City to be artist’s biggest canvas yet in Biennale of Sydney 2020

Brook Andrew will get to apply his 2020 vision to a whole city in the Biennale of Sydney.

Brook Andrew at Sydney’s Old Clare Hotel after being appointed artistic director of the next Biennale of Sydney. Picture: John Feder

Brook Andrew is used to dealing with unusual spaces. For years, his artworks have appeared in prominent locations worldwide, both inside and outside traditional gallery environments.

Now that he’s been appointed as the artistic director of the Biennale of Sydney — the first indigenous Australian to take up the role — Andrew, 48, is sizing up his biggest canvas yet.

“I’m very much familiar with the white cube space,” he said. “But I know that often artists’ works don’t sing the best in those kind of environments. Sometimes you need something a bit different.”

Andrew succeeds Japanese curator Mami Kataoka, whose biennale wrapped up last week after three months. She programmed works in seven locations across Sydney, from the Art Gallery of NSW to Cockatoo Island.

Andrew will oversee the 22nd chapter of the biennale, in 2020, so it’s still early days. But as a self-described immersive, site-specific artist, he’s looking forward to the challenge of activating the city with art.

“My job is to allow artists to sing, and for them to have ownership over the space and to be able to communicate their ideas,” he said. “I know what that’s like, being an artist, so I know what they want.”

Andrew, who divides his time between Sydney, Melbourne and London, comes to the job with serious artistic pedigree. One of the nation’s most dynamic contemporary artists, he works regularly in Australia and Europe and just finished a year-long Australia Council residency in Berlin.

Closer to home, he has installations on display at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art and National Gallery of Victoria, where he held a solo exhibition last year called The Right to ­Offend is Sacred.

He’s also no stranger to Sydney’s biennale, having been involved both this year and in 2010, as well as participating in various contemporary art festivals from Brisbane to Shanghai.

Andrew doesn’t plan to include his own art at the 2020 biennale, saying he would be making a statement of sorts as artistic director instead. He will seek out artists and collections both locally and abroad, looking to present an exhibition that offers a snapshot of the world from an Australian perspective. He’s particularly interested in peripheral perspectives, or “ideas on the edge”.

“I’m going to move the edge to the centre,” he said.