The Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art
Curator: Julie Robinson
There was a palpable air of relief at the return Artists' Week 2004 following its 'disappearance' from Peter Sellars 'community festival ' of 2002. As he was leaving Adelaide just prior to the launch of the remains of his controversial program, a dedicated group of locals hurriedly secured modest funding for Elastic, a series of forums and talks that kept the concept of Artists' Week alive during this troubled period. Unlike many other major festivals, Adelaide has always included a substantial visual arts component that is headlined by Artists' Week and the Art Gallery of South Australia's Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art. Having attended all but three Artists' Weeks since its inception I was again eager to be annoyed, excited, bored, challenged, outraged and inspired. On all counts, I was far from disappointed.
The dissertations of the keynote speakers set the general tone of Artists' Week which risked being a monumental downer as much discussion focussed on the inequities of the artist/curator relationship and the politics of art making in a time when the world is (all but) at war. The first of the two keynote speakers, outspoken art critic, curator, cultural commentator, university lecturer and US showman, Dave Hickey, was introduced by the National Gallery of Victoria's/Melbourne University's Charles Green as 'a dangerous man'. In a scarcely disguised critique of the Adelaide Biennial he protested the growth of 'ephemeral' art forms such as video and installation by calling (I think) for a return to object based art. This would at least give us something to remember. Hickey then launched into a diatribe that condemned governmental 'control' of the arts, Biennales as 'trade shows' and uneducated curators as 'public