BIENNALE SYDNEY 2010
Biennale Sydney 2010 - Luxury Travel Magazine
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Biennale of Sydney 2010 | |||||
| By: Jane O’Sullivan, Issue 42 – Autumn 2010 | |||||
| (Sydney, Australia) | |||||
| AUSTRALIA’S LARGEST CONTEMPORARY ART EVENT TAKES OVER SYDNEY ONCE AGAIN, REPORTS JANE O’SULLIVAN. BUT WHILE THERE WILL BE PLENTY FOR EVERYONE, THE BIENNALE OF SYDNEY ALSO HAS ITS DARKER SIDE. | |||||
| Expect to see and experience things you’ve never seen before,” promises Marah Braye, CEO of this year’s Biennale of Sydney. The theme – The Beauty of Distance: Songs of survival in a precarious age – is a challenging one and Braye says visitors should bargain on encountering “works that will shake up your ideas about art and about the world at large.” The Biennale of Sydney is Australia’s largest contemporary art event and also one of the world’s longest running biennales. This year, the 17th edition, will bring the work of over 150 international and Australian artists to Sydney from 12 May to 1 August 2010. Cockatoo Island returns as a major exhibition venue, and exhibitions and events will also be staged at six other venues around the Sydney Harbour foreshore, including the Sydney Opera House, Royal Botanic Gardens and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Artistic director David Elliott, who selected this year’s theme, insists that while Australia certainly has a preoccupation with distance, call it cultural insecurity or unavoidable geographic fact, it is an issue that faces all countries and cultures. “Wherever you are, you’re going to be a long way from something,” he explains. His aim was “to bring together work from diverse cultures, at the same time, on the equal playing field of contemporary art, where no culture can assume superiority over any other.” But while Elliott is careful to point out that there are benefits to distance – not least because “distance gives us space to be who we are” – many of the artists selected for the biennale are clearly grappling with its darker side. One of the most politically confronting pieces in 17th Biennale of Sydney is by French artist Kader Attia, who will be building a shantytown on Cockatoo Island. But instead of walking among the huts and lean-tos like a local, visitors must pick a path over the heads of the unseen residents, taking a route across the roofs. Cultural distance and dominance is a subject also taken up by Australian Brook Andrew. His Jumping Castle War Memorial is an inflatable jumping castle covered in Wiradjuri markings. Elliott says only those above the age of 16 will be able to climb inside because younger children may not understand the implications of “stomping on, yet again,” Australian Indigenous culture. Taking another tack again is Fiona Hall, the subject of a major blockbuster exhibition at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art in 2008, who is creating a new work for the biennale called Barbarians at the Gate. But Hall’s barbarians are not corporate raiders but bees. Hall has painted a series of bee hives in the camouflage colours and patterns of foreign nations, and the hives will be installed in the Royal Botanic Gardens throughout the 12-week biennale. (Elliott says Hall had originally intended to place foreign bees in the hives too, but was prevented by quarantine restrictions.) Yet not all the works in this year’s biennale are quite so serious. One of the kookier inclusions in the biennale’s line up is the Finnish Shouting Men’s Choir. As the name suggests, the choir shouts its lyrics, turning familiar songs into a sharp little parodies of distance and discipline. While the men normally performs Finnish folk songs, this time they will be turning their song sheets to Australian history and politics. Another unusual inclusion, at least for a contemporary art exhibition, are the PechaKucha club nights at Artspace, Woolloomoolloo. The name is taken from the Japanese term for chitchat and the trend is rapidly taking over the world. These PechaKucha nights give anyone with a vision and a few powerpoint slides the opportunity to take the stage for 20 seconds to show the world what they’ve got. It’s bound to be inspiring and raucous and if nothing else, at least there won’t be any time to get bored. The Biennale of Sydney will be staged at seven venues around the Sydney Harbour foreshore from 12 May to 1 August 2010. For more information on events and exhibitions visit www.bos17.com.au. | |||||
| CAI GUO-QIANG | |||||
| One of the most spectacular pieces in this year’s Biennale of Sydney will be Cai Guo-Qiang’s Inopportune: Stage One. A series of nine cars rotating through space will be suspended from the ceiling of Cockatoo Island’s vast turbine hall, each exploding with bursts of light. From the outset, Cai’s work has been politically charged. He first made a name for himself working with gunpowder (there was that tiny little accident at the gunpowder factory) and this installation is no less politically charged. The exploding cars draw a direct line to car bombs and terrorism, but shot out with tubes of light, these cars are also beautiful. “If we want to start thinking about terror, it’s no good just being frightened,” explains artistic director David Elliott. By prompting us to meditate on the beauty and horror of destruction, Cai draws our attention to own tangled role in terror and terrorism. If only we just stopped looking, he seems to say. A free ferry service will be running to Cockatoo Island throughout the biennale. | |||||
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