In The Finan­cial Times, 24 March 2018: Syd­ney har­bours a trea­sury of art’

Jane Ure-Smith

[Excerpt] The 21st Syd­ney Bien­nale […] brings togeth­er 70 artists from 35 coun­tries in sev­en venues, includ­ing the once-con­tro­ver­sial Syd­ney Opera House, whose open­ing in 1973 coin­cid­ed with that of the first bien­nale. Twen­ty months in the mak­ing, this year’s exhi­bi­tion, enti­tled Super­po­si­tion: Equi­lib­ri­um & Engage­ment, is direct­ed by Mami Katao­ka, chief cura­tor of Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum […]

Oth­er sound works are thrilling too, most notably those by Oliv­er Beer, who believes that every archi­tec­tur­al space has its own notes, which can be brought to life by the unam­pli­fied human voice. At the Opera House, small groups can expe­ri­ence his remark­able Com­po­si­tion for Tun­ing an Archi­tec­tur­al Space”, in which four singers, their faces turned to the wall, release the music of an unre­mark­able, con­crete stair­well, and send shud­ders down your spine.

The per­for­mance is com­ple­ment­ed by a film at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGN­SW) in which Beer has per­suad­ed two male and two female pro­fes­sion­al singers to explore the archi­tec­ture” of each other’s faces. Locked mouth-to-mouth in a big onscreen close-up, they sing through each other’s noses. Those view­ers who stum­ble in unawares will puz­zle over what must seem a strange erot­ic encounter.

Beer wove his singers’ ear­li­est musi­cal mem­o­ries into his stair­case suite” and a sim­i­lar notion under­lies Aki­ra Takayama’s Our Songs” project at 4A Cen­tre for Con­tem­po­rary Asian Art. In a vari­ant on kabu­ki the­atre, he invit­ed Syd­ney res­i­dents to per­form a song or poem passed down through their fam­i­ly in the city’s (emp­ty) town hall, while Hikaru Fujii filmed them. In the frag­ment I watched, peo­ple sang in Russ­ian, Mex­i­can, Pol­ish and Span­ish: as Aus­tralia embraces the past of its indige­nous cit­i­zens and feels increas­ing­ly at home as an Asia-Pacif­ic nation, here were some unex­pect­ed exot­ic pedi­grees to add to the social richness.

… The Bien­nale of Syd­ney runs to June 11, biennaleofsydney.art Pic­tured: Oliv­er Beer, Com­po­si­tion for Mouths (Songs My Moth­er Taught Me), 2018 [still].
Filter

STIEG PERS­SON, EMI­LY FLOYD: LIV­ING TOGETHER

Bendi­go Art Gallery presents an instal­la­tion of select­ed con­tem­po­rary works from the col­lec­tion will […]

Read More

SHAUN GLAD­WELL, JAN NEL­SON & VIVI­ENNE SHARK LEWITT: MEL­BOURNE NOW

The sec­ond edi­tion of Mel­bourne Now will be pre­sent­ed at The Ian Pot­ter Centre […]

Read More

EMI­LY FLOYD: KNOWL­EDGE POWER

Shang­hai Library East by Schmidt Ham­mer Lassen Archi­tects has opened, one of the largest […]

Read More

EMI­LY FLOYD: BUT­TER­FLY KITES

Shang­hai Library East by Schmidt Ham­mer Lassen Archi­tects has opened, one of the largest […]

Read More

JOHN NIXON: MONOCHROME/PIANO 1992

Pre­sent­ed in the Fitzroy Town Hall by Con­nors Con­nors, John Nixon’s Monochrome/​Piano 1992 is […]

Read More

DANIEL CROOKS: BOUND­ARY CONDITIONS

Bound­ary Con­di­tions is an ambi­tious video work that seam­less­ly weaves togeth­er an alter­nate world […]

Read More

ROSE NOLAN: HAL­LAM STATION

YOU/ME/US/HERE/NOW is an open, pos­i­tive and bold text-based propo­si­tion for peo­ple to con­sid­er as […]

Read More

ANGEL­I­CA MESI­TI: STILL LIFE

In Still Life, imag­i­na­tion and empir­i­cal obser­va­tion unite in con­tem­pla­tion of life’s inter­con­nect­ed­ness. Exquisite […]

Read More

AMRI­TA HEPI: THE ANGUIL­LA PURSUIT

Agency Projects and Com­pos­ite: Mov­ing Image Agency & Media Bank have part­nered to present an […]

Read More

CAL­LUM MOR­TON: CITY LIGHTS

Cal­lum Mor­ton’s newest pub­lic art­work,​‘City Lights’, launch­es on the back façade of the […]

Read More

LAU­REN BRIN­CAT: TUT­TI PRESTO FFF

Oscil­lat­ing between sound, per­for­mance and chore­og­ra­phy, Lau­ren Brincat’s live sculp­ture, Tut­ti Presto FFF, reinterprets […]

Read More

WAR­WICK THORN­TON: EVER PRESENT: First Peo­ples Art of Australia

War­wick Thorn­ton has been includ­ed in Ever Present: First Peo­ples Art of Aus­tralia: an […]

Read More

JAN NEL­SON: LIS­TEN­ING TO MUSIC PLAYED BACKWARDS

Lis­ten­ing to Music Played Back­wards: Recent Acqui­si­tions cel­e­brates works in the Hei­de col­lec­tion acquired […]

Read More

DANIEL CROOKS: STRUC­TURED LIGHT

Daniel Crooks has been com­mis­sioned to illu­mi­nate the Nation­al Gallery’s façade for the 202 […]

Read More

SHAUN GLAD­WELL: NEW AUS­TRALIAN PRINTMAKING

New Aus­tralian Print­mak­ing launch­es ground­break­ing new work cre­at­ed by Shaun Glad­well, Megan Cope, Tim […]

Read More

WAR­WICK THORN­TON: METH KEL­LYPHO­TO 2022

PHO­TO 2022 and Anna Schwartz Gallery will present Meth Kel­ly by War­wick Thorn­ton for […]

Read More

ROSE NOLAN: PAR­LOUR GAMESANNA SCHWARTZ GALLERY

Rose Nolan Big Words (Not Mine) – Tran­scend the pover­ty of par­tial vision (floor […]

Read More

Lau­ren Brin­cat: Con­ver­sa­tions on Shad­ow Architecture’

Lau­ren Brin­cat is includ­ed in Con­ver­sa­tions on Shad­ow Archi­tec­ture, a project curat­ed by Ineke Dane […]

Read More

Shaun Glad­well: 2022 Ade­laide Bien­ni­al of Aus­tralian Art: Free/​State

Shaun Glad­well has been select­ed along with 25 lead­ing Aus­tralian con­tem­po­rary artists to participate […]

Read More

Cal­lum Mor­ton & Mar­co Fusina­to: All That Was Sol­id Melts’ at Auck­land Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

All That Was Sol­id Melts takes us on a jour­ney from iso­la­tion through the multiple […]

Read More

Daniel Von Sturmer: Time in Mate­r­i­al (RGB)’ at The Cen­tre for Pro­jec­tion Art, Colling­wood Yards

Daniel Von Sturmer’s sin­gle chan­nel video work Time in Mate­r­i­al (RGB), 2019 is presented […]

Read More

Angel­i­ca Mesi­ti: Choose Hap­pi­ness’ Mur­ray Art Muse­um Albury

Hap­pi­ness is by its very nature ephemer­al. Some­times it is a state that we might […]

Read More

GABRIEL­LA MANGANO & SIL­VANA MANGANO: The Oth­er Por­trait, curat­ed by Julie Rrap and Cher­ine Fahd at SCA Gallery

The Oth­er Por­trait brings togeth­er work by artists who have an estab­lished rela­tion­ship to […]

Read More

David Noo­nan: Stage­craft’ cat­a­logue wins MAP­DA 2021 award for Best Small Exhi­bi­tion Catalogue

David Noo­nan: Stage­craft, designed by Ben Cox and pub­lished on the occa­sion of the […]

Read More