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MARCO FUSINATO has been named Australia’s representative artist at the 59th Venice Biennale. Installation view of Fusinato’s Constellations, 2015/18, baseball bat, chain, purpose-built wall with internal PA system at 120+ decibels, dimensions variable, at the 21st Biennale of Sydney, Carriageworks, 2018. Photo by Zan Wimberley. Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne.
On November 1, the Australia Council for the Arts revealed that Melbourne-based sound and installation artist Marco Fusinato will represent the country at the 59th Venice Biennale, slated to open in 2021. Fusinato’s presentation at the Australia Pavilion will be curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor.
Born in Melbourne in 1964, Fusinato has garnered international acclaim for his thoughtful integration of music with visual art in his practice, which explores modes of sensory perception through live performance, photography, sound pieces, and large-scale installations. He has participated in major group exhibitions including the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018), the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), and the 30th São Paulo Biennial (2012), and has been featured in solo presentations at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2019), Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (2016), and the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (2015).
Glass-Kantor is currently the executive director of Artspace, Sydney, as well as the curator for Art Basel Hong Kong’s Encounters sector, dedicated to large-scale projects. She is also board chair of Contemporary Art Organizations Australia, and a council member of the Sydney Culture Network.
Fusinato and Glass-Kantor were selected by an independent panel composed of Rhana Devenport, director of the Adelaide-based Art Gallery of South Australia; Juliana Engberg, curator of the Australia Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale; Kelly Gellatly, director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne; artist Julie Gough; and Aaron Seeto, director of Jakarta’s Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (MACAN). The four other shortlisted artist-curator teams include Adam Linder and Hannah Mathews; Dale Harding and Vivian Ziherl; David Haines, Joyce Hinterding, and Anna Davis; and Patrick Pound and Susan Bright.
Michael Rasnic is an editorial intern of ArtAsiaPacific.
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