Melbourne International Biennial 1999

The Melbourne International Biennial 1999 was a cultural initiative of the City of Melbourne in partnership with Arts Victoria, the Victoria Department of Premier and Cabinet, the Ian Potter Museum of Art, and The University of Melbourne. Originally called "Melbourne Arts International", the event later changed name once the University of Melbourne was able to confirm the involvement of Frances Lindsay and Juliana Enberg, which resulted in a successful fund-raising campaign that increased the initial budget of $1 million.^[1] The first edition, curated by Engberg and organized by Bala Starr was titled "Signs of Life", and ran from 14 May through 27 June 1999. Despite having promising figures (the exhibition was visited by 21,000 people) and the confirmation of Enberg as artistic director, the institutions attached to the project eventually pulled out and the Melbourne Biennial was discontinued after only one edition.

According to Enberg, "[Signs of Life was designed to exhibit] a very human set of projects, as should be the case as we leave the twentieth century and begin to engage with the next millennial frontier." The artists invited to the main exhibition were:

Following a method deployed by other art biennials like Venice Biennale and São Paulo Art Biennial, the Melbourne Biennale featured 11 national pavilions.

• Austrian Pavilion: Anne Schneider, Elke Krystufek, Franz West (curator: Andraes Reiter Raabe)
• Belgian Pavilion: Dirk Braeckman, Jan Van Imschoot, Sven 't Jolle (curator: Jan Hoet)
• Canadian Pavilion: Geoffrey Farmer, Myfanwy Macleod, Ron Terada, (curator: Kitty Scott)
• Chinese Pavilion: Wang Jianwei, Li Yongbin (curator: Huang Du)
• Danish Pavilion: Henriette Heise, Jakob Jakobsen (curator: Dorthe Abildgaard & Marianne Krogh Jensen)
• French Pavilion: Valérie Jouve (co-ordinator: by Jean-Pierre Dumont)
• Italian Pavilion: Paola di Bello, Mauricio Lupini, Roberto Marossi, Marcello Maloberti, Gabriele di Matteo, Alessandra Spranzi, Bert Theis, Enzo Umbaca (curators: Jen Budney & Roberto Pinto)
• Japanese Pavilion: Leiko Ikemura (curator: Itaru Hirano)
• Norwegian Pavilion: Knut Åsdam, (curators: Bo Krister Wallström & Jørn Mortensen for UKS - Unge Kunstneres Samfund)
• Philippine Pavilion: Gerardo Tan (curator: Professor Patrick Flores)
• Swiss Pavilion: Sidney Stucki (curator: Pierre-André Lienhard)

Literature

Juliana Engberg, Signs of Life, exhibition catalogue published by the City of Melbourne. ISBN 0-646-37330-7

References

External links

• http://www.artdes.monash.edu.au/non-cms/globe/issue10/dptxt.html
• http://www.physicsroom.org.nz/log/archive/8/melbourne/
• https://web.archive.org/web/20081202115637/http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/signs_of_life_melbourne_international_biennial/

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