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Sectros

Culture and the Arts

Australia has a vibrant arts, culture and entertainment community which is known internationally for its unique cultural style, distinct from anywhere else in the world.

 

Australia’s cultural and artistic scene reflects the nation’s unique blend of established traditions and new influences. It is the product of an ancient landscape that is home to both the world’s oldest continuous cultural traditions and a rich mix of migrant cultures.

 

According to one survey, 14 million (85 per cent) of adult Australians attend a cultural event or performance every year. The most popular art form is film, attended by about 65 per cent of the population each year. More than 25 per cent attend a popular music concert; 23 per cent go to an art gallery or museum; 16 per cent can see opera or musical; 17 per cent attend live theatre; 10 per cent can attend a dance performance; and 9 per cent attend a classical music concert.

Film

The Australian firm industry has a reputation for innovation and quality, and for producing unique films with an Australian flavor that have global appeal.

 

While the industry is modest in international terms, it nevertheless employs about 50 000 people and more than 2 000 businesses are involved in film, television and video production.

 

Australia is a highly regarded location for foreign films to undertake production. Producers come to Australia to take advantage of world-class facilities, spectacular and varied locations, acclaimed cast and crew talent and world’s best companies providing post, digital and visual effects production services. Foreign films that have shot in Australia in recent years include Superman Returns, The Matrix trilogy, Charlotte’s Web, Ghost Rider and The Ruins.

 

Australia’s actors, directors, producers, costume designers, writers, cinematographers and animators are attracting growing international acclaim. Australia’s film and television practitioners are among the best in the world, highlighted by recent international recognition for their skills and achievements. Actors such as Nicole Kidman, Toni Collette, Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe, Naomi Watts and Eric Bana have amassed a significant body of work and have won awards, critical acclaim and commercial success. Cinematographs such as Dione Beebe and Andrew Lensie have each won Academy awards. Award-winning and critically acclaimed film-makers include Bruce Beresford, Peter Weir, Philip Noyce, Baz Luhrmann and George Miller. Some well-known Australian film directors include Gillian Armstrong (Little Women, Oscar and Lucinda), Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge, Australia), Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde, 21), George Miller (the Oscar-winning Happy Feet) and Peter Weir (The Truman Show).

 

The Australian film industry is one of the oldest in the world. The Story of the Kelly Gang, produced in 1906, is thought to be the world’s first full-length narrative film.

 

Australian cinema thrived through the silent era but the industry went into a decline in the 1920s. in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Australian governments intervened to help the industry and, following the establishment of film funding bodies and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, a new generation of Australian filmmakers emerged.

First to make their mark were films about Australia’s earlier history such as Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Gallipoli (1981). Other successful films with more contemporary themes included Mad Max (1979) which introduced a new international star in Mel Gibson, Paul Hogan’s popular comedy Crocodile Dundee (1986).

 

The early 1990s saw the emergence of ‘quirky’ Australian comedies such as Strictly Ballroom (1992), Priscilla (1994). More recent notable films include: Shine (1996), Japanese Story (2003), Wolf Creek (2005), Happy Feet (2006). Australia currently has film co-production treaties with the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Germany, Singapore and China.

Diverse film locations and state-of-the-art technology

Australia is proud of its spectacular and varied filming locations, which include futuristic cityscapes, rugged deserts, vineyards, unspoilt coastlines, ethnic neighbourhoods, dusty outback towns, mountain ranges, sand dunes, northern rainforests, industrial plants and European-style villages.

 

Australia’s highly-skilled technical crews and world-class studio facilities make it a popular choice for offshore filming and our reverse seasons and time zones complement northern hemisphere shooting schedules.

 

In addition, filming costs are on average 30 per cent lower than in the US and government support by way of tax incentives also helps attract overseas productions.

 

Since opening in Sydney in May 1998, Fox Studios Australia has quickly become one of the world's most sought after studio facilities, boasting the largest purpose-built studio complex and the most comprehensive film lab in the southern hemisphere.

 

Hollywood blockbuster movies such as The Matrix and The Matrix sequels, Star Wars II, Mad Max, Crocodile Dundee, Babe, Mission Impossible II and Superman Returns were all filmed in Australia. Also produced in Australia was the Academy Award-winning animated movie Happy Feet.

Documentaries and commercial TV

The Australian film industry has also achieved global recognition for documentaries and commercial TV productions. Actors who have had great success in the US include Simon Baker (The Mentalist, The Guardian), Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under, Brothers and Sisters), Portia de Rossi (Arrested Development, Ally McBeal) and Anthony LaPaglia (Without A Trace).

 

Documentary directors include Denis O’Rourke, Bob Connelly and David Bradbury.

Music

Many Australian musicians, whether classical, rock or contemporary, have achieved considerable success across the world.

 

Global success stories include Natalie Imbruglia, Kylie Minogue, Keith Urban, Silverchair, AC/DC, Savage Garden, Easybeats, Paul Kelly and Midnight Oil, Crowded House and INXS. Other bands such as Jet, John Butler Trio, The Vines and artists including Pete Murray and Alex Lloyd have also come into their own on the world stage.

 

On the classical front, acclaimed sopranos include Dame Joan Sutherland, Joan Carden, Yvonne Kenny and Emma Matthews.

Music festivals

Many Australian bands showcase their talent at music festivals across the globe, including the annual South by Southwest Festival (SxSW) in Austin, Texas. Several bands have had export success on the back of the festival and signed international record deals, tours or sold the rights to existing music.

 

Australian bands that have achieved export success from SxSW include Gelbison, End of Fashion, David Weisz Management, John Butler Trio, Shane Nicholson, Powderfinger, Wolfmother, Eleven; A Music Company Pty Ltd (Missy Higgins).

 

Australian bands have also performed at:

Australian writing

The history of Australian literature started with the storytelling of Indigenous Australians and continued with the oral stories of convicts arriving in Australia in the late 18th century. As the new colony grew, these stories and experiences were increasingly recorded, laying the foundations for a uniquely Australian storytelling tradition.

 

Some of the early works have remained part of the Australian canon, including Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life, the short stories and bush ballads of Henry Lawson, and Andrew ‘Banjo’ Paterson’s poems, including the classics ‘The Man from Snowy River’ and ‘Waltzing Matilda’. Two important writers in the early 20th century were Miles Franklin and Ethel Richardson, who wrote under the pen name Henry Handel Richardson. Australia has one Nobel Prize for Literature to its credit, with novelist Patrick White receiving the award in 1973.

 

Notable 20th century Australian novelists include Thomas Keneally, Peter Carey, DBC Pierre, Kate Grenville, Christopher Koch.

 

Contemporary poet Les Murray and non-fiction writers Helen Garner and Robert Dessaix have also received considerable critical acclaim.

 

Meanwhile, an increasing number of independent Australian publishers are taking their works offshore and attending the

major book fairs in London, Bologna, Frankfurt, the USA and recently in Warsaw.

 

Australian book market – facts and figures:

Visual arts

Visual artists play a vital role in shaping Australia’s image. In the early 1970s, the works of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists attracted international attention. The transfer of mythological Dreamtime designs from sand paintings to boards and canvases by elders of the Northern Territory Pintupi people was one of many initiatives that have created new connections between Indigenous and non- Indigenous Australians.

 

During the 1980s and 1990s acclaimed artists such as Rover Thomas and Emily Kngwarreye painted contemporary art that remains grounded in the spiritual traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.

 

The Heidelberg School of the 1890s was the first significant art movement in Australia. Artists such as Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts painted an Australia that captured life in the country in the late 19th and the early 20th century. Their paintings remain an important part of Australia’s cultural landscape and provide a bridge to the country’s past.

 

While the Heidelberg School and its nationalist painters were mainly Melbourne-based, it was in Sydney that the early modernist movement started, with painters such as Nora Simpson and Grace Cossington-Smith.

 

The emergence of symbolic surrealists such as Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and Albert Tucker introduced a new dimension into Australian art, with Nolan focusing on Australian icons, especially the legendary bushranger Ned Kelly.

 

There is global interest in the Australian arts scene and artists who have achieved international reputations include John Brack, Arthur Boyd, Ken Done, Sir Russell Drysdale, Pro Hart, Sir Sidney Nolan and Brett Whiteley.

 

Brett Whiteley’s iconic painting ‘The Olgas for Ernest Giles’ was sold at auction in Sydney for nearly $3.5 million in June 2007. Just the month before, a work by John Brack went under the hammer for $3.3 million.

 

Many indigenous artists are represented by galleries who are members of the Australian Indigenous Art Trade Association, a national organisation for galleries in the indigenous art business.

 

International art buyers who are interested in purchasing Australian art can view and purchase Australian art works at numerous world art fairs, including: The International Sculpture Objects & Functional Arts (SOFA) Expositions in New York and Chicago; Frieze Art Fair, London; Affordable Art Fair; Cologne Art Fair and Paris Art Fair.

Performing arts

Australia has a vibrant performing acts sector including theatre, orchestras, musical shows and dance.

Australia’s performing arts are full of energy, originality and diversity. Companies such as Circus Oz and Legs on the Wall and Indigenous groups such as Bangarra Dance Theatre are acclaimed around the world for the quality of their productions.

 

Australian dance is renowned for its exuberance. Major companies such as the Australian Ballet and Sydney Dance Company tour regularly, with a diverse repertoire of Australian and international work.

 

Australian music has been greatly enriched by post-war immigration and covers an astonishing range. Virtuoso guitarist Slava Grigoryan, born in Kazakhstan, explores the Argentinean tango and Brazilian bossa nova, while orchestras such as the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and the Australian Chamber Orchestra have world-class status.

 

Opera Australia, the national company, is one of the busiest opera companies in the world, it has as its home the spectacular Sydney Opera House. The legacy of operatic legends such as Dame Nellie Melba and Dame Joan Sutherland has been handed down to stars such as Deborah Riedel, Lisa Gasteen and Yvonne Kenny.

 

In addition to arts performances regularly staged in a broad range of theatres, cultural centres and music venues, Australia hosts several major arts festivals and a large number of diverse community and regional festivals each year.

 

The Australia Performing Arts Market (APAM) is a biennial, five-day event held in Australia which showcases Australian dance, music and theatre. At this event, buyers and producers from around the world can network and buy the rights to tour Australian and New Zealand performing arts companies.

 

International buyers, such as festival and venue managers, also have the opportunity to see some Australian performances at Cinars, Montreal.

 

Vibrant fashions

Australia’s reputation as a vibrant, individualist nation is well illustrated through its fashion, which is characterized by a rich and colourful mix of exuberant style.

 

Australian designers who have received international acclaim include Akira Isogawa, known for the impressive cross-cultural fusion of his work, and Collette Dinnigan, a regular on the international circuit whose high-profile fans include Naomi Watts, Sarah O’Hare, Charlize Theron.

 

There is also a new generation which takes its inspiration from Australia’s surf culture, graffiti, art and childhood dreams, then creates its own unique sense of style with a completely different set of rules. Dynamic new labels include Tsubi, based near Sydney’s Bondi Beach; sass&bide, and Willow, a lingerie-based line that recently debuted its sequin-strewn confections on the international runways.

 

Useful links

Visual arts/crafts and indigenous art

Film and TV

Music

Publishing

Performing arts

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