Marco Fusinato is a contemporary artist and noise-musician whose work takes the form of installation, photographic reproduction, design, performance and recording.

As an artist, he conceives his work as a succession of interrelated projects, some of which continue across numerous iterations. Within these projects the works are almost always serial and use specific frameworks for experimentation, as if demonstrating a thesis. Working across disciplines and cultural fields, Fusinato explores the tensions and contradictions of opposing forces: underground culture/institutions, noise/silence, minimalism/maximalism, purity/contamination. He creates dynamic situations in which these energies are captured by combining allegorical appropriation with an interest in the intensity of a gesture or event.

Fusinato’s work has been presented in many international exhibitions, including All the World’s Futures, 56^th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2015); The Imminence of Poetics, 30th Sao Paulo Biennale (2012); SUPERPOSITION: Art of Equilibrium and Engagement, 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018); and Australia: Antipodean Stories, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan (2019). His work was also included in Soundings: A Contemporary Score, the first ever exhibition of sound at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013) and Sonic Youth etc.: Sensational Fix (2008–10), a European travelling exhibition of artists who have collaborated with the New York rock band, Sonic Youth.

Fusinato has held regular solo exhibitions at Anna Schwartz Gallery since 2006 including EXPERIMENTAL HELL (ATMOSPHÆRAM) (2021); THIS IS NOT MY WORLD (2019); Mass Black Implosion (2017); The Infinitives (2015); Mass Black Implosion (Treatise, Cornelius Cardew) (2013); THERE IS NO AUTHORITY (2012); Noise & Capitalism (2010); Double Infinitives (2009) and The Approaching of The Disco Void-Repeated, (2006). He has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Australian galleries and museums including The National: New Australian Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (2017), Sydney; Parallel Collisions, Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2012); Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2013); New09, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2009); and multiple iterations of Dark Mofo, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart (2021, 2019, 2017, 2016, 2014). In 2012 he presented The Color of the Sky Has Melted, a survey exhibition at Artspace, Sydney and IMA, Brisbane.

As a musician Fusinato explores the idea of noise as music, using the electric guitar and mass amplification to improvise intricate, wide-ranging and physically affecting frequencies. His ongoing series of durational noise-guitar performances Spectral Arrows – described as a monumental aural sculpture – was first performed at The Glasgow International Arts Festival in 2012 and has since been performed in museums and theatres worldwide. He also performs regularly in the experimental music underground, primarily as a solo artist. Fusinato’s first recordings were released in 1996 and he has released many more over subsequent decades, primarily on vinyl format.

Fusinato was the recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship in 2016.

Marco Fusinato is represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery.

Alexie Glass-Kantor is a curator, an advocate for the arts and the Executive Director of Artspace, Sydney. Since 2014 she has led the opportunity for co-curated and artist-led projects with peer institutions in 14 countries, including: Jonathan Jones: untitled (transcriptions of country), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2021); 경로를 재탐색합니다 UN/LEARNING AUSTRALIA, Seoul Museum of Art (2021); Taloi Havini: Reclamation, Dhaka Art Summit (2020); Mel O’Callaghan: Centre of the Centre, UQ Art Museum, Brisbane (2020) and Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers (2019); Angelica Mesiti: Relay League, Art Sonje, Seoul (2019) and Kunsthalle Tbilisi, Georgia (2018); Helen Johnson, Institute for Contemporary Art, London (2017); and Nicholas Mangan: Ancient Lights, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2015).

In 2017 Glass-Kantor conceived 52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS, a project which utilised social media to examine socially engaged practice and art-as-action. Since 2015 she has been the curator of Encounters for Art Basel | Hong Kong, dedicated to large-scale installations. Glass-Kantor was co-curator with Natasha Bullock of Parallel Collisions, the 12th Adelaide Biennial of Contemporary Art (2012) and was in the curatorium for the 13th SITE Santa Fe Biennial, New Mexico. Glass-Kantor is Chair of the Contemporary Art Organisations of Australia and serves on a number of boards and juries including: Academic Board, National Art School, Sydney; Advisory Council, Sydney Contemporary; Advisory Board, Museum of Contemporary Art & Design – De La Salle College of Saint Benilde, Manila; Advance Global Awards jury; and Curatorial Advisory Board, Monash University Curatorial Practice PhD Program. She regularly sits on selection panels for art award and prizes, and participates in public programs, symposiums and lectures across Australia and internationally.

The Australia Council is the Australian Government’s principal arts investment, development and advisory body and the commissioner for Australia at La Biennale di Venezia. Its purpose is to champion and invest in Australian arts and creativity. The Australia Council invests in arts and organisations through peer assessed grants, fellowships and awards that enable art to be created and experienced.

Australia’s representation at the Biennale in Venice began in 1954, with 40 distinguished contemporary visual artists having the opportunity to exhibit under the Australia banner. Marco Fusinato and Alexie Glass-Kantor make the 41st team to represent Australia within the Australian Pavilion. The multifaceted project known as Australia at the Venice Biennale encompasses the National Participation within the Australia Pavilion, a suite of professional development opportunities and a unique co-investment campaign which builds advocacy and enables the realisation of the project. The project forms part of Council’s International Engagement Strategy 2021–25.

The award-winning Australian Pavilion designed by Denton Corker Marshall opened in 2015. Mathew Doyle of the Muruwari people led the smoking ceremony for the Pavilion’s opening. The Pavilion is the first (and currently only) permanent 21st-century structure built in the Giardini della Biennale.

The Australian Pavilion’s form was designed to be as simple as possible. The architects describe it as a “white box within a black box, carefully positioned on the site to ensure minimal impact on the existing landscape”. Large slabs of black granite give the building its dark exterior. Some panels fold open to reveal the clean white interior and allow some natural light inside. These protruding panels aim to enable the building to take on a new appearance when an exhibition is taking place.

Australia’s Pavilion is one of only 29 national pavilions within the Biennale Gardens, all built at different periods by various countries. The development of the Australian Pavilion was made possible through a public-private partnership led by the Australia Council with the then Commissioner Simon Mordant AM. The original pavilion, designed as a temporary structure by Philip Cox, opened in 1988 and hosted 22 artists during its lifetime.