Ai Weiwei Crystal Ball, 2017 crystal, life jackets 100 x 100 x 100 cm Installation view of the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018) at Artspace. Photograph: Zan Wimberley Courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin
TalkWednesday 30 May 2018
6:00pm – 7:00pm
21st Biennale of Sydney: Equilibrium and Engagement in this age of uncertainty
Drinks reception: 7:00pm – 8:00pm
13/14 Cornwall Terrace, Outer Circle (entrance facing Regent's Park), London NW1 4QP
Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
The world seems to be becoming increasingly unequal and uncertain. This may partly be due to the discordant co-existence of varying interpretations of history, politics and belief systems. In this lecture, Mami Kataoka, artistic director of the current 21st Biennale of Sydney, discused works by artists participating in the Biennale in order to create an overview of a multi-layered society. Kataoka took Sydney as a starting point, which she considered as a microcosm of the world, and looked at overlapping perspectives surrounding ideas about nature, cosmic order, history and art history. These differing viewpoints also respond to the historical, architectural and conceptual specificities of the seven venues in Sydney in which they are displayed.
Listing image: Ai Weiwei Crystal Ball, 2017 crystal, life jackets 100 x 100 x 100 cm Installation view of the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018) at Artspace. Photograph: Zan Wimberley Courtesy the artist and neugerriemschneider, Berlin
About the contributors
Mami Kataoka
Mami Kataoka is the chief curator of Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Prior to this, Kataoka was the chief curator at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, 1997-2002, and a researcher at the NLI Research Institute on cultural policies and urban development projects. She has worked internationally as the international curator the Hayward Gallery, London, and as the Co-Artistic Director for the 9th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea, 2012. Kataoka currently serves as Board Member of CIMAM and is professor at Kyoto University of Art and Design.
Kataoka’s recently curated exhibitions include: “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” (2009/ US Tour 2012-13), “Lee Bul” (2012), “Makoto Aida” (2012), “Lee Mingwei and His Relations” (2014-15), and “N. S. Harsha: Charming Journey” (2017). She also guest curated “Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past” (2012) at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.
Oliver Beer
Oliver Beer (Chair) works at the intersection of architecture, sound and image, exploring connections between space, objects and acoustics. Informed by his training in fine art, musical composition and film theory, his projects take the form of large-scale installations, live performances, sculpture and video.
Beer studied music before attending the Ruskin School of Fine Art, Oxford University, and the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III. His work has been the subject of many solo and group exhibitions, notably at MoMA PS1, New York; Centre Pompidou, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Chateau of Versailles, Paris and the Istanbul Biennale. Beer has held residencies at the Palais de Tokyo, the Watermill Centre, the Fondation Hermès and won the Daiwa Foundation Art Prize, 2015. In 2018 he is one of the headline artists in the 21st Biennale of Sydney and was artist in residence at Sydney Opera House.