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An Opening: Twelve Love Stories About Art
Artist and writer Stephanie Radok possesses a unique international perspective. For over twenty years she has written about and witnessed the emergence of contemporary Aboriginal art and the responses of Australian art to global diasporas.
In An Opening: Twelve love stories about art, Stephanie Radok takes us on a walk with her dog and finds that it is possible to re-imagine the suburb as the site of epiphanies and attachments.
In An Opening: Twelve love stories about art, Stephanie Radok takes us on a walk with her dog and finds that it is possible to re-imagine the suburb as the site of epiphanies and attachments.
- GenresArt
184 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2012
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January 31, 2016
This is a most unusual book and one that I read in a most unusual way.
Stephanie Radok, an Adelaide artist and art commentator, has written twelve stories about works of art that she loves and that have formed a permanent part of her life, through postcards or prints on her walls or through special associations and memories. They are an eclectic collection, with Aboriginal art being especially important. Each story is titled with a month of the year.
When I started reading this - some weeks back - I found it frustrating that reproductions of the art works were not included in the text. I felt I needed to see the art works in order to understand what Radok found so significant about them and to allow them to do what her title says they should - be 'an opening' to new understanding about ourselves and our world. So I ended up over almost a month, reading one chapter at a time, sitting at my desk with my laptop, finding each work of art (and almost all are available online) and studying them as I read the text. It was a rewarding, if time-consuming exercise.
The other part of each chapter is a postscript where the writer walks her dog and experiences something of the weather and suburban or rural landscape of each month. She didn't explicitly connect her reflections about art to these walks, but both are intended to make us as readers and viewers more sensitive to landscape, memory and art.
At one point Radok suggests that there is a specific moment for most people when they fully recognise that the land we inhabit is Aboriginal land. For me that moment occurred more than twenty years ago when I was alone on a beach near the Hazards in Tasmania and I found myself staring at sandhills packed with layers of abalone shell, eaten and laid down over thousands of years. I don't think I have ever looked at Australian landscape in the same way since. I feel a passionate connection to my country's landscapes, made even more significant by knowing how indigenous people have understood it and made art about it for millennia.
A remarkable work.
Stephanie Radok, an Adelaide artist and art commentator, has written twelve stories about works of art that she loves and that have formed a permanent part of her life, through postcards or prints on her walls or through special associations and memories. They are an eclectic collection, with Aboriginal art being especially important. Each story is titled with a month of the year.
When I started reading this - some weeks back - I found it frustrating that reproductions of the art works were not included in the text. I felt I needed to see the art works in order to understand what Radok found so significant about them and to allow them to do what her title says they should - be 'an opening' to new understanding about ourselves and our world. So I ended up over almost a month, reading one chapter at a time, sitting at my desk with my laptop, finding each work of art (and almost all are available online) and studying them as I read the text. It was a rewarding, if time-consuming exercise.
The other part of each chapter is a postscript where the writer walks her dog and experiences something of the weather and suburban or rural landscape of each month. She didn't explicitly connect her reflections about art to these walks, but both are intended to make us as readers and viewers more sensitive to landscape, memory and art.
At one point Radok suggests that there is a specific moment for most people when they fully recognise that the land we inhabit is Aboriginal land. For me that moment occurred more than twenty years ago when I was alone on a beach near the Hazards in Tasmania and I found myself staring at sandhills packed with layers of abalone shell, eaten and laid down over thousands of years. I don't think I have ever looked at Australian landscape in the same way since. I feel a passionate connection to my country's landscapes, made even more significant by knowing how indigenous people have understood it and made art about it for millennia.
A remarkable work.
Displaying 1 of 1 review