Shock of the view at the Venice Biennale

Who made the trip to Venice for the opening of Marco Fusinato’s exhibition at the Australian Pavilion?

Marco Fusinato’s installation, Desastres, at the Venice Biennale. Fusinato is pictured playing guitar, at right. Picture: Andrea Rossetti

The Venice Biennale got under way last weekend, and who wouldn’t want to be in La Serenissima in the springtime?

Plenty of Australians were in Venice for the opening of Marco Fusinato’s exhibition at the Australian Pavilion, plus a sprinkling of international celebs. Tilda Swinton and Rachel Griffiths made an appearance, as did artists Antony Gormley, Anselm Kiefer and Britain’s Sonia Boyce, who won the Golden Lion for her Biennale exhibition. Among the Aussies in attendance were the ambassador to Italy, Margaret Twomey, arts donor Penelope Seidler, the Australia Council’s Adrian Collette and exhibition curator Alexie Glass-Kantor.

The rest of us stuck at home didn’t have to feel left out. For the first time, the opening was livestreamed, giving viewers a free ride to an event that usually requires an airfare, connections, or both. Fusinato’s performance piece called Desastres involves him playing drone guitar chords – made very loud thanks to an impressive-looking stack of amps – and a video installation showing monochrome images of things that could be described as violent, alienating and revolting.

Watching it all unfold on my laptop at home was to have only a fraction of the experience. You want to feel the noise. But the overall effect was impressive, a kind of dark ode to the age of anxiety. The piece already has some notoriety for a photo of a cat being sick, and there’s worse.

Don’t let that put you off. If there’s a trip to Europe on the horizon, you can pop in and see Fusinato in action – he will be performing his piece live at the Australian Pavilion for 200 days.

-

Opera bounces back

Francisco Brito and Esther Song in Opera Australia’s production of La Juive. Picture: Prudence Upton

Opera Australia has launched its international search for an artistic director to succeed Lyndon Terracini, and the job specs are contained in a glossy 21-page (well, electronic pages) candidate pack. It spells out the ambitions of Australia’s biggest performing arts company and the desirable personal attributes for the future artistic director.

Chairman Glyn Davis and chief executive Fiona Allan are looking for a “visionary” candidate from one of the main operatic professions, whether stage director, conductor, performer, or writer. The aspiring AD should value diversity and inclusion and exhibit qualities such as humility and openness. A pragmatic approach to fiscal management is required. Stakeholder management, strategic planning and talent development are all part of the job. So is a “familiarity and knowledge of opera as an art form and its major players”. And lest there be any misunderstanding, the AD reports to the chief executive.

Interestingly, the candidate pack also contains details of OA’s recent performance, not yet published in its financial statements. Business improved last year from the shocking lows of 2020. Almost 129,000 tickets were sold, and box office increased by 64 per cent to $17.4m – although that’s still way short of pre-pandemic sales of $73.6m. The OA Capital Fund which has helped support the company through the pandemic ended the year with $28.5m. No doubt OA’s balance sheet was helped by the sale of its Alexandria warehouse last year, for a handy $46m.

-

It’s open season

Art Gallery of NSW director Michael Brand in 2019 in the oil tanks that will be part of Sydney Modern. The new gallery is nearing completion. Picture: Jane Dempster

Some of Sydney’s shiny new cultural buildings are nearing completion and dates for the house-warming parties can at last be put in the diary. Sydney Modern, the $344m addition to the Art Gallery of NSW, will open its doors to the public on December 3. People walking past the building site in the Domain in recent weeks will have noticed the glazing being fitted to the new building, which overlooks Sydney Harbour.

When it opens, the building, designed by Japanese firm SANAA, will include a new gallery for Indigenous art, a sculpture garden, and World War II-era oil tanks transformed into a contemporary art gallery. New artworks have been commissioned for Sydney Modern from Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Karla Dickens, Simryn Gill, Jonathan Jones, Yayoi Kusama, Lee Mingwei, Richard Lewer, Lisa Reihana and Francis Upritchard.

The AGNSW also has been doing upgrades to its historic wing, and the collection will be rehung in time for the grand reopening in December.

At the Sydney Opera House, the Concert Hall is getting ready to reopen after being closed for more than two years. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra has announced the date of its first concerts in the refurbished hall, from July 21.

It also marks the debut of Simone Young as chief conductor, leading a program of Mahler’s Symphony No 2 (the Resurrection) and a new orchestral piece by composer and didgeridoo virtuoso William Barton.

Meanwhile, the Australian Chamber Orchestra is showing off its new premises at Pier 2/3, the redeveloped wharf at Sydney’s Walsh Bay Arts Precinct. After an intimate launch last month, the orchestra is hosting a festival this weekend, with guests to include Jimmy Barnes, Jane Campion and actors from neighbouring Sydney Theatre Company. Quite a party.