BIENNALS:8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) is the flagship exhibition of Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) focused on the work of Asia and the Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand. This 8thedition emphasizes the role of performance in recent art, with live actions, video, kinetic art, figurative painting and sculpture exploring the use of the human form to express cultural, social and political ideas, and the central role of artists in articulating experiences specific to their localities.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) Archive
The 8th APT features 80 emerging and established artists, filmmakers and performers from 30 countries and reflects the vigour of a number of new and expanding creative centres throughout Asia and the Pacific. For the first time, artists from Mongolia, Nepal and Solomon Islands will be included in the Triennial. Four exciting Mongolian painters, who work in the highly distinctive Mongol zurag style, will have work featured, their first exhibition in Australia.
The 8th APT has an emphasis on performance, with live actions, video and kinetic art, as well as figurative painting and sculpture. Many of the artists included explore how the human form is used to express cultural, social and political ideas at a time of enormous change. Among the special focuses in APT8 are Australia’s first major display of Indian indigenous art and a contemporary performance project. “Yumi Danis” will be co-curated with ni–Vanuatu author and musician Marcel Meltherorong, and is being developed with Kanak artist Nicolas Molé and 15 Melanesian performers who were recently involved in a creative exchange in Ambrym, Vanuatu. APT8 Live, the first program of its type at the Gallery, presents key exhibition spaces and activities activated at regular intervals throughout the duration of the exhibition period, giving performance an emphatic presence and runs monthly from the opening weekend (21&22/11) until the closing weekend (9-10/4/16). APT Talk, is a major conference as part of the opening weekend program; an extensive cinema program. APT CINEMA is an important component the APT exhibition series, highlighting key practitioners, cinema histories and lines of influence between the moving image and other forms of cultural production. Three projects have been developed for APT8 “Pop Islam”, “Filipino Indie” and a program of works by artist-filmmaker Lav Diaz. Together these projects reflect on the agency of the moving image in its varied contemporary forms and provide a platform to present some of the most engaging artists and filmmakers working throughout the region. APT Kids, is a dynamic range of hands-on, drawing and multimedia activities created by exhibiting artists.
Info: 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Stanley Place, Cultural Precinct, South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Duration: 21/11/15-10/4/16, Days & Hours: Daily 10:00-17:00, www.qagoma.qld.gov.au
