Ashley Crawford (journalist)
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Ashley Robert Crawford is an Australian freelance cultural critic, author, essayist, arts journalist, and academic.
Life and career[edit]
Born in Melbourne in 1960 Crawford began his career as a cadet journalist at The Herald in 1978 where he experienced the gamut of journalistic practice including court reporting, police rounds, politics, and finance before settling into the position of rock critic.[1][2]
Dissatisfied with the conservative nature of newspaper publishing in 1980, he started a monthly culture magazine called The Virgin Press. Changing the name to Tension (1983-1990)[3], the magazine garnered industry accolades.[4] and contributions from notable writers and artists.[5] [6] During the 1980s he also worked: as a consultant for Lees/West contemporary music touring company; as the Director of Artists' Week for the 1986 Adelaide Festival;[7] as the editor of Video Week; and as Assistant Director at the fledgling Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.[8]
From the 1980s Crawford has written art criticism for: The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Financial Review, The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, The Australian, The New Zealand Herald, The Monthly and numerous art magazines.[9]
In 1990 he was offered the position of Communications Manager at The Australian Commission for the Future[10] and editor of the organisation's magazine 21•C[11] that covered technology, science and culture. Neuromancer author William Gibson proclaimed that: "21•C is, flat out, the best looking and most determinedly eclectic pop-futurological publication in the world.” [12] While J.G. Ballard proclaimed the magazine a “brilliant collection of articles that read like news bulletins from the future".[13]
In 1993 he established the international art magazine World Art[14] and moved to Amsterdam. In 1996, Wired magazine commented that: “While most art mags cover the dead and the nearly dead of the art establishment, World Art plays with high-voltage wires in the rain… Young and experimental, this is the art forum to be in.”[15]
After a stint as Executive Producer for ITVWorld.com,[16] Crawford moved to New York City in 2001 to take on the role of Executive Editor at Artbyte magazine.[17]
In 2003 Crawford returned to Australia as Commissioning Editor at Thames & Hudson, overseeing the New Art series. He has overseen a variety of publications and exhibitions, including curating shows at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne and the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, the TarraWarra Biennial, the Australian Experimental Art Foundation (as part of the Adelaide Festival 2016, Adelaide), the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin, and the White Night Festival, Melbourne.[18]
Crawford first visited the Gunbalanya region of Arnhem Land in 1998 with artists David Larwill, Peter Walsh and Mark Schaller, working to raise awareness about the then-proposed uranium mine in Kakadu National Park.[19] He has returned regularly, helping to organize artists' camps to the Australian outback and subsequently several international artist exchanges and tours, encompassing Central Australia, America, Europe, Africa, and Asia..[20]
In 2010 he co-founded a hybrid art fair in Melbourne, NOTFAIR as a showcase for independent artists.
His PhD thesis, published by Palgrave MacMillan, New York, as Dark Gnosis: Religious Imaging in Millennialist America (2018)[21], was described by SpringerLink as "Arguably the first serious study of Matthew Barney’s most recent work" [22]
Selected Published Works[edit]
Cultural Studies
- 1997: Transit Lounge: Wake Up Calls and Traveller’s Tales from the Future. co-editor, (Gordon & Breach, Sydney/Amsterdam)
- 2018: Dark Gnosis: Religious Imaging in Millennialist America (Palgrave MacMillan, New York)
Visual Arts (Australia)
- 1997: Spray: The Work of Howard Arkley, with Ray Edgar, (Craftsman House)
- 2001: Spray: The Work of Howard Arkley – Updated and Revised, with Ray Edgar, (Craftsman House)
- 2002: Lake Eyre and Beyond: The William Creek Series (Craftsman House).
- 2002: Wimmera: The Work of Philip Hunter (Thames & Hudson).
- 2003: Lines of Fire: Tim Storrier’s Works on Paper (Thames & Hudson).
- 2006: Directory of Australian Art (Craftsman House)
- 2007: Stephen Bush: Gelderland (Santa Fe Museum, New Mexico)
- 2009: Rhys Lee, with Edward Colless (Spencer Design, Melbourne)
- 2011: First Life (Xin Dong Cheng Art Space, Beijing/24HR Art, Darwin)
- 2012: The Art of James Davis (Australian Scholarly Publishing)
- 2016: Transformations: The Art of Sonia Payes (Thames & Hudson)
- 2017: Gareth Sansom Transformer, with Sebastian Smee (National Gallery of Victoria)
- 2017: Photo by Martin Kantor, with Richard Guilliatt (Hardie Grant)
Personal life[edit]
Crawford is the son of Bob "King" Crawford, a noted comedian, writer, composer, and painter.[23]
References[edit]
- ↑ Crawford, Ashley (2015-01-16). "Michael Gira on Swans, religion and the hubris of Matthew Barney". the Guardian. Retrieved 2022-10-08.
- ↑ "Outta The Black & Into The Ether // Articles // Melbourne Film Festival - July 30, 2009". rowland-s-howard.com. Retrieved 2022-10-08.
- ↑ "World Food Books Website". WORLD FOOD BOOKS. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
TENSION (1983-1990) was one of the central "popular" culture arts periodicals to come out of Melbourne in the 1980s, emerging from the ashes of Virgin Press. Independently published and edited by critic Ashley Crawford, Tension magazine lasted for 25 bi-monthly issues dedicated to Art, Music, Fashion, Theatre, Film, Photography, across reviews, interviews, reports, critical essays and artist pages. Now an important document of culture in Australia, and especially Melbourne in the 1980s, issues featured the writing and contributions of Paul Taylor, McKenzie Wark, Mike Parr, John Nixon, Catharine Lumby, Philip Brophy, Adrian Martin, Ashley Crawford, Peter Tyndall, Jean Baudrillard, Timothy Leary, Gerard Malanga, Keith Haring, Gerald Murnane, and many more. In 1985 Crawford, with John Buckley, staged an exhibition issue of the magazine, 'Visual Tension', at ACCA featuring the work of Howard Arkley, Marianne Baillieu, Peter Booth, Paul Boston, Peter Cripps, Richard Dunn, Maria Kozic, John Lethbridge, Geoff Lowe, Linda Marrinon, John Matthews, John Nixon, Stieg Persson, Robert Rooney, Gareth Sansom, Vivienne Shark LeWitt, Imants Tillers, Peter Tyndall, Jenny Watson, John Young.
Unknown parameter|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ The Australian Writers and Art Directors Award for illustration and design (1986), The Melbourne Art Directors Awards for illustration and design (1987), and the Melbourne Art Directors Award for Best Printed Item (1989).
- ↑ "Tension Magazine Issue #4: Keith Haring Special – In Form Library". informlibrary.com. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
- ↑ TOFTS, Darren (2009). "Writing media art into (and out of) history" (PDF). Re:live Media Art Histories 2009 conference proceedings.
- ↑ "1986 - Adelaide Festival". www.adelaidefestival.com.au. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
- ↑ "Three Room project by Howard Arkley, David Larwill and Juan Davila" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 September 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Treasures lost and found". The Age. 2006-11-11. Retrieved 2022-10-09.
- ↑ "Lessons from the Australian Commission for the Future: 1986-1998" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 April 2018. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "21C Magazine's Ashley Crawford - Mediapunk interview". Technoccult. 20 May 2010. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
- ↑ Gibson, William. “Entering the transit lounge”. Introduction to Transit Lounge, eds. Ashley Crawford and Ray Edgar, Sydney, 21C/Interface Books, 1997.
- ↑ "Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Transit Lounge". www.amazon.com. Retrieved 2022-10-26.
- ↑ World art: the magazine of contemporary visual arts. South Yarra, Vic: World Art. 1994. Search this book on
- ↑ Rapp, Alan E. "Art for the 21st Century". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
- ↑ "Around the corner". The Sydney Morning Herald. 24 October 2003. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
- ↑ "Artbyte - Anarchivism". anarchivism.org. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
- ↑ Cooke, Dewi (2013-02-21). "City looking for the art of Saturday night". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2022-10-26.
- ↑ McGregor, Ken (1998). Stop Jabiluka Mine: David Larwill, Mark Schaller, Peter Walsh, 25 June-5 July 1998. Gould Galleries. South Yarra, Vic: Gould Galleries. ISBN 978-0-646-35626-6. Search this book on
- ↑ "PROJECTS". AUSTRALIA INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS. Retrieved 2022-10-08.
- ↑ Crawford, Ashley (2018). Religious Imaging in Millennialist America: Dark Gnosis. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-319-99171-9. Search this book on
- ↑ Religious Imaging in Millennialist America. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-99172-6. Search this book on
- ↑ Andrews, Jon (23 May 2016). "Artist Bob King Crawford pushes his design for a kangaroo flag, with no Union Jack". Herald Sun. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
External links[edit]
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