APT7 Exhibition Report

Eminent Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping’s 53‑metre snake skeleton sculpture suspended over QAG’s Watermall together with the enormous architectural installations by artists from the East Sepik in GOMA’s foyer were the major works greeting visitors to the ‘The 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ (APT7). These works were the perfect introduction to what visitors could expect to see in this, our most ambitious APT exhibition to date. APT7 attracted more than 565 000 visitors, and recorded the highest daily average of an APT exhibition to date — 4451 visitors. The exhibition was not only a crowd‑ and critic‑pleaser, but also gave a welcome boost to the Queensland economy — contributing a staggering $26.88 million (estimated). The only exhibition series in the world to focus exclusively on the contemporary art of Asia, the Pacific and Australia, the geographic scope and physical scale of APT7 encompassed over 290 works by 75 artists and artist groups from 27 countries. An important focus of the exhibition was new work by a young generation of artists from Indonesia and Vietnam. In addition, art from Egypt, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Syria and Jordan was profiled in depth for the first time, and APT7 also featured the strongest ever representation of art from Papua New Guinea. As always, Australian art, both Indigenous and non‑Indigenous, was central to the exhibition. The project also incorporated two cinema programs, Kids’ APT7, commissioned artists projects, publications, public programs, education resources and the launch of the Gallery’s dedicated online video channel, GOMA TV. Since the first Asia Pacific Triennial in 1993, more than 2.34 million people have visited the exhibitions, and through the phenomenally successful Kids’ APT we have fostered a new generation of contemporary art lovers. The APT is also unique in its acquisition focus, and this has created an invaluable cultural legacy for the state, with our contemporary Asian and Pacific holdings considered the finest in the Southern Hemisphere. With APT7, we celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the Gallery’s flagship exhibition series and, with it, the institutional expertise, successful audience development strategies and rewarding relationships with artists and partners that have been forged and strengthened over two decades. I thank you, our dedicated sponsors and partners of APT7, for coming to the party and helping us achieve some extraordinary outcomes, all of which are detailed in this report. Chris Saine s, cnzm Director Installation view of Ressort 2012 by Huang Yong Ping, APT7 Up Late, QAG, December 2012 / Photograph: Brodie Standen pages 02–03 Edwin Roseno / ‘Green hypermarket’ (series) (detail) 2011–12 / Digital prints on aluminium and 150 digital files / Gift of the artist through the QAGOMA Foundation 2013 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery foreword 05 foreword