Joel Gibson from the Sydney Morning Herald writes about the Four Corners story, Art for Art’s Sake, and publishes some quotes from the interview.
Quoted from the article:
Relations between some private dealers and community or government-funded art centres have grown so bitter that six art centres boycotted this year’s prestigious Telstra Art Award because of the involvement of a controversial private dealer.
The ABC’s Four Corners revealed last night that the dealer was John Ioannou, who has a criminal record, galleries in Sydney and Melbourne, and represents artists from the remote Irrunytju community, 700 kilometres from Alice Springs.
But Mr Ioannou said the art centres were trying to impose their philosophy on the rest of the industry and that accusations to the Senate inquiry that he had paid money to be elected Irrunytju’s arts manager were “a load of rubbish”.