When I wrote about the Sydney Biennale in March, I promised a second look. If it’s taken months this is because I’ve found it too depressing to consider much of the work in what has been the most highly politicised Biennale of all time. As the event enters its final week, I’m going to attempt a few reflections on what went wrong, and what survived this exercise in institutional self-harm.
The problems began with the appointment of Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi of Sharjah as this year’s Artistic Director, and the anxieties it stirred up among Jewish patrons and sponsors. Although Hoor is an accomplished curator, with all the credentials to run a Biennale, it was her politics that caused the tremors. When there’s an expectation a director will push a controversial political platform, she needs to allay the suspicions of her detractors. As Hoor demonstrated with her selections for the Aichi Triennale last year, she is capable of mixing her politics with a range of other themes.
In Sydney that variety was harder to find. The political slant was relentless, and it didn’t make for a fascinating experience. Worst of all was the Biennale’s willingness to tolerate overt expressions of hatred by participants, from Feras Shaheen’s social media post identifying Jewish philanthropists as “Nazis”, to DJ Haram’s antisemitic rant on opening night. There should be no place for such grandstanding viciousness in the Biennale, but Shaheen was not even asked to take down his inflammatory post, which remains in place today.
As director, it was up to Hoor to deal with problems as they arose, but she chose to remain virtually invisible, declining to attend the media preview or make any personal statements. The lack of action could only function as an endorsement of the bad behaviour and would cast a pall over the entire exhibition.