culture

With the Covid-19 lockdown forcing Sydney arts precinct Carriageworks into voluntary administration, the embattled cultural sector is bracing for worse to come.

The shutdowns in the wake of the escalating Covid-19 crisis have forced art establishments to move fast in creating new and innovative ways to keep galleries relevant when their doors are closed to the public.

Aiming to confront audiences with the hidden monstrosities of our age, the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art provokes crucial questions.

The Outcome Is Certain, the first exhibition to survey Agatha Gothe-Snape’s career, emphasises the performance strategies and collaborations that underpin this artist’s work.

The power of Vernon Ah Kee’s latest show, The Island, lies in its ability to spotlight the experiences of First Nations people and refugees as the antithesis of privileged white Australian culture.

For the 2020 Sydney Biennale, artistic director Brook Andrew is challenging the dominant narratives of this country, instead bringing together perspectives that have been unjustly relegated. “Australia is on a precipice of change in this present moment, with people renegotiating and confronting histories which shift dimensionally. It’s about who we are today, and there is a moral question that arises in this, which is: Where do you stand in the face of change?”

At NGV International, an architectural collaboration between Edition Office and Yhonnie Scarce invites visitors to reflect on the erasures of colonisation.

A pioneer of the arte útil movement – in which art goes beyond aesthetics and is a tool for social change – Cuban performance artist Tania Bruguera aims to transform audiences through her politically charged work. “I have been fighting not only for my ideas but also to break this illusion that art to be art has to be useless, has to be apolitical.”

A world-first double exhibition creates a spirited conversation between the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, and reveals how their art resonates with today’s political climate.