current issue

Julian Beaumont

Julian Beaumont has been the Chairman of the Macquarie Bank Art Collection since its inception in 1985. He was a member of the inaugural National Art School Advisory Board from 1996, was on the Board of Artbank from 2005-09 and is a judge and advisor to artsCape Biennial environmental sculpture exhibition. Appointed in 2009, he serves on the Board of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation.

Rex Butler

Rex Butler teaches in the School of English, Media Studies and Art History at the University of Queensland, Brisbane. He is currently writing a book on Colin McCahon with Laurence Simmons entitled Practical Religion: On the Afterlife of Colin McCahon.

Juliet Darling

Juliet Darling is a filmmaker, artist and writer. Darling has exhibited her paintings, drawings and cartoons in Australia and overseas, including solo exhibitions at George Paton Gallery, Melbourne, and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney. She has collaborated on numerous film and television projects, and has written, directed and produced three documentary films: Birdman of Kings Cross, A Pair of One, and Dead Letters.

Sean Doran

Sean Doran is a former artistic director and chief executive of the English National Opera, London, and festival director of the Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF). For PIAF he brought the visual arts centrestage with presentations including Bill Viola's The messenger in St. George's Cathedral (2000) and Antony Gormley's Inside Australia project for Lake Ballard (2003). Sean is currently developing a set of seven international festivals in the individual art forms for regional Western Australia.

David Elliott

David Elliot was director of the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, England from 1976-96, director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm from 1996-2001, the founding director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo from 2001-06 and, in 2007, the first director of Istanbul Modern. He is the Artistic Director of this year’s 17th Biennale of Sydney.

Margaret Farmer

Margaret Farmer is a curator at the National Institute for Experimental Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney, which houses the former Ivan Dougherty Gallery. Past curatorial projects include the co-founding in 2006 of SafARI, the ongoing fringe exhibition to the Biennale of Sydney, and the touring exhibition 'Terra Alterius: Land of Another'. Farmer has been managing editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, a consultant editor to Art &Australia and managing editor of Current: Contemporary Art From Australia and New Zealand (2008), for which she was also part of the writing team.

Felicity Fenner

Felicity Fenner is Chief Curator at the National Institute for Experimental Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney. Former senior curator of Ivan Dougherty Gallery, she has curated many exhibitions of contemporary art including 'Primavera 2005' at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, the 2008 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art and 'Once Removed', Australia’s group exhibition at the 2009 Venice Biennale.

Anthony Gardner

Anthony Gardner is a writer, lecturer and editor based in London. Recent publications include essays in Third Text, Reading Room and the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art. He is currently writing a book on installation art in Europe since the 1970s.

Djon Mundine

Djon Mundine OAM is a member of the Bandjalung people of northern New South Wales. With an extensive career as a curator, activist, writer and occasional artist, Djon was concept curator of The Aboriginal memorial, 1987-88, now on permanent display at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. He was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 1993 and was research professor at the National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku) in Osaka over 2005-06. He is currently Aboriginal Curator, Contemporary Art at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney. His work The song of Bennelong and Pemulwuy will be realised for the 2010 Biennale of Sydney.

Laurence Simmons

Laurence Simmons teaches film and critical theory at the University of Auckland. He writes extensively on New Zealand painting, film and photography, and has published a book of essays on contemporary New Zealand art, The Image Always Has the Last Word (2002).