Art at the 2004 Sydney Festival

Women of the year

They are women, hear them roar. The 2004 Sydney Festival features a strong line-up of women artists in its visual arts program. The centrepiece however will feature a man, with major retrospective featuring the work of Nam June Paik.

Korean born and now New York-based Paik has an association with Australia going back to 1976. The exhibition traces Paik’s work over the intervening years, including his collaborations with cellist Charlotte Moorman. The two have staged spectacular performance pieces; many in Sydney using landmarks like the Sydney Opera House and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The AGNSW’s exhibition comprises video and photographic records of these performances; together with electronic and structural works. It will take in a range of items like the actual “TV Cello” used in the performance work “Concerto for TV Cello and Video Tape”; the sculpture “Buddha Game” and a re-presentation of the installation work “TV Garden”.

In addition to the AGNSW exhibition, Paik himself will be the centre of the spectacular performance event Transmission in the Sydney Opera House forecourt. Combining a neon and laser tower construction with 16 cars playing Mozart’s “Requiem”, the work toys with ideas of technological advancement and disposability in modern society.

Across at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Sydney Festival will present the work of arguably Australia’s greatest living photographer, Tracey Moffatt. The artist is also an accomplished filmmaker, and it’s no accident that her photographic work echoes her experience with the cinema.

Moffatt also knows a thing or two about using the Australian landscape to full effect, and depicting women in various environments. These elements all come together in the exhibition. One highlight is sure to be the series focusing on the athletes who came fourth at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

The lightbox displays around Circular Quay are always a highlight of any Sydney Festival (who could forget David Byrne’s intriguing “The New Sins”). This year, the honour goes to Cherine Faud and Trent Parke, with their exhibition Suspended States. The two could be seen as very different artists – Faud uses large colour photographs with a strong sense of composition; while Parke employs black and white photo-journalism to document life in the city. Yet the combination of the two promises an exciting display.

One man who does get a look in is the late Leigh Bowery. The Australian-born trendsetter made quite a splash in London, influencing the likes of Boy George with his outrageous outfits and behaviour. But it was his nightclub performances that really made his name. The MCA’s exhibition includes videos, costumes and other archival material.

In the whirl that is the Sydney Festival, it’s sometimes difficult to fit in the visual arts component. But that would be to miss out on an extraordinary series of exhibitions and events.

David Edwards

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