June 2024

Modern sculpture: Seventy-five years since the Leps hoax

Seventy-five years ago today, the staff and students of UWA were treated to a lecture by the esteemed Monsieur Jean Leps. Leps was an up-and-coming Alsatian-American avant-garde modernist sculptor who had only recently burst onto the fine art scene with the release of his book In My Little Finger by Sprunz and Scribner, a New York publishing house. In a stroke of good fortune, the St George’s College Fine Arts Society had managed to procure his services for a brief lecture in Winthrop Hall.
Campus AffairsVisual ArtVoice0 Comments178 views

A Scottish traverse

Winding south through the glens and past the burns, I’d always had rose-tinted glasses for Scotland. This single taxi trip in November fog both encapsulated and resolved the inexplicable sense of want that had been welling up in the back of my mind for years. My personal connection to Skye itself was non-existent. I’d strained for a legitimate claim among my friends to justify my obsession with the music, literature, and history of a place I had the most passing of passing connections to. It strikes me now that there are some emotions and connections that have no basis in reason but are somehow stronger than even the most forensic. In my case, studying south of the border allowed a good pretext for escape, and the final vindication of a long-held desire. This week was a revelation for me, leaving an impression of the warmth and humour of Scotland’s people and the stark beauty and strange dignity offered by its nature and architecture.
Voice0 Comments28 views

In defence of Argentina’s economic reforms

A century ago, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. In fact, it was widely seen to be a future economic superpower on par with the United States. Then, beginning in the 1930s, something went terribly wrong. Argentina began a long economic decline; crisis after crisis caused low growth and high inflation. A sharp decline in living standards followed. Today, more than four in ten Argentines live in poverty.
EconomicsPolitics0 Comments137 views

Finnish forest and Australian bushland

I hadn’t fully appreciated the Australian bush until I visited Finland and finally wandered through the forest I had always wished to live beside. Aulanko Nature Reserve in the town of Hämeenlinna was filled with three main breeds of tree that I remember: pine, birch, and spruce.
Environment0 Comments24 views