Ten Must-See New Art Exhibitions Shaking Up Sydney This March

The Biennale of Sydney will turn twenty in 2016. Artistic director Stephanie Rosenthal’s programming draws inspiration from a line by sci-fi author William Gibson: The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed. When the event takes over Sydney between 18 March and 5 June, it’ll explore this quotation across seven venues and numerous other ‘in-between’ spaces. Keen to get as many site-specific works happening as possible, Rosenthal commissioned 70 percent of artists to present new pieces.

For this Biennale, we’re asked to consider the venues as temporary ’embassies of thought’ rather than galleries, with each ’embassy’ embracing a specific theme. So, Cockatoo Island will become the Embassy of the Real, where artists will meditate on our perceptions of reality in the digital world. To transcend the physical, head to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which will be transformed into the Embassy of Spirits. Meanwhile, Carriageworks will become the Embassy of Disappearance.

The other four venues are Artspace (Embassy of Non-Participation), Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (Embassy of Translation), a bookshop (Embassy of Stanislaw Lem) and Mortuary Station (Embassy of Transition), in its first ever Biennale appearance.

Alaska Projects is taking over Kings Cross and Paddington for two-and-a-bit glorious weeks for SafARI 2016. Prepare for installations, soundscapes, digital streaming and live performances, as well as three formal exhibition openings.

On Friday, March 11, head to the William Street headquarters for the launch of SafARI x Runway: Ecologies, featuring works by Victoria’s Jesse Dyer and Matthew Linde, alongside those by New South Welsh artists Grace Blake & Danny Wild, Claudia Nicolson and Hanna Hoogedeure.

Then, on Wednesday, March 16, it’ll be time for the launch of SafARI x ALASKA Projects, in the car park. This brings together pieces by an array of artists, plus a live performance of Pete Nelson’s Grottspace, Megan Hales’s Two to Toot scooter and, in the bathrooms, Akira and Nathan Lasker’s Loo D’aisance (ease and release). The rest of the program is right here.

Image: Lara Merrington/SafARI.

White Rabbit Gallery are following up their epic summer exhibition Paradise Bitch with something wildly (and literally) monumental. A metric ton of fake marble, two tons of leather, three tons of compressed paper, five thousand porcelain leaves, 8000 identical books, 130,000 minute photographs and 600,000 painted dots are charging into the Chippendale gallery space this March for Heavy Artillery, a brand new exhibition examining mass and scale in contemporary Chinese art as a means to convey even larger ideas.

Going big and in-your-face is a hugely effective way for artists to tackle the bigger concepts — life and death, technology and nature, change and eternity — and inevitably stop viewers in their tracks. But Chinese contemporary artists take this even further, using historic monumentalism for contemporary experiments.

Like most of White Rabbit’s exhibitions, the works in the show are all new acquisitions — and they’ve never been shown in Australia before. See He Xiangyu’s Tank Project (2011-13), a Soviet-Chinese tank replica made from hand-stitched leather, Geng Xue’s The Poetry of Michelangelo (2015), a video tribute to Michelangelo using a lump of clay, and Polit-Sheer-Form Office group’s Library (2008), a huge, huge archive of blue books. Other artists include Liu Wei, Hsu Yung-Hsu, Aaajiao (Xu Wenkai), Guo Jian, Liu Chang, Liu Jianhua, Song Hongquan, and Taiwanese artists Ah Leon, Lin Yen-wei, Chou Chu-Wang.

After nearly five decades roaming the globe and shooting images, American photographer and icon Roger Ballen is finally coming to Sydney to hold a major solo exhibition at the Sydney College of the Arts. His show, which coincides with the 20th Biennale of Sydney, is a retrospective of 75 works from the last two decades and has been carefully curated by SCA Dean at the University of Sydney, Colin Rhodes.

Aptly titled Roger Ballen’s Theatre of the Mind, the show will feature new work inspired by the SCA site’s history as a mental asylum. The new work will be on show in the underground cells so bring your best scream and a spooky ghost preparedness kit too.

Although Ballen has spent five decades pursuing photography and travelling extensively through South Africa, he’s best known by the younger generation for the Die Antwoord video clip for ‘I Fink U Freaky’.

In 1980s Berlin, a boundary-breaking group of amateurs, known as the Geniale Dilletanten — or Brilliant Dilletantes — plunged into art-making, without much concern for rules, tradition or The Establishment. Whether painting, sculpting, designing, filmmaking or playing music, the members fearlessly developed their own voices, expressing unique interpretations of the world.

For one month, from March 10 till April 13, their creations are making Sydney’s aMBUSH Gallery, Central Park. Expect films, photographs, magazines, posters, audio and video. Pop along on opening night — Thursday, March 10 from 6-9pm — to catch an exclusive performance by Gudrun Gut, a Berlin-based electronic music artist and original Geniale Dilletante. Check out the other scheduled events on aMBUSH’s website.

Head west to Penrith to catch the first ever touring exhibition from the Maruku Arts archive, which is based at Mutitjulu, near Uluru. The carvings and artefacts communicate the stories and law of Anangu culture.

“Punu (carved objects made of wood) is a significant and prolific artform in Central Australia and its production and display are integral to the maintenance of culture and to the sharing of knowledge,” says Louise Partos, executive officer of Artback NT.

There are 88 punu objects, as well as sculptures, audio and video, representing three generations of artists. Explore at your own leisure with the bespoke mobile app.

Traditionally, art has valued the visual over the tactile and hard materials over soft ones. This exhibition, to be held at Gallery Lane Cove, is giving such conventions the old heave-ho.

Curated by Felicity Martin and Paula do Prado, The Charged Object explores artworks whose tangible qualities are just as important as their visual elements. As you wander among pieces made of soft materials and textures just begging to be felt, consider the role of touch — or desire to touch — in the spectator’s experience.

Artists on show include Margarita Sampson, Michelle Cawthorn, Yarrenyty Arltere, Brett Alexander, Paulo do Prado, Anne Graham, Nicole Monks and John Brooks. Drop by on opening night — Wednesday, March 9 — for an official launch at 6pm and a panel discussion at 7pm.

The Persian New Year is a 3000 year old holiday, happening in March, and the Iranian Art and Craft Exhibition will be celebrating in an Australian-first. This huge exhibition has been organised with the support of the Iranian Women Visual Artists Collective-Australia (IWVAC-Australia), who are in residence at Cre8tiv Studios.

A diverse range of works will be on display, covering both traditional and contemporary art practice. Whether you’re an expert in Iranian art or utterly new to the subject, this is an excellent chance to acquaint yourself with major approaches, developments and themes — historically and in the now.

All hail the almighty face fuzz, the glorious crumb catcher, the big ol’ chin curtain. Beards, the noble facial hair adventure many humans embark valiantly upon as soon as their hormones allow. And now, they’ve got their very own exhibition in Sydney.

Artist Brock Elbank, a former advertising whiz and fashion photographer, is one of the best portrait creators around — and he’s got an eye for beards. His most well-known work has become the visual anchor for Beard Season, the highly successful campaign for skin cancer prevention. He’s turned this into a series, Beard, which showed at Somerset House in London and is showing this month at Michael Reid Gallery.

See bearded famous faces adorn the gallery walls, including actor John Hurt, Harnaam Kaur (whose polycystic ovaries have caused facial hair growth) and Italian designer Angelo Gallemini.

Image: Brock Elbank, Stefan Bostrom, 2014.

Beard is exhibiting concurrently at Michael Reid Galleries in Berlin and 44 Roslyn Gardens, Elizabeth Bay. 

“We all live in our own little worlds spinning around in an erratic universe. It is uncontrolled by our thoughts, needs and wants that we traverse as best we can, letting the chips fall where they may.”

One of Art Month’s most colourful exhibitions this year, The Strutt Sisters’ Let the Chips Fall Where They May takes over new space Kensington Contemporary Gallery, conveniently down the road from The Old Clare Hotel, Kensington Street Social, Automata et al. Post gallery-bevs ahoy.