Memo Review 2025

Memo is Australia's leading magazine of critical writing on contemporary art and culture - rigorous, provocative, and essential for those who take contemporary culture seriously. Issue 3 features a focus on Maria Kozic, whose work has long unsettled the artworld's uneasy relationship with pop culture. Also featured as part of an 'Art Crime' issue are Cathernie Liu on gatekeeping, Slavoj ?i?ek on generative AI, Dale Frank, Apple's design empire, Wang Bin, Mark Rothko and more.Issue 3 also includes a special Art Crime focus, bringing together leading critics and artists confronting how stolen wages, incarceration, and colonial violence shape Australian art.Elsewhere, Catherine Liu, one of the world's most unsparing critics of cultural gatekeeping, dismantles the moral posturing of "political" message art, and provocative philosopher Slavoj ?i?ek unravels Donald Trump's viral generative AI video "Trump Gaza" posted on Truth Social last month. Dale Frank's slippery persona and autistic mythos come under scrutiny, while Apple's "smooth aesthetic" design empire reveals an unexpected link to the writhing figures of the ancient sculpture Laocoon and His Sons. Wang Bing's latest film expands his brutal factory-world saga, and in fiction, Biddy Mahy follows an art history student watching his first love resurface-this time as Larry Gagosian's teenage muse.This issue also features pieces on D Harding, Mark Rothko, Madonna Staunton, Sidney Nolan, reviews from across Australia, and much more.