Chief Culture Correspondent @the.australian ; 2026 international Robert Edwards Fellow for Visual Arts; reformed unicyclist; lapsed trombonist; juggler
Today: 100 game changers in the arts. The List - Arts and Culture, a 92-page glossy mag inside the Oz. Put together by me with the redoubtable @janiealbert and with pieces, pics and design from the best in the business on @thekidlaroi ., The @ausballet , galleries expansion @ngvmelbourne and @artgalleryofnsw , NFTs (you can buy the cover artwork fyi…), @dabakerboy , the boom in musical theatre, rock star artist @rams_deep69 Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, author Hannah Kent and the new breed of philanthropists. Plus pieces from @benquilty and @katemillerheidke . Loads more.
Check it out. (Are you on it?)
Cover design (watch and wait til the end) - My Father Had a Garden by @raoul_marks . Nice run on page one too, just quietly.
Incredibly honoured to have been appointed the inaugural Robert Edwards Fellow. Dr Bob Edwards was a driving force in the Australian visual arts, and a lovely man, and I am beyond humbled.
Tomorrow marks my 611th - and final - edition of The Weekend Australian Review. It’s been the greatest privilege of my professional life to have worked alongside the best in the biz to bring out this beast every week, and I’ve loved every minute of my almost 12 years in the chair. As of next week, I will be moving on to become the paper’s Chief Culture Correspondent.
For all those readers who have contacted me personally over the years, via phone, email, snail mail, postcard (yes, I received them all, Barry and Jane), and for the occasional shout outs — complimentary and otherwise — on the street, at opening nights or on the sideline at my kids’ Saturday sports matches, I dearly appreciate your interest and your support. Today, I brought along my family (but for one doing two HSC exams) to Chullora to watch my last edition roll off the presses. Such a buzz. Cheers to the excellent print site team for their hospo (+ for the plates 😍) and care in delivering this, my final baby. A very cool moment.
What a ride.
Lawson last night at his final school Gala, playing and singing Brother by Matt Corby. Making his parents proud, and rendering them musically inferior, since 2008 ✊ @lawsondouglas6
Today we have launched the arts and culture version of The Front, The Oz’s daily news podcast. It’s hosted by the redoubtable Claire Harvey and this week it features me, talking about Yayoi Kusama - the world’s biggest selling artist who has lived in a psychiatric hospital since 1973 - and a recent trip I made to Japan and the art island of Naoshima. It’s free and available to stream everywhere. Or here 👇
/episode/4HE73D7wQTLXY1MeBJWxjF?si=nmTJMZZ_TWKEYp-QkkfmOw
Such an honour to have been invited to be a guest speaker at - and to have attended - this incredible private island retreat off Noosa. Met some genuinely amazing people, and loved every moment. @nfogdenmoore and @makepeaceisland 🙏 #TheBoardroomRetreat
Tomorrow: Australia’s unprecedented year at @labiennale in Venice. Three Golden Lions - Archie Moore in the Giardini; Peter Weir at the Film Festival; and Geelong’s Back to Back Theatre Company, which wowed the Biennale Teatro alongside some of stage’s biggest names. I was lucky enough to have been there, at former 15th century palace Ca’ Giustinian, as the Geelong troupe, whose cast is drawn from the disabled and divergent community, accepted the award. An incredible moment for an incredible company.
@the.australian
Tomorrow: The Huxleys and the deadly serious art of dressing dangerously. Cracking read on two of Australian art’s most interesting (and incredibly styled) identities. PLUS Broadway queen Patti LuPone (and her roommate White Lotus and Parks and Rec star Aubrey Plaza whaaat); Warren Ellis’s Dirty Three are back in town; is Richard Thompson really “the finest songwriter since Dylan and the best guitarist since Hendrix”?; Rising festival’s opening weekend gets a forensic analysis; the best collection of painterly nudes on the country belongs to …; can non-indigenous Australians identify with the idea of Country?A new book asks that and more contentious questions; Alexander McCall Smith’s anti-Tinder novel has arrived; The Three Musketeers are still doing their thing; and the finalists for the last-ever Vogel prize are announced. Are you one of them? It’s unlikely. Still, get thee to a newsagency to find out. Promise you’ll feel better.
Tomorrow in Review: last year while in London, I talked my way into the British Museum and was allowed to inspect some of the institution’s most important Egyptian artefacts. (A rather dreamy experience in itself, incidentally.) This month, those items will be among 500 items heading to Melbourne for the National Gallery of Victoria’s Pharaoh exhibition, the biggest showing of Egyptian antiquities in Australia’s history and the largest ever touring exhibition the BM has done in its 273-year-history. I wrote some words about it. PLUS … is there a more dynamic artist working in Oz than @tonyalbert ? New movie Hit Man gets a critical eye; in TV, Colin From Accounts is back, The Tattooist of Auschwitz haunts our screens, and The Big Cigar takes on the Black Panthers’ legacy; we analyse Trump’s enduring popularity through the lens of rural America; we take a look at a book written by a former slave who incredibly 160 years ago made his way to Australia and penned his story; Christopher Allen runs his eye over the recently discovered Pompeii frescoes (an amazing story); Billie Eilish … is she still the bad guy?; and Canberra … the place fun goes to die.
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