Australian artists storm Venice

The country’s new national arts policy prioritises international exposure

By Julia Halperin. Web only
Published online: 05 March 2015

The Gagosian director Louise Neri, Okwui Enwezor and Paris Neilson, the curator and director of Sydney's White Rabbit Gallery, at a reception in Australia

Australia will have a larger presence than ever before during this year’s Venice Biennale. Work by more than 40 Australian artists will be on view at the international exhibition and satellite events throughout the city (9 May-22 November). The biennale’s artistic director Okwui Enwezor selected a record seven Australians, including the sculptor Emily Floyd, the composer and artist David Chesworth and the late Aboriginal painter Emily Kame Kngwarreye, for his exhibition “All the World’s Futures”—a marked increase from the biennale’s previous two central exhibitions, which did not include any Australians.

Australia’s $6m AUD ($4.7m) new national pavilion—the first 21st-century building to be constructed inside the historic Giardini—is also due to debut this year, while a satellite presentation organised by the Gervasuti Foundation will present new work by more than 30 Indigenous artists from remote areas across Australia. “It will be a big year for Australia in Venice,” says Tony Grybowski, the chief executive of Australia’s arts council, the government’s central arts funding and advisory body.

Many attribute Venice’s Aussie invasion to the country’s new cultural policy. The scheme, which launched last August, seeks to promote Australian arts abroad and grow cultural tourism in part by inviting tastemakers like Enwezor to the country. The Nigerian-born curator visited around 40 galleries, museums and artists’ studios during a weeklong stay last year, according to Grybowski. (Others to make the journey include Julia Peyton-Jones, the co-director of the Serpentine Gallery, Glenn Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, and Roselee Goldberg, the founder of Performa.) The number of arts tourists to Australia grew 19%, to 2.4m, in 2014, according to a report from the arts council released today.

A new era for Australian arts 

The push to promote Australian artists abroad is part of the government’s larger strategic plan for culture, which includes new funding for research, increased investment in Aboriginal arts and an overhaul of the national arts grants programme. The council is also hiring administrators exclusively dedicated to raising Australia’s cultural profile: last year, it appointed its first international development manager for arts in Europe. “Cultural diplomacy is such an important part of our international relations and soft diplomacy,” Grybowski says. 

Some arts advocates believe the government is paying too much attention to its international reputation and not enough to helping struggling artists at home. “We have a history in this country of looking for approbation from overseas for our most gifted before we accept them ourselves,” says PJ Collins, an advocate and founder of the Australian Arts Party. “We are not encouraging the right environment for great new work or appreciation in Australia.” He and other arts advocates say Australia’s new cultural plan is less ambitious than Creative Australia, a cultural strategy proposed by the previous government in 2013. Although the arts council’s budget for 2014-2015 ($211.7m AUD) is 11% higher than it was in 2012-2013, its grants budget was reduced by $9.6m AUD.

Others have praised the government’s cultural plan for streamlining the grants application process, which accepted its first submissions on 3 March. Many artists, including those who work in more than one medium, are eligible to receive funding for the first time. “The council in its history has always been competitive, there’s never enough money,” Grybowski says. “We have a commitment to funding artists that were previously excluded… we can’t just go on funding what we’ve always funded in the past.”