Masterclass with David Elliott (2018)
SEMINAR MASTERCLASS led by David Elliott, renowned curator and director of museums and biennales, including the 17th Biennale of Sydney. Convened by Natalie King, Enterprise Professor, Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) and Charles Green, Professor of Contemporary Art, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne.
Discussion and response was configured around the following provocations developed from Elliott’s current research interests:
Biennials and locality: Sydney vs Kiev. Why and where can biennials respond to local situations and ecologies?
Museum transformation in China & the impact of the State on art and curatorial practice.
A time for dreams: how and where can creativity survive in precarious times of unprecedented turmoil in states where repression increases?
British art historian, curator, writer and professor David Elliott has directed museums in Oxford (MoMA 1976-1996), Stockholm (Moderna Museet, 1996-2001), Tokyo (Mori Art Museum, founding director 2001- 2006), and Istanbul (Museum of Modern Art, 2007). He is currently Vice Director and Senior Curator at the Redtory Museum of Contemporary Art (RMCA) and Arts District in Guangzhou.
In 2008-10 he was Artistic Director of The Beauty of Distance: songs of survival in a precarious age, the 17th Biennale of Sydney; in 2011-12 he directed The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: rebirth and apocalypse in contemporary art, the inaugural International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Kyiv; from 2012 to 2014 he was Artistic Director of A Time for Dreams, the IV International Moscow Biennale of Young Art; and from 2014 to 2016 he was Artistic Director of The Pleasure of Love, the 56th October Salon in Belgrade. A specialist in Soviet and Russian avant-garde, as well as in modern and contemporary Asian art, he has published widely in these fields as well as on many other aspects of contemporary art.
This event is presented in conjunction with the 21st Beinnale of Sydney.
David Elliott’s visit to Australia comprises part of the Biennale Archive Stories program.
