Art Gallery of SA acquires works from record-breaking Adelaide Biennial exhibition, appoints 2020 curator
THE Art Gallery of SA has acquired six works from this year’s record-breaking Adelaide Biennial exhibition — check out some of them here.
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KEEPING an eye on the future is a full-time job for the newly appointed curator of the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Leigh Robb.
The leading survey of cutting-edge contemporary Australian artists is mounted by the Art Gallery of SA as the major exhibition for the Adelaide Festival in even years.
“It’s one of the greatest professional privileges to be asked to be the curator of an Adelaide Biennial, so it’s a thrill,” said Ms Robb, 38, who became the Gallery’s first curator of contemporary art in 2016.
“The Biennial is such a historic and massive platform, and one of the biggest group exhibitions you will ever get to curate in your career — but, saying that, I am really ready.’’
Attendances for this year’s Adelaide Biennial exhibition Divided Worlds, which finished yesterday, were up 10 per cent on 2016 with a record 240,000 visitors during its 93-day season at multiple venues, which included the Samstag Museum, Jam Factory and Mercury Cinema. It also drew an unprecedented 20,000 people to the Museum of Economic Botany in the Adelaide Botanic Garden, which housed works by photographer Tamara Dean.
“As an across-city experience, the Adelaide Biennial clearly resonated with a broad audience,” Art Gallery co-acting director Lisa Slade said.
The Gallery has also acquired six works from this year’s Biennial, valued at a total of $690,000, for its collection. These include the Lindy Lee sculpture The Life of Stars, the Ken Family’s triptych painting Kangkura-KangkuraKu Tjukurpa — A Sister’s Story, Lisa Adams’ hyper-real figurative painting Inquisition and three photographs from Tamara Dean’s series In Our Nature.
Before joining the Gallery, Ms Robb was senior curator at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts and worked overseas as a commissioning curator with high-profile international artists including UK video and film director Steve McQueen, British installation artist Michael Landy, Hawaiian sculptor Paul Pfeiffer and Irish digital 3D artist John Gerrard.
“In a way, I’ve been training for nearly 20 years to do this gig, which is tracking tendencies and the way approaches to different materials and mediums have shifted,” she said.
The theme for her 2020 Biennial, which will be the 15th event, will be released later.
“I know very clearly the direction that we’re heading in and the artists that we’re working with — some are already locked in,” Ms Robb said.
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