The Art Newspaper

Sydney's answer to the Arsenale

For the second time, the biennial makes use of Cockatoo Island, a former prison site and then a shipbuilding and repair yard

By Cristina Ruiz. Web only
Published online: 19 May 2010

Cockatoo Island, the largest island in Sydney harbour, plays host to the biennale for the second time. A former prison site and then a shipbuilding and repair yard, Cockatoo includes around 70 buildings in all shapes and sizes, around half of which are being used by the exhibition. The most dramatic of these are the vast spaces of the shipbuilding docks such as the Turbine Hall which currently hosts Cai Guo-Qiang's installation of nine exploding cars "Inopportune: Stage one". Elsewhere the Romanian artist Serge Spitzer reclaims the abandoned, roofless Guard House by filling it with metal balls and Russian collective AES + F's nine screen installation "The Feast of Trimalchio" is shown in a giant purpose built pod inside a former industrial building. "Cockatoo Island is our Arsenale," says Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, chairman of the Sydney Biennale, who notes that the island will be a "continuing feature" of the exhibition. Free ferries take visitors to Cockatoo from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Circular Quay for the duration of the biennale. The journey takes 20 minutes