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Latest news
Australian contingent selected for Venice Biennale 2009
(20.05.08)
The Australia Council for the Arts has announced Australia's official representation for the Venice Biennale 2009.
Artist Shaun Gladwell will present his work MADDESTMAXIMVS in the Australian Pavilion in the Giardini. MADDESTMAXIMVS is an evocative suite of five thematically interrelated videos, with several sculptural and photographic elements.
Sydney-based curator Felicity Fenner will curate a group exhibition of early career artists. The exhibition entitled Once Removed, will present artists - Vernon Ah Kee, Ken Yonetani, and Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro - through a series of installations unified by themes of displacement, Indigenous and environmental issues.
See Media Releases for further information.
Final Attendance figures to Australian Exhibitions:
(as at 21.11.07)
209 891
Susan Norrie shortlisted for the Artes Mundi prize. (28.9.07)
The £40,000 award, which is open to artists from all over the world, is presented every two years in Cardiff. Founded in 2002 the award is one of the world's largest visual arts prizes. The work by each of the nine shortlisted artists, will be exhibited in the National Museum Wales from March 2008 with the winner announced in April. Click here for further information
The Wall Street Journal Europe (27.7.07)
Margaret Studer
.......Here are some of the themes running through the show.......
Politics
This is a very political Biennale, with artists concerned about what is happening in conflicts around the globe. Throughout the Arsenale appear neon signs saying "Exil" (instead of "Exit") by Algerian artist Adel Abdessemed, who addresses problem of refugees forced out of their homes by war. Australian artist Rosemary Laing photographs a desolate refugee center in the Australian outback. A youth plays with a skull-shaped football in a former Serbian army headquarters in a video by Italian photo artist Paolo Canevari. American artist Emily Prince fills a wall with a map of the U.S. pinned with portrait-drawings of servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan according to where they came from.
TODAY (Singapore)
(26.7.07)
Many people describe Venice as a dream and I have agree.....
Country pavilions recommended by one of the current NAC interns, Tara John, include the Mexican pavilion at the Palazzo Van Axel in the Cannaregio district and Australian artist Callum Morton's work at the Palazzo Zenobio in the Dorsoduro district. The latter is of a building in ruins inspired by Morton's childhood home.
News from Venice
International arts audiences in Venice have responded positively to Australia's presence at the 2007 Venice Biennale.(13.06.07)
 ENGLISH
International arts audiences in Venice have responded positively to Australia's presence at the 2007 Venice Biennale.
Isobel Carlos, curator Artes Mundi Wales, 2008 said: ‘I like the multiplicity of visions and sites that corresponds to the quality of the Australian art scene.'
Davide Croff, president of the Venice Biennale, came to the Australian party, where the Histrionics entertained over 700 people at Callum Morton's Valhalla - it was the only exhibition outside the Giardini that he wanted to see and he thought it was wonderful.
Vincente Todoli, director of Tate Modern said of Morton's work ‘great, exceptional, fantastic', whilst editor of the influential The Art Newspaper, Cristina Ruiz, told British media that Morton's work was one of her five highlights of the Biennale.
Callum Morton said: ‘A lot of people have made the effort to visit the work and to see them milling about the building makes it appear like some dysfunctional pavilion at a World Fair and I love that image. When people have come without any knowledge of the work and discover the interior space along the way, watching their reaction to it is particularly pleasurable. I think it is staying in people's minds and that is what you want'.
Professor Richard de Marco, Demarco European Art Foundation, said: ‘In all my years of visiting the Australian pavilion, since the day it opened, I believe that Daniel's exhibition reveals its true beauty and elegance as a space. It is indeed a pavilion with a difference with a thought provoking exhibition tailor made to every unique aspect of its interior.'
Lance Fung curator of the SITE Santa Fe Biennale 2008 said: ‘Daniel's exhibition challenges the visitors with its architectural elegance and unique integration of media and objects. In Daniel's work the representation of objects has shifted to a minimal ethereal thread unifying the unique and two levelled pavilion.'
Von Stumer says: ‘ its been a fantastic and exciting experience to see people taking the time engaging with the exhibition and there has been excellent dialogue about my work.'
Key international curators and directors visited Norrie's off-site exhibition - Susan has found the response amazing: ‘My work is a document of another place, a document of a dream'.
12 June 2007
Richard Dorment
Telegraph UK
I also admired the selection of young artists from Scotland and the New Forest showing in the Palazzo Zenobio, but I have to say that they were all upstaged by an unknown Australian artist who didn't seem to be showing in anybody's pavilion.
Callum Morton's Valhalla takes the form of a building in ruins, like something you'd find in Beirut or Baghdad, only it is made of polystyrene. When you go inside, you find yourself standing in a sterile marble-clad lobby or waiting area facing a bank of lifts. Confused, I tried to speak to a charlady who was mopping the spotless floor, but she didn't answer my question, or even look up at me, as though I wasn't there.
With nothing better to do, I pressed the button for one of the two lifts, an act that set off the most terrible rumble of ancient machinery slowly creaking and clanking up from the bowels of the earth. At last, I began to understand that I was just where the title of the piece told me I would be, among the dead in Valhalla, waiting for the lift that would take me either up to my reward or down to my just deserts. To say the least, the whole experience was disconcerting, and I'll remember the artist's name.
11 June 2007
Phil Miller
The Herald, Scotland
Finally, the Australians (very good at real sports, apparently) provide a most visceral thrill: Callum Morton's immense Valhalla: a ruined, burning, thundering version of his own family's house, transformed into a gateway to Hades. Outside, the ruin smokes, inside, a pristine, antiseptic hotel lobby seems to lead to something unnameable and unimaginable.
11 June 2007
David Cohen - Special to the Sun
The New York Sun
In harmony with Mr. Storr's breakdown of dichotomies, there are many shows that elide the personal and the political. Callum Morton is one of three Australians showing in different venues. In the grounds of a private foundation in the Dorso Duro that also hosted shows for Armenia, Latin America, Scotland, and the New Forest in England, Mr. Morton erected a macabre, battle-worn wreck of a modernist breeze-block house. This turns out to have been modeled on his childhood home, built by his architect father, scaled down to two-thirds actual size. The intrepid visitor enters this smoldering ruin through a front door, only to discover an air-conditioned white marble elevator lobby attended by a custodian in a white jacket. Pressing the button actually releases various ominous sound effects.
Media Releases
Australian Artists selected for Venice Biennale 2009 (20.05.08)
ENGLISH
Australia Council announces 2009 Venice Biennale Commissioner (14.02.08)
ENGLISH
52nd Venice Biennale opens tomorrow (06.06.07)
ENGLISH
Australian Artists in Robert Storr's Exhibition Think with the Senses - Feel with the Mind:
Art in the Present Tense: (31.05.07)
ENGLISH
ITALIANO
Callum Morton has been named one of 5 artists to watch in German Art magazine Monopol. (31.05.07)
http://www.monopol-magazin.com/
Susan Norrie's Venice Biennale commission HAVOC is featured in the June ArtReview and ArtReview:Digital.UK (31.05.07)
http://www.artreview.com
[sign up for free to watch].
Susan's video is on page 127.
Callum Morton nominated in Bulletin Bayer Smart 100 (15.05.07)
Callum Morton, one of the artists representing Australia at the 2007 Venice Biennale has been nominated as a finalist in the Bulletin Bayer Smart 100, which recognises 100 of the most innovative and creative people working in various industries across Australia. The winners will be revealed in the June 20 special Smart 100 collector's issue. http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=265431
http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=265434
Indigenous curators to experience the 2007 Venice Biennale (03.05.07)
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3 artists, 3 projects, 3 sites (24.04.07)
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Largest ever Australian contingent for Venice Biennale 2007 (06.03.07)
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Venice Biennale Press Conference (20.02.07)
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ITALIANO
FRANÇAIS
DEUTSCH
Professional development in Venice (13.02.07)
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Three Australian artists chosen for Venice Biennale 2007 (23.05.06)
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Australian Commissioner for 2007 Venice Biennale (02.03.06)
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