recorded a century and a half ago by photographers looking through lenses in wooden contraptions called cameras; a search for a more lasting way to record history. Gauguin would have thought himself in paradise painting Woman from Bogar (c1890) or George Lewis’s Mount Guntur (c1910). Bill Henson might see the subtle sensuality of the young girl in Gregor Krause’s L’lle de Bali (c1930).
The face of young Javanese woman by Kassian Cephas (c1885) haunts me – Mona lisa lives again in this daguerreotype. Enigmatic must be a woman’s thing; perhaps this is why Newton put a face for all time on the cover of the excellent book for the exhibition. And the book is a collectors piece, not a coffee table show-off with a use by date, but a well crafted hand-me-down to be admired for lovers of photography and history, appreciating time.
Most galleries can be places to reflect on images past, but the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra is our University of Art History, a repository of visual heritage, a most fitting place for the work of a highly qualified team for all to see and ponder.
Author: Gael Newton
Publisher: National Gallery of Australia
RRP: $29.95
Under the auspices of Geelong Gallery’s director, Humphrey Clegg, and co-curated by Marianne Mathieu, former scientific director of the Musée Marmottan Monet, and Claire Durand-Ruel...
Nike Savvas: Purple Haze presents intimate screen prints and immersive large-scale installation and video work by Savvas from 2005–2026, each evocative of different places and...
Although physically he is of modest stature, Zofrea has devoted much of his life to grand projects that have been conceived and executed on a...
Through a multidisciplinary collaboration between Rotterdam-based curators, architect Paul Cournet of CLOUD and artist-designer Sabine Marcelis of Studio Sabine Marcelis, the exhibition explores the interplay...
Artificial intelligence will be used by young artists who started using it as kids on their phones. They will see it as a natural extension...
This year’s Biennale arrives under more complex circumstances than most. It is shaped by the profound loss of its curator, Koyo Kouoh (1967–2025), whose exhibition...
No artist creates in isolation. Every painting carries traces of the conversations, places and histories that shaped it, preserving within its surface a particular moment...
The weekend markets at Fairfield Showground have been one of Western Sydney’s great institutions for more than fifty years. Fresh fruit and vegetables, children’s clothes,...
In recent times, Yorgos Lanthimos has shifted toward photography, noting in a Guardian interview, 2026, that he needs respite, saying, “it might be a couple...