Streets crowded with strange creatures, a horse hanging from the ceiling, a miniature stadium; we are not talking about an adventure film or a leisure park, but about some of the ingredients of the greatest art exhibition. Sidney, spectacular metropolis of the Oceanic continent, in these days is turning into a theatre of contemporary art, opening up its sixteenth biennale. The great event, open to the public from 19^th June to 7^th September, houses works – 50 of which realized specifically for the event – by 180 artists from 45 countries in the world. Among the names of various artists there are naturally Italians of international fame: Assael, Cattelan, Colombo, Favaretto, Kounnelis, Manzoni, Merz, Modotti, Paolini, Penone, Pinot-Gallizio, Pistoletto, Russolo. The intent of the exhibition, which brings together the polyhedral group of artists, is already announced in the title “Revolutions-Forms that turn”, where revolution is intended as the need of a new view of the world, an invitation to take into consideration different points of view. The concept is reconfirmed by the words of the curator Carolyn Christov Bakargiev: “I was looking for works that I cannot understand, art that raises more questions than it can give an answer to”. Indeed, the password of this great overseas exhibition is “movement”, intended both as physical activity and as internal movement, continually encouraged by the interactive works presented, which tend to involve different senses and make reference to different artistic expressions: it varies from music to images, from writing to theatre. The drive to let go of the static condition emerges also from the possibility to move around a little and visit the city, with which the works and installations dialogue all the time, being located in 7 galleries and other scenographic outdoor places, thus sightseeing almost becomes a targeted inner journey. Cockatoo Island alone houses 35 works, including an underground tunnel that vibrates to the sound of psychedelic music.

It seems to be prohibited to get bored at the Biennale of Sidney, which proposes works by great “monsters” of the artistic scenery who have passed away and references to important movements that have made history, such as Shawn Gladwell’s mountain bike, which is inspired to the wheel of Dunchamp’s bicycle, but there are also some adventurous surprises. For instance, it is possible to walk along a path surrounded by small, but luckily harmless, snakes made of rice husk or feel observed by the 150,000 clay stick-figures by Antony Gormley, which similarly to an army made of terracotta seem to affirm that not only we look at art but art also watches us. Among the most original performances of Sidney, we can cite the band of over-eighty-year-old grandmothers, who with a certain energy reinterpret “God Save the Queen” by the Sex Pistols, and the transformation for 24 hours, which will take place from 9^th to 10^th July, of the Opera Theatre of Sidney into an enchanted forest, full of trees that will pull down the traditional stage-audience barrier for a theatre without roles.

Even this year the Biennale of Sidney, after thirty years’ experience, is confirmed as an immense, wide-ranging and well-orchestrated display window of contemporary art.

http://www.bos2008.com/app/biennale

translated by Giorgina Arcuri