Ocula Conversation Hito Steyerl: How To Build a Sustainable Art World 'A Picture of War is Not War', we read in Hito Steyerl's iconic film November (2004), an essayistic Super 8 film tackling the definition of terrorism constructed around the figure of the artist's best friend Andrea Wolf, who was killed as a terrorist in 1998 in Eastern Anatolia after she joined the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). Mixing documentary...
Ocula Report Aichi to Okayama: Art in Japan Looks to the Future 11 Oct 2019 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula There has been a flurry of triennial and biennial art activity in Japan this year. The Aichi Triennale opened in Nagoya this August, sparking a national debate about the shutting down of a display of formerly censored works—the result of public backlash against a burnt image of Emperor Hirohito and a statue commemorating the women forced into...
Ocula Insight | Video Hans Hartung and Art Informel at Mazzoleni London (1 October 2019-18 January 2020) presents key works by the French-German painter while highlighting his connection with artists active in Paris during the 50s and 60s. In this video, writer and historian Alan Montgomery discusses Hartung's practice and its legacy.Born in Leipzig in 1904, Hans...
Ocula Report TarraWarra International 2019: Tracing Tangible Shadows 28 Jun 2019 : Natalie King for Ocula Everyone I encounter along my journey asks: 'Where are you based?''On my feet,' I answer.'Where are your feet based then?''Feet are never based,' I say.This haunting voiceover from Hiwa K's video, Pre-Image (Blind as the Mother Tongue) (2017), follows the artist retracing a journey that he made when he was 25 years old, fleeing Iraq and...
Ocula Conversation Patricia Piccinini & Joy Hester: Through love ... at TarraWarra Museum of Art (24 November 2018–11 March 2019) is an exhibition that reveals shared explorations of love, intimacy, and relationships in the work of two of Australia's leading artists. This is the first exhibition to explore the conceptual links between the works of Patricia...
Ocula Report Ocula Report: TarraWarra Biennial 2016 21 Sep 2016 : Zara Sigglekow for Ocula A noticeable trend has emerged on the biennale circuit of curatorial collaborations between publications and exhibition makers. Take for example Okwui Enwezor’s 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, which included a newsletter project by e-flux titled ‘Supercommunity’, and the appointment of the collective behind DIS Magazine...
Ocula Conversation Natalie King And Djon Mundine Co-curators, TarraWarra Biennial 2014 With the aim of providing an experimental curatorial platform, the TarraWarra Biennial was inaugurated in 2006 to identify new developments in contemporary Australian art. This year the event is co-curated by independent leading Australian curators—one of Aboriginal descent and the other of non-indigenous descent—Djon Mundine and...
Ocula Report The Poetic Politics Of ‘Whisper In My Mask’ 16 Sep 2014 : Zara Sigglekow for Ocula Whisper In My Mask is a contemporary Australian exhibition which mixes the political with the poetic. Through a diverse range of medium, the biennial, now in its fourth iteration, includes Indigenous and non-Indigenous bound by the rich theme of ‘masking’. The strength of this exhibition lies in the careful balance that it strikes:...
