Author: John Kelly

In the past two years, artist and writer John Kelly has chronicled the small group of wealthy collectors and commercial gallery dealers who collectively determine who is chosen as the artist to represent Australia at each Venice Biennale. The event is the most important and prestigious contemporary art show in the world, which is why millions of dollars of Australian taxpayers’ dollars are spent on the

Late last month, I wrote a Daily Review (DR) article that questioned the Australia Council’s appointment of Callum Morton as Chair of the ‘independent’ selection panel to choose an artist or artists for the 2019 Venice Biennale of Art (VB19). My reason for doing so was that the Australia Council proclaimed they wanted the process to

On Wednesday night in Sydney the Australian journalism Walkley Foundation Awards were held and included two new categories – Best Arts Journalism and Best Arts Criticism. The irony is that these awards have finally arrived as arts journalism is disappearing in Australia. While the internet is awash with ticket information and promotion of events, the forums

Artist John Kelly is in Venice – painting – in a visit that coincides with next month’s Venice Biennale. Kelly is a regular visitor to the Biennale and a commentator on the Australia Council sponsored Australian Pavilion in which (usually) one artist is chosen to represent the country’s art. In 2015 he wrote in Daily Review of the coterie of powerful commercial galleries behind Australia’s

I’m writing this under the duress of jet lag so anything I say is after a 24-hour flight from Sydney to Dublin with only an hour’s break in Singapore and London along the way. However as I wake at midnight, I feel compelled to write and while I am supposed to be composing a proposal

Artist John Kelly thinks so. The Australian painter and sculptor, best known for his cow images, lives most of the time in Ireland where artists are treated separately to other taxpayers. Kelly argues that a similar scheme should apply in Australia. He says this isn’t because artists are more “special” than other taxpayers but because the work they produce — their