Ocula Report Havana Biennial 2019: Constructing the Possible 17 Apr 2019 : Federica Bueti for Ocula I first visited Havana in November 2016, a few days after Fidel Castro died, and just under a year before Hurricane Irma hit Cuba in September 2017. Since then, much has changed, including the hand-painted signs that punctuate the journey from the airport to the city centre, which today do not celebrate the revolution so much as the 'Unidad y...
Ocula Conversation Andrew Stahl and Guo Xiaohui The exhibition Beyond Boundaries at Somerset House in London (12 March–2 April 2019) marked the historic contributions of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (CAFA) and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, on the occasion of their 100th and 150th anniversaries, respectively. Spread across several rooms of Somerset House's...
Ocula Report The National 2019: New Australian Art 13 Apr 2019 : Elyse Goldfinch for Ocula The National 2019: New Australian Art features work by 70 contemporary Australia-based artists split across three venues: the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Carriageworks, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) (29 March–21 July 2019), as curated by Isobel Parker Philip, curator of photographs at AGNSW; Daniel Mudie Cunningham,...
Ocula Report 4th Kochi-Muziris Biennale: Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life 15 Feb 2019 : Natalie King for Ocula 'Poems are like sentences that have taken their clothes off.' Marlene Dumas' poetic and sensual refrain accompanies her figurative watercolours on view in Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life, the fourth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) in the southern state of Kerala, India (12 December 2018–29 March 2019).Dumas' new series...
Ocula Conversation Australian artist Brook Andrew's practice often finds inspiration in institutional archives, but his intentions go beyond the archaeological: he is not primarily interested in discovering or documenting the past, but in 'un-cementing' history's hold on events, people and beliefs, and in doing so, freeing the discussions taking place today from that...
![Art Basil [sic]](http://d3rtf5gv0re40d.cloudfront.net/anzax/93/9399f02a-6253-4ff2-a089-cfbc857cd71f_263_196.png)
Ocula Report Art Basil [sic] 31 Mar 2016 : Diana d'Arenberg for Ocula I was Brainwashed the Friday before Art Basel Hong Kong kicked off. French street artist, Mr. Brainwash, was holding court—to an audience full of Hong Kong society types, complete with bodyguards, and media—with a spray can in a graffiti decorated shell-space in Lan Kwai Fong. It was one of several property developer-artist...
Ocula Report APT8: A fragmenting vision of the future 14 Dec 2015 : Susan Acret for Ocula It is 16 years since I last visited an Asia Pacific Triennial and it is heartening to see that although APT8 is a very different beast from the ground-breaking APTs of the 1990s, this edition has stayed true to the triennial’s philosophy of interacting with the region’s artists in a sustained and very localised way. When the APT was...
Ocula Report Institutional critique in the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial 3 Dec 2015 : Tess Maunder for Ocula Since the late 1980s the major concern for curatorial practice has been the rise of biennale culture; the impact this exhibition format has had upon both the production and reception of contemporary art internationally. Reflecting on this lineage and recent politics from within the Asia-Pacific region, it is apparent that exhibitions such as the...
Ocula Report Melbourne Now 2 Dec 2013 : Emily Cormack for Ocula For a city consistently referred to as Australia’s ‘cultural capital’ Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) has had a track record of casual disregard for the vigorous cultural activities that have been occurring in its midst. It has seemed odd at best, that despite healthy acquisitions of contemporary...
