Stephanie Rosenthal
Photo: Courtesy Biennale of Sydeny

Stephanie Rosenthal, curator and artistic director of the 20th Biennale of Sydney, has announced the final list of artists who will participate in the exhibition, entitled “The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed,” including 13 new artists and collectives.

The new additions are Ricardo Basbaum, Céline Condorelli, Don’t Follow the Wind, Erub Arts, Philipp Gehmacher, Germaine Kruip, Benoît Lachambre, Chrysa Parkinson, Evan Roth, Hahn Rowe, Christoph Schlingensief, Alexis Teplin, and Ken Thaiday Snr.

Australia’s largest contemporary art event—which features 83 artists from 35 countries—brings together over 200 artworks spanning various mediums, although it has a keen focus on performance. The Biennale, which opens on March 18, will take place across seven venues, or “embassies of thought.”

Philipp Gehmacher My Shapes, Your Words, Their Grey (2015)
Photo: Eva Wurdinger/Biennale of Sydney via Facebook.

The Torres Strait Islands collective Erub Arts will take over the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which has been renamed “Embassy of Spirits” for the Biennale. The collective will present an ecological themed installation based on indigenous cultural traditions from Australia.

The “Embassy of Spirits” will also display Ken Thaiday Snr’s dhari (headdresses), which reflect the heritage and traditions of performance in the Torres Strait Islands, and will host screenings of Christoph Schlingensief’s experimental documentary The African Twintowers (2005-07).

The Biennale has also commissioned a month-long daily performance, curated by Adrian Heathfield, comprised of interlinked works by Philipp Gehmacher, Benoît Lachambre, Chrysa Parkinson, and Hahn Rowe.

Meanwhile, at the “Embassy of Disappearance,” the artist collective Don’t Follow the Wind and the Brazilian artist Ricardo Basbaum will also present new works.

The upcoming Biennale of Sydney is the 20th edition of the event.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, which will house the “Embassy of Translation,” the French artist Céline Condorelli will present a collaborative installation with filmmaker Beatrice Gibson and typographer Will Holder.

A 20-minute performance by Dutch artist Germaine Kruip’s will also be held at the “Embassy of Translation” on weekends, and at the “Embassy of the Real” in Cockatoo Island’s during the week, where Alexis Teflon’s abstract paintings will be displayed.

Running concurrently, Evan Roth’s online project Internet Landscapes: Sydney 2016 will analyze the physical, digital, and cultural landscapes of the internet, and it will be accessible online on 20bos.com.