Biennale of Sydney Recommendations

By Ben Stephens.

The opening weekend of the 20^th Biennale of Sydney kicked off March 18 and unleashed all the arty wonders we’d been waiting for. The thing with talking up the good bits of an upcoming art festival is that until the works are actually live, you’re kind of guessing what will be good. Although after the opening of something, the Biennale for instance, we can look back at what we know was epic and you can add them to your list of must-sees. So that’s what we’re doing…

Bo Christian Larsson

Camperdown Cemetery was originally opened in 1848 and after almost a 100 year innings of being the main cemetery from Sydney, the graveyard was closed with a score of over 18,000 burials. Today, 2000 tombstones remain and over the course of the Biennale Bo Larsson will present the ever changing Fade Away, Fade Away, Fade Away by dressing each tombstone in a custom made white cover, removing all names and hierarchy from the cemetery. It’s eerie, but totally worth checking it out.

Korakrit Arunanondchai

This was always going to be a stand out. Arunanondchai is showing off his creative flair with boy child. This piece is the epilogue from his 2015 project Painting with history in a room filled with people with funny names 3. Using his mad audio/visual skills, Arunanondchai creates a pop cultured piece using the themes of self identity, cultural impacts and personal history. boy child is being shown on Cockatoo island in a unique space that uses acid wash denim and a large runway vibe. Mad contemporary vibes.

Richard Bell

A moving piece, Embassy, has recreated the worlds longest protest of the Aboriginal tent embassy on the forecourt of the Museum of Contemporary Arts. Bringing to conversation the issues of indigenous Australians like housing, health and land rights. The piece will be showing all the way through the Biennale.

Lee Mingwei

Mr Mingwei has recreated with sand, Picasso’s 1937 piece Guernica, which was a heavily political and emotionally loaded response to a massacre during the Spanish civil war. The sand piece, Guernica in sand, will be on show for one day only at Carriageworks, April 23, we have it on good authority this should not be missed. Once recreated, the audience will be invited to walk over the sand one at a time, while Lee and his collaborators alter the sand construction. Ultimately showing that the act of obliteration can lead to new creations.

Head to the 20^th Biennale website to check out all the goodness that is on show. The biennale runs from now until June 5.