Aussie Masterpieces

Jennifer Maiden - 'Friendly Fire', 2005

Poetry Masterpiece

By Lisa Gorton

Jennifer Maiden’s fourteenth poetry collection is a masterpiece in the original sense of that word: fantastical, intelligent, unassuming and conversational, it gives full expression to her talent. In this collection, there are few borrowed or conventional elements; to a remarkable degree, the style of these poems expresses her particular vision. Maiden takes imaginative possession of all th

JM Coetzee - 'Summertime', 2009

Fiction Masterpiece

By Geordie Williamson

Is it a cheat to suggest this quasi-memoir by a South African–born Nobel Prize winner as the best work of Australian fiction since the dawn of the new century? Perhaps it shows how problematic those categories have become. Whatever the case, the third volume in the autobiographical trilogy Scenes from a Provincial Life is the best thing Coetzee has written since Disgrace (itself a signal no

Neil Armfield - 'Peter Grimes', 2009

Opera Masterpiece

By Peter McCallum

When Opera Australia staged Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes in 2009 (co-produced with Western Australian Opera and Houston Grand Opera), the company already had a venerable Grimes on its books that was far from showing its age. Yet the sad human plainness of Neil Armfield’s conception of Grimes – a work that profoundly represents the isolation of the human condition – combined with Stuart Skelton’s faultless performance in the

Ten Part Invention - 'Unidentified Spaces', 2001

Jazz Masterpiece

By John Clare

Ten Part Invention is a Sydney band formed more than 20 years ago to perform Australian jazz music. It still has a solid, often ecstatic, following. This album has a wealth of writing from two band members who are among our greatest composers: Sandy Evans and Miroslav Bukovsky. Evans is represented by the title work, a suite whose four sections range across

James Ledger - 'Chronicles', 2009

Classical Masterpiece

By Andrew Ford

It has been a good start to the twenty-first century for Australian composers and correspondingly hard to pick a single masterpiece. Anyway, how do you compare Ross Edwards’ Clarinet Concerto to Liza Lim’s Cy Twombly–inspired piano suite The Four Seasons

Sarah Blasko - 'As Day Follows Night', 2009

Popular Music Masterpiece

By Robert Forster

Bookended by two wispy Disney-esque ballads, As Day Follows Night has as its body, and certainly its heart, ten beautiful songs. Their melodic strength is the major surprise, given that Sarah Blasko, who penned all songs on the record, worked with a co-writer

Justin Hamilton - 'Circular', 2011

Stand-Up Comedy Masterpiece

By Tim Ferguson

Justin Hamilton is the stand-up comedian of the decade. His latest one-man show Circular is the masterpiece towards which this most dynamic and daring comedian has been building since beginning his stand-up career in 1994. Of all his work, Circular takes the biggest ris

An Australian–Indonesian production - 'The Theft of Sita', 2000

Music Theatre Masterpiece

By Robyn Archer

In The Theft of Sita, the roles undertaken by its two instigating creators – Nigel Jamieson shaped the work as dramaturge and director; Paul Grabowsky shaped the music – attest to its quality. They both acknowledged an intense collaboration when working wi

Chris Lilley - 'Summer Heights High', 2007

Television Masterpiece

By Marieke Hardy

Note perfect, Summer Heights High searingly captures a slice of Australia’s psyche without mockery or judgement. It provides a sublime bridge between creator Chris Lilley’s sweet syrup of We Can Be Heroes and the more abrasive chip-on-shoulder of Angry Boys. Above a

Rolf de Heer - 'The Tracker', 2002

Film Masterpiece

By Adrian Martin

Australian cinema is prone to chronic understatement – shrinking away from opportunities for sex, violence and catharsis. The Tracker is an exception. From early bushranger movies to The Proposition, Australian cinema has drawn close to American Westerns. Th

Marc Newson - 'Qantas A380 Economy Seat', 2008

Design Masterpiece

By Alan Saunders

Most designers like to design a chair or two in their career. Marc Newson began his with the famous Lockheed Lounge in 1986 and went on to create the quirky Embryo Chair a couple of years later, with which he thought he had achieved a discernible style. He’s

Lindsay & Kerry Clare - 'Gallery of Modern Art', Queensland, 2006

Architecture Masterpiece

By Haig Beck

Nowadays ‘masterpiece’ refers to a work of extraordinary artistic merit. But it once described a work by a craftsman made specifically to demonstrate mastery of (his) craft and so gain entry to a guild. This older meaning is appropriate to architecture, a practice l

Brian Blanchflower - 'Canopy LI (Scelsi I–IV)', 2001

Visual Art (Two-Dimensional) Masterpiece

By Anthony Bond

Brian Blanchflower is one of the most important painters in the world today and yet he is largely overlooked outside his native Perth. His paintings are firstly material objects, not illustrations of anything beyond themselves, and yet they have the power to invoke thoughts of transcendence. They convey the space and texture of the arid western desert and th

Hany Armanious & Mary Teague - 'Lines of Communication', 2010

Visual Art (Three-Dimensional) Masterpiece

By Doug Hall

Quietly installed in the old North Sydney Telephone Exchange – now a newly developed commercial building – in Mount Street, North Sydney, is a large commission, launched in 2010. Hany Armanious (Australia’s artist at this year’s 54th Venice Biennale) and Mary Teague have produced a work that is at once playful and serious, and refers to the history of the site it occupies. Two massive poly

Mike Parr - 'Close the Concentration Camps', 2002

Performance Art Masterpiece

By Anne Marsh

A man sits slumped in a chair; he wears a black suit, white shirt and no tie. His right trouser leg is ripped across the thigh revealing the word ‘alien’ branded into his skin. This is a six-hour endurance piece. During this time his lips, eyes and ears ar

Shaun Gladwell - 'Storm Sequence', 2000

Video Art Masterpiece

By Juliana Engberg

Iconic, mesmerising, atmospheric and in a zone of its own, Storm Sequence is compelling in its use of place, pace and proposition. As the sea swells, the wind agitates and large droplets of the pending storm start to splatter, a lone skateboarder – the artis

Graeme Murphy - 'Swan Lake', 2002

Ballet Masterpiece

By Jill Sykes

Like Shakespeare’s plays, great ballets get their makeovers by the score all over the world – except that Shakespeare’s words are (mostly) left intact and the choreography of the classic ballets is (mostly) discarded. Cleverly, Graeme Murphy and his collaborators,

Theatre Masterpiece

By Alison Croggon

'Masterpiece’ is a chilly word: it takes a work out of the flux of creation and pins it in the gallery of cultural regard. When speaking of performance, it seems especially fishy. Still, put to the question, I’d nominate Tom Wright and Benedict Andrews’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s history plays. The final work of the STC Actors Company, this eight-hour epic presented in two parts demonstra