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Fiona Hall AO to represent Australia at the 2015 Venice Biennale
United Kingdom Architecture News - Dec 07, 2013 - 10:54 2761 views
Image: Fiona Hall Credit: Natalie Robertson.
Fiona Hall AO is one of Australia's leading contemporary artists. She lives and works in Adelaide.
Fiona Hall first came to prominence as a photographer in the 1970s and during the 1980s she extended her creative practice to embrace a diverse range of art forms including sculpture, installation, garden design, and film. Transforming everyday materials and objects, Hall creates artworks which often address the relationship between nature and culture. Her practice includes major public commissions and projects that have increasingly engaged with themes of ecology, history and the effects of globalisation.
Recent solo exhibitions include Fiona Hall: Big Game Hunting at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, (2013), a major survey exhibition, Fiona Hall: Force Field, held by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2008) in partnership with City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand which toured to Christchurch Art Gallery, New Zealand and Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle, Australia, and the retrospective exhibition, The Art of Fiona Hall at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane which toured to the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (both 2005).
Fiona Hall has been included in many important group exhibitions and biennales over the past two decades, including dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany (2012); The Third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2009); The Biennale of Sydney (2000 and 2010); Fieldwork: Australian Art 1968-2002 at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2002); Perspecta at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (1997); Prism: Contemporary Australian Art at the Bridgestone Museum, Tokyo (2006); DeOverkant/Downunder, Den Haag Sculpture 2007, Netherlands (2007).
Hall was the recipient of the prestigious Contempora 5 Art Prize in 1997 and in 1999 she was the winner of the Clemenger Art Award at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Hall’s work has been collected by all the major Australian public galleries, including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide and the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane. She has also completed a number of important public commissions, for example: Folly for Mrs Macquarie, Sydney Sculpture Walk, Botanic Gardens (2000); Fern Garden, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (1998); and Occupied Territory, commission for the opening of the Museum of Sydney (1995).
Fiona Hall is represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.
VENICE BIENNALE
The Venice Biennale is widely regarded as the most important and prestigious event on the international contemporary arts calendar. Founded in 1895, it is the oldest and largest established biennale in the world.
The Venice Biennale is an event consisting of a curated program by the Venice Biennale Foundation (Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia), and exhibitions by nearly 90 representing countries at the Giardini della Biennale (the Biennale Gardens), the Arsenale, and at satellite locations throughout Venice.
The Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body, has managed and funded the Australian representation at the Venice Biennale over 30 years.
We are committed to building opportunities for the international presentation and collection of Australian contemporary art, and representation at the Biennale is an important part of this strategy.
The Venice Biennale provides Australian artists with critical international coverage, exposing them to key new audiences, markets and contexts. This exposure helps build the profile of Australian contemporary visual arts and facilitates the establishment of significant international cultural links, networks and dialogue for individual Australian artists. The Biennale also represents a significant platform on which the Council can promote contemporary Australian visual arts more widely.
The sole artist to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale 2015 is Fiona Hall AO.
The 56th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale 2015 will be open to the public from 9 May to 22 November 2015.
Australian Pavilion
Australia is one of only 29 countries to own a national pavilion in the Biennale Gardens. The first pavilion, a temporary structure designed by Philip Cox, was built in 1988. In 2011 the Australia Council announced its intention to establish a permanent pavilion on the site. The new Australian Pavilion, designed by Denton Corker Marshall, will open at the 56th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale 2015.
More information on the redevelopment of the Australian Pavilion.
THE CURATOR
Image Credit:© Will Taylor
Linda Michael is a respected curator, writer and editor. She lives in Melbourne and is the Deputy Director and Senior Curator atHeide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne. Previous positions include Senior Curator at Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2001-2003) and Senior Curator at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art (1989-2001).
Linda Michael has undertaken numerous projects both nationally and internationally and has curated major exhibitions including Future Primitive (2013), Callum Morton: In Memoriam (2011) and Freehand: Recent Australian Drawing, (2010), at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 21st Century Modern: The Adelaide Biennial of Contemporary Australian Art (2006) and the 2003 Venice Biennale exhibition We Are Family by Patricia Piccinini. She curated several international exhibitions at the MCA, the Australian contribution to the Istanbul Biennial in 1997 and was Australian Commissioner for Song of the Earth, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, in 2000.
Linda Michael has written extensively on contemporary Australian art and edited numerous art publications for museums and publishers Australia-wide. She has served on the Asialink Visual Art Committee, the Arts Victoria Arts Presentation Committee, and as a peer adviser for Visual Arts at the Australia Council.
> via australiacouncil.gov.au
