Against the tide of rising geopolitical tensions, artists are increasingly forced to justify their purpose as they battle with political censorship and funding cuts. ‘Yield strength’ is an engineering term, meaning the stress level at which a material stops behaving as it was designed to and changes irreversibly. It is a pertinent metaphor for the pressure visual artists are experiencing; it asks: how long until we reach breaking point?
The theme of this year’s Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Yield Strength, platforms 24 diverse artists, encompassing a wide range of traditions and backgrounds from across the continent. Selected by leading visual art curator Ellie Buttrose, the artists collectively explore how materials, selfhood, and society are transformed under pressure. Now in its 19th edition, the Adelaide Biennial of Australian art is a longstanding fixture of the Adelaide Festival, offering a preeminent showcase of contemporary Australian art.
Amongst the participating artists is Archie Moore, who was awarded the Golden Lion for his presentation at the Australian Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, also curated by Buttrose. There, Moore examined his mixed Aboriginal and Anglo-Celtic ancestry through an epic installation comprising a family tree spanning 65000 years and a memorial to indigenous people who lost their lives under police custody. But in Yield Strength, Moore turns to a relationship with a member of his immediate family: his father Stanley. Remnants of my Father is haunted by Moore’s aspirations of financial prosperity, inviting the audience to piece together his story through an assemblage of objects, such as dentures and World War II medals.
South Australian artist Josina Pumani, similarly to Moore, uses her art to advocate for the Aṉgangu people and take a stand against violence toward Indigenous communities. Her intricately textured ceramics must be understood within the context of the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapon tests in Maralinga during the 1950s and 60s, which severely impacted the lives and land of the Aṉgangu people. Aflame with crimson red and charcoal grey, these stoneware ceramics appear to mimic the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara desert lands of South Australia, confronting the devastation caused by British forces.
From the kiln to kitsch, Adelaide-based Emmaline Zanelli is prolific in using humour and absurdity to obscure everyday social conventions. Her new video work Pocket Money interviews people in their teens and twenties about how they spent their first pay cheques. In the slippery bridge between childhood and adulthood, interviewees collect nostalgic objects that symbolise tentative steps towards maturity, such as McDonalds toys, CDs and DVDs.
Maximalist sculptor Erika Scott shares aesthetic synergies with Zanelli. Reminiscent of a messy garage, her installation Necrorealist Sunscreen is a mishmash of abandoned objects, once shiny with the false promise of communism. The work furthers the artist’s ongoing exploration of pop culture’s seductive yet short-lived cycle.
Meanwhile, Milminyina Dhamarrandji, a senior Yolŋu artist of Djambarrpuyŋu and Dhalpiyalpi clans, paints with natural earth pigments on eucalyptus bark. Inheriting this practice from her artist mother, Dhamarrandji’s bark paintings at Yield Strength are abundant with sacred storytelling and rich with cultural symbols.
In sum, Yield Strength prioritises art that is both personal and political. Perhaps most strikingly, the exhibition highlights vital moral concerns around land dispossession and violence against Indigenous communities. As curator Buttrose observes, “The 2026 Adelaide Biennial foregrounds how bodily experience and intellectual wonder are intimately entwined in the experience of art. Yield Strength reflects the diversity of artistic practice across the continent.”
2026 Adelaide Biennial, Art Gallery of South Australia, 27 Feb-08 Jun