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The candy-coloured poles of André Cadere's 1970s interventions punctuate the 53rd Venice Biennale as regularly as breaths. With the inclusion of this material residue, reconfigured for 2009, the historical avant-garde is effectively embedded within the contemporary moment. Spanning half a century of art, the current Spring issue of Art & Australia has many such points of creative departure which collectively enrich our appreciation of art today.

When Tony Tuckson set out on a collecting trip to Arnhem Land in 1958, little did he know he was in effect shifting the compass points for the presentation of Indigenous art and its integration in contemporary practice. Our cover artist Martin Sharp helped define a cultural epoch, and with The Yellow House, opened up Australian audiences to new ideas about communal and performance art. The arrival in Sydney of Christo and Jeanne-Claude at the invitation of art patron John Kaldor helped change forever the landscape of large-scale public art. And so we go on to witness Judy Millar's contemporary take on 'action' painting, a new breed of very singular responses to feminism and the complications of recent performance artists such as Tom Nicholson. With these figures taking their creative cues from the departure points of their forebears, what we finally arrive at with this issue are new beginnings. As we see with Cadere's markings, acts can endure as then becomes now.


Vol 47 No 1 Spring 2009