Marco Chiandetti, The hand of the artist in bird seed, 2015, bird seed; Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Marco Chiandetti
When the 20th Biennale of Sydney opened five weeks ago it was an installation at Sydney’s Mortuary Station conceived around the common Myna bird that caught our eye. The piece by British artist Marco Chiandetti offered a subtle conversation about immigration – using a bird that is considered a nuisance in Australia and viewed sacred in other parts of the world as a metaphor for resilience and unfounded perceptions.
Read: Biennale of Sydney: How a bird beats a boycott
At the time of writing that article, days before the Biennale opened on 18 March, Chiandetti was waiting for the green light from authorities to add the mynas to his custom aviaries.
But a month later the birds have not been added to the installation. The aviaries remain empty.
The birds may have beaten the boycott in the public perception of the Biennale but it is still waiting to convince the bureaucrats.
Exhibition curator Haywood Gallery’s Stephanie Rosenthal explained: ‘Exhibiting animals for the public requires a license from the Department of Primary Industries. As there were no precedents or existing standards for exhibiting the Indian Myna species, we have undertaken a comprehensive process with the DPI to measure and validate the exhibition enclosures for the birds to protect them, and the environment, while the birds are in our care.
‘We have successfully met the requirements set for us to date, and at this point anticipate few additional steps. If we successfully pass all the steps, a DPI license will allow us to house birds in the installation,’ she continued, optimistic that with six weeks still to run the installation will soon have its birds.
Marco Chiandetti’s Biennale work void of Myna birds; photo ArtsHub
The aviaries are not the only project to go bung in the early days of Rosenthal’s Biennale.
The Colombian-born London-based Oscar Murillo had been slated to created a site-responsive piece in Chippendale as one of Rosenthal’s In-Between Embassies.
But the artist was detained, and then deported, from Sydney airport.
Murillo flushed his passport down the toilet, mid-flight en route to Sydney. He was held for two days before being deported to Singapore and then on to Britain, via Columbia at his own expense.
The artist disclosed the incident during an appearance some weeks later at Art Basel Hong Kong prompting speculation as to why he had destroyed his passport. Was it art, protest, ego or star lust?
The Biennale has been silent on the subject but Rosenthal disclosed to ArtsHub: ‘I invited Oscar to participate in the Biennale and after his first visit to Sydney we worked closely to realise his installation, negotiating subjects of immigration and migration. Oscar had carte blanche for other interventions during his stay here.
‘However on his flight over for install (of) the work we had planned he decided to take his work even further and to not enter Australia. In this way the artist decided to change the work planned for 130 Abercrombie Street, Chippendale to reflect his rejection of the privilege afforded to him by possession of a British passport…and to travel with his Colombian passport instead (without a visa).’
Oscar Murillo, meandering – black wall (unfinished), 2016, mixed-media installation at 130 Ambercrombie Street Chippendale for the 20th Biennale of Sydney. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London. Photograph: Leila Joy
Murillo released a statement last week through his gallery David Zwirner to The New York Times:
‘Destroying my passport was a way of challenging the conditions in which I have the privilege of moving through the world, as a citizen. The act creates a disruptive situation that has the real potential to engage different power structures in a complex society — my status as an artist, the state as an arbiter, and the question of mobility in general.’
Given Rosenthal’s theme –The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed – we are led to read Murillo’s actions as intentional.
But he did not let the curator know in advance, a challenge Rosenthal says is in the nature of her work.
‘Working with living artists creating new work and exploring their own practice means one has to be flexible and adaptive. A curator plays the role of a guide and sounding board. Artists are always adjusting their ideas and observations and challenging their own preconceived notions.’
She said the message she would like to leave readers is, ‘That art and artists are responsive and intuitive, and in the creative act artists are surprised and surprising. That as (French philosopher Gilles) Delueze suggests here is a fundamental affinity between a work of art and an act of resistance. That contradictions tested or exposed reveal something quintessential about our times.’
While a formal statement was not issued by the Biennale of Sydney about either work, the Biennale’s website reads:
‘The work that was planned for 130 Abercrombie Street, Chippendale was never realised.
The artist decided to change the work. A book and a sound installation can be found in the ticket office at the Embassy of Transition, Mortuary Station, Regent Street, Chippendale.
Murillo explains: ‘My contribution to the Biennale of Sydney: meandering – black wall
Marker of the staging of a deportation, which took place on the 8th of March 2016.
The action of this obliteration: of passport and identity forced open a space of renegotiation. Of both the initial work agreed upon which stands here before us unresolved and the notion of the subject transitional, unresolved.
A book becomes witness to and stands in for the formlessness of this instinctive act.’
Untitled, 2016, Installation view (2016) at Mortuary Station – “Stand-in” artwork by Oscar Murillo at the Mortuary Station; Photo Artshub
No adjustment has been made on the webpage for Marco Chiandetti’s art work.
Rosenthal told ArtsHub at the exhibition’s preview: ‘As we have seen with the influx of political refugees not just into Australia, but internationally, one consequence of this uneven distribution is social upheaval on a scale unprecedented in recent world history.’
Murillo released a further statement via the French journalist and curator Judith Benhamou-Huet: ‘Even though there was a degree of satisfaction with what I wanted to offer, I nevertheless thought that it wasn’t enough, that simply intervening in a space was too symbolic, too limiting and slightly ignorant, and not present and not urgent enough.’
Adapting for failure
‘Biennales provide a space to allow artists to challenge their own practice and develop their ideas. The basis is to the process and allow the artist free reign to explore the ideas you hope to uncover and allow space for this to take place,’ said Rosenthal.
Artist freedom and curatorial control sound a case of oil and water, but Rosenthal proves that flexibility can ensure integrity of both – I would however, add that transparency does play a huge role in that respect.
At least the Biennale of Sydney has precedents. Perhaps the most high profile case of biennale failure was Ai Weiwei’s structure from Ming and Qing Dynasty doors and windows for documenta XII (2007), staged in Kassel, Germany.
Titled Template, the installation collapsed prior to the exhibition’s opening, and shortly after Kassel inspectors had deemed it ‘structurally unsound’.
Ai Weiwei’s Temple at 2007 documenta in Kassel, Germany collapse prior to the exhibition’s opening, yet remained on display throughout the exhibition period.
Ai – known for his savvy use of media – declared it ‘more beautiful than before. A remix by fate if you will’.
The windows and doors had been salvaged from demolished houses in the Shanxi province in northern China, a region affected dramatically by redevelopment. As a symbol of ancestral resilience (how the artwork was conceived and pitched), the collapse ironically stood in for that inescapable fate in the wake of China’s advancement.
Like Chiandetti’s work it remained on display for the duration of the exhibition, and within that there is integrity.
In contrast a different approach was taken in Adelaide when an outdoor sculpture by Tom Moore started to deflate during the opening of the Adelaide Biennial of Australia Art, whisked away before vernissage was even under way.
The five-meter tall blow-up replica of one of Moore’s celebrated glass sculptures in the exhibition “sprung a leak”.
Curator of the exhibition Lisa Slade told ArtsHub: ‘We removed it from display with the support of all parties involved, including the artist Tom Moore.
‘We had designed both the work and the plinth so that each could easily be deinstalled as we knew from the very beginning that there were risks associated with placing an inflatable 5-metre high sculpture on Adelaide’s busiest boulevard.’
She added with a laugh, ‘Curating contemporary art delivers many a cautionary tale!’
A gentle air-leak rendered Tom Moore’s outdoor commission for the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art compromised and it was removed; Photo Artshub
Manufactured by Brisbane-based company Urban Art Projects, and fabricated off-shore in their Shanghai workshop, Moore’s sculpture was promptly removed with instructions to be refabricate. The quick action was both a professional and ethical response.
Slade added: ‘An inflatable sculpture is always going to have an additional element of risk but fast thinking and cordial negotiations were key to returning the work. As a curator agility and adaptability are probably your greatest assets – in this case there was plenty to keep everyone busy (in the exhibition) while we rectified the problem!
It has since been returned to North Terrace, and is a huge success with the public.
Moore’s glass sculpture Magnified Planktonic Self has also been shrunk down to create a limited edition snowdome, of which only 936 copies have sold most successfully.
Curatorial responsibility
Curating any exhibition of this scale you need to manage risk. Inevitable in a hundred plus works, there will be one that does not live up to its commissioned proposal, or may be thwarted (as in the case of Murillo) by a subversive action from the artist.
There is also the case of misfortune, as the examples of Chiandetti, Moore and Ai Weiwei, when fate takes its hand to the creative process.
Slade commented: ‘It’s part of the job – particularly if you’re working across several sites including outdoor sites with inherent challenges and with a large number of artists. There are so many factors at play at any given time that it is exhilarating.
She added: ‘I actually really love that “what do we do now?” challenge and so many times the work of the artist is all the better for the unexpected change in direction or approach.’
What is interesting in this four-fold case study is that curator and artist worked together in three of those to correct, accept or persist in their vision.
One – the case of Oscar Murillo – was different.
He told us in his interview with Judith Benhamou-Huet: ‘I gave a proposal, I went and made a proposal with a curator, and we were both really happy with it. At the same time, I was feeling uncomfortable because, despite the agenda for the biennale, which wanted to propose a strong situation, there seemed to be a lot of conservative attitudes toward allowing an artist to be really freely expressive.’
He was the protagonist for his own failure – the new piece is indeed a flop.
Cover-ups don’t work. Immediate transparency is the best way to deal with such situations, and above all respect for that curatorial platform within which you have been invited to participate.
