National Gallery commissions its most expensive acquisition — a $14m sculpture representing inclusion and diversity - ABC News

Artist Lindy Lee has a challenge ahead of her.

Living under lockdown in Byron Bay, Lee will spend the coming months and years creating a large, ambitious new artwork for the National Gallery of Australia (NGA).

Much of what she is undertaking has not been done before, and it must all begin under extreme circumstances due to the global pandemic.

Costed at $14 million, the 13-tonne piece will not only be Lee's biggest work to date — in both scale and concept — but also represents the largest investment ever by the NGA.

Commissioned against a backdrop of a world afflicted by contagion, human loss and racial tension, Ouroboros will symbolise unity and diversity when it goes on display in the gallery's sculpture garden in 2024.

'Ambitious' project celebrates diversity

Artist Lindy Lee's next artwork will be a labour-intensive undertaking to mark the National Gallery of Australia's 40th anniversary.(

Supplied

)

In devising Ouroboros, Lee said she was drawn to the snake as a creature that has been mythologised by multiple cultures and as a result, symbolised connection.

An ancient symbol that represents renewal, the first depiction of Ouroboros is found in the tomb of Tutankhamun and dates back to the 14th century BC.

By recreating it for the NGA, Lee said she wanted to create something that was immersive and which drew together those different stories.

"When [NGA director] Nick Mitzevich asked me to be as ambitious as possible, I started to think about things that you could climb into, could have really deeply immersive experiences, and I remembered about the Ouroboros, which is the snake that swallows its own tail," Lee said.

"And this is a beautiful story, and it's a trans-cultural story too, and it crosses millennia as well.

"It's all about birth and death and the renewal of cycles in nature."

Born in Australia and with Chinese ancestry, Lee said she wanted the work to celebrate diversity.

The sculpture will be something people will be able to physically walk into and stand inside of, emphasising the impression of being part of something larger than themselves.

She said she wanted people to have a "really deep encounter with themselves" when they came across Ouroboros.

"By that, what I mean is just to have a really direct and positive and uplifting experience," she said.

"To be touched by something, and to be touched by this space, by a celestial canopy, and to feel the magic of the connection to that."

Carbon negative goal an optimistic experiment

Like millions of others around Australia, Lindy Lee is in lockdown at her home in northern New South Wales.

Ouroboros will also be a sustainable piece, and Lee's aim is for it to be not only carbon neutral but, hopefully, carbon negative.

The sculpture will be made with recycled materials and using carbon offsets, but Lee said it was still something of an experiment.

"It hasn't really been done before, nobody's ever actually thought to do this, but because my work is about our connection with nature and cosmos, it seems really pertinent," she said.

These factors will only add to what will be a highly labour-intensive process.

"This is going to be the most ambitious work that I've done, the scale of it, just the massive amount of labour that's going to go into it," she said.

"There will be hundreds of thousands of holes that need to be hand-drawn across the surface of this critter, and each one of them has to be hand-drilled.

"But I have a really good team around me and we will have fun doing it."

Lee said she wanted people have a "positive and uplifting experience" when they encountered Ouroboros.(

Supplied

)

NGA director Nick Mitzevich described the work as a "landmark piece" for the gallery, commissioned to mark its 40th anniversary.

“This commission represents a defining moment in our history and aligns with our mission to reflect and respond to contemporary Australia,“ he said.

“It will be a landmark for the National Gallery and Canberra and is representative of our vision to be an equitable, inclusive and sustainable institution as we embark on the next 40 years.

"Lindy was asked to be bold and ambitious in her vision for this project and she has exceeded our expectations."

 Lee said she hoped people could draw solace from the piece once it reached completion.

"I think it's really, really, really important at these times to remember that we are together in this, that we can't exist without each other," she said.

"That's what inclusivity means, it acknowledges that I can't exist, except that 'the other' exists also."

Adblock test (Why?)

https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMicGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIxLTA5LTIzLzE0LW1pbGxpb24tc2N1bHB0dXJlLW5hdGlvbmFsLWdhbGxlcnktYXVzdHJhbGlhLWJpZy1hY3F1aXNpdGlvbi8xMDA0ODYwNzbSAShodHRwczovL2FtcC5hYmMubmV0LmF1L2FydGljbGUvMTAwNDg2MDc2?oc=5

2021-09-23 06:04:22Z
52781897126867