BIENNALE OF SYDNEY 2008
It is somewhat surprising that old-style biennales and other such perennial über shows are occasionally still able to produce exhibitions that are worth visiting. This is certainly the case of the 2008 Sydney Biennale.
Maybe it is exactly because Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the Bulgarian-Italian-US Artistic Director, is so well aware of the obsolete curatorial philosophy of such events that she managed to avoid the usual pitfalls. Not that her approach is especially subversive, on the contrary, the inclusion of many historical works could be perceived—and undoubtedly was by some—as overly academic. Yet the mix of the old and the new is one of the many things that worked well in this show simply by dint of sheer curatorial intelligence and craftsmanship.
The theme revolved (as it were) around the idea of ‘revolution’, which was here broadly understood as a dynamic, propulsive principle of change and transformation. This was a show about art’s incessant turns, re-turns and over-turnings and its fundamental drive towards social, conceptual and formal subversion. It was, in a way, an exhibition about that old, half-forgotten but never totally vanished friend: the avant-garde.
While a title based on a pun is often a curator’s excuse not to commit to a specific selection criteria, the poetic and historical resonances of Christov-Bakargiev’s premise were manifest throughout the exhibition. Her decision to include many historical works that incorporate elements of physical movement, as well as samples of Kinetic Art (a movement which is too often treated as a curiosity to be relegated to the less visited rooms of galleries and museums of modern art) was very original and effective. Not only did these works literalise the title, they also set the exhibition... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline