It’s time to lock in your next culture trail. You don’t need to wait for next year's Biennale of Sydney to roll back around to see a whole lot of interesting contemporary art – the fourth edition of The National is now open, and it won’t cost you a thing to explore.
Celebrating and showcasing new Australian art, this biennial art event is taking place over four of Sydney’s leading art galleries for its biggest iteration yet for 2023. There are 48 bold and experimental new works on show, involving more than 80 artists from across Country, generations and communities.
There’s a whole lot to see at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where the work of 14 artists is on show (until July 23, in the original South Building). You’ll be greeted by the colourful, towering sculptures of Nabilah Nordin, whose raucous textures contrast the building’s classical architecture. Other highlights include Heather B. Swann’s sculptural explorations, which beautifully upend the tragic roots of an ancient myth; Abdul Abdullah’s playful side is on show with his personified nature scenes; and at the base of the escalators, Gerry Wedd’s large-scale installation puts a modern twist on traditional blue and white ceramics (bonus points for the ceramic bong and the hidden skulls).
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Further afield, Campbelltown Arts Centre has teamed up with The National for the first time. With the work of 11 artists on show (until June 25), you can see some of the most exciting and warmly curated contemporary art in the country here. An upended boat covered in knick-knacks hovers in the middle of ‘Coherent Narratives’, an installation made up of various sculptural assemblages by a Filipino-Australian family unit: artists (and parents) Isabel and Alfredo Juan Aquilizan, working with Fruitjuice Factori Studio (made up of the Aquilizan’s children). There’s also a whole room of Lynda Draper’s ethereal ceramic sculptures (‘Talismans for Unsettled Times’) which resemble other-worldly alien mushroom colonies; and take the time to settle in for ‘Gaban’, a video installation created by Wiradjuri/Celtic artist and writer Brook Andrew, which summons a number of interlinked stories concerning the mess of the colonial fall-out.
Over at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Circular Quay, 13 artists and collectives are presented, and each of them is granular in their focus (showing until July 9). Simryn Gill has created a poetic evocation of the now-demolished garden of her elderly Italian neighbour in Marrickville, which connects local and personal experiences to broader questions of place and belonging. Allison Chhorn’s immersive video installation invites you to step inside a ‘shade house’ shrouded in moving projections; Chhorn’s work meditates on the daily routines of her Cambodian-Australian family and addresses histories of migration and the ongoing effects of colonisation. Collaborative and community-based practices have a strong presence at the MCA, including a powerful video installation produced by artists from Jilamara Arts Centre filmed on Country in the remote Milikapiti community in the Tiwi Islands.
Over at Carriageworks, a lot of the work from the 11 artists on show (until June 25) in the expansive former industrial site is as daring and downright wacky as you’d expect, in contrast to beautiful pieces informed by ancient cultural practices. In a hidden back corner, you’ll find Jason Phu’s mixed-media installation ‘Frog band plays in a frog pub to small frogs in the frog swamp at the beginning of time’. Emanating the energy of an abandoned post-apocalyptic low-budget theme park, Phu’s work implements found toys and rudimentary animatronics – conflating meme culture, cartoons and Chinese and Vietnamese proverbs. It will make you laugh, and also haunt your dreams.
Erika Scott’s towering ‘The Circadian Cul-de-sac’ is an otherworldly (yet uncomfortably familiar) scene assembled from discarded fish tanks, ant farms, tyres, Tampax instructions, empty photo frames, knick-knacks and other “domestic debris” – all bubbling and dissolving in an inflated pool. Elizabeth Day’s colourful, gargantuan-scale fabric installation will no doubt be the backdrop to hundreds of selfies. Measuring in at 26 metres wide and constructed from unravelled op-shop jumpers, ‘The Flow of Form: There's a Reason Beyond a Reason. Beyond That There's a Reason (1797 Parramatta Gaol)’ actually addresses the damage done through the establishment of places of incarceration in Australia.
If you are game to see a daring contemporary dance work, there are two more opportunties to see a performance of Jo Llyod's FM Air (11am on April 22 and June 24) – where three performers move in a continuous bind, oscillating in a big transparent fabric bag, like a "scent that appears and dissapears" (psychedelic fart vibes).
The National 4: Australian Art Now is open now, and all the exhibitions are free to explore. Find out more at the-national.com.au.