“Ladies and gentlemen, brace for impact – contemporary art approaching! It’s Biennale time and Sydney is again facing an onslaught of cryptic visions and avant-garde posturing, of modern art both brilliant and banal.
“For the uninitiated, those who have never done a fine arts degree and wouldn’t know Jeff Koons from Jarryd Hayne, the Biennale is always a cause for minor consternation. After all, with their immersive installations and post-punk neo-Brechtian operas, these Biennale folks have a lot of big intellectual balls in the air and this year is no different.
“Running from Wednesday to August 1, the 17th Sydney Biennale features 166 artists from 36 countries in venues as varied as the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Royal Botanic Gardens and Cockatoo Island. Taking as its theme ”The Beauty of Distance: Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age”, the works include mounted prints, live performances, video works and giant collages. There are camouflaged beehives, toy grenades and, yes, even a few paintings.
“As with most creative journeys, a little suspended disbelief goes a long way. But what are we to make of Brook Andrew’s Jumping Castle War Memorial, a children’s bouncy castle whose plastic turrets contain skulls that represent, as Andrews puts it, “those often forgotten peoples who were the victims of genocide worldwide”?
Read More: Everything you always wanted to know about contemporary art…(but were terrified to ask)
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