AES+F, New Freedom 2006 [1996]

ON REASON AND EMOTION 2004 BIENNALE OF SYDNEY ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ISABEL CARLOS SPEAKS TO BROADSHEET WHEN THE BIENNALE OF SYDNEY WAS FOUNDED IN 1973, IT WAS THE SIXTH INTERNATIONAL BIENNALE IN THE WORLD. SINCE THEN THE NUMBER OF SUCH EVENTS HAS GROWN ABOUT TENFOLD. WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BIENNALE OF SYDNEY IN THIS CHANGING WORLD ENVIRONMENT? AND, IF ANYTHING, WHAT PLACES THE BIENNALE OF SYDNEY APART FROM THESE MORE RECENTLY ESTABLISHED EVENTS? I think that there is in fact no real difference. It's not the fact that there are more biennales all over the world that will affect people coming to the exhibition or otherwise, nor even whether the Biennale of Sydney is important or not - it's that the Biennale of Sydney is the longest running biennale [large scale recurring contemporary art exhibition] in Australia. Other cities in Australia have staged biennale type exhibitions - for example Melbourne and Adelaide, and Brisbane's Asia-Pacific Triennial - however, they serve slightly different functions in each context. What is most important about all of these exhibitions is the promotion of contemporary art. What makes the Biennale of Sydney different from many others is firstly that it's one of the most established biennales in the world after Venice and Sao Paulo, and secondly, it was the first one to apply the model of a selected curator to choose the artists and works, rather than the model of national representations and pavilions [a model that I think is currently in crisis]. The Biennale of Sydney seems to have found a balance between demands of national cultural agencies and the individual eye of the curator or curatorium. TO A DEGREE, THESE PROLIFERATING INTERNATIONAL BIENNALES HAVE BECOME 'STOPS' ON A CIRCUIT FOR AN OFTEN PREDICTABLE CLUSTER OF ARTISTS REPRESENTING NATIONS FROM THE FIRST WORLD TO THE THIRD WORLD. AS A CURATOR OF AN INTERNATIONAL BIENNALE, DO YOU FEEL AN OBLIGATION TO REPRESENT THE GLOBAL ART SCENE IN SOME SENSE? Yes, I feel the need to represent a global art scene. However, taking into account fashion as an important consideration can we perhaps reconfigure this question - maybe the 'predictable cluster' becomes so precisely because these artists might have something important and relevant to say. There are artists whose presence is unavoidable in a way. There are also some artists who make very good work and whose influence is palpable in the contemporary art scene. But coming back to your question, I would say that On Reason and Emotion will not be a 'predictable cluster of artists representing nations from the first world to the third world' - that is, after Australia the country that is most represented is Brazil. YOU SPEAK OF SOME ARTISTS WHOSE PRESENCE IS 'UNAVOIDABLE' OR HAVE AN IMPORTANT PRESENCE IN CONTEMPORARY ART. WHO ARE SOME OF THESE 'STARS AND STALWARTS' THAT YOU'VE CHOSEN FOR YOUR BIENNALE? I would question the term "stars and stalwarts" - it has a strange sound to it. The way I conceive of any exhibition that I curate is in much the same way as one would conceive of building a house - first find the site, then dig the foundations and so on through to the ceilings and windows. Using this metaphor then, the foundation blocks for this exhibition are Helena Almeida, Jimmie Durham, Bruce Nauman, James Coleman, Susan Norrie and Pat Brassington. BEYOND THIS GROUP, HOW HAVE YOU CHOSEN YOUR ARTISTS? FOR EXAMPLE WHY DOES BRAZIL HAVE A PROMINENT REPRESENTATION? My selection was made in the usual way in which I choose artists for an exhibition - by meeting and talking with artists in their studios and seeing their work first hand. Brazilian artists because I think the artists Rubens Mano, Amilcar Packer and Monica Nador make works that resonate with my idea of the exhibition. For example, Rubens Mano creates art works that use elements of the existing urban environment. With this vocabulary or text Rubens Mano makes new words or even a new language. In the 2004 Biennale of Sydney I would like the art to show connections between human consciousness and physicality. This idea is a central concern in Mano's work. He adds to, or takes from, existing elements of his surroundings with light, with colour, with new building parts. These are unpredictable architectural interventions that capture the attention of the passer - so they are not just being a passive viewer. Packer and Nador also work with the idea of exchanges between people and place. Amilcar Packer makes videos and performances about domestic spaces and objects. He literally becomes the carpet, a chest of drawers, an architrave, a table, etc. In psychology this is called 'introception' - complete identification with an object or location. Monica Nador negotiates her paintings with the people who live with them rather than imposing her taste, her identity; her practice is a much more humble and simple exchange between artist and patron. WOULD YOU GIVE A FEW EXAMPLES OF OTHER COUNTRIES AND INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS YOU ARE SHOWING THAT GO BEYOND WHAT REGULAR INTERNATIONAL BIENNALE GOERS MAY FIND FAMILIAR, AND SAY HOW THESE FIT INTO YOUR SENSE OF A GLOBAL ART SCENE? One curator cannot I think fully know the total picture of the 'global art scene' and how it might operate. The artists I have chosen are specifically for an exhibition to be held in Sydney from June - August 2004. So it is very specific to the Sydney context rather than an overview of world culture - although I agree possibly people might read the exhibition that way. There are artists from locations that have had little exposure in Australia. For example, Mari Sunna is from Finland, Pravdoluib Ivanov is from Bulgaria, Fernando Alvim is from Angola, AES group are from Russia and Lim Tzay Chuen is from Singapore. ETHICAL ISSUES HAVE COME TO THE FORE IN RECENT DISCUSSIONS ABOUT INTERNATIONAL BIENNALES. HOW IS IT, FOR EXAMPLE, THAT A CURATOR CAN MAKE A KNOWLEDGEABLE AND APPROPRIATE SELECTION OF ARTISTS AND ARTWORKS FROM A CULTURE HE OR SHE IS NOT A PART OF; AND HOW CAN THE CURATOR NOT AVOID MISREPRESENTING THE SELECTED WORK IN REMOVING IT FROM ITS ORIGINAL CULTURAL CONTEXT AND PLACING IT IN THE CONTEXT OF A [USUALLY] WESTERN THEMATIC? THIS LAST PROBLEM, ON THE FACE OF IT, SEEMS TO BE ALMOST UNSURPASSABLE. WHAT'S YOUR TAKE ON THESE PROBLEMS, AND HOW WILL YOU RESPOND TO THEM IN YOUR BIENNALE? These questions or problems are constant in the art world. I'm very aware of the insurpassability of these problems, and I must deal with them of course with my Western eyes - not avoiding the gap, but attempting more to make the gap[s] clear. I think the only way around these issues is honesty. I make no excuses for the fact that this Biennale of Sydney is a selection made through the eyes and consideration of Isabel Maria Carlos - from my experience, my knowledge and my memory systems. WOULD YOU SAY MORE ABOUT YOUR APPROACH TO CURATING ARTISTS FROM DIFFERENT CULTURES? SOME APPROACHES ARE THOUGHT TO BE DEFICIENT, EVEN UNETHICAL, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME THERE IS NO GENERAL CONSENSUS ON WHAT MODELS ARE APPROPRIATE. ARE THERE ANY MODELS FOR CROSS-CULTURAL CURATING YOU MAKE USE OF? WOULD YOU GIVE SOME EXAMPLES OF HOW YOUR PARTICULAR 'EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE' SHAPES YOUR CHOOSING, PRESENTING AND CONTEXTUALISING OF ART AND ARTISTS? I am weary of the notion of models, and how readily curators discuss them at length. Currently around the world there are conferences with curators endlessly discussing what they do and how to do it. I do not use any model or template. Each exhibition is different and I believe each exhibition should be seen and experienced on its own terms - almost as site specific work. As the founder and Deputy Director between 1996 and 2001 of the Instituto de Arte Contemporanea [IAC] for the Ministry of Culture, Portugal, I coordinated the international collection. Before that in 1994, I curated a show called The Day After Tomorrow which comprised twenty-four artists including James Turrell, Narelle Jubelin, Wim Delvoye and Pedro Cabrita Reis, amongst others. This exhibition focused on site specific works. I also coordinated a program of twenty-four exhibitions for Lisbon, European Capital of Culture, and have organised the Portuguese representation at the Venice Biennale [2001], the London Art Biennale [2000], Sao Paolo Biennale [1996 and 1998] as well as the International Istanbul Biennial [1997 and 1999]. SOME HAVE INTERPRETED THE RECENT HISTORY OF THE BIENNALE OF SYDNEY AS FLUCTUATING BETWEEN POPULARITY AND CRITICALITY. THE 1998 BIENNALE, EVERYDAY, WAS CRITICALLY ASTUTE, ENGAGING WITH DIFFICULT IDEAS, BUT RELATIVELY UNPOPULAR IN TERMS OF CROWDS; BY CONTRAST THE 2002 BIENNALE, THE WORLD MAY BE FANTASTIC WAS A GREAT POPULAR SUCCESS, BUT SOME CRITICS FOUND IT 'LITE' IN ITS ENGAGEMENT WITH THEORETICAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES. HOW ARE YOU INTENDING TO BALANCE THE DEMANDS FOR POPULAR SUCCESS MADE BY FUNDERS AND SPONSORS, WITH DEMANDS FOR CRITICAL, UNCOMPROMISING CONTENT? How do you judge the success of any exhibition? You could count the number of people through the doors - or word of mouth discussions - or blanket advertising and publicity - or positive reviews. And then there is the mass of academic thoughts and discussions. It will always be a balancing act - although maybe not the advertising part. That balance is my dream... it's what I'm working for, and both critical acclaim and popular success inform my choice of works and artists. So we will have glamour as well as punch! What is important [and something that sets the Biennale of Sydney apart from many similar exhibitions around the world] is that it is free to the public. This is very important - so that there is the chance of many return visits to venues, sites and particular works. THE PROBLEM OF MAKING A KNOWLEDGEABLE AND APPROPRIATE SELECTION OF ARTISTS AND ARTWORKS FROM ONE NATION IN PARTICULAR - AUSTRALIA - POSES PARTICULAR CHALLENGES. YOU ARE RELATIVELY NEW TO THE AUSTRALIAN SCENE, BUT WILL BE CURATING AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS INTO YOUR BIENNALE, AND DOING SO UNDER THE CRITICAL EYES OF AUSTRALIAN ARTS WRITERS, CURATORS AND ARTISTS. LAST YEAR YOU TOOK A TOUR OF THE AUSTRALIAN STATE CAPITALS, AND SO PRESUMABLY HAVE TAKEN ON A COMMITMENT TO REPRESENT AUSTRALIAN ART NATIONALLY IN SOME FORM. WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE 'NATIONAL REPRESENTATION' YOU ARE INTENDING, AND HOW YOU HAVE GONE ABOUT RESEARCHING CONTEMPORARY AUSTRALIAN ART FROM A 'STANDING START'? The ongoing historical purpose and current rationale of the Biennale of Sydney is to bring new visions and make new configurations of international and Australian art. Australia has never existed in a cultural vacuum and so there are many artists making work that is connected [albeit unknown to them] to other artists all around the world. My job as a curator is to look and think about art all of the time. I did visit Australia in 1999 for the Melbourne Biennial and met with many artists and curators during that time, so when I was appointed as curator I was not completely new to Australia or the Australian art world. However for 2004 I thought it very important to try and get at the least some brief understanding of the Australian art scene by travelling to many locations and meeting people. These include gallerists, curators, artists, artist-run spaces etc., and this is always the way I select artists in any place in the world. What I am attempting to do for the 2004 Biennale of Sydney is to bring new understandings of the art practices in Australia by presenting art and ideas that are perhaps absent or suppressed by the systems of culture and exhibition that exist here. This of course is only my opinion, within my vision and experience. My Australian selection doesn't pretend to be an Australian 'representation' in that sense, but instead places Australian artists in dialogue with international artists. The selection is more about the exhibition and the concept than about the Australian art scene. WHAT TYPES OF DIALOGUE ARE YOU SETTING UP BETWEEN AUSTRALIAN AND INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS? In terms of dialogue, obviously there is the physical proximity of people and artworks at the exhibition itself, but I am hoping that some of the visiting artists will be able to stay longer in Australia and participate in residency programs before and after the exhibition. [Some have already done that, for example, Thomas Mulcaire, who had a residency in Perth]. I have also invited a number of curators from around the world and would very much like them to meet with Australian artists. Dialogue also takes place outside of the exhibition with people talking about their experiences, good and bad. Any encounter with art takes time to seep into all the areas of consciousness. Word of mouth and conversation are very important, so I hope that with this exhibition these conversations will take place over a long period of time. WHAT INVESTIGATIONS HAVE YOU MADE TO NATIONAL CENTRES OUTSIDE THE PREDICTABLE SITES OF SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE AND WHAT HAVE BEEN THE RESULTS? Australia has a small but very sophisticated contemporary art scene. People are very well informed about international contemporary art and art theory perhaps more so than 'art people' in the northern hemisphere. This is both good and bad for the development of art in Australia. I am still not sure of the success of art schools in producing artists, and there are so many in Australia [art schools that is]. YOUR BIENNALE IS TITLED ON REASON AND EMOTION, AND YOU SUGGESTIVELY CONNECT 'EMOTION' WITH GENERAL IDEAS OF 'SOUTHERNERS' AND 'THE SOUTH', AND SOMEWHAT EQUIVOCALLY, WITH THIS SOUTHERN CONTINENT, AUSTRALIA. IN GENERAL, YOUR FOCUS APPEARS TO BE ON EMOTION MORE THAN REASON. DO YOU SEE A FOCUS ON EMOTION AS A CORRECTIVE TO A 'REASONABLE' OR 'RATIONAL' ART? IS AUSTRALIAN ART NOTABLY 'EMOTIONAL' OR 'RATIONAL'? Art can never be a corrective like some pill, it is never an antidote. I have called the exhibition On Reason and Emotion because I have focused on the questions of what constitutes a conscious human being. I am interested in the borders of perception, and in how language can mediate and moderate more visceral or corporeal embodiment. I would like to draw out the links between journeying through physical or emotional spaces and experience. Art is an accumulation of a range of cultural and personal associations and sensations. I am of course interested in how those experiences and associations are articulated by artists and the public alike. When I talk about emotion and reason, it's about how these two are interconnected, not really about a division of emotional art works and rational art works. So therefore Australian art is neither notably emotional nor rational; it is both. WHY DO YOU SEE THIS THEME AS APPROPRIATE TO AUSTRALIA AND THE BIENNALE OF SYDNEY, AND WOULD YOU SAY A LITTLE ABOUT HOW SOME OF THE ARTISTS WILL ADDRESS 'REASON AND EMOTION'? The theme is appropriate everywhere I believe, not just in Sydney. In the world today everything conspires to create emotional responses. I think it might be good to consider again how reactions are formed, acted and spoken about. Emotional reasons or rationalised emotions, to use a Cartesian terminology - but what do they mean? It will probably take some time before we find the appropriate vocabulary to articulate the inextricable connections and interdependence between emotion and reason, between body and mind, man and nature. Further, it will take time to find concepts that reflect the purpose of the central dualisms to all Western culture. Today's world is one of fast and comprehensive information, in which everything from wars to scientific discoveries to famous people's weddings reaches us instantly and simultaneously. So just what kind of distance, logic and reflection does this world allow us? The boundaries of perception and sensation interest me greatly, and the boundaries of the body in space also. We as humans have to articulate experience, sensation and memory - we have to communicate those shared things to become more human. All of the artists in the Biennale of Sydney, I think, are looking at the experiences of space, some more closely than others. Since the early 1990s Carolyn Eskdale [from Melbourne] has been working on a series of 'untitled room' works. These are spaces that are enclosed by sheets of muslin or gauze. They are sort of frames shrouding or protecting objects or simply just space behind white veils. The fabric is a translucent membrane that creates tensions between the physical and the visual. I want to have a show that is about communication, not just information, so the work of Sherre DeLys and Joan Grounds fit this idea well. They use an idea or technique they call 'embodied sound'. This involves the understanding that all objects and materials in the world can be activated, given life so to speak, by the audience. In some of their works they place speakers within objects to give this extra dimension. Their work is full of play. They also like the idea of call and response. Koo Jeong-a makes use of everyday items such as rags, office supplies, aspirin and cardboard. Out of these humble materials Koo composes very personal, architecturally inspired landscapes that are about the interconnections of people, objects, materials and spaces. Koo's installations again force the viewer to reconsider relationships to the familiar activities and objects of daily life. Consciousness is also about making and owning representations. This is always political. Gordon Hookey makes art about history. A major subject in his work is the meeting of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australian cultures; time reverberates from the European first contact with Aboriginal peoples through to the recent immigration and border protection disputes, Hookey's paintings highlight complex issues in contemporary Australian culture.