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Enchantment and its Discontents

Magic Object: The 2016 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art

David Corbet
Eyeline 85
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Magic Object was an exhibition of seductive materiality, with a lot to like in curator Lisa Slade’s selection of twenty-five Australian artists of admirable cultural, age and gender diversity. Kate Rohde’s vivid wallpaper installations (Ornament Crimes, 2015) set a high chromatic tone before one descended to the lower level galleries at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), where the largest component of the biennial was situated. Here Hiromi Tango’s vibrant mixed media installation, Lizard Tail (breaking cycle), 2015, provided the initial coup de theatre. The feeling of entering an otherworldly realm was very notably enhanced by subtle and subdued lighting design, which created dramatic foci for different works, opened up intriguing sightlines and engendered a sense of discovery. Adjacent to Tango’s work, a large and atmospheric space offered a vista of Danie Mellor’s photomedia-based installation (A universe of things, 2016) and Abdul Rahman Abdullah’s life-sized floor-work (Merantau, 2015)—a carved and painted figure in a canoe with a cockerel as sole passenger. These gave on to Heather B. Swann’s dimly-lit chamber of sinister totemic figures named, as it turns out, after May Gibbs’ Banksia men from the Snugglepot and Cuddlepie stories, but holding their own admirably without this subtext. Other standouts for both their artistic and installation values were Nell’s large floor work (The Wake, 2014-16), Glenn Barkley’s constellation of ceramic objects (Temple of the Worm, 2016), clustered jewel-like in their own tomato-red-walled gazebo, and Tom Moore’s whacky wonderland of glass objects (Bureau of Comical Ecologies, 2016).

Fiona McMonagle showed a delicate, large-scale projected animation (The park at the end of my road, 2015-16)... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

Jacqui Stockdale, The Offering, 2015. From the series The Boho. Type C print, 139 x 105.5cm. Courtesy the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY + Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne.

Jacqui Stockdale, The Offering, 2015. From the series The Boho. Type C print, 139 x 105.5cm. Courtesy the artist and THIS IS NO FANTASY + Dianne Tanzer Gallery, Melbourne.

Garry Stewart and Thomas Pachoud, Proximity Interactive, 2014. Interactive multimedia installation, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artists and Australian Dance Theatre, Adelaide. Photograph Chris Herzfeld, Camlight Productions.

Garry Stewart and Thomas Pachoud, Proximity Interactive, 2014. Interactive multimedia installation, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artists and Australian Dance Theatre, Adelaide. Photograph Chris Herzfeld, Camlight Productions.