Apart from a mish-mash national identity – or no national identity at all – we can’t end the year without mentioning that old favourite ‘cultural cringe’ as captured neatly by AustraliaCulture blogger, Andrew Frost: The exhibition……”which opened in September, reminded us once more that cultural cringe never dies. The show’s possible achievements were nothing compared with the voracious need of Australians to read bad reviews and revel in the ‘I told you so’ one-upmanship (sic) of Facebook and Twitter commentary. Every country has its fair share of crappy exhibitions but only in Australia do we take them as proof that we suck”. What show was he writing about? The “Australia” exhibition, a 200 work survey of Australian art at The Royal Academy in London no less! [‘Seven things we learned about Australian art in 2013’ by Andrew Frost, The Guardian online, 30 December 2013]
Woman for an Australian Republic, Adelaide Ironside, republican poet and artist 1831-1867
Self portrait 1855, Newcastle Art Gallery NSW
