For this year’s iteration of Sydney Contemporary art fair, director Zoe Paulsen summoned a team of experts to curate five sectors, dividing over 85 exhibitors across the vast space of Carriageworks into easily navigated themes.

Talk Contemporary, led by Sydney Opera House curator Michael Do and Sydney-based editor Stephen Todd, brings together a series of panel discussions focused on design and architecture. Large scale sculptures can be found in Installation Contemporary, curated by Talia Linz from Artspace. And director of Friends with Strangers Samantha Watson-Wood is facilitating Performance Contemporary. This will feature two showings of ESSSENSSSE by HOSSEI, a major performance reflecting on the emotional process of letting go. Back after a brief hiatus is Kid Contemporary, where artist Lara Merrett is presenting The Blue Room, an evolving installation featuring blue cyanotypes created from plants sourced from local neighbourhoods.

The second largest sector, with 26 exhibitors, is PAPER. Described as a fair within the Fair, PAPER is curated by Akky van Ogtrop and encompasses prints, drawings, photography, artist books and zines. These are mediums van Ogtrop knows well. Currently serving as the president of the Print Council of Australia, van Ogtrop spent years working in European galleries before moving to Australia where she established the Sydney Art on Paper Fair in 1989. This year marks her eighth with Sydney Contemporary.

With a passion for exploring the diversity of works on paper, van Ogtrop singles out several favourites in PAPER 2024 – a self-portrait by Chuck Close at Utopia Art Sydney, the pop culture inspired Christmas Festival, Agent 99 by Paul Worstead at Damian Minton Presents, and the dark and moody Pickled Plum Pot, a mezzotint by Katsunori Hamanishi at Gallery East. In other notable additions, from the Australian Print Workshop comes a selection of delicately rendered lithographs of birds by Richard Lewer and The Weaver’s Suite, a 2018 lithograph by Skywhale artist Patricia Piccinini. Both works were created by the artists during fellowships with master printers at the APW.

While artists and galleries will hold talks in their booths, in the centre of the PAPER sector is a demonstration area serving as a communal teaching spot. “People are fascinated by printmaking because so many people do not know how complicated the making process can be,” says van Ogtrop. “Printmakers and paper artists really like talking and fostering camaraderie, so I want to keep this a close-knit experience for the viewer to enjoy the medium and talk and touch.”

Joining the Sydney Contemporary team nearly a decade ago, van Ogtrop’s aim has always been to highlight the complex nature of works on paper. Often referred to as the “affordable” medium for collectors to start their collecting journey, van Ogtrop finds this to be a limited way to approach such a varied and highly technical medium. She prefers the term democratic, as paper is a medium accessible to all. “It’s the same with all media, you can sometimes buy work at a lower price if the artist is not well known, but in principle it has nothing to do with affordability, it’s more to do with loving the medium. Works on paper are important within themselves.”

For van Ogtrop, it is the artist book format that continues to capture her attention. A steady fixture in her own art collection, her interest was initially roused in the 1960s when the art movement of Conceptualism encouraged artists to explore their practice on a deeper level. The tactile and personal nature of the book is what she enjoys most. “Artist books are usually self-published by small presses and collectives, so a lot of artists started to create them as a means of democratising their art outside of the confines of gallery walls. I think they are the ones who paved the way for the modern art book to be recognised as a distinct genre within the context of art and publishing. It creates another aspect to what works on paper can be.”

Sydney Contemporary
Carriageworks
5 September—8 September

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