Andrew Frost is someone I can really agree with. And frankly what more can we wish for in an art critic to confirm what we already think about works of art? Case in point was the art life special on the Biennale of Sydney on ABC1 last night.

Of course the challenge of contemporary art is that it assumed that there should be strong reactions to works and a feeling of confrontation. The joy in Frost’s style of writing and presenting is one of a Richard Attenborough look at the art world – even though you might not know exactly what he is on about it sure sounds interesting. More

Well, I can safely say that Pierre Huyghe’s “A Forest of Lines”, for which the concert hall of Sydney Opera House was turned into an indoor rainforest, will be remembered as one of the highlights of the biennale. For some people the attraction of “A Forest of Lines” was the obvious novelty value of the installation and, for others, the attraction was the opportunity to experience an amazing work of art by a world renowned artist. Although I am extremely glad that so many people (over 6000) came to view the installation, I can’t help but wonder how many people really appreciated the artistic value of the work or how many people actually appreciated the amount of work and talent that went into its creation. I often fear that the artistic integrity and value of works such as “A Forest of Lines” is overshadowed by the novelty value, especially when the work is not presented in a museum or gallery context. As an example of what I am getting at, while I was walking through the forest I heard a lady say “what is the point of this”. Although I would like to think that this lady would have gone home and researched the artist and his work, I am pretty certain that she would have been content with the novelty value and left her curiosity unsatisfied.

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The 2008 Biennale of Sydney catalogue is another example of the way in what is usually a standard format has been challenged by this year’s curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and publications team. With the dilemma of so many works for Biennale’s being site specific or new works catalogues often end up being a book of potential or what the works may look like. These books also usually include background information about the artist and their work. However with the accessibility of the internet (a process discussed in this catalogue) and so much information out there about artists’ work how necessary is the standard catalogue? By giving us something that we would not normally have available to us, a collection of drawings and writings that are not so widely available to, the 2008 BoS catalogue becomes a lot more important.

The interviews, texts and letters by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s Comrades – a curatorial process which she also used for The Pantagruel Syndrome (the Turin Triennial in 2005/6) demonstrates the influences from her peers on her curatorial approach. This approach is probably fairly typical, as all curators consult peers and colleagues on their decisions to some extent. But through acknowledging this process and giving voice to some very interesting ideas such as Massimiliano Gioni’s comment “Can revolutions and VIP lounges coexist?” Other texts discussing what Revolution means to them further demonstrates that a concept is never one thing to one person.
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Yesterday I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art once again to view all the wonderful biennale works for which I have developed a rather convenient addiction (according to friends and family) that has limited my social life to gallery visits and exhibition openings (not that I am complaining). On this particular visit to the MCA, one particular artist caught my eye, and that artist was the Czech photographer Miroslav Tichy. I was going to write a blog post on Tichy and his work which I had planned in my head on the train ride home from the MCA until I got home and saw that Tracey Clement had beaten me to it. This fascination with Tichy and his work kind of got me thinking about what it was that attracted both Tracey and I to this particular artist so, I decided that I would still write about Tichy but from a different perspective.

Although Tichy’s work is fantastic, it was the documentary on the artist’s rather amazing life which was playing in the room where his works are being exhibited that really piqued my interest. The story of Tichy’s life of poverty, isolation, rejection and controversy is the sort of life story that people seem to associate with the production of good art. In the art world, an artist’s creativity is often portrayed as having resulted from a life of suffering as though an artist’s creative output is dependant on how much trauma and despair they have experienced in their life. Looking through the history of art, the plight of the starving or struggling artist striving for success is rather common and has been highly romanticised to the point where such a plight has become a sort of badge of honour.

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Day 10: Artspace
Call me old fashioned, but I have to say, after the decrepit industrial chic of Cockatoo Island, it was nice to get back to the white cube. Admittedly, Artspace is not all that cubular, but it’s all relative and compared to the shabby splendour of the buildings on the island, it’s downright clean and crisp.
It might not be hip, or progressive, but I don’t mind a clean, well lit, neutral space for viewing art. (And yes, I know, nothing is really neutral.) However, the white cube model does have certain advantages. At least it doesn’t actively compete with the art for attention, not that this is necessarily a bad thing. Some artists are keen to take on the challenge; wrangle with difficult spaces and come out on top with something wonderfully synergistic. But others seem to just lose the tussle. So is white right? Maybe the answer is sometimes; one size never really does fit all. More