13 Rooms – Kaldor Public Art Project #27

Overview

13 Rooms may just be the blockbuster that mainstreams performance art in Australia. Where 'performance art' is often a phrase that angers, confuses and alienates, uber-rich art philanthropist John Kaldor has opened what could be called 'Anish Kapoor: The Sequel', a show that arrests, engages, baffles and confronts and is, above all, fun.

With the help of an architecture firm, 13 spaces have been built from the ground up. Inside each is a living artwork. Traditional art objects, like canvases and sculptures, are replaced by moving, performing, talking bodies. Each room is its own universe of private moments, held by the threshold of a swinging door. Approaching and opening these doors invites suspense and surprise. (And to get the horde of usually cerebral, sedate art critics at the preview I attended to play, frolic, laugh and, frankly, gambol like little lambs is an artistic achievement indeed in itself.)

Some rooms are more involving than others, but this show's beserking variety is its strength. Damien Hirst's work features chatty identical twins who are more than willing to divulge the instructions they've received from the artist to inquiring audience members. Xu Zhen's room holds a floating, breathing body — I have no idea how this works, but it is more transfixing than any Hollywood trickery I've seen in a while.

There's nudity, esoteric oddity and near-invisibility. There are works that only materialise when a viewer appears and is forcibly engaged. The audience member is a participant, not a witness; the room is a stage, not a gallery; and the work is not seen but experienced. The people inside the rooms are live sculptures, and the works break the sound barrier between the performer and audience by putting the viewer on stage.

You will be confused. You will be weirded out. You will dislike some of the works. You will wonder why some artists enjoy making their audiences uncomfortable. But you will not be empty-eyed and slack-jawed. You will be engaged and you will be opinionated. That is what great art — yes, you cynics, even performance art — does.