Project 27 - 13 Rooms

Project Summary

Kaldor Public Art Project 27, 13 Rooms, brought together 13 artists and more than 100 performers to present an innovative group exhibition of "living sculpture" within 13 purpose-built rooms. This groundbreaking event ran for 11 days and was curated by renowned museum directors and curators Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-director of London’s Serpentine Gallery, and Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 in New York.

Originally commissioned as 11 Rooms by Manchester International Festival, the International Arts Festival RUHRTRIENNALE 2012–2014, and Manchester Art Gallery, this landmark exhibition was extended and presented at Pier 2/3 in Sydney’s Walsh Bay to include new and re-imagined works commissioned for the project. 13 Rooms in Sydney included iconic senior artists Marina Abramović, John Baldessari, and Joan Jonas, along with major figures in contemporary international art today: Damien Hirst; Tino Sehgal; artist duo Allora and Calzadilla; Simon Fujiwara; Xavier Le Roy; Laura Lima; Roman Ondák; Santiago Sierra; and Xu Zhen.

In addition to the 12 international artists selected to participate in the project, Australian artist duo Clark Beaumont were invited by the curators to present work in a new thirteenth room.

Find the full 13 Rooms website here.

Klaus Biesenbach and Hans Ulrich Obrist

13 Rooms
11 – 21 April 2013
Pier 2/3, Walsh Bay, Sydney

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VideoBack to top

13 Rooms: Overview

13 Rooms: Episode 1

13 Rooms: Episode 2

13 Rooms: Episode 3

13 Rooms: Episode 4

The CuratorsBack to top

13 Rooms

Hans Ulrich Obrist

Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist is Co-director of Exhibitions and Programs and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London. He has previously served as curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Museum in Progress, Vienna. The first exhibition Obrist curated was in his student apartment in 1991, in the decades since he has become one of the most recognised and prolific curators in the world.

Klaus Biesenbach

Klaus Biesenbach is Director of MoMA PS1 in New York and a Chief Curator at Large at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He was the Founding Director of both the Kunst-Werke Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin and the Berlin Biennale. Key international exhibitions Biesenbach has organised include MoMA’s landmark show Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present (2010), ‘Hybrid Workspace’ at Documenta X (Kassel, 1997) and Shanghai Biennale (2002).

Education KitBack to top

This Education Kit discusses the groundbreaking exhibition 13 Rooms, with information on the curators and the practice of the participating artists. The Kit includes classroom activities and questions for secondary and tertiary students, on themes such as endurance, participation, the gaze, the object, social relations and the body.

LEARNING STAGES: Secondary (Stages 4-6) | Tertiary

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