Dr Kate Warren
Areas of expertise
- Art Theory And Criticism 1901
- Art History 190102
- Visual Cultures 190104
- Cinema Studies 190201
- Electronic Media Art 190203
- Lens Based Practice 190503
- Curatorial And Related Studies 2102
Research interests
- Arts writing and criticism
- Art historiography
- Popular media
- Video and moving image art
- Photography and lens-based practices
- Film and cinema
- Contemporary Australian art
- Contemporary visual culture
Biography
Kate Warren is an art historian, writer and curator, with expertise in modern and contemporary Australian and international art. She received her PhD in Art History from Monash University in 2016, and her research interests cover film, photography, video and new media art.
Kate's current research investigates histories of how the visual arts and art history have been represented in the popular Australian press, with a particular focus on magazine and television coverage in the mid-to-late twentieth century. This project aims to construct a novel history of the visual arts in Australia via their presentation and reception in popular media, identifying models of arts engagement that have supported increased visual literacy and informed understanding of the visual arts.
Kate publishes extensively, including critical articles in Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, Journal of Art Historiography, Philosophy of Photography, EMAJ: Online Journal of Art, Senses of Cinema, Persona Studies, History of Photography and Discipline, as well as dozens of essays and reviews in art and film magazines, and exhibition catalogues. She was a founding contributor to the Melbourne-based arts review website Memo Review, and is also an editor of Peephole Journal, an online journal dedicated to creative film criticism.
From 2007 to 2011 Kate was Assistant Curator at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, where she was involved in major exhibitions including Tim Burton: The Exhibition (a travelling exhibition from The Museum of Modern Art, New York) and Len Lye: An Artist in Perpetual Motion (a collaborative exhibition with the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery). She has curated independent exhibitions including: I don’t want to be there when it happens (2017) with Dr Mikala Tai, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art; Future Tense (2017) with Artistic Director Alicia Renew for Channels Video Art Festival; and Atong Atem: Come Home (2017) at Blindside Gallery, Melbourne.
Researcher's projects
CURRENT RESEARCH
Histories of Visual Arts Coverage in the Australian Media
My current research project investigates histories of how the visual arts and art history have been represented in the popular Australian press, with a particular focus on magazine and television coverage in the mid-to-late twentieth century. This project aims to construct a novel history of the visual arts in Australia via their presentation and reception in popular media, identifying models of arts engagement that have supported increased visual literacy and informed understanding of the visual arts. I have received grants and support for this research from the Australian Institute of Art History, the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and the National Library of Australia (where I am completing a 2022 Research Fellowship). My recent article in the Journal of Art Historiography, "Tracing cultural values through popular art historiographies: Australian popular magazines and the visual arts", outlines some of the project's goals and imperatives, including the use of popular historiographic methods to trace and understand how cultural values are formed over time:
https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/warren.pdf
RECENT CURATORIAL PROJECTS
I don’t want to be there when it happens
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, 18 August – 8 October 2017
Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 11 November – 24 December 2017
Exhibition co-curated with Dr Mikala Tai (4A) and Eugenio Viola (PICA), bringing together artists from Pakistan, India, and Australia, whose works respond to situations of contemporary conflict and trauma, particularly in the context of South Asia. Featured works by Reena Saini Kallat, Raj Kumar, Sonia Leber & David Chesworth, Raqs Media Collective, Mithu Sen, Adeela Suleman and Abdullah M.I. Syed.
http://www.4a.com.au/dont-want-happens/
http://pica.org.au/show/i-dont-want-to-be-there-when-it-happens/
Future Tense
The Substation, Melbourne, 1 September – 28 October 2017
Exhibition co-curated with Alicia Renew for Channels: The Australian Video Art Festival, 2017, which brought together Australian and international artists who variously imagine alternate futures. Featured works by Yael Bartana, Tristan Jalleh, Rachel Mason, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, and new commissions by Hannah Brontë and Antoinette J. Citizen.
http://channelsfestival.net.au/program/future-tense
Atong Atem: Come Home
Blindside Gallery, Melbourne, 23 August – 9 September 2017
Commissioned and curated a series of new videos by artist Atong Atem, which explored and created connections between abstract concepts of home and the introspection of existing in the art world as a displaced person.
http://www.blindside.org.au/screen-series-channels/
Publications
- Warren, K 2023, 'Art in the Barbershop: Visual Arts, Audiences and Australasian Post', Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 71-90.
- Warren, K 2021, Omer Fast/Continuity. Samstag Museum of Art, https://www.unisa.edu.au/siteassets/samstag/images/publications/sm0332-omer-fast-digital-catalogue.pdf
- Warren, K 2021, 'Tracing cultural values through popular art historiographies: Australian popular magazines and the visual arts'. Journal of Art Historiography, vol. 25 pp.1-29.
- Warren, K, Gunn, A & Tai, M 2020, 'Artists, Institutions, Publics: Contemporary Responses to Conflict', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 23-39.
- Warren, K 2019, 'Socially latent images: Eva and Franco Mattes's personal photographs', Philosophy of Photography, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 171-194.
- Palmer, D & Warren, K 2019, 'Scarlett Johansson Falling Down: Memes, Photography and Celebrity Personas', in J Loreck, W Monaghan & K Stevens (eds), Screening Scarlett Johansson: Gender, Genre, Stardom, Palgrave Macmillan, Switzerland, pp. 121-144.
- Warren, K 2019. 'The Materials of Sites and Sights'. In Rowan Conroy: Sightseeing, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery.
- Warren, K 2019. “One Image”. Objektiv Journal, 22 March, http://www.objektiv.no/realises/2019/3/21/kate-warren.
- Warren, K., 2018, 'A Brief History of The Australian Women's Weekly Art Prize, 1955-1959', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 242-258.
- Warren, K., 2018, "Crossing Boundaries: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige's Work in Art and Film." Senses of Cinema, issue 86, http://sensesofcinema.com/2018/cinema-and-the-museum/joana-hadjithomas-khalil-joreige/.
- Warren, K, 2018, "Critical Wonder: Lynette Wallworth's art in the age of spectacle and socially engaged practice." EMAJ: Online Journal of Art, issue 10.
- Warren, K 2018, “Review: The Art of Publishing: An Exhibition of MACK Books”. Objektiv Journal, February, http://www.objektiv.no/realises/2018/2/5/an-exhibition-of-mack-books.
- Warren, K 2018, “Soda_Jerk’s TERROR NULLIUS at ACMI”. Memo Review, 7 April, https://memoreview.net/blog/soda_jerks-terror-nullius-at-acmi-by-kate-warren.
- Miles, M & Warren, K, 2017, "The Japanese Photographers of Broome: Photography and Cross-Cultural Encounter." History of Photography, vol. 41, no. 1.
- Warren, K 2017, 'Daniel Crooks, Parabolic, and Miyanaga Akira, REALTIME', 'Andrea Grutzner: Tanztee and Erbgericht', 'The Score', and 'Cover Versions: Mimicry and Resistance', in Rex Butler et al (eds), Memo Review 2017 Monash University, Melbourne .
- Warren, K 2017, “Returning to Night Cries: The Personal and Cultural Influence of Tracey Moffatt”. Peephole Journal, 7, http://peepholejournal.tv/issue/07/08-warren/.
- Warren, K 2017, “A non-site implication: Sonia Leber and David Chesworth’s Earthwork”. 4A Papers, 3, http://www.4a.com.au/4a_papers_article/a-non-site-implication-leber-chesworth/.
- Warren, K., 2016, 'Double Trouble: Parafictional Personas and Contemporary Art', Persona Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 55-69.
- Warren, K 2016, "Gallery Repetitions: Loops in the work of Omer Fast and other contemporary artists", Le Magazine, Jeu de Paume Gallery (Paris), 20 January, http://lemagazine.jeudepaume.org/2016/01/kate-warren-gallery-repetitions-loops-omer-fast-en/.
- Warren, K 2016, 'Anachronistic Histories: Eugenia Lim's Yellow Peril', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 264-67.
- Warren, K 2013, 'Creative Re-enactment in the Films and Videos of Omer Fast', in Russell J Kilbourn and Eleanor Ty (ed.), The Memory Effect: The remediation of memory in literature and film, Wilfred Laurier University Press, Waterloo, Canada, pp. 287-305.
- Warren, K 2012, 'Rites of Return: Yael Bartana', Metro, vol. 171, pp. 98-101.
- Warren, K 2011, 'Repositioning The Tracker', Screen Education, vol. 63, pp. 111-116.
- Warren, K 2011, 'Moon: Clones are Human Too', Screen Education, vol. 60, pp. 119-25.
- Warren, K 2010, 'Animation, Representation and the Power of the Personal Story: Persepolis', Screen Education, vol. 58, pp. 117-123.
