Sydney Biennale Review

The 2004 Sydney Biennale is a fascinating exhibition showcasing some of the latest international contemporary art. Held at several venues around Sydney city it showed work from many artists from many different countries. Extraordinary is the variety of mediums and techniques used, with the artworks made from everything from a crushed car to doors to the inside of mattresses to pipes and many other ideas. The venues themselves form a nice walk to go on, I visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, then to Artspace, then strolling through the venues at the Botanic Gardens, then visiting the car in front of the opera house, and finally walking around Circular Quay on a lovely day to the Museum of Contemporary Art. While the theme of the Biennale is 'On Reason and Emotion', the topic is very broad and what is most evident is the pluralism of the different artists, fitting with the post-modernist tradition where almost anything can be considered art. Incidentally, going on a day when many school groups and younger children seemed to be going through the galleries, I saw many people interested in the art which often invited the viewer to be part of. It seems that the latest modern art has not completely lost its touch with the viewing public, as has often been suggested.
The first works seen in the Biennale at the AGNSW are in unusual positions for different reasons. The first work to view as part of the Biennale at the AGNSW is the one that most people miss, as it is very subtly located near the entrance. Immediately to either side of the door of the gallery are two enormous dark grey sculptures made from old mattresses, part of Carolyn Eskdale's installation. They stretch to the ceiling, and are part of her intention to quiet down the gallery because of the noise inside. Also just in front of the door she has made a fabric divider between two columns, and placed similar fabric in front of the columns, though these are in front of a stiff material, apparently perspex. This creates the illusion that the divider is rigid between the columns, though in fact it is not, as it moves gently. Like this work which goes against audience expectations of the first work seen in an art exhibition, is the first work visible after coming down the stairs to the Biennale exhibition on the lower ground floor. Immediately opposite the stairs are the large words "Turn off", highly unusual words to see at the start of the exhibition, which can confuse the viewer into wondering if it is part of the modern art show or merely a direction sign. As a matter of fact it is the work by Norweigan artist Matias Faldbrakken, who has also painted the symbol on a windows computer to turn off the computer, the red square with white circle and line inside it. In this way the artist has got the viewer to look at something which they probably already know is the symbol for turning off, but have not consciously thought about it as such. There are many similar symbols and signs which are seen everyday which people do not think about until they are displayed such as this, on massive scale in the art gallery.
Some of the contemporary artworks on display in the biennale used fairly traditional techniques such as drawing and painting. The most traditional was Carolyn Eskdale's line drawings. These were a series of about seven drawings on the wall in the AGNSW where she had used an extremely fine nib with ink and covered the paper with curved lines. The lines are so small that even from a couple of metres away it is difficult to tell they are drawings, looking instead like fabric or textiles. One of the drawings looks very like a fingerprint, and the others look similar with different curves and shapes involved. She drew them on hot-pressed paper, a type of paper with a very smooth finish, which absorbs much of the ink enabling her to get such a fine line. Also using fairly traditional painting methods is the Australian Aboriginal Artist Elizabeth Nyumi Nungurrayi, whose paintings at the Museum of Contemporary Art are similar to the paintings of the Aboriginal art movement at Papunya, although they are less formal and involve more mixing of colours and shapes. The Finnish born artist, Mari Sunna, also uses painting of fields of colour and shapes which can be seen as organic in her paintings at the MOCA. New Zealand artist Michael Harrison also uses paintings in his work, such as Opportunity, which has a man wearing a mask like shape, which almost looks like a skeleton from a distance, his work is also at the MOCA.
The Portugese artist Helena Almeida has three large series of photographs in a very large room at the AGNSW. The room is very large and bare, allowing viewers to stand at considerable distance from her work and see the whole thing. One of them consists of a series of nine larger than life size photographs, which is like an animation sequence. In the first of the photographs, she appears small in the background in a dark black and white photo, coming slowly towards the viewer in the next ones, before she goes back into the background by the end one. The middle photograph is where the eye focuses most attention as it is where she shows the viewer that her hand has some red paint on it, which contrasts greatly with the black and white background. In the photos before and after this one she moved her hand up but the paint is not visible. It is as though she quickly confronts the viewer to show she has been wounded or hurt, possibly as red can be associated with blood or with wounds, before quickly retreating to where she was before. On the opposite wall is a series in a similar vein, where in the first picture a brush is shown painting a speck of blue on a paper, then she picks the blue paint off the paper, slowly bringing it closer to her. The paint disappears in the second last one as though she has eaten it, and in the last one a blue tear can be seen coming from her eye in profile, having absorbed it the paint now is secreted from her. In these photographs she has used her own body as a major part of the imagery, as she described once "I am the canvas" (Carlos 2004: 6) On the wall in between them is a series photographs taken of her posing lying down in black clothing against a white wall in poses reminiscent of the positive and negative spaces of Henry Moore's sculptures, where in some of them she teases the viewer with just a foot or a hand to show, while the rest of her shape is in black. The forms of the body are simple and very eloquent and lovely to look upon in this installation, and also benefit from the large amount of architectural space given to the work so that they can be seen from a distance.
Many other artists use photographic works in the Biennale. Frank Thiel's work in the AGNSW uses actual photos from building sites in Berlin which have not been retouched. He is interested in the architecture of this city because it has gone through so many changes in the 20th century, from the modernist art and dada, to national socialism, to the bombing, reconstruction, the wall and the tearing down of the wall. His photographs are of scaffolding and windows of intricate complexity. One of the photos shows scaffolding which looks like pipes, and it is not clear whether this is a view from above or from below. Also interesting is a photograph of scaffolding in box shapes which is incredibly complicated and intricate, while parts of it are different colours such as green, blue and red, that adds to the beauty of the whole scene. Another of his photographs shows windows in Berlin, with a colour scheme for three windows placed in front of it, as renovators must display a new scheme in front of the windows in Berlin before they can change it. At the MOCA, many of the artists display photographic work, such as the two large photographic displays at the beginning of the exhibition. The viewer is immediately faced with six of the works of Australian Derek Kreckler's White Goods series, which shows some photos outdoors with people gathered near or around an white goods object such as a fridge, which is strangely placed in an outdoor setting. It seems that the works could work together as part of a strange story, yet they also work equally well by themselves. On another wall of this room is a series of one hundred or so photographs by Jari Silomaki from Finland, stretching quite high so the top ones can only vaguely be made out. These are photographs that at first appear to be to do with changes in weather, as gathered from the title, My Weather Diary. On closer inspection, writing at the bottom of each photograph is revealed, which is to do with historical events such as the day of a large world protest against the Iraq war. It is very formally arranged, with all the photos fitting into a large square, the colours and the light is very different in different photos, showing very different weather conditions. Because the events written on the photos bear little relation to the images, it possibly leaves a feeling of confusion because what at first seems a very formal arrangement later seems randomly arranged, and it is not determinable where to start reading the writing as the top left photos are too high to see. On the next level in the MOCA Annetta Kapon with her Untitled Cameras shows two single lens reflex cameras inexplicably joined at the lens. This is interesting at first glance to wonder how she has managed to join the cameras together, and then later it creates a notion of looking inward, or perhaps looking at oneself in the mirror, that when taking a photograph you could possibly be at the same time the subject for someone else's photograph. The series of photomontages by the Russian AES+F group of photo collages Action Half Life in the MOCA of young children in white clothing holding modern weapons in the Sinai Desert is not nearly as interesting as the same groups work on the same theme using children in New York appearing in one of the chained books about themselves that appears in the installation work in Heimo Zobernig's Untitled (Info Lounge) in the Biennale work in Artspace. The AES+F describe their work as having children as the leaders, "Our heroes are teenagers, emerging from the most 'heroic' of life's phases." (Carlos 2004: 11) while they more effectively communicate this message in the more realistic setting in New York, rather than the digitally enhanced photographs in the desert.
Several of the artists use strong political messages in their work. The Mexican artist Minerva Cuevas linked the culling of kangaroos with the manufacturing of sneakers by placing a florescent adidas symbol above a kangaroo skeleton. Along with the painted shoe in the background with the word 'Predator' it creates a powerful image of life being sacrificed because of a company's greed. An even stronger emotive work is that of Aboriginal artist Gordon Hookey with his Paranoia Annoy Ya with a pyramid showing George Bush at the top, followed by lawyers, white collar workers, then army and police at the bottom; the people are seen comically as painted bowling pins in an installation, and on the wall at the back much more hardhitting, showing aborigines being crushed by the weight of the white pyramid. Together with quite well painted images and small installations of bombs, aboriginal and australian flags and paper 'weapons' in a crowded space, this work really communicates a powerful message of white oppression.
Video has been used extensively in the Biennale exhibitions, especially at the MOCA. At the AGNSW the only works to use video are the australian artist Daniel Von Sturmer's series of DVD projectors onto five white screens on a circular table, each one showing different objects in his studio being experimented on, and also a video complimenting the five circular objects made from blonde hair by japanese artist Emiko Kasahara which show the night at the gallery when models with blonde hair or wigs made different poses on the circular hair 'mats', as directed by the artist. At Artspace a video by Singapore's Lim Tzay Chuen plays showing a contest that was held earlier in the festival where people had to gather as many first pages from the museum's guidebook to win. At the MOCA there are extensive use of video in exhibitions, with still footage of an artists studio, a film showing animation, and some clips almost approaching short films or movies in their complex nature, such as Susan Norrie's Enola which shows architectural monuments and an airport with a soundtrack that includes "It's a small world" among other well known tunes. While some of the videos such as the ones which show a slowly changing photo can be dimly lit and dull, some of them such as the clip of footage of the streets of liverpool's docks can be quite fascinating. Others are disturbing, such as the room with two screens playing films at each end, on the one end Joan of Ark silently plays, while at the other mental patients from Rozelle Hospital in Sydney talk about their lives, called La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc (Rozelle Hospital) by Venezuelan born Javier Tellez.
Many of the artists in the biennale use installation art and a variety of techniques to create wonderful works of art. The Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen's two huge yet graceful four engined planes made from old clothes hang from the ceiling of the AGNSW, while her wonderful models of cities inside travel briefcases are nearby. Models of Guangzhou, Lisbon, Paris, San Francisco, Wellington and Sydney sit inside the briefcases, made from fabric from materials she gathered in the cities and sent back to China for production. They are well made and it is fun to notice the recognisable buildings such as the Eiffel Tower or the Sydney Opera House. Close by her work is the long corridor painted by Daniel Malone in Namatjira colours that leads to an outhouse where a video plays showing the construction of the outhouse at very fast speed. In the AGNSW viewers are invited to be part of the work of art by taking it home with them in the two large stacks of posters "No Worries" and "Sorry" of simple black print on a white background, words which the Brazilian maker said they heard most often in their short stay in Australia. Also inviting viewer participation are the three doors in Pat Brassington's In my father's house which are closed yet there are light boxes behind making them look very much like they lead somewhere. Upon opening, the viewer is as someone peeping through the door, for there is not anything actually to say that the doors should be opened, and the collages inside reflect this voyeur theme.
Some of the sculptures also invite viewer participation, yet in some cases blend in with the landscape so the unknowing viewer may not realise they are works of modern art after all. One of the works in the show is a sculpture carried by a different person each day between the two main galleries on whichever route they choose. Some of the exhibits at the Botanical Gardens such as Jimmie Durham's red pipe in the creek bed, Pravdoliub Ivanov's coloured water pots and Luisa Cunha's headphones on an ordinary park bench would not seem to the viewer as artworks if not for the sign displayed near them. MP & MP Rosado's two figures sitting in the fenced off tree simarly fade into the background, though the beautiful gardens are a wonderful setting for the sculpture. One work outside the main exhibition is Luisa Cunha's Hello, installed at the toilets on the top level of the MOCA, speakers which say things like "hello are you there"! Directly in front of the Sydney Opera House is probably the most visible of all the works, Jimmie Durham's crushed Still Life with Stone and Car, a rock painted with a face that had been lowered onto a Ford Festiva. It must surely create some suprise to visiting tourists who have not heard about the Biennale to see the destroyed car in front of one of Australia's most well known landmarks. Like most of the work on display it loosely relates to the all encompassing theme, but is better to look on it on an individual basis, for as Durham said about his work; "This is just art" (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/05/ 1086377186080.html)
The artists in the 2004 Sydney Biennale used a wide variety of materials and techniques to present an exhibition of work which relates to the theme of On Reason and Emotion. The range of media used is broad, with drawing, painting, video, sound, animation, audio, photography and sculptures all forming part of the exhibition. Typically postmodernist, the artists have many emotions to express and many ways of doing so in their work. While many of the sculptures are subtle, some artists use powerful political messages in their work. The different venues themselves have a different range of work, with the MOCA focusing on video and photographic work and installations, with less emphasis on video and slightly more traditional work hung in the AGNSW. Overall, the wonderful and fascinating exhibition showcases a broad cross section of the development in worldwide contemporary art.


Bibliography

Carlos, Isabel (2004) Free Exhibition Guide On Reason and Emotion, Biennale of Sydney Ltd
AAP (2004) Mangled masterpiece
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/05/1086377186080.html
Biennale of Sydney 2004
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Lenny Ann Low (4/6/2004) Free range vision
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'Redlauren' (2004) Sydney Biennale 2004: June 4 - August 15
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State of the Arts (2004) 3 Artists represent New Zealand at 30th Biennale of Sydney
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