The University of Sydney has announced that its historic Chau Chak Wing Museum will be one of six host locations for the 2024 edition of Biennale of Sydney.
The free public art festival will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2023, with the Museum to host works by a range of international artists, including Mangala Bai Maravi from India’s Baiga tribe, and the late Chinese-American painter Martin Wong.
Designed by Johnson Pilton Walker, the Museum opened in 2020, consolidating three of the University’s most significant cultural, scientific and art collections. The seemingly levitating concrete box sits amongst a number of mature trees, turning a single-storey face towards the university quadrangle building, while the rest of the museum digs into the slope to house the staggering collections in a series of airy and light-filled interior terraces.
“Through my previous work with the Biennale, I know it engages with the themes of our time,” says Michael Dagostino, USYD’s Director of Museums and Cultural Engagement.
“The Chau Chak Wing Museum is the perfect place for these important conversations.”
While the museum’s current exhibition program encompasses Pacific history, contemporary Indigenous work, and historic and contemporary photography, Dagostino says the Biennale will bring a different feel to the facility.
“During the Biennale, we hope to transform the museum into a space where contemporary artists can be in residence, drawing inspiration from our collections to create new works.”
“By partnering with the Biennale of Sydney, we look forward to bringing new art audiences from across Australia and the world to the museum.”
The 24th edition of the Biennale, Ten Thousand Suns, opens on 9 March 2024. Artistic directors Cosmin Costinaș and Inti Guerrero said the Biennale will examine ‘collective possibilities around a future that is not only possible, but necessary to be lived in joy and plenitude’.
The Biennale of Sydney will commence on 9 March and finish 10 June 2024.
