ADELAIDE.- The 2016 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Magic Object has recorded record attendances with more than 220,000 people visiting the exhibition during its 79 day season, doubling the attendance figures of the 2014 Biennial.

Art Gallery of South Australia, Assistant Director, Artistic Programs and 2016 Adelaide Biennial, Curator, Lisa Slade attributes the strong attendance to the exhibition’s accessibility and visibility across the city, as well as the Biennial’s now well established reputation as a platform for new work by Australian artists.

‘Magic Object has built on the success of the 2014 Biennial. Crucial to its success and a contributor to the surge in attendance figures was the expansion of the reach of the exhibition across and beyond Adelaide’s North Terrace to include the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, JamFactory, Carrick Hill and Santos Museum of Economic Botany in the Adelaide Botanic Garden,’said Slade.

To date thirteen works of art from the 2016 Adelaide Biennial, collectively valued at over $500,000, have been acquired into the Art Gallery’s collection. Nell’s sculptural installation The Wake, consisting of forty-one hand built predominantly ceramic vessels has been acquired in its entirety, making it one of the most significant acquisitions of the artist’s work by a state gallery. In addition to The Wake, ceramic works to enter the collection include Juz Kitson’s Something Sacred no II, Pepai Jangala Carroll’s Walungurru, Glenn Barkley’s Time Fades Away and Golden Euphorbia Pot, and Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran’s F*** You.

Thanks to the continued generosity of Diana Ramsay AO, with the assistance of Philip Bacon AM, Michael Zavros’ The Phoenix has been acquired into the Gallery’s collection. The most significant painting in the artist’s recent series combining floral arrangements with decorative objects to create zoomorphic creatures, The Phoenix is the first work by Zavros to enter the Gallery’s collection.

Sophisticated installations by artists Heather B. Swann and Tarryn Gill and a sculpture by Abdul-Rahman Abdullah have also been acquired. Swann’s most ambitious work to date, Banksia Men, consisting of nine towering, dark figures woven from gathered black silk and dotted with spherical glass beads; Gill’s installation of nine guardian figures and accompanying soundscape, Guardians and Abdullah’s first ever self-portrait, Merantau will join the Gallery’s contemporary art collection.

Photography is also well represented in this year’s acquisitions with Jacqui Stockdale’s The Offering and Man of Quinn and Robyn Stacey Lighthouse Wharf Hotel all taking their place in the permanent collection.

Erica Green, Director of the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, has been appointed as the curator of the 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art in a move to reinforce the strategic growth and continuity of the Biennial.

‘Erica has a host of commissioned projects and major exhibitions and publications to her credit. Her appointment builds on the partnership established with the Samstag Museum and other Adelaide cultural institutions for this year’s Adelaide Biennial,’said Nick Mitzevich, Director, Art Gallery of South Australia.