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Adelaide ‘Biennial’ and ‘International’

Margot Osborne
Eyeline 81
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Contrasting curatorial strategies were adopted by Nick Mitzevich in the 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, ‘Dark Heart’, and by Richard Grayson in the Adelaide Festival’s visual arts program, ‘Adelaide International: Worlds in Collision’. Mitzevich and Grayson proved to be worlds apart—not so much on a collision course as in parallel universes. Dark Heart was visually opulent, primarily representational and steeped in emotion; Worlds in Collision downplayed sensory appeal and tended towards the documentary and the conceptual. While Mitzevich pursued a populist path, corralling some of the big names in Australian contemporary art within an ambient theme, Grayson sought out relatively unknown artists operating on the margins of the international art world.

From the outset, when taking up his appointment as Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) in 2010, Nick Mitzevich said that he would be a curatorial director. This curatorial orientation was apparent in the controversial overhaul of AGSA’s permanent collection display of European art in 2013, as much as in his programming of a succession of AGSA-initiated contemporary exhibitions. All these projects have been carried off with chutzpah—great invention, a canny sense of theatre and imaginative re-conceptualising of viewer engagement with art.

In assuming the role of curator of the 2014 Adelaide Biennial (a coveted post always previously assigned to invited guest curators) Mitzevich grasped a first opportunity to unleash the full gamut of his curatorial ambitions. There can be no doubt that Dark Heart was a tour de force of sheer showmanship, epitomising Mitzevich’s flair for dramatic presentation. He favours the operatic, the grand gesture. Subtlety is not part of his lexicon. He has said that he wanted to create ‘an immersive and visceral’... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

Ian Strange, Landed, 2014. Installation view, 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Dark Heart featuring Art Gallery of South Australia.

Ian Strange, Landed, 2014. Installation view, 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Dark Heart featuring Art Gallery of South Australia.

Tony Albert, 108, 2011–13. Detail. 99 mixed media collages and 9 houses of cards, various dimensions, Private collection, Hong Kong, © Tony Albert. Courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney. Photograph Greg Piper;

Tony Albert, 108, 2011–13. Detail. 99 mixed media collages and 9 houses of cards, various dimensions, Private collection, Hong Kong, © Tony Albert. Courtesy the artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney. Photograph Greg Piper;