Louisa Bufardeci and Zon Ito: Remarkable MCA Sydney 2021
Louisa Bufardeci: They say international pairings bring forth interesting children. That is probably due to unrelated gene pools coming together in novel ways, but the same may be true in art. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia has been exploring the potential of international art pairings in an occasional series of exhibitions, the latest of which opened July 28.
The current exhibition features the work of Australian artist Louisa Bufardeci alongside Japanese contemporary artist Zon Ito. The show is the fourth in a series of ‘international pairings’ at MCA Sydney. In each, a prominent Australian artist is asked to choose an international peer for a shared exhibition of new and recent work.
Earlier exhibitions included London-based, Australian-born artist Mathew Jones paired with Simon Starling, one of Britain’s most esteemed young contemporary artists (2002); and young Australian artist Ricky Swallow with American sculptor Erick Swenson (2001).
Melbourne-born artist Louisa Bufardeci chose contemporary Japanese artist Zon Ito for the pairing project, based on shared interests in material and conceptual approaches. The show offers a colorful array of sculpture and installation, wall drawings, digital prints and animation. Like previous entries in the pairings series, the Bufardeci / Ito exhibition is intended to help situate Australian contemporary art in a wider global context.
Louisa Bufardeci is a conceptual artist who works with statistical information from the public domain, including the CIA Fact Book, national census data and opinion polls. Data are translated into color charts, maps and architectural diagrams that reveal underlying patterns and inequalities. For this exhibition she has created an ambitious site-specific floor piece using statistics about Sydney’s residents.
Zon Ito creates intricate embroidered canvases and flags, cut paper, clay and fabric assemblages, and playful hand-drawn animations done in collaboration with his wife Ryoko Aoki. (He is also a member of the band Anti-Gravity, known for performing while suspended upside-down).
Together, the work of these two artists from Australia and Japan offer the visitor new ways of seeing and understanding socially constructed patterns and symbolic uses of form and color.
The exhibition runs from July 28 to October 25. To view more work by Bufardeci and Ito, visit the MCA website. The MCA is at 140 George Street, 140 George Street, The Rocks NSW 2000, Australia.
Louisa Bufardeci: They say international pairings bring forth interesting children.
Category: Contemporary Art
