Speeches
Saturday, 02 March 2024
AGSA Biennial Ambassadors Dinner
Rod and I are so pleased to welcome you to Government House this evening to celebrate the 2024 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art and the important contribution you have made, as Biennial Ambassadors, to the realisation of this event.
I trust you are enjoying the Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Fringe, exploring the very best of Australian and international arts and culture.
The festival season enhances South Australia’s artistic reputation and draws visitors from across the nation.
We can all be proud that the Adelaide Biennial is the longest running survey of contemporary Australian art in the country.
As a key part of the Adelaide Festival since 1990, it has created career-defining opportunities for close to 500 artists and dozens of curators, and has been experienced by more than 1.7 million visitors.
This year’s program contains well-known and emerging artists, and I congratulate all involved.
I thank AGSA for giving up-and-coming practitioners the opportunity to participate in such a prestigious event.
The Biennial has become an important platform for artists to create new works and projects of a scale that require an institutional context for their conception, realisation and presentation.
Over the years the Biennial has grown South Australia’s reputation as a wellspring for contemporary art, where artistic risk-taking and expansive visions are embraced.
I congratulate Rhana Devenport and Jose de Silva on the delivery of this year’s Biennial and its exploration of the ‘Inner Sanctum’, reflecting on the impact of the pandemic, our collective experiences of lockdown and restriction, and our sense of sanctuary and comfort.
It's inspiring to see the Biennial push the boundaries of a visual arts exhibition by also including other media, such as music and poetry, with the creation of experiences in the city beyond the walls of the art gallery.
Ambassadors,
Along with principal donor the Balnaves Foundation, your generous support has created a firm base from which the gallery, curator and artists have been able to take the Biennial forward with confidence, producing work to engage and excite audiences of all backgrounds.
Rod and I thank you for your commitment to supporting the Biennial, the Art Gallery of South Australia and the artistic reputation of our state.
Have a wonderful evening and enjoy the festival season and our gardens.