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

Olafur Eliasson and tiny sculptures

I have an obsession with maquettes.

At the recent Olefur Eliasson exhibition at the MCA in Sydney, despite all his wonderful finished works, the real lure for me lay in one of the side rooms: the maquettes of imagined or eventually realised works.  Yes, the copper wire was messily soldered, the forms were perhaps unresolved, yet these tiny sculptures held something (other than potential) that really intrigued and excited me.

There’s something very special also about tiny sculptures.  They’re not on display currently, but the Art Gallery of New South Wales used to have an almost permanent exhibition of tiny Robert Klippel sculptures just next to the (now extended) café.  While I live in Hobart now, I grew up in Sydney and used to gravitate towards these strange forms whenever my parents took me to the gallery.  Maybe it was their minuteness, perhaps the fact that they kinda looked like other things (bicycles, swings, see-saws…), the forms had some sort of hold over me.  Alas, in the last few years, the Klippel sculptures have been removed, unfortunately coinciding with my ability to articulate exactly what I like about certain artworks.  If only I could see them one more time in my adulthood…