Cover image of the review

The Field Revisited
  • Rex Butler


26 May 2018
National Gallery of Victoria 27 Apr - 26 Aug 2018

There are perhaps three art-viewing experiences I have had that I would say changed the way I looked at and thought about art. The first was when as an undergraduate I wandered without any warning into the Colin McCahon retrospective held at the University of Sydney as part of the Sydney Biennale of 1984. The second was when, again without any warning, I stood mesmerised before the front window of an art gallery on a busy road in Brisbane staring at three Emily Kngwarreye yam paintings in 1998. And the third was when, with a day to kill before an unsuccessful job interview, I went to the Museum of Modern Art in Los Angeles and saw the great Black Paintings of Frank Stella that had once been in the collection of the Italian Count Panza.

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