On art

Recent Writing

Figure and ground: George Baldessin and his contemporary legacy, Print Council of Australia Blog, November 2022

When I was last at Baldessin Press a decidedly unsentimental artist admitted to me that she talks to George Baldessin whenever she’s printing on his big mechanical press. ‘I never knew the man, but I always say as I press that button, well George what have you got for me this time?’ It was one of those quirky conversations that suddenly encapsulates something about a place: in this case how the spirit of George Baldessin still animates the work that happens in the bluestone studio he built at St Andrews some fifty years ago.

This Public Feeling: Intimacy and technologies: a pre-history, Bent Street 4.1, August 2020

Why did the NGV put Keith Haring back in the closet?, The Conversation, January 13, 2020

There’s a strange absence at the heart of the National Gallery of Victoria’s summer blockbuster: Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines, and it’s not just the ghosts of these two vibrant artists who died tragically young. It’s the ghost of Haring’s sexuality, which although an abiding theme of his work seems to have been deliberately excised.

The ecstatic’s tears: notes towards a novel, New Writing, September 2019

Some stories begin with only two fingers. Part of a hand emerges from a crisp white landscape of freshly fallen snow. Mystery, fear, the promise of more.

Other stories begin with hesitation. Silence caught by punctuation.

A prologue can only give hints. A menu, a map, a series of voices.

David Wojnarowicz’s Lips, Bent Street 2, January 2019

As life imitates art, how are we to read terror plots in film and TV? The Conversation, July 21, 2016

Derek Jarman’s Queer Resilience Bent Street 4.2 , 2020

From the archive

I worked as a journalist and editor from the early 1990s until the mid-2000s I wrote widely about visual art, architecture, film, health, religion, politics and gay and lesbian issues. From 1999-2006 I was Editor in Chief of SSO Media a small alternative media company which publishes Sydney Star Observer Australia’s oldest and largest circulation gay and lesbian weekly newspaper. Before that I was editor of OutRage a national gay lifestyle monthly. The articles below are a small sample of articles that are still available online.

Visual arts

Man Ray’s Exposures

Sydney Star Observer- Issue 706 -Published 25/03/2004
The Art Gallery of NSW’s Man Ray exhibition shows the ongoing influence of the french-based photographer. Marcus O’Donnell takes a look.

Film & Literature

Bad Education

Sydney Star Observer – Issue 757 – Published 24/03/2005
Pedro Almodovar’s film is rich in its political and cultural references but most of all it is marked by the director’s rich multi-layered approach to storytelling.

Its all acting for Ian McKellen

Sydney Star Observer- Issue 695 -Published 1/01/2004
Sir Ian McKellen talks to Marcus O’Donnell about his Sydney Festival production Dance of Death, gay actors and mutants.

Ruby’s dirty secrets

Sydney Star Observer- Issue 666 -Published 12/06/2003
Feminist and queer film critic B. Ruby Rich talks with Marcus O’Donnell about queers, film and our changing world.

Colum Toibin: Making up lives

Sydney Star Observer- Issue 728 -Published 26/08/2004
Colm Tóibín’s new novel The Master has been winning him pretty much universal acclaim even from critics who have been harsh on him in the past. He’s the first to admit that the reception has been “fantastic” but he is also quick to warn of the dangers of too much exposure.

Classical Music

Reviews

A selection from a regular classical music reviews column in the Sydney Star Observer

Performance

Sydney Festival rides high

Sydney Star Observer – Issue 747 – Published 12/01/2005
Robert Wilson, understands that theatrical communication is much more a technical skill than a brazenly unleashed idea. And last week’s premiere of Wilson’s directorial tour-de-force, Black Rider, was an inspiring start to the 2005 Festival.