The Biennale Boycott has been successful. Today the chairman of the Biennale and also chairman of the major sponsor detention camps management corporation, voluntarily resigned.
The Biennale Board and organisers made the announcement that Belgiorn-Nettis, has resigned his position from the festival, and effectively ties are now severed with the controversial funds, the outcome that the boycotting artists have been holding out for.
The Board statement says in part: "We have listened to the artists who are the heart of the Biennale and decided to end our partnership with Transfield effective immediately."
The chairman of the Sydney Biennale, who is also the chairman of Transfield, a contractor for immigration detention centres, has resigned.
It is now official the the Biennale of Sydney has ended its sponsorship ties with Transfield after 41 years. Today Luca Begiorno-Nettis resigned after 14 years as Chair of the Board of the Biennale.
This means that the artists boycott, and withdrawal, has been effective in making change, the result is clear: the Biennale will no longer be directly funded by profits of illegal mandatory detention of asylum seekers, and another strong message sent is that art and artists refuse to be co-opted 'to launder the reputations of companies who profit from Australia's racist border policies' as one social media artist post said today.
If anyone was in any doubt that art can be an effective force of change - and political action for the good of humanity, this proves otherwise. The art world is changing and this is the real evidence of its power for good.
On one of artist Boycott discussion pages, is the suggestion that: 'this is a great time to identify other pressure points in the supply chain of mandatory detention so we can work together to bring it to an end.' Showing the refocus of art on the real world, beyond postmodern theory, to address and engage with the most important and complex issues of our global time of rapid changes. And humanity at the centre of the art world beyond the recent theory of the "post-human" and "death of the author". This is a time for universal humanism in art and culture, to make change, to save the world and humanity.
This is part of a new movement in the art world and driven by artists that is happening around the world. Australia is now part- the centre of- of a historic moment.
This is the first time that artists boycotted and protested from a Biennale on political grounds.
This will set a precedent and shows what's more that Australia can lead the art world!
Whilst there is research to be done into what the actual separations mean, and what if any links are left, the symbolic resignation sends a clear message and shows that change has come.
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis himself said today, as published in the Guardian:
"Yesterday I learnt that some international government agencies are beginning to question the decision of the Biennale’s board to stand by Transfield [...].
“I have tendered my resignation from the Biennale board in the hope that some blue sky may open up over this 19th Biennale of Sydney,” he said
Belgiorno-Nettis said in the statement: “I wear two hats: one as chair of the Biennale of Sydney and the other as a director of Transfield Holdings; both organisations conceived by my father and nurtured by my family over many decades. (Guardian 7.2.2014)
Thank you to Mr Belgiorno-Nettis doing the right thing and unlinking the difficult links. Perhaps the only graceful move that could save the day.
As an art critic and artist who was openly boycotting in support of the artists boycott, I shall now be accepting the art media writers invitation to preview the Biennale.
Ruth Skilbeck 7.2.2014
About the author:
Ruth Skilbeck, PhD, is an art critic, artist and writer. Her first book The Writer's Fugue: Musicalization, Trauma and Subjectivity in the Literature of Modernity, which is based on her PhD, will be available in 2016.
Her first novel The Antipode Room- Australian Fugue is available on Amazon.
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