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The 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Sophie Cunningham February 23

I went up to Brisbane yesterday to be part of a panel the Queensland Writers Centre were running on writing short stories. My plane got up early enough that Zoe Dattner, Paddy O'Reilly and I got to visit the 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. If you are in Brisbane and haven't see it get there as soon as you can - it's only on until the end of February. Here's a quick iphone tour through what I saw.

Soft sculpture by Ji Wenyu and Zhu Weibing which is intended to recall Mao's Hundred Flowers Campaign and all that followed. Photo 9

You can see them talking about their work below.

I really loved this large installation by Thukral and Tagra, of which the below is just a tiny portion. It is intended as a critique/representation of modernisation and consumerism in the middle east.Photo 2

And who doesn't love the idea of Zoe communing with a mummified elk which has been covered in giant reflective glass balls? It was, I should say, an extraordinary and quite disturbing work by Kohei Nawa. You could see the Elk's tongue, all fleshy under the glass.

Photo 3

I always love a buddha. This guy is one of dozens that were placed together and had lots of silly stickers on them. I liked the way he sat serenely despite such mockery. (I assume the way his serneity transcends what is daily and incidental was indeed one of Gonkar Gyatso's point.) Photo 6

There was much much more in this exhibition some of which I didn't have time to see, though I did watch a very lovely documentary on the Mekong River, and was entranced by a massive Iranian mirrored mosaic made up of thousands of tiny pieces. That piece was by the artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian. Subodh Gupta's mushroom cloud built out of water vessels was quite amazing also as were the rattan sculptures of Sopheap Pich.

And, while we are talking about all things Brisbane, I got an extremely nice email today from the Brisbane-based Phil Brown, who has contributed a piece on being mentored by Bruce Dawe for the latest (March) edition of Meanjin. 'Crossed the Kurilpa Bridge here on the weekend and saw the sign “Meanjin” on the riverbank near the gallery which reminded me how the mag got its name! Nice synergy.'


 

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