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The Australia Council for the Arts have announced Tracey Moffatt as Australia’s representative at the 57th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale 2017 – the sole artist exhibiting at the Australian Pavilion in the Giardini, with the exhibition to be curated by Natalie King.
Highly regarded for her formal and stylistic experimentation in film, photography and video, Moffatt’s work draws on the history of cinema, art and photography as well as popular culture and her own childhood memories and fantasies.
Venice Biennale 2017 Commissioner Naomi Milgrom AO said she was thrilled that Moffatt had agreed to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale in 2017. “With a career spanning over 25 years, Tracey is one of Australia’s celebrated and differentiated contemporary artists, invigorating the art scene both locally and internationally. Tracey is the first Australian Indigenous artist to present a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale marking this appointment as significant, bold and inspirational. A moment to be celebrated by all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, as it will be by all Australians.”
Moffatt has declared a state of shock when first discovering the news, since then she has accepted the invitation with great honour and excitement, “Naomi Milgrom and the wonderful curator Natalie King and I will indeed enjoy our Venice 2017 journey together and we three will make sure that we keep up the humour.”
“But we three are dead serious about art. Naomi with her collecting and commissioning, Natalie who has worked as a curator for more than half her life and as for me, I haven’t really had a life; I’ve only had art,” Moffatt said.
Australia Council Chair Rupert Myer AO said the Council was extremely pleased to have one of Australia’s most prominent contemporary artists exhibiting at the pavilion. “The Venice Biennale is the most important and prestigious event on the international contemporary arts calendar and the Council considers our involvement to be an important part of the way we promote Australian artists to international audiences,” Myer said.
Tracey was selected by a five-member panel comprising: Naomi Milgrom AO, Australian Commissioner for the Venice Biennale 2017, Chair of the Selection Advisory Panel; Nicholas Baume, Director and Chief Curator, Public Art Fund, New York; Rebecca Coates, Acting Director, Shepparton Art Museum and independent curator; Lisa Havilah, Director, Carriageworks; and Chris Saines, Director, Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art.
Themes such as struggles between individuals, childhood cruelties in suburban life, the toughness of life on the ‘frontier’, the subversion of stereotypes and relations between black and white Australians are apparent in her works. Referencing the artist’s own life and experiences, Moffatt’s work deals with the human condition in all its complexities.
Since her first solo exhibition at the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney in 1989, she has exhibited extensively in museums all over the world. She first gained significant critical acclaim when her short film Night Cries was selected for official competition at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.
Tracey Moffatt is represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York.
Australia Council for the Arts
Self portrait, 1999
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
