Last week on SmartArts

Because of my computer dramas, it's taken me a couple of days to post this; sorry folks.

Anyway, here's what I covered on the show on Thursday....

9.15am

My first guest was Editor and Managing Director Danielle Paruit, from the new free monthly magazine Arts in the City, which describes itself as "a free monthly colour magazine about Melbourne's Arts and Entertainment industry."

Its first issue hit the streets on Monday July 10, and is available from inner city cafes, arts venues and selected outlets.

To be honest, I can't say I was that impressed with the first issue - but that's partially because I didn't feel like I was included in the magazine's demographic. It seems very squarely aimed at a conservative older audience, judging by the majority of the content.

Anyway, I wish the magazine well - and hope that they can start to pay contributors soon! For details, check out www.artsinthecity.com.au

10.30am

Next up was a phone interview with Lesley Alway – the director of the Heide Museum of Modern Art.

What: Heide Museum of Modern Art
Where: 7 Templestowe Road, Bulleen Victoria 3105 Australia
T: 03 9850 1500
Hours: Tue–Fri 10.00am–5.00pm,
Sat/Sun/Public Holidays 12.00noon - 5.00pm

"Following Heide Museum of Modern Art’s 2005-06 Redevelopment Program, Heide will reopen to the public in its entirety, Tuesday 18 July 2006.

To celebrate, Heide will reopen with four major exhibitions:

It ain’t necessarily so… Mike Brown and the Imitation Realists, 18 July – 1 October 2006, celebrates the early work of artist Mike Brown and the Imitation Realists.

Mike Brown was an important figure in Australian art. The work in his 1962 exhibition The Annandale Imitation Realists, with Ross Crothall and Colin Lanceley, at the Museum of Modern Art and Design, Melbourne, was unprecedented in Australian art. The Imitation Realists’ playful and often provocative constructions reflected the group’s interest in American Pop-inspired assemblage, collage, junk art, objets trouvés and the art of non-Western cultures.

Meeting a Dream: Albert Tucker in Paris 1948 – 1952 is the inaugural exhibition in the new Albert & Barbara Tucker Gallery at Heide Museum of Modern Art, 18 July – 5 November 2006.

This is an important exhibition that for the first time thoroughly documents Australian artist Albert Tucker's period in Paris. The exhibition displays over 50 artworks, including many of the paintings he exhibited in his 1952 solo show at Galerie Huit in Paris, as well as works on paper and photographs not previously shown in Australia.

Living in landscape: Heide and houses by McGlashan and Everist is the first exhibition to examine the inspiration for Heide's internationally significant modernist house, Heide II.

Living in landscape is guest curated by Professor Philip Goad, Acting Dean and Head of the School of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne, with assistance of Heide curators. The exhibition is showing 18 July – 5 November 2006 in
Heide II.

Can you imagine the future of Australian art? What will it be like? What current concerns will shape our culture to come?

Imagine… the creativity shaping our culture: 18 July – 29 October 2006 at Heide Museum of Modern Art.

The exhibition presents a range of contemporary art practices in Australia today and the possibilities artists are creating in their work for Australian culture. Exciting new work by ten artists from across Australia provides insights into a cross-section of today’s art practices. The featured artists are: Chris Barry, Vera Möller, Arlo Mountford, Garry Namponan, Lizzy Newman, Michelle Nikou, David Palliser, Stelarc, Lucia Usmiani and Roderick Yunkaporta.

11am

Then I spoke to the ridiculously tall Ben Sansbury whose new exhibition The Gigablaster is now showing at Melbourne's Someday Gallery.

"Sansbury’s work is anarchic, it’s garish, it’s bizarre and it’s quite inimitable.

The Gigablaster will feature all new works, including colour prints, cut-and-paste imagery, and site specific sculptures. It represents a progression on from Sansbury’s three most recent exhibitions: The Megablaster II (Berlin, 2004), The Miniblaster (London, 2004) and The Megablaster III (Vienna, 2005) and is taking place at an important time in his artistic career – a time when Sansbury is taking on impressive artistic challenges and pushing his ideas into new and even more bizarre realms."

When: 20th July - 20th August
Where: Someday Gallery,
Level 3 Curtin House
252 Swanston St
Melbourne

11.30am

Lastly I was joined by Tai Snaith and Alex Martinas Rowe for our fortnightly visual arts review segment, Art Attack. They discussed the new exhibition, The Readymade in the Age of Google Economy, now showing at Victoria Park Gallery, which is, apparently, for audiences over the age of 18 only.