Program Guide 2011 Program Guide | Page 2

Australian Premiere

AES+F

Brett Sheehy
Artistic Director
Come Together
Hello and welcome to the 2011
Melbourne Festival.
This year’s program is the most pancultural I’ve had the privilege to direct,
with major presentations by artists
visiting us from Russia, India and Sudan,
Indonesia, Japan, Democratic Republic
of the Congo and the People’s Republic
of China, Iraq, Lithuania, Ireland and
South Africa, Israel, Syria and Ukraine,
to name but a few of the countries
comprising this most international
of festivals.
And it’s a program which could
only happen with the very generous
commitment and support of our three
major stakeholders – Arts Victoria,
Foxtel and City of Melbourne.
Our theme of coming together, of finding
what unites us across cultures, includes
works which celebrate what can be
achieved though unity, through callto-action, through protest and politics,
through assembly of peoples.
At its simplest, we celebrate the ‘live’
experience - the hunger written into our
DNA that has driven us for millennia to
come together as members of the human
tribe, around a literal or metaphorical
campfire, to tell stories to each other
about ourselves and about the world
around us.
I hope this year’s program will
encourage you to get out of the house or
out of the office, away from a keyboard
or screen, and to gather with others in
the streets and theatres, the halls and
galleries, the parks and sidewalks of your
city, all of which are venues for your 2011
Melbourne Festival.
Enjoy!

Brett Sheehy

(Russia)

AngelsDemons.
Parade
“AES+F is a Russian art powerhouse.
Their work is slick, smart and infused
with a sense of the macabre.”
Houston Press (USA)

“A dazzling venture, using scale
to dominate and intimidate the
audience. Gobsmacking, breathtaking,
jaw-dropping.”
The Art Life (on The Feast of Trimalchio)

Presented by Melbourne Festival
in collaboration with lille3000

themselves, surveying the city’s occupants
with otherworldly eyes.

Event Information

The forces of light and darkness
converge on Melbourne, as an
apocalyptic ‘parade’ of giant
sculpture transforms the heart of
the city into a celestial playground.

Angels-Demons. Parade is the handiwork
of subversive Russian art collective AES+F,
an outfit known for their irreverent hybrid
works incorporating a broad spectrum of
imagery – from pop culture and Hollywood
cinema to religious iconography, mythology
and classical art. Their large-scale video art
pieces Last Riot and The Feast of Trimalchio
were the hits of the 2007 and 2009 Venice
Biennales respectively.

Swanston St & St Kilda Rd

The Europe XXL festival in 2009 saw the
French city of Lille inundated with striking,
six-metre-tall sculptures: colossal jet-black
infants with bat-like wings and reptilian tails.
This October these mischievous
monstrosities descend on Melbourne, as
the city’s CBD becomes a playground for a
flock of fiendish cherubs. Along Swanston
Street and St Kilda Road the demonic
angels – or angelic demons? – will manifest

Bringing Melbourne Festival to the streets,
Angels-Demons. Parade creates – for the first
time in the Festival’s history – an arresting
and playful sculptural spectacle for the
entire city to enjoy.

3

Thu 6 – Sat 22 Oct
FREE
melbournefestival.com.au
Sculptures courtesy of AES+F, Triumph Gallery and Anna Schwartz Gallery
Image © AES+F Courtesy Triumph Gallery and lille3000

Production Partners