The Biennale of Sydney is turning out to be quite lacklustre. My second trip was to Artspace at Woolloomooloo and the Art Gallery of NSW, and in both venues I was tremendously underwhelmed. Artspace offered little more than a disproportionately large amount of long, esoteric, uninspired video works that, let’s face it, no-one is going to sit around for hours on end to watch. One of only two points of interest was situated opposite the entrance, where visitors are confronted by a visually stunning and large scale photo montage by Lebanese artist Lara Baladi. But upon closer inspection, even this struggled to go any deeper than simple collage and pastiche. The other point of interest is the makeshift ‘bar’ setting that is an experimental performance space co-curated by Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe group. One of the main events is the weekly PechaKucha nights where people gather to present thoughts, ideas and good old conversation. It is an interesting project which harnesses the principles of Nicholas Bourriaud’s theory of Relational Aesthetics which posits that the art work only exists with the cooperation and participation of viewers.
A short drive away, the AGNSW hosts a modest display of works by seven Asian artists, all neatly placed in the entrance hall. Again, while the other works weren’t so bad, only two works here managed to really grab my attention. The first was Rabiq Shaw’s ‘The mild-eyed melancholy of the lotus eaters III’, a grand and grandiosely-decorated painting of grotesque anthropomorphic creatures portrayed with stunning vibrancy and flashy metallics. The biennale’s guide writes that, “Despite its deeply historical visual allusions, Shaw’s beautiful treatment of transmogrification in erotic desire can be read as a contemporary allegory of human greed and lust.” While I did not quite pick all this up from one viewing, I still found the violent images, arranged in such stunning fashion, to be visually mesmerising and surreal. On the other hand, Yamaguchi Akira’s sombre, monochromatic cityscapes, painted in traditional Japanese style presents a seamless amalgamation of the duality between East and West in many modern Asian cities. While lacking the brilliant colours and bold imagery of Shaw’s ‘Lotus eaters’ Akira’s paintings communicate just as clearly the intersection between tradition and urbanity with understated style.
Despite these rare gems, disappointment was, once again, the overwhelming result of another visit to the biennale. Predominately a result of vague artwork selections and too many video works. My last stop is Cockatoo Island, apparently the pièce de résistance of the biennale. Hopefully it can salvage my once high hopes for the event. [Images from http://media.biennaleofsydney.com.au/ and http://theartlife.com.au/]
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