18th Biennale of Sydney: a walk on the island

My contribution to Ewa Partum's courtyard installation

I spent last week traipsing around the Sydney Biennale – an exhibition that seems to be growing larger every year.  The popular Cockatoo Island is used as a site for the 3^rd event running, as is Pier 2/3, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), and a new addition: Carriageworks.  Unfortunately, there is nothing in the botanic gardens, which is disappointing because many of my favourite works from the last biennales were sited there.

Ricardo Lanzarini, Cockatoo Island

The artworks on Cockatoo Island this year are, on the whole, far more in dialogue with the site than previous years.  We’re so used to viewing art against ‘neutral’ white walls that the constructed environment of the Modern museum has almost become invisible.  Comparatively, when art is placed in complex semiotic sites where the surrounding environment is very obvious and at risk of overwhelming the art, it’s important that artists and curators take this into account.  Four years ago, I commented on the Biennale’s promotion of ‘more than 30 site-specific’ artworks supposedly on Cockatoo Island.  As a buzzword, site-specific art makes for good press releases, however punters are confused when the works don’t actually relate to the site.  This year’s Cockatoo Island artworks include some site-specific artworks, but far more that are suitably installed in dialogue with the site without being strictly site-specific.  For instance, Ricardo Lanzarini’s drawings in a utilitarian-looking room on the top of the island are clustered near the pipes, doorways and other existing features (The artist also has a series of intricately drawn books made from cigarette papers displayed at the AGNSW). 

The roofless structure that houses Tiffany Singh's installation

 Also notable is Tiffany Singh’s colourful wind chime artwork installed in an oddly-shaped roofless structure on the western end of the island.  From the outside, the bamboo chimes are barely audible, yet within the sandstone walled structure, accessed by a small opening that requires the viewers to crouch on entry, the hundreds of chimes clatter loudly with the movement of the wind.  On a sunny day, the dark shadows cast by the grid of coloured chimes and reverberating sound completely surrounds and involves the viewer

Tiffany Singh, Knock on the Sky Listen to the Sound

In keeping with my obsession with artworks that construct the lives of fictional people within exhibition spaces, I appreciate Iris Haussler’s He Dreamed Overtime, sited in a cracked sandstone house on the top island.  However, when I challenge the invigilators on the story of the mysterious island caretaker, it is obvious they needed a bit more lying practice.

Iris Haussler's He Dreamed Overtime (installation shot)

Nicholas Hlobo, Ingubo Yesizwe

Peter Robinson, Gravitas Lite

 I also enjoy Nicholas Hlobo’s kelp-like installation, Ingubo Yesizwe in the Docks Precinct, where it’s initially unclear whether the mound of sewn black rubber, slumped on a boat ramp, is an artwork.  There’s no fancy lighting or plinths here.   

Peter Robinson’s epic mound of carved polystyrene chains, which sit on, around, and within the rusty machinery in the Industrial Precinct, also relates nicely to the site, the (for now) white plastic contrasting with the darkened waste.  Once I get over my initial ‘yeah, so, you can carve a chain, so what?’  (yes, I’m petty), it’s clear that in its scale and material, the installation is very successful.  Nearby are Philip Beesley’s Avatar-like hanging objects, Hylozoic Series, which react to the viewers’ touch and movement.

Philip Beezley, Hylozoic Series (detail)

As one of my friends remarked, the island is populated with ‘floaty’ artworks.  Adjacent to Beesley’s work are Ed Pien and Tanya Tagaq’s hanging fabric and rope mazes (supposedly representing rain), and Monika Grzymala’s installation completed with the Euraba Artists and Papermakers, which looks like seedpods being blown away in the wind in suspended animation.  While these three installations aren’t site-specific, they sit comfortably in the tall warehouse spaces

Erin Manning, Stitch in Time - A Collective Fashioning, installation shot

Li Hongbo, Ocean of Flowers

The ‘floaty’ artwork by Erin Manning, on the other hand, looks like something unfortunate washed up from Byron Bay, where scraps of hanging fabric and tulle surround a project table set up with thread and needles.  The work on the warehouse floor below – Li Hongbo’s Ocean of Flowers - is more considered.  The clusters of colourful accordion paper sculptures form a cartoon-like landscape though which viewers are allowed to walk.  Later, we are shown the shapes that form the basis of these happy looking objects: guns and bullets.  To be honest, I’m disappointed that the work can’t just be about the objects, that it had to be made out of war-associated objects.  Like Pien and Tagaq’s artwork, the installation is made more complex than it needs to be.

The basis of Li Hongbo's paper sculptures

Jonathan Jones, Untitled (Oysters and Teacups)

 As with the 2008 biennale, the iconic island tunnels are used for site-specific artworks.  Clustered around the bend in the Dog-Leg tunnel, Daan Roosegaarde’s light poles interact with the viewers’ movement.  Jonathan Jones’ ubiquitous geometrically arranged fluorescent lights are also triggered by our passage through the shorter Tunnel 1 (his other artwork is pictured left).  Jon Pylypchuk’s Esky miner creatures digging away at the northern end of the Dog-Leg are a humorous addition to the cave-like annex. 

Jon Pylypchuk, Spend the Rest of Your Life Mining this Death and it Will Only Bring You Dispair

Near the entrance to the tunnel is part of Fujiko Nakaya’s moody fog sculpture, which follows a similar work by the artist exhibited in the 1976 Sydney Biennale.  (Now for some trivia:) The 1976 work was renamed and installed site-specifically in the sculpture garden at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra – a place that, unlike Cockatoo Island, probably doesn’t need any more fog.

Looking out of the warehouse towards Fujiko Nakaya's fog sculpture (clouds extra)

Pinaree Sanpitak, Anything Can Break, MCA

 As I wrote earlier, the Biennale includes a substantial number of works, and while the island’s scale to an extent relieves the perception of overcrowding, the MCA is not so lucky.  Crowding aside, the MCA’s exhibition is pretty disappointing.  The comparison between the excellent exhibition of the museum’s acquisitions on level 2, and the underwhelming and congested biennale installation on 1 and 3, is pretty indicative.

The Biennale exhibition at the AGNSW is separately titled In Finite Blue Planet, complying with the art world’s current love of separ at ing wo rds (and its rarely for obvious reasons).  Evidently, the exhibition’s focus is on environmental concerns, however, there seems to be far stronger threads relating to craft, labour and work.  Gao Rong’s trompe l'oeil life-sized domestic interior diorama is painstakingly hand embroidered, Hassan Sharif’s installation consists colourful piles (each a separate artwork) of obsessively wrapped found objects, and Nipan Oranniwesna’s fragile City of Ghost is an intricate map formed with scented baby powder (I witness a child write his name in it on the biennale’s second day.  Good luck, invigilators).  Then there are the delicate cut-outs: Yuken Teuya’s Notice-Forest: Six Jewels carved out of branded paper shopping bags, and Jorge’s Macchi’s altered world map.

Hassan Sharif, various works (1985-2007)

The star of the biennale is Cockatoo Island, which has been the case for the last three events.  Then again, perhaps it’s as much to do with the spectacular machinery and nostalgic industrial fetish as the art itself.

...and maybe the Island Bar.

The 2010 Biennale of Sydney: precarious beauty

It’s upon us again: [drum roll…] “The 17^th Biennale of Sydney: The Beauty of Distance, Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age.”  Does it promise to be bigger and better?  No, thank goodness.  However, the Biennale PR team are out with their twitter feeds, Facebook fan pages and other social media platforms still drumming up the hype; and the theme is definitely dramatic enough (‘survival in a precarious age.’).

To be honest, I love large exhibitions.  Until last year, when I was lucky enough to be given a grant to visit the Venice Biennale, I’d really only been to the relatively largish Australian Perspecta (which is unfortunately not running anymore), Asia Pacific Triennial and the Sydney Biennale; however I’ve always been aware of the special art exhibiting conditions created by these major projects.  It’s become obvious to me over the last couple of years, researching site-specific art in Australia’s Public Museums, that the availability of unusual sites even within regular exhibiting spaces (and subsequent funding and media coverage of the included works) is in fact widened during these events.  By ‘unusual sites’, I don’t just mean the highly spruiked Cockatoo Island – I’m also thinking of interventions into the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ entrance vestibule, for instance.  There was no vestibule-responsive work in this year’s Biennale, however, Cockatoo Island was well-populated with both site-specific and site-oblivious works, as well as a few special Biennale sites: Pier 2/3, the Botanic Gardens and the Opera House.

I was lucky enough to be invited to the vernissage (maybe it’s just the Aussie cultural cringe, but I wonder why they can’t just call it a preview?), and took advantage of the low crowds to ferry across to Cockatoo Island.  After the last Biennale [link to 2008 Biennale Catalogue on Amazon], I was eager to see the extent of the site-responsive work.  Two years ago, I wrote on this blog about the way in which the Biennale catalogue boasted of the 'over thirty' site-specific artworks, yet in reality only about seven works had a meaningful relationship with the site.

Again, I was disappointed.  I don’t understand how artists can be given such amazing spaces and then rather than make work in dialogue with the site, they make work that competes with the surrounding space, making the rusted sinks, archaic machinery, painted symbols, drawers, signs and cranes look decidedly more interesting in comparison.  A few works, such as the Mieskuoro Huutajat (Shouting Men’s Choir) video installation were subtly onto it (see left).  Roger Ballen’s eerie photographs also sat well within the crumbling building on the top of the island.  As a testament to the strength of a few of the works from the last Biennale, the spectre of Mike Parr’s installation MIRROR/ARSE still lingered as we passed the (this year unused) ex-Navy building, as did TV Moore’s work in the Dogleg Tunnel.  
 

Roger Ballen, Cockatoo Island

 Part of Aleks Danko's SOME CULTURAL MEDITATIONS, Cockatoo Island

Also on Cockatoo Island, was one of my favourite works from last year’s Venice Biennale, The Feast of Trimalchio by the Russian collective AES+F.  The massive work in projected onto three large screens which surround the viewer.  To a dramatic soundtrack, scenes of the ultimate holiday resort (a small tropical island with a ski resort at its peak), where guests are overly pampered to a creepy degree and stereotypes are threatened.

Serge Spitzer, Molecular (SYDNEY), the guard house, Cockatoo Island

We had a bit of a regressive bounce on the jumping castle, an artwork by Brook Andrew.  It was only later, when I read the artist statement for Jumping Castle War Memorial in the free booklet, that I realised that the meaning of the work was far removed from what I’d imagined jumping up and down on the pattered blow-up.

Cai Guo Qiang’s Inopportune: Stage One, which seems to be the showcase work for this year’s Biennale, wasn’t working (left).  Disappointed, I went next door and took a photo of the performance art next door, but they told me to go away.  Apparently, they were not actors hired to drink coffee, smoke and handle drills for 2 months; rather, the work was still being set up and the ‘actors’ were in fact installers.  This awkward moment was to be repeated throughout the day’s visit: we’d walk into rooms and there’d be a couple of people hanging from the ceiling, sweating, swearing and telling us that the projector wasn’t working but ‘come back tomorrow’. 

The following evening I visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where they were hosting artist talks.  I’m a massive proponent of the gallery’s after hours program, which occurs every Wednesday, and features things like artist talks, films and live music.  I dutifully trotted down to the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes and paid to see some of the most underwhelming art I’ve seen in a long time.  The Biennale art at the AGNSW was not that much more engrossing unfortunately.  I headed to Chinatown instead.
 

My Friday afternoon involved traipsing thought the Botanical Gardens in search of the elusive Fiona Hall, Janet Lawrence and Choi Jeong Hwa works.  Fiona Hall’s Barbarians at the Gate was similar to the Breeding Ground, exhibited in the Port Arthur Project in 2007.  Hall’s usual themes of trade, colonialism and botany are well-suited to the gardens, yet the actual site chosen within the gardens was a little strange.  Painted army figures hung from the tree above a number of architectural beehives, painted with camouflage patterns.  

 Janet Lawrence, WAITING -A Medicinal Garden for Ailing Plants (detail)

Janet Lawrence’s work was equally as detailed, and while the tent structure that encloses the work initially struck me as quite strange and somewhat detracting, it did give the whole work the feel of a temporary pseudo-scientific experiment.  Choi’s giant inflatable lotus seemed to breathe, inflating and deflating every few minutes.  It was sweet but not all that poignant.  Finding the works in the bot gardens is almost as enjoyable as seeing them, as the Sydney botanical gardens are amazing, with views across the harbour and hundreds of bats hanging like small parcels from the trees.

 ....and deflated. Choi Jeon Hwa, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

As the sun went down, I made like a merdog to the opera house, where a second work by Choi is nestled between the ‘sails’ of the building (left).  I lingered until Jennifer Wen Ma’s performance New Adventures of Havoc in Heaven III started on the Opera House steps after sunset.  Shadows were projected onto smoke, an elusive substance which preferred to be bossed around by the wind rather than the twirling dancer distributing the smoke below.  To be honest though, I’m not sure that the performance would be as exciting if we could see the projection most of the time.  Those occasional glimpses gave it meaning.

The best of the Biennale was saved until last.  The MCA’s four floors have been turned over to the Biennale director yet again, and they contain a number of excellent works, including a collection of the Chapman brothers’ cardboard sculptures, subtly titled Shitrospective.  Despite their rawness, the figures created out of the seemingly rough and haphazard shaping and painting of recycled cardboard, are surprisingly animated.  You can’t help but feel for the figures in wheelchairs, eyes bulging; and the cardboard miniature version of their The Chapman Family Collection work was very clever (Hint: walk around the plinths, otherwise you’ll miss the person peeing on a dinosaur’s leg).

I’m withholding final judgement on the Biennale before I see the works at the top of Cockatoo Island and Artspace in July.  However, I have a few issues with the exhibition.  While I enjoyed a number of the individual works in the Biennale, I’ve really struggled to see the thematic link between them all.  Secondly, I believe that, like the previous Biennale, the really loaded sites such as Cockatoo Island, the Botanical Gardens and Pier 2/3 are not being used to their full potential, although maybe that’s not unexpected for someone with an interest in site-specific art.

 Building interior, Cockatoo Island

Site-specificity at the 2008 Sydney Biennale

In the previous two posts, I discussed a couple of notable issues surrounding the 2008 Sydney Biennale – gender equality (or rather inequality) and the curatorial decision to include historical artworks amongst the work of current artists. This post is concerned with site-specificity at the Biennale, and will examine the use of the term ‘site-specific’, the works that worked, as well as the use of Cockatoo Island as a venue in relation to site-specificity.

The free Biennale guide boasts that ‘in another first, the Biennale will exhibit more than 30 site-specific artists’ projects on Cockatoo Island’. Having a particular interest in site-specific art, I could hardly contain myself on the free ferry ride. The Island had a great number of artworks (which in the end, took five hours to visit all of them), and I had neatly marked out my route on the map the night before. First stop was TV Moore’s work in the Dog-leg Tunnel. Escape Carnival was made for the Biennale and is an amazing site-specific work. A friend later told me that she had entered through the other, western, end of the tunnel and had surprisingly different experience, for the work inhabits the entire long, dark and dingy tunnel with sound, with a room near (my) entrance hosting a projected image of a man eternally running through the tunnel.

Other site-specific works included William Kentridge’s I am not me, the horse is not mine, which was supposedly made for the space and features projections on every wall, accompanied by a loud and domineering soundtrack (perhaps to the detriment of Shaun Gladwell’s work downstairs). As the work, like most of the art on Cockatoo Island, is housed in an abandoned warehouse, the boarded windows, stains, and the building’s infrastructure become part of the work.

Mike Parr’s work, MIRROR/ARSE, is housed on the top floor of a run-down two-story building. As you climb the stairs from the entrance, ominous sounds welcome you to what I easily describe as a house of horrors. Many of the small dusty rooms, with wiring exposed, holes in the walls and the odd seagull skeleton in the corner, host videos made throughout Parr’s career. The shrieks, screams, moans and crashes that echo throughout the building come from these often confronting videos, which document performances where Parr sews his mouth shut, holds his finger over a candle flame, beheads chickens, and chops off his (fake) ‘arm’, to name a few. If that isn’t enough to turn the stomach, your sense of smell takes a beating too, courtesy of the bathroom filled with buckets of urine; which, on my second visit had formed a skin on the surface of the liquid. On both occasions, I left the building feeling pretty unwell.

Now, I’ve had a couple of discussions with people regarding the site-specificity of Parr’s work. His use of a single title to describe the entire building indicates that even though the videos have been previously shown as single works, the building as a whole is a new work, whereas others believe that the building is a mini survey show. However, I feel it is important to take into account, too, Parr’s use of the building, the derelict structure, the bird remains, the bathroom, and his thoughtfully placed videos, some of which nestle against urinal walls, or sit behind bar-like structures. The videos have been re-presented in a noxious, repellent space that surrounds the viewer with nauseous stench, spine-chilling sounds, and some videos that I honestly couldn’t stay and watch they were so unnerving. In addition, as I made my way from room to room, the ancient dust crunching under my feet with each step, I found my anxiety levels rising. The trepidation I felt was in part due to the fact that I was fearful of what was in the next room, but also the sheer number of videos and sensual beatings; and even though there were fellow viewers in the building, I also felt strangely alone. The work is experienced in the existing site, and my experience of the artwork, which I've just described to you (my emotions, physical reaction, reading of the videos en masse, and total interpretation of Mirror/Arse), was very much determined by the site.

Another work was Vernon Ah Kee’s Born in this Skin, situated in the old toilets, suitably near Parr’s work. Rows of closely spaced toilet bowls line one side of the room, the graffitied, stall walls ripped away and tied up at the end of the bathroom revealing more homophobic, sexist and racist scrawling. The sign outside the bathroom rather diplomatically warns that ‘this room contains written and pictorial images from the industrial period of Cockatoo Island that may offend[;] these are in the form of historical graffiti.’ The statement makes it sound quite tame. The floor on the other side of the divided room is partially flooded, and like Parr’s work, the room definitely makes your stomach turn with its ancient stench. I don’t know if Ah Kee moved the stalls - the dust was disturbed on the floor surrounding the exposed toilets, so it is likely. In the case of Born in this Skin, Ah Kee’s work relates to the site on a number of levels – firstly by using the actual building as the basis of his artwork; by highlighting the ‘historical graffiti’ as it’s described, we are made aware of the island’s history as both a prison and shipyard, and more generally calls attention to the underlying racism that still exists in Australian society no matter how much John Howard or Kevin Rudd denies it. An indigenous Australian, Vernon Ah Kee’s work frequently critiques contemporary Australian culture, particularly the ‘black/white dichotomy’ as he describes it.

Cockatoo Island is a loaded location, unlike the comparatively neutral white walls of the traditional art gallery. It is a fantastic space, and as I wandered around the island, I imagined the wonderful things I could create if given the opportunity to make work there. The history of the Island, along with the physically challenging buildings and spaces make it a hard location in which to place non-site-specific artworks; and unfortunately, while the programme claims that there are ‘more than 30 site-specific’ works on the Island, I believe that only seven works could be confidently identified as site-specific. The works by Jannis Kounellis, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Micol Assael, Vernon Ah Kee, and the before-mentioned TV Moore, Mike Parr, and William Kentridge responded to the site in either a formal, social, conceptual or contextual sense.

Many of the other thirty artworks were completely lost and overwhelmed by the space - if I were one of these artists I’d be pretty pissed off with the curator. For instance, the space in which Emory Douglas’ work was exhibited, was totally inappropriate for his 1970s activist posters, newspapers and films; the space actually worked against these historical items and as a result the important power of Douglas’ images and concepts was lost.

This raises the question: why was the word site-specific used so prominently in the press releases, and programs? Perhaps it was the curator’s intent that more of these works were to be site-specific – but that doesn’t apply to the significant number of historical works on the Island. The programme would have also been printed after the works were finalised so there was plenty of time to change the introductory page. The more likely answer, unfortunately, is that ‘site-specific’ is a bit of a buzzword in contemporary art, and the term is widely misused. Miwon Kwon, in the introduction to her book on site-specificity writes that the term ‘has been uncritically adopted as another genre category by mainstream art institutions and discourses’. She claims that the term is

conspicuous in a diverse range of catalogue essays, press releases, grant applications, magazine reviews, and artist statements today; it is applied rather indiscriminately to art works, museum exhibitions, public art projects, city arts festivals, architectural installations; and it is embraced as an automatic signifier of “criticality” or “progressivity” by artists, architects, dealers, curators, critics, arts administrators, and funding organizations.

Indeed, it seems that the Biennale organisers have been lured into misusing this word perhaps by the need for 'criticality'. However, I hope in 2010 this will be different - that the Biennale will utilise Cockatoo Island again, this time embracing the significance of the historic site.

A hierarchy-less Biennale?

The curatorial premise ‘Revolutions: forms that turn’ for this year’s Sydney Biennale wasn’t so much of an interest to me as the decision to include historical works amongst new art. The inclusion of works such as Duchamp’s assisted readymade Bicycle Wheel; Manzoni’s Artists Shit; Fischli and Weiss’ photographs of their wacky balanced objects; revolutionary posters and videos by activist Emory Douglas; documentation of John Cage’s 4’3”; and early video works produced in the 60s and 70s by artists such as Valie Export, Jerry Abrams, Dan Graham and Mary Kelly.

The old and the new works are mixed together and so there is no hierarchy placed on the works. To distinguish the historical from the newer works, it is necessary for the viewer to read the date pinned up on the wall (or, of course, the viewer might have prior knowledge).

So why am I so enthusiastic about this curatorial strategy? Well firstly, I believe that this strategy questions the current and ongoing emphasis on originality, and the idea that all art should be a 'proposition' (as conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth called it), which challenges the meaning and boundaries of art. By mixing up the historical and contemporary works, the modern and the postmodern, the various styles and movements, the concept of a linear history is tested. I was surprised by many of the works shown in the Biennale – works that I might have guessed were made very recently were in fact made half a century ago, and vice-versa. Maybe we haven’t made much ‘progress’, maybe those ‘boundaries’ that we’re constantly challenging don’t exist, perhaps 20th and 21st century art doesn’t have to be thought of as having a linear history. And this need not be a negative thing.

How tiring it is when you make a work, a work created in your own head, your own original idea, only to discover that someone made it five, ten, twenty, or even (perhaps a little less likely) a century ago. You’d never seen the work before last week when your friend or colleague showed you an image of this fateful artwork on the web or from a book. Shit. You can’t make the work now, you can’t exhibit it in that gallery that you’ve secured and paid for in four months time, as people might think you’ve copied another’s idea (even though you know that there are distinctive differences between your and that other artist’s work). Will they believe you?

Will we (have we?) run out of ideas? I mean there can’t be an endless supply of ideas, can there?

Going back to the Sydney Biennale…
What the exhibition demonstrates is that there is not necessarily a clear-cut distinctition between modernism and postmodernism (maybe there is no such thing as postmodernism?), that to claim that art has a linear history is flawed and misleading, and that perhaps originality and constantly ‘pushing the boundaries of art’ is not only not all that it’s cut out to be, but it’s also impossible.

Gender Representation at the 2008 Biennale of Sydney

In the previous post, I discussed the gender (in)equality in Hobart art galleries. In this post, I want to draw attention to the quite incredible differences in gender representation at this year’s Biennale. I counted just 38 female artists to the 116 male artists in the Artist Index of the 2008 Biennale of Sydney guide. In fact, as Bec Dean points out in her Column 2 article, 22 per cent of the artists are also dead male artists – a similar number to the number of women, dead or alive.

The director of this year’s Biennale – Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev addresses the issue of gender quotas in her catalogue essay, but argues that it isn’t relevant anymore:

“I have no quota for gender participation; however, being one of the last of the generation of people who emerged when feminism was crossing structuralism and psychoanalysis to produce the body of thought around post-feminism, I am naturally interested in these sorts of questions. I believe that these days, sometimes male artists are post-feminists in their practice… and sometimes female artists are extremely patriarchal in the authoritative way in which they might create a frontal, detached object of contemplation, which is not a feminist endeavour. So I would say that we have gone beyond gender quotas and it more about whether the work is post-feminist or not.”
Christov-Bakargiev, pp.31 2008 Biennale of Sydney Catalogue

I’d like to think we’re beyond gender quotas too, but when there are such discrepancies in the number of female versus male artists, it highlights the fact that perhaps they are necessary. I can’t even begin to imagine the furore that would’ve erupted had a male director curated such as small percentage of women into the biennale – does the fact that a woman has chosen the artists have an effect on the (seemingly) quite acceptance of such inequality? I certainly haven’t read anything other than a paragraph of Bec Dean’s article on the subject.