The Biennale of Sydney has announced Cosmin Costinaș and Inti Guerrero as the Artistic Directors of the 24th Biennale of Sydney, which will take place 9 March – 10 June 2024.

Over the past 10 years, Costinaș and Guerrero have co-curated a number of exhibitions together. As co-curators, their exhibitions embrace the multiplicities of people’s viewpoints, reflected in the unique experiences and possibilities that art can provide, inviting people to challenge and be challenged, to learn and celebrate together. For the 24th Biennale of Sydney (2024), Australia’s vibrant communities will be central to their thinking, while seeing the biennale as a place that reaffirms the urgency for international dialogue.

Cosmin Costinaș is currently the curator of the Romanian Pavilion for the 59th Venice Biennale (2022). He was the Executive Director and Curator of Para Site, Hong Kong’s leading contemporary art centre and one of the oldest and most active independent art institutions in Asia. He was recently Artistic Director of Kathmandu Triennale 2022, the fourth edition of Nepal’s premier international platform for global contemporary arts. Costinaș is a Curatorial Adviser at the Aichi Triennale (2022). He was Guest Curator at the Dhaka Art Summit ’18 (2018), Co-curator of the 10th Shanghai Biennale (2014), curator of BAK, Utrecht (2008-2011), Co-curator of the 1st Ural Industrial Biennial, Ekaterinburg (2010) and Editor of documenta 12 Magazines, documenta 12, Kassel (2005–2007).

Inti Guerrero is currently tutor of the Curatorial Studies programme at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts-KASK, Ghent. He was the Artistic Director of bap – bellas artes projects, Manila (2018-2022), Curator of the 38th EVA International, Ireland’s Biennial, Limerick (2018), Artistic Director of TEOR/éTica, San Jose (2011-2014) and the Estrellita B. Brodsky Adjunct Curator at Tate, London (2016-2020). In 2016, Guerrero was the inaugural curator in residence of the International Visiting Curators Program by Artspace and UNSW Art & Design, Sydney. As an independent curator, Guerrero has curated exhibitions across Asia, Europe and Latin America, including ‘Institute for Tropical and Galactical Studies’ in the Yokohama Triennale 2020, ‘A Chronicle of Interventions,’ Tate Modern, London (2014) and ‘A Transatlantic Affair. Josephine Baker and Le Corbusier,’ Museum of Art of Rio-MAR in Rio de Janeiro (2014). He has edited and contributed his writing to numerous books, magazines, and exhibition catalogues and has taught and lectured at different universities, art academies, and institutions across the world.

Contemporary cultural precinct HOTA, Home of the Arts has announced entries are open for the 20th anniversary of the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award, one of Australia’s most significant awards for contemporary photographic practice.

The Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award provides a national platform for emerging and established artists. As the richest prize for photography in Queensland, the $25,000 acquisitive award is open to artists working in the broad medium of contemporary photography. Visitors to the exhibition will also get to choose their favourite artwork with the inclusion for the first time of a $5,000 People’s Choice Award.

Bell Shakespeare will take its production of The Comedy of Errors on a major national tour to 20 cities and regional centres across Australia in New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, Northern Territory, Tasmania and Australian Capital Territory from July through October this year. Due to be presented in 2020 but disrupted due to COVID, the company revives this vibrant and hilarious production that at its core is a beautiful and timely story about family reunion.

Directed by longtime Bell Shakespeare collaborator Janine Watson, the play is a comedic and heartfelt romp of swapped identities, misguided love, mistaken imprisonment, and chaotic mishap. Set in the 1970s, a time in history when global tensions were sky high but was juxtaposed with social movements fighting for liberation and change, the production takes place over a 24-hour period in a colourful and hedonistic seaside land that feels as if anything can and will happen. Two sets of twins who have been separated for decades strive to be brought back together, and as the dawn arises, all the threads come untangled, and the truth is revealed.

Anna Schwartz, Founder of Anna Schwartz Gallery, muses that there has been a thread connecting her and the gallery with Chiharu Shiota since they first met at Detached in 2011 in Tasmania at her installation In Silence, incorporating a burnt piano into a black web. In 2017, they again met in Venice when Shiota represented Japan with The Key in the Hand. Anna Schwartz Gallery is honoured to present State of Being: new works and the continuation of the connection. State of Being will exhibit concurrently with Shiota’s The Soul Trembles – curated by Mami Kataoka, Director of Mori Art Museum, Tokyo – at QAGOMA. A significant moment in Shiota’s twenty-five-year artistic practice, each of these Australian exhibitions are new touch points in Shiota’s devotion to exploring the tangle of memory and dreams and their transcendence into our waking lives.

State of Being will present works that span Shiota’s practice. Sculptural works, canvases, and a large-scale installation will envelope the gallery space, creating the absorbing effect that has come to be definitive of Shiota’s practice.

Image: State of Being (Diary), 2022, Metal frame, diary, thread, 50 x 50 x 30 cm

Sydney Contemporary, in partnership with Principal Partner MA Financial Group, unveiled plans for the Fair’s sixth edition. Marking the first physical edition since 2019, the Fair returns with a stellar line-up of 85+ emerging and established galleries from Australia and New Zealand, presented at Carriageworks, Australia’s largest multi-arts centre, from Thursday, 8 – Sunday, 11 September 2022.

Image: Betty Pumani

On Thursday 12 May 2022, the Powerhouse staged Iordanes Spyridon Gogos’ (ISG) highly anticipated runway show for Afterpay Australian Fashion Week (AAFW) 2022. The unique collaboration transformed the Powerhouse’s iconic Boiler Hall for the first AAFW runway show in the museum’s 142-year history.

The Powerhouse workshop team collaborated with ISG to realise the vibrant ‘deconstructed castle’ runway. Artistic direction was led by Benn Hamilton, set design by Max Rixon and spatial design by Tayarch Design Studio, all mainstay ISG collaborators who worked with the Powerhouse team to create more than 15 sculptural works along with painted banners, set pieces and wearable art objects.

The Powerhouse workshop were amongst 60 Australian and international collaborators from the creative industries engaged to realise 33 singular looks for the runway show. ISG’s collaboration with Australian fashion veteran Jenny Kee AO opened and closed the show. The full list of collaborators includes: Albus Lumen, Alexander Enticknap, Alice Knight, Amy Baran Angelica Kilkolly, Angel Robertson, Anna May Kirk, Anna Pogossova, ANTIMATTERMANE, Apollo Michaelides, Aryah Levin, Colourblind florist, Benn Hamilton, Brittany Wyper, CAES, Chanel Bragg, Chase Shiel, Chloe Green, Darren Bischoff, Denis Vukcevic, DIASPORA, Effi Mavratzas, Emily Mavratzas, Felynn Designs, fon99, Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert, Haus of Dizzy, Jake Liu, Jenny Kee, Jo Morton, Jody Just, Joe Brennan, Jordan Olyslanders, Julia Baldini Shoes, Luca Sheridan, Mary Argyropoulos, Max Rixon, Nathan Angelis, NEPHTHYS, Patrick Church, Pormpuraaw Art, Roshan Ramesh, Ruby Pedder, Sacred Honeys, Scarlet Marshall, Similar Difference, Simone Arnol, SPEED, Stefania Gertis, Stella Sunday, Taya Brooks, thevxlley, Victoria Todorov, Xi Wu Studio, Yan Lok Chu, Yarrabah Arts and Culture, Youkhana.

The Keir Foundation, Dancehouse, and Australia Council for the Arts, with presenting partner Carriageworks, today announced the program and jury for the fifth edition of the Keir Choreographic Award (KCA). The award is a premiere event for the Australian dance scene presenting newly commissioned works by eight independent Australian artists and collectives. For the first time, Carriageworks and Dancehouse will each host all eight works over a two-week season from 23 June – 2 July, featuring two presentations of four works each in a rotating program.

The esteemed jury of international dance leaders tasked with selecting the recipient of the 2022 Keir Choreographic Award and awarding the $50,000 jury prize on Sunday 3 July at Carriageworks include Daniel Riley (Wiradjuri/Australia), Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre, Eko Supriyanto (Indonesia), choreographer and independent dance artist, Laurie Uprichard (Ireland), international dance presenter and curator, Lemi Ponifasio (Aotearoa/New Zealand), internationally acclaimed artist and collaborator, and Nanako Nakajima (Japan), dance dramaturg, academic and researcher.

A temporary public artwork by Australian media artist Mike Daly is now on display on Oxford Street until 25 May as part of the City of Sydney’s Art & About series.

‘Tidal’ is a striking light installation presented in a disused shopfront that visualises tidal movement data from 2050 from Sydney and its five coastal sister cities: Nagoya, Guangzhou, Portsmouth, San Francisco and Wellington. Drawing attention to the impacts of the climate crisis, the installation is ultimately a meditation on uncertainty and change. Read an interview with the artist here.