Grounding artworks locally

How artworks in large group exhibitions can be grounded in the local context, by engaging with local histories, by working with specific local sites or by engaging audiences directly.  The problem of artworks that travel internationally and often arrive in locations where there is no real context for their interpretation and appreciation can be ameliorated by a degree of site specificity and local engagement.  These approaches may also stimulate new and more challenging works within the artist's individual creativity, feeding inevitably into the enrichment of both content and material practice.  I will base this paper on artists that have achieved this in exhibitions I have curated but expand this to include relevant works seen during my visit to Europe in June 2007 at Venice, Basle, Kassel and Munster.  In this way although it references earlier experiences it will come very much up to the moment.

Anthony Bond is currently Director Curatorial at the Art Gallery of NSW where he has been responsible for collecting International contemporary art since 1984.  His major exhibitions include; The British Show at AGNSW and touring 1984-85, the 9th Sydney Biennale Boundary Rider 1992-93,  TRACE the inaugural Liverpool Biennale of Contemporary International Art 1999.  He has also curated historical exhibitions such as Body in 1997 and Self Portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary for the National Portrait Gallery London and AGNSW Sydney 2005-6.  His most recent exhibition of new works by Anselm Kiefer with accompanying book were launched in London in January. Anslem Keifer is now showing at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.