The lines are drawn
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday September 4, 2009
Global inequity is sketched and stretched by this international duo, writes Tracey Clement. They say opposites attract. Maybe the magnetic pull of something completely different is what made ex-pat Aussie Louisa Bufardeci choose Japanese artist Zon Ito as her partner for the MCA's fourth exhibition of international pairings.Ito stretches the meaning of drawing by sketching vigorous lines across stitched canvases, lolly-bright animated videos and even actual pen and paper.In Big Footage, Ito's pixelated patterns and wriggling worms seem to inhabit 3D space and dance across the ether.Bufardeci sexes up the cold, hard world of statistics into bold artworks that highlight geo-political inequalities using wit, humour and a palette of cheerful colours. Her creative translations range from painted installations to re-imagined national flags and digital prints.In her installation Team Joy, Bufardeci reduces the world's most influential non-government organisations to a series of colour-coded bars, with each stripe representing a member country.Some bars, such as NATO or the G8, are short, representing an exclusive club. Others stretch to metres, meaning anybody can join. They all lean against the tilting walls of a striped hallway, valiantly or vainly trying to prop it up, depending on your politics.In her digital prints Recent Plans for the Equal Distribution of Equality, Bufardeci uses statistics to reconfigure the global map so all countries are the same size and are equally prosperous.LOUISA BUFARDECI AND ZON ITOUntil October 25, Museum of Contemporary Art, 140 George Street, The Rocks, 9245 2400.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald