Artwork on Hickson Road, at the Sydney Wharves. Transfield collection. The two signs are wrong way round, acting as book ends for the sculpture on the roundabout made of a car crushed by a rock. However, I accepted this in the commission. When both were stolen, the collection commissioned me to make them again, this time with lock protection.
STATEMENT ON ARTWORK 2012
Artwork comes from an interest in art questioning art: what is this special category of things, events, experiences, both now and historically? If the promised Artwork is 'ahead' on one side of the sign, and 'end' on the other, where and which is the work? The sign itself only seen from the side, in the intermediate zone between beginning and ending? Words drive us to distraction, seeing written thoughts speak out. Signs corral us into behaviors we all graciously accept for the ease of social lubrication which they grant us as swirling citizens zooming across our destinies.
ARTWORK
Technical description:
Metal sign, reflective tape on box-edged steel, placed A-frame legs. Signed edition of 4. Dimensions: 90 x 150 x 140 cm). There is also a swing-frame edition of 4, 75 x 105 x 70 cm. All dated 2004.
For Hunter Art: Art Tourist 1, I was asked to come up with a new artwork which could function as a connecting device, bringing the five participating galleries into a single conceptual domain. With the roads and landscapes between the galleries now brought into the central focus, I imagined a work which pointed beyond the gallery spaces to the interconnecting domains. This is why I asked that when ARTWORK AHEAD / END ARTWORK was placed outside a gallery, the viewer/visitor approaching would see END ARTWORK as they came towards and then went into the gallery, and ARTWORK AHEAD when they left, reminding them that the next gallery was waiting. Unfortunately, many gallery staff kept missing the point, and facing the sign the wrong way around. Another conceptual aspect of this work is this: if the art is 'ahead' of the object declaring its existence, but also "ending" on the other side of the same sculptural object at the same moment, where and what is the "art"? I say that it is the sculpture seen longways, from the side, with its A-frame legs spread holding the long and narrow box-edged sign, removed from language.
For Hunter Art: Art Tourist1, there were five examples made:
1. two large, on A-frame legs (H90 x W150 x D140 cm)
2. three smaller, on a metal swing-frame (H80 x W105 x 70 cm)
Subsequently, the edition has been declared at four of each (at Multiple Box Sydney)
The work (in both large and small versions) was exhibited as a part of my solo exhibition ERRORISM at Multiple Box Sydney in November-December 2004.
The (large version) work was chosen for inclusion in Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi in 2005.
The work was also exhibited at FEHAVA (Forty Eight Hours of Visual Art) at Byron Bay in 2006, and at Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide, as part of a solo show in February 2007.
Artwork, 2004 - black on yellow. Edition of 4. Photograph © Richard Tipping
Artwork, 2014 - yellow on black. Edition of 4. Photograph © Richard Tipping. Collection of Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney.
WORD ART WORK
See also Artwork included in the installation at Customs House, Newcastle, in Public Art on this site.
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