Sydney: New Year fireworks

Katoomba ... summer

gum in the mist ...




growing tip of wollami pine ... click to enlarge

Katoomba: clouds rise in the valley

sunlight through the fog

the cat sat ... on the road

Deborah Kelly billboard: Sydney

After 18 months of trying to buy a billboard space in inner Sydney, artist Deborah Kelly's antinuclear work finally went up in Chippendale on Wednesday 14 November, 2007.

The artwork was originally made for the 2003 Venice Biennale, and shown there as part of a collaborative project between Kelly and US artist Martha Rosler.

But in Sydney, no billboard company in the city would accept the work, funded by musician John Butler, citing mysterious "commercial conflicts", if they responded at all.

Company after company were very keen to take Ms Kelly's grant money- until, that is, they saw the artwork. Then , silence.

In desperation she approached her local council, and local politicians, who "became involved when the free speech issue highlighted the flimsiness of our democracy", she says.

Katoomba summer fog

Iraq war protest wins Turner Prize

Mark Wallinger won Britain's 2007 Turner Prize for art at a ceremony in Liverpool.

Wallinger, 48, was honored for his work 'State Britain', a reconstruction of peace campaigner Brian Haw's anti-Iraq-war protest in London's Parliament Square.

The jury, in an e-mailed statement, said 'State Britain' "had immediacy, visceral intensity and historic importance. The work combines a bold political statement with art's ability to articulate fundamental human truths."

Wallinger paid tribute to Haw: "A remarkable man, who has waged a tireless campaign against the folly and hubris of our government's foreign policy."

The room erupted in cheers when the award was announced.

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