The Art Gallery of NSW has partnered with the Biennale of Sydney for more than 40 years, and for the 2022 Biennale, the cultural institution is continuing that legacy. This year, the several works here deal with ideas around rewilding and caring for Country.
Barkandji elder Badger Bates presents a monumental wallpaper work in the entrance of the Art Gallery based on one of his linocuts of Lake Menindee, depicting the fish kills of the drying lake, reminding us of a shared responsibility for Country.
English duo Ackroyd & Harvey have researched native Australian grasses and ethnobotany to create a new series of large-scale photographic prints on grass. The resulting works are living portraits of Australian environmental activist, Lille Madden and her grandfather, Gadigal Elder, Uncle Charles (Chicka) Madden. These portraits will eventually fade, in a poignant call-to-action addressing the climate crisis. Companions to these portraits are also hanging at The Cutaway in Barangaroo.
Australian artist Mike Parr is getting around quite a bit at the 23rd Biennale of Sydney. Known for durational performances where he tests the limits of the body and the will, his work at AGNSW responds to a tree planted in Sydney in 1984 on behalf of German artist Joseph Beuys as part of his seminal enviro-artwork 7000 Oaks (1982). Inspired by Czech artist Petr Stembera’s 1975 piece Asleep in the Tree, Parr re-enacted Stembera’s work as a public performance in the Blue Mountains. The resulting video footage, taken by Gotaro Uematsu and Heath Franco, is now showing. Parr’s other Biennale project, Blind Painting of a Dead Tree, is showing at The Cutaway.
The Biennale also posthumously presents one of Naziha Mestaoui’s most recognised projects, One Beat, One Tree, which debuted during the United Nations Climate Conference in 2015. Using video-mapping techniques and movement tracking, audiences plant a virtual tree and encourage it to grow with their body movement. A real tree will be planted for each virtual one.
The Biennale of Sydney is showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales daily from 10am to 5pm, with extended hours until 9pm on Wednesdays. The exhibition is free to visit. To beat the queues, you can register here.
