It’s cool to be a tourist in your own city at APT11
Being a tourist in your own city is easy with the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art – you’ll see sights that are fascinating, expansive and, even better, free.
Sometimes it’s fun being a tourist in your own city. The best reason I know for doing that right now is the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art.
I have attended the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art four times so far to see this massive exhibition – and I’m not done yet. So, I’m glad the exhibition is on until May 11.
APT11, as it is colloquially known, is the gift that keeps on giving. Gift is the operative word here because it’s free. I understand that sometimes you have to pay to see a great exhibition. Most people don’t mind that, but it can tend to limit your attendance. With the APT you can come and go as you please, for just a pop in or to spend the whole day.
My wife and I recently set aside a morning to be tourists in our own city. We always begin our visits with coffee and cake at the Water Mall Café at QAG, overlooking the sculpture garden attended by water dragon lizards. The sculpture garden is home to that zany Snowman artwork by Peter Fischli and David Weiss. The artwork lives in its little fridge next to what is now a village market garden that is an extension of the colourful Haus Yuriyal exhibit from Papua New Guinea. It’s the first thing you will see if you come in the Gibson entrance, as it’s known, the one closest to the Gallery of Modern Art. Here you are greeted by a pavilion emblazoned with stunning shield motifs. The “haus” is a meeting place and it’s the perfect introduction to the APT11. If you come in that way.
But you can really start anywhere you like at either gallery and just follow your nose, or your eyes at least. There is so much to see, you really can’t take it all in on one visit, so schedule a few. It’s a great way to cool off in this hot weather while soaking up some culture and learning about our neighbours. Because while there is work from the far reaches of the area defined as Asia – from as far afield as Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan – there’s a strong emphasis on our Pacific neighbourhood.
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At GOMA, Aotearoa New Zealand artist Brett Graham dominates the ground floor with his monumental sculptures, including a nine-metre piece called Cease Tide of Wrong-Doing, a black tower that looms over the entrance to the APT and the Long Gallery.
Inside the other galleries and on the upper floors at GOMA you will discover an embarrassment of riches with art from places as diverse as Tonga and Nepal. Artists from the Philippines have attended the gallery to create murals that are colourful and culturally instructive.
Visiting the APT is like a whirlwind visit to a vast swathe of the planet. Videos in many of the gallery spaces show the artists at work or take us on journeys into the various landscapes of their homelands.
All the art has something to say. Political and environment commentary is a common denominator. Indian artist Rithika Merchant’s exquisite gouache and watercolours on paper feature strange bird people – they look a tad Ancient Egyptian. As she points out in an essay in the expansive catalogue, the artist’s creatures are “proxies for us” that are “coming to terms with what we have done to our planet and looking for answers in the sky, water and the land”.
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One of the most intriguing works is a mesmerising new multi-channel video installation by Singaporean artist Dawn Ng – a time lapse of a large sculptural block of frozen pigment melting and disintegrating, sublimely representing the ephemerality of time, beauty, destruction, love and loss. It’s like watching a giant ice block in perpetual meltdown.
Back over in QAG there is amazing art from Timor Leste, a very close neighbour indeed, and a wall of paintings by Hong Kong artist Yeung Tong Lung who creates, with intimate vignettes, his epic 20-metre, multi-panel panoramic view of that bustling Asian city, which was certainly a lot less bustling during the pandemic.
One of the reasons this APT seems one of the most engaging we have seen (and we have seen them all) is the sheer diversity or art and countries represented. They haven’t thrown the baby out with the bathwater, either – there is cutting edge video art as well as more traditional craft and painting and just about every other medium you care to name.
Some exhibits draw you back time and again. Pne such magnetic attraction for me is the gallery dedicated to AWA (artists for Waiapu Action), with its traditional Māori fish trap and visual homages to the part of Aotearoa New Zealand that the sun reaches first each morning. The photos, videos and installations saluting Māori culture are fascinating.
There is the usual exciting cinema program at the Australian Cinematheque at GOMA and the Kids APT. You could go to APT11 every day for a week and still not take it all in. Of course, if you want to do that you can because it’s free.
As I said, APT11 is the gift that keeps on giving. So set aside some time and if you’re a local, be a tourist, even if it’s just for a day. But if you’re like me you will need that coffee and cake before you begin. Tell them I sent you.
The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art continues at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane until May 11.
qagoma.qld.gov.au