Stuck in traffic? Blame it on the myriad of art lovers on route to Carriageworks for Sydney Contemporary.
With a thriving art scene and a growing collector base, Australia’s new international art fair Sydney Contemporary showcases work by both emerging and established artists from over 80 leading Australian and international galleries. These works include painting, photography, works on paper, sculpture as well as featuring performance and video.
Cariageworks, with its soaring ceilings and raw warehouse appeal, is the perfect space for the showing of contemporary art allowing organisers both the physical space and curatorial flexibility in dividing the fair into five exhibition sections:
‘Current Contemporary’ featuring established locals and internationals, including Melbourne’s Sutton Gallery and Brisbane’s Jan Murphy Gallery; ‘Future,’ and ‘Project Contemporary’ providing opportunities for burgeoning galleries, including Melbourne’s Utopian Slumps and Sydney’s Chalkhorse; a part of Carriageworks’ space is devoted to major sculptural and wall-based creations with ‘Installation Contemporary’ curated by Aaron Seeto of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art; and the ‘Video Contemporary’ section which is overseen by Artspace curator Mark Feary.
Feary has produced an exceptional lineup for Video Contemporary to foreground analogue and digital work with pop-culture iconoclasts Soda_Jerk, Kate Mitchell and Health Franco.
South African-born, Berlin-based artist Candice Breitz is best known for her engaging video installations that explore the clichés and stereotypes of popular culture as well as the relationship between celebrities and their fans. Her 25-channel video installation, ‘Working Class hero (A Portrait of John Lennon),’ features 25 John Lennon fans, each on a separate screen, simultaneously performing his 1970 album “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band” in its entirety. Both the music and Lennon’s voice are removed leaving only the voice of each performer to echo throughout the cavernous exhibition space.
Australian artist Liam Benson presents a new performance specifically commissioned for Sydney Contemporary. Expanding on his recent photographic work featuring a semi-clothed Santa, in which he adopts the persona of Santa in an exploration of the complexity of masculinity, and national and cultural identity. His performances take place between 1pm and 4pm each day of the fair.
Walking through the exhibition space one is surprised by a dead calf dangling from the ceiling, it’s slit-throat bedazzled with garnets and rubies symbolically pouring blood into a small glass bottle below. This is the genius of Melbourne-based artist Julia deVille, titled ‘It’s a wonderful life.’ To some it might seem a tad too macabre but deVille, a jeweler, taxidermist and animal rights activist, allows the viewer to engage with the animal by showing the beauty and fragility of her animals.
Other works by deVille at Sydney Contemporary:
