Sydney Contemporary Announces 15 Australian and International Artists for its Innovative Installation Contemporary Program

Sydney Contemporary presented by Deutsche Bank, presents 15 Australian and international artists for their innovative and highly anticipated Installation Contemporary program being presented for the duration of the fair from 12-15 September 2019.

Installation Contemporary has been curated by Dr Mikala Tai, a curator, researcher, academic and the Director of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Designed to exhibit large-scale artworks in a diverse range of media, Installation Contemporary responds to the unique architecture of Carriageworks and presents the viewer with an opportunity to go on a journey of discovery that indulges their imagination.

The program includes a diverse line up of artists presenting primarily new works including Rathin Barman (Experimenter and 4A Centre for Contemporary Art), Daniel Boyd, Jacqueline Fraser and Marley Dawson (Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery), Jessica Bradford (Galerie pompom), Consuelo Cavaniglia, Nell and Reko Rennie (STATION), Movana Chen (Flowers Gallery), Gregory Hodge and Michael Lindeman (Sullivan+Strumpf), Antonia Mrljak (Curatorial+Co.), Yioryios Papayioryiou (Artereal Gallery), Joan Ross (Michael Reid) and Katie West (Dominik Mersch Gallery).

Highlight include:

Did you ask the river? is the debut VR work from one of Australia’s leading visual artists, Joan Ross. In the style of a first-person video game, the audience is given free rein to explore an interactive 3D extension of Ross’ vibrant, unsettling colonial landscape. Unlike many VR experiences, the audience is placed in another’s body – that of an 18th century colonial woman – and they become uncomfortably complicit in her unwitting destruction of the landscape. Developed in collaboration with Dr Josh Harle at Tactical Space Lab in Sydney, Did you ask the river? is the second Mortant Family VR Commission for the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne.

Gregory Hodge’s first foray into monumental suspension painting that engulfs the viewer’s senses. Hodge has always been interested in the history of illusionistic painting from Flemish trompe-l’oeil to large scale Italian Baroque frescoes. His work Suspension Painting reaches back to these traditions by absorbing many of their painterly tropes while also working within a predominately abstract visual language.

Hong Kong based artist Movana Chen’s, ongoing piece Dreconstructing is knitted from shredded papers of old magazines. Chen explores various ways to “wear” one’s identity, to experiment and create new opportunities for different cultures to start conversations. The reconstructed paper represents wishes, and transforms the meanings of daily life, which opens up a two-way communication between body, art and everyday life.

Jacqueline Fraser’s The Making of Mississippi Grind 2017 operates as a sponge for an array of popular cultural references, casting a seductive gaze towards celebrity, rap culture and high-fashion. The installation exemplifies Fraser’s ability to create viscerally charged domains at an architectural scale.

In the large text-based sculpture titled and forming the word Thanks, Michael Lindeman focuses on the repackaging of bad debt. Crafted from clear vinyl material hand cut into a disquieting, deflating three-dimensional font, the sculpture is filled with crumpled copies of rejection letters that Lindeman has collected for the past twenty years.

In addition to Installation Contemporary, a new site-specific commission for the Fair, Tower of Power is being created by collaborative powerhouse Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro (Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery). The duo will construct a neo-medieval tower, that visitors can climb to get 360 degree views of galleries at the fair, and where they can also recharge their mobile phone! The installation is made possible by Bondor, who are pushing creative boundaries and collaborating with leading artists to realise their vision.

The Fair also welcomes Chinese-Australian artist Guo Jian. Best known for his satirical, erotic paintings and installations rich in cultural narrative, Guo Jian is a political activist drawing from his extraordinary life as a former soldier, and in exile. Artist Profile magazine presents this Artist Project – a new series of paintings by Guo Jian. The paintings engage with traditional Song Dynasty landscapes to interrogate the relationship between China’s ‘rubbish culture’, the disposability of celebrity and the destruction of minority cultures.

For more information visit https://sydneycontemporary.com.au/