untitled (oysters and tea cups)

By Patrick Sutczak

It was as if I had happened upon an accident. As if the pressure was too much the door had bowed, buckled and given way, swinging open with violent force spilling the contents from within to flow and settle on the ground resting where it may for my observation and consideration.  Had I missed the eruption, or was this glacial – instant upheaval or gradual shift? Paradoxically, I think this is one and the same. Oysters and tea cups - nature and the civilised, change and adaption.

 

Again, Jonathon Jones dips into his heritage in order to explore how cultural intersections have, and are continuing, to occur in Australian history through ritual feast. This time, he looks at Aboriginal winter feasts of oysters, and the introduction of tea by the British into Aboriginal communities.

untitled (barra)

By Patrick Sutczak

Finding myself in another tunnel and once again finding myself having to stop.

The idea of a tunnel acting as a thoroughfare across Cockatoo Island (I assume to save time) is proving problematic in that very intention. For now, these are gallery spaces, sites of artistic installation, and sites of interventions. I could also say they are sites of reflection. I am the token tourist on Sydney's Gloucester Street who could be seen stopping every five meters to photograph the original terrace housing – or to peer into the excavations beneath the YHA accommodation, and actually enjoy it. There is something about history that captivates me, and certainly the endevours to unearth it, preserve it, and more importantly to learn from it. A captivation shared by many, but not enough. But those structures are the solid things, the remnants still here – the kind of relics that can be cordoned off, dusted down, chipped away at and displayed - things of permanent exhibition. What if history is oral, migratory, or is testament to an assimilationist – how might we engage with that? Biennale artist Jonathon Jones raises his hand…

Swarm (ASX) & The bee library

By Patrick Sutczak

One of the greatest things about an arts event like the Biennale is that as a viewer, works reveal themselves as the venue is explored, quite often when you least expect it. Before me, as I sat on the bench after meandering around on the upper part of Cockatoo Island, the work of Scottish born artist Alec Finlay was sparking my curiosity. His installation dotted around the grassy area in front of me consisting of sound, sculpture, and books (they were above my head), was inviting closer inspection, but I didn’t engage. Not at first.

Dune, 2007-12

By Patrick Sutczak

The Dog-Leg Tunnel carved through the rock of Cockatoo Island’s impressive bulk beckoned me in as I sought a respite from the unusually hot morning sun. Square cut and dimly lit, a backbone of sleepers lined the path ahead while bearing tons upon tons of earth and rock against their aging frames. Progression through the long tunnel sees the light grow even fainter as it fades to black creating a menacing space that evokes a degree of trepidation. However, there is nothing to fear here. What Daan Roosegaarde has created within this subterranean thoroughfare is a sensual installation that provokes as much thought as it does engagement.

Harbour Wave, Second Wave

by Patrick Sutczak

To begin my Biennale experience, I woke to up to what I was to discover later that evening, would become the hottest recorded winter day in Sydney for seventeen years. As I stood on the balcony of the hotel, uncomfortably high above the bustling street below, I sipped on my cup of tea and watched the interweaving ribbons of vehicles exit and enter the city-side of the Harbour Bridge. It was 7 am and it was already 20 degrees. A quick glance toward my hastily pulled-up bed and I realised the pile of warm clothing nestled at the foot of it was now just useless bag-filler for the journey home. If nothing else, this was a reminder that preparation is excellent, but releasing myself of expectation was even better. No finer day to visit Cockatoo Island.

A bit more Biennale: water, water everywhere...

by Stephenie Cahalan

The title of the Biennale collection at the Art Gallery of NSW was ‘In finite blue planet’ inspired by an unimposing little piece of art placed by the entry to the exhibition.

Not much larger than a soccer ball and modestly framed, the image appeared at a distance to be a simple globe. On closer inspection, I realised that it was a planet comprised entirely of the seas, oceans and waterways of the world, with all the landmasses excised to leave only the water.

As Tasmania awaits the arrival of a supertrawler, heralding the advent of factory fishing in Australian waters (a third-world ecological disaster springing to right life here at home), the immense importance of the world’s waters has searing relevance right now.

Nothing Domestic about this...

by Kylie Eastley

In the industrial warehouses on Cockatoo Island white art has replaced the white walls of a contemporary art gallery. Sculptures and objects sit inside the huge grey rusting metal sheds that should dwarf all within. However, the stark whiteness brings a strength and incredible contrast to the surrounds.

Cal Lane's work titled Domestic Turf sits behind the iron bar doors of one such space. The visitor is invited to enter and walk along a path bordered with red sand. What appears to be decorate floor covering is in fact grey sand on red, in an intricate and careful arrangement reminiscent of a traditional Asian rug; maybe even a prayer mat. This sets the scene for this work.

The path leads our eye to a white rectangular cage set in the centre of the room. It is brightly lit and open for people to step inside. It appears almost as a paper cut out, however, the structure is a shipping container; number 207232 0. Only the rear wall remains in tact, the rest has been sliced into and peeled back. What is left is an ornate and beautiful temple-like creation.

There is a spiritual element to this work. Lane has managed to transform a weighty, ugly but highly functional steel container into a delicate and calm structure. He has taken the rawest of materials; sand, steel and created an oasis. One could read so much into this work. Manipulating our environment; holding on to what has meaning and matters.

The shipping container and culturally influenced design on the floor and container could be about the movement of people across the world. It could be playing with the idea that spirituality is created out of the humblest of objects. Or perhaps he is attempting to create a place of worship. Noticably the other half of the warehouse is bare with only scatterings of sand; it sits neglected and unimportant and represents the impermanence of superficial beauty. Is this a commentary on the adoration of the decorative and beautiful, to the expense of what is earthy and real.

Either way, this is an incredibly strong and impressive work that is made more successful through its placement.

The Art Gallery of New South Wales

by Stephenie Cahalan

After the modern, casual and relaxed vibe of the MCA, then the gritty reinvention of Cockatoo Island, day three of our Sydney Biennale binge took us to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It is a classical gallery, complete with stately facade and a charming, uniformed man in the cloakroom. It is orderly, earnest and heavy with the gravitas of an institution groaning under the weight of art of every era and provenance.

Here the Biennale does not take centre stage but shares the space with other visiting and permanent exhibitions. So does it suffer for being crammed in amongst many other outstanding and ferociously famous displays? I don't think so. The Biennale as found here at the AGNSW continues to offer an exciting journey into contemporary art, in so many thoughtful, creative, imaginative and downright clever forms.

Baby powder, embroidery, burnt microscopes, organic matter, rubber thongs, maps, more maps, digital imagery, sound and movement. Oceans, water, trees, migratory paths, ice, cities, river plains and dammed gorges. There is so much going on and I recall no piece of work that I walked away from without feeling a sense of profound respect for the artist.

Everything is going to be alright by Guido van der Werwe

So now that I have described three of the major Biennale venues, I feel like I can go back and revisit the details of the works. Where to begin…

Cockatoo Island, the perfectly dirty gallery

by Stephenie Cahalan

Growing up in Sydney Cockatoo Island was always a no-go zone in the middle of the harbour. Like a big present in the middle of the room that you have to walk around but are never allowed to open. For the twenty-five years I lived in Sydney within eye-sight of Cockatoo Island, I had never set foot on there. It was a ship-building site, a naval base, an industrial zone under remediation, a ferry stop at which guys in greasy work clothes alighted or boarded, and always an exclusion zone.

Not now. Cockatoo island is now an amazing post-industrial gallery space that has captured the layers of living and working history, preserved it and reinvented it. It is a fascinating museum littered with beautiful, industrial objects and relics. It is the perfect venue for a contemporary art festival aiming to juxtapose seemingly disjointed eras and purposes. It was a far cry from the tempered, blank canvas style of venue that is the MCA.

However, there is already so much to look at on Cockatoo Island that an artist must compete with an existing visual landscape.

In a reinvented workshop there is a wall of wooden boxes that used to house nuts and bolts of every measure. A whole wall from ceiling to floor with every box labeled (split pins, half-inch bolts, two inch clouts, hex screws…). It is a beautiful sight.

Cockatoo Island bolt boxes.

From the Museum of Copulatory Organs by Maria Fernanda Cardosa

Within this darkened room lies another exhibition by Maria Fernanda Cardoso, The Museum of Copulatory Organs that is a collection of sculptures of insect genitalia enlarged to an outrageous degree. It sounds a bit repulsive and obscure. But if you didn’t know the detail of the inspiration behind the work you would only look and marvel at the delicacy and detail of the sculptures in wax, blown glass and other media.  Inside finely-crafted glass and wood cases, with accompanying video installation, these representations of the microscopic genitalia of the Tasmanian harvestman (a small beetle-like insect displayed in a corner of the case for scale) made elegant, marble-like, flowing forms.

This is exhibition of work that has begun in a clinical laboratory environment, now on show an industrial site that still has the collected grime of may decades makes for a glorious clash. The gallery is dirty, yet perfect.

We got blown off the island and our visit was cut cruelly short. 120 km per hour winds whipped up and with no such thing as a lee side of the island for shelter we made a bolt for the free ferry back to town. As it turned out, the top part of the island was closed due to the wind which was shame; when I studied the map of the island on the way home I realised I had barely seen a thing.

It is a treasure trove there, worth as many visits as you can squeeze into a Biennale feast. Having had a nibble at the edges of that festival venue I beat a retreat to the ferry bouncing on the Sydney Harbour whitecaps, wishing I had made it to the main course.

The Living and the Dead

by Kylie Eastley

Arin Rungjang from Bangkok worked with Rwandan potters and orphans to create the work titled The Living are Few but the Dead are Many, 2012.

Six television screens are installed in a corner of a white room. Each play a different documentary or story of an orphan in Rwanda. With each screen is a headset and depending which one you choose, you may hear traditional singing, music, stories of trauma or other sounds. Opposite the screens, on the other side of an inconvenient post, are a collection of handmade terracotta pots, arranged in what seems like no particular order. Coloured paper flowers are positioned in the pots.

There is no getting around the fact that this space feels very stark. Not welcoming or warm. Many visitors to the space exit quickly, in a rather dismissive manner. It's a shame really. As it is not until you place the headsets on, especially those that emit the beautiful Rwandan music, that there is any cohesion with this work. The songs and sounds seem to better prepare us for the tragedy and trauma of the stories that we read on screen. Without this, the viewer is a little at sea. I wonder if people move on quickly because we have become so desensitised to tragedy that we glaze over such stories. Changing the TV station before we see the starving African children. I don't know. But visitors pass quickly through this room without engaging with the experience. It just doesn't seem to do justice to the content. Is this intentional? Is there a message that the artist is trying to send us?

Even with the sound element, there is a disconnect with this work and I found myself getting really quite angry about it and more importantly the way it has been curated. The pots seem to be thrown together in a corner of the room, sitting on a collection of disparate shelves that give no reverence or importance to the pieces. Is this intentional? If it is it is certainly not clear to the viewer.

The nature of artists working with communities, particularly disadvantaged communities can be complex. And work produced through such collaboration can challenge as it both invites us to view the work as an art installation but also to consider the narratives that influence it. The reality is that we do not see the months and sometimes years of engagement between the artist and community, we just see the physical outcome.

Depending on the intention of the artist there are obvious curatorial decisions that could have helped to connect the visitor to the work. But again, this comes down to the intention of the artist. My feeling is that the work hasn't been fully realised and like the artist statement needs clearer articulation.

The Living are Few but the Dead are Many, 2012 is part of the Sydney Biennale and is housed at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

A Sense of South Africa

by Kylie Eastley

Nicholas Hlobo's two pieces at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Inkwili and Tyaphaka, 2011 are quite exquisite. They connect to an earthiness that longs for the simplicity that making provides. He works with paper, stitching hand dyed pieces together with ribbon, creating a patterning of coloured tracks that link the undulating pieces together to create a topography; a country, a place.

Detail of Inkwili by
Nicholas Hlobo

There is a nostalgia in this tea stained mapping. The stitching reminds me of the baskets my grandmother made. Hole punched recycled christmas cards sewed together to make something decorative and functional. It was also something that contained stories and narrative just like Hlobo's work.

Rich, warm colours, rivers and ridges are all visible in a piece that conveys so much. We can feel his story, his country - South Africa.

The room of many colours

If you walk away from the ferries, up the big front steps of the MCA and turn left, you will find yourself in an airy gallery with a feast of colour.

Tacked onto two walls are hundreds of spools of cotton, large ones like those on an industrial over-locker. Some tail end of threads trail into the air and flutter under the air-con breeze, but most extended out and away from the wall to stay fixed to garments piled on a table. There you can see everything from delicate crochets shawls to leather miniskirts and teddy bears.

This is the Mending Project by Lee Mingwei (Korea) in which visitors bring their clothes with tears, runs and holes and leave them to be mended. They will live in a pile on a trestle table until the end of the festival when owners  are notified by email to collect their items.

           

The installation has been staffed over the months of the Biennale by ten stitchers – mostly art and design students – who, true to the Lee Mingwei’s philosophy of celebrating the repair rather than hiding it as would a tailor, make their mendings more than just visible, but a feature of the garment.

Three large canvases by David Aspden hang on adjacent walls. Still feeling the warmth of the Mending Project led me to take in these huge oil paintings of red and yellow hues, throwing light and bright colour out into the room. Reminiscent of works by John Olsen it conjured up notions of deserts, horizons and blissful isolation.

It was a shock then to read the title of one piece: Mururoa. Painted in 1973, seven years after the first French nuclear test on the Pacific atoll, the reds and amber colours to me became bloodied. The splashes of blue became obscured, poisoned glimpses of a once-pristine ocean.

Knowing the subject of the work completely changed my attitude towards it. The happy room of many colours momentarily took on a darker feeling.

Not for long though.The prevailing ambiance was definitely light.

We would like to acknowledge and thank the Regional Art Fund for assisting us to get a team of Tasmanian writers to the Sydney Biennale. All the WriteResponse contributors volunteer enormous amounts of time, energy and resources towards reviewing of the arts. This type of funding assists hugely to what we all love to do; experience art of all kinds and write about it. Thanks RAF.

Here we go

by Stephenie Cahalan

The 18^th Biennale of Sydney began on June 27 and runs up to September 16. It occupies five different substantial venues. This means the people of Sydney have had 81 days to scrutinise what we are about to cover in about four. 

I feel like I am going speed dating with art.

We arrived, dumped our bags in our little Rocks pub at 3.30 this afternoon and by 4.00 we were excitedly drumming our fingers on the information counter at the Museum of Contemporary Art at Circular Quay.

Anything Can Break 2011 by Pinaree Sanpitak,
Thailand

And what a reception we got. From the girl on the front desk, to the beautiful lady in the gift shop searching menus on Cockatoo Island for us at one minute to closing time, we were showered with good jou-jou. A venue open to 9 pm (just like late-night shopping – only on a Thursday), gallery attendants explaining the MCA app, and offering samples to fondle of an installation that we are clearly dying to touch in spite of the stern warnings against doing so.

Really, as a starting point for a large and slightly intimidating event, my first impression of the Biennale is of an open, accessible and welcoming experience.

And that’s before I have even got to the artworks. We’re off to a good start.

Three Girls and a Biennale

by Kylie Eastley

Last night I felt the first glimpse of excitement at the prospect of hitting Sydney to see my first Biennale. Today I left a grey rainy Hobart and arrived to a warm, shiny and sunny city that seemed to buzz with energy. Or perhaps that was just me.

It was not only me experiencing the euphoria. I am joined by fellow writers Steph Cahalan and Lucy Wilson; all of us leaving our family and work commitments behind to throw ourselves on the Biennale sword. To see, experience and try to share a little of this with you.

Steph and Lucy

It was a chore to find accommodation as the Sydney to Surf is on Sunday and hotels are pretty well booked out. Many hours on the internet and sending emails had been fruitless, until Steph finally found The Australian Hotel in The Rocks. It would be remiss of me not to write about this place, because it is bloody brilliant. It is an old style pub, and as I write at around 10pm, there is a lot of noise coming from the crowd below. But it is really close to everything; has the most ornate breakfast room, lounge area and even an outside terrace with a view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Not bad hey?

The Breakfast Room

Once settled, and having thrown off the Tasmanian attire for more suitable Sydney wear, we made our way to the Museum of Contemporary Art. This really was an opportunity to have a first glimpse at what was on offer. The MCA has provided a range of opportunities for visitors to not only view the art works but interact through workshops, seminars and tours. In the few hours we wandered the galleries the staff were incredibly obliging and informative about artists, exhibitions and other opportunities. There seems to be a strong desire to involve and include the public in this Biennale. Although, it has only been a few hours and there is still so much to see.

Over the coming days we will be posting numerous pieces about different works, but also about how we respond individually. It's going to be a wild and challenging ride at times, and already the discussion is hotting up.