Preview: Mami Kataoka’s Biennale of Sydney

LAST JULY MAMI KATAOKA, CHIEF curator of Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum, which is known for its big-budget exhibitions, was tapped on the shoulder by the Biennale of Sydney (BoS) to be the artistic director of its 21st edition, in 2018. It was a landmark appointment. For the first time in the biennale’s 44-year history an Asian would lead Australia’s most prestigious visual arts event. That it had taken so long for such an appointment to be made bemused Sydney’s arts community.

Kate Mills, chair of BoS, was a touch equivocal on the subject when Artist Profile spoke to her recently. “The focus this time around … was to look at the region because we had never appointed someone from Asia before. Mami ended up being the entirely successful candidate,” says Mills.

Gene Sherman, executive director of Sydney’s Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, and long an advocate of close cultural ties with Asia, was thrilled at the appointment and sung Kataoka’s praises. For Sherman, getting Kataoka for BoS was a coup. “Mami represents the mid-generation of super active, internationally known Asian curators who have been working across the region and on the world stage over the past decade or