Photostory + Reportage Contemporary Art in Australia
Time for a throwback. In February 2013 I left Italy for Australia. I lived in Melbourne for almost an year, and while I was there I started freelancing for English-speaking magazines – though I had already published a couple of pieces for Art Monthly Australia and others the previous year. There I developed a research on the local art system and artists in Melbourne – with a small side report from Perth.
When I came back to Italy, my idea was to make a book about emerging artists in Melbourne, with a similar concept to my Indonesia book. I wanted to give a synthetic but thorough introduction to a an art scene not well known abroad, this time making the book more narrative and focusing on the struggles of the emerging phase of an artist’s career. Because of other commitments – finalizing and publishing the Indonesian book, freelancing steadily for magazines, curating exhibitions, starting out as video-journalist and so on – I ended up working on it intermittently. That made it harder to pick up the book where I left and get back into the right mindset for writing again.
This summer 2015, after having struggled with a final draft of the book, I finally decided to put the project on hold indefinitely. Whether I’ll work on it or not in the future, a part of my research has been published on a number of Australian, Italian and international magazines. Even if the published material is just the tip of the iceberg, it can give you an idea of what I’ve looked at while in Australia – I find the interviews in particular a useful resource. In this long-winged post I’ll give you the coordinates of my reportage, plus the photostory of my research Down Under.
Interviews Melbourne:
Interview with Bindi Cole, published on Trouble Magazine – pdf version
Interview with Twoone, published on Trouble Magazine – web version / pdf version
Interview with Emily Ferretti, published on Trouble Magazine – web version / pdf version
Interview with Jake Walker, published on Trouble Magazine – web version /pdf version
Interview with Alasdair McLuckie, published on Trouble Magazine – web version / pdf version
Interview with Mark Hilton, published on Artribune (ITA) – web version
Interview with Danius Kesminas, published on Art a Part of Culture (ITA) – web version
Interview with Shoehei Takasaki, published on Art a Part of Culture (ITA) – web version
Interview with Lin Bee Dwo, published on Women in The City – pdf version
Interviews Perth:
Interview with Graham Miller, published on Trouble Magazine – web version / pdf version
Interview with Tarryn Gill, published on Trouble Magazine – web version / pdf version
Interview with Peter Dailey, published on Art a Part of Culture (ITA) – web version
Reports from Australia
An artist in a waitress’s body, Australian twenty-somethings pursuing an artistic career, published on Art Monthly Australia – pdf version
No One Ever Leaves For Good: Australian Artists Making It Internationally, published on Onya – web version / pdf version
Should you go international?, published on ArtsHub – pdf version
Unconventional spaces democratising art, published on ArtsHub – pdf version
The slow truth behind overnight success, published on ArtsHub – pdf version
Australian artists abroad
Interview with Penny Byrne at the Venice Biennale, published on RAVEN – pdf version
Interview with Sam Leach at the Venice Biennale, published on RAVEN – pdf version
Interview with Reko Rennie at the Venice Biennale – published on Global Comment – web version / pdf version
Interview with Sonia Leber and David Chesworth at the Venice Biennale, published on The Times of Malta – pdf version
Interview with Benjamin Skepper, published on Art a Part of Culture (ITA) – web version
Report of Shaun Gladwell’s performance at Artissima Art Fair, published on The Times of Malta – pdf version
Melbourne art scene inspires Italian space, published on Australia Unlimited – web version / pdf version
Australia’s biggest year at Venice – web version / pdf version
For updates about my work on and around contemporary art in Australia, check out the latest
