Ordinary rooms in strange places
Tatzu Nishi works his conceptual magic Sydney.
The two monumental bronze sculptures outside the Art Gallery of NSW just got new homes. Gilbert Bayes’ The Offerings of War and The Offerings of Peace (1923) haven’t moved; instead, the homes have come to them.
Japanese conceptual artist Tatzu Nishi has enclosed the statues in temporary structures. Inside are a couple of ordinary rooms – a living room and a bedroom – which seem completely unremarkable except for the surreal presence of the sculptures protruding into the space. The new work is called War and peace and in between. It’s part installation, part magic trick and a deceptively brilliant piece of engineering.
Tatzu Nishi has been building domestic spaces around public monuments, artworks and streetlights for over a decade. He incorporates these familiar, pre-existing structures into temporary, intimate domains, forcing us to reconsider the public/private divide and changing their heroic message. Previous works have taken him to Tokyo, Dublin, Berlin, Basel, Seville, Los Angeles. You can see past projects at his website, here.
In 2002, Tatzu built a functioning five-star hotel around a statue of Queen Victoria for the Liverpool Biennial in the UK. Visitors were invited to “spend the night with Queen Victoria” in the Villa Victoria.
The Sydney project was commissioned to coincide with the opening of 40 Years of Kaldor Public Art Projects: 1969 – 2009. There have now been 19 public art projects, including Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapping 2.5 kilometres of Little Bay’s coastline in fabric in 1969, Gilbert & George’s The Singing Sculpture in 1973, Jeff Koons’ Puppy in 1995, Gregor Schneider’s cells on Bondi Beach in 2007 and Bill Viola’s video installations in a Redfern church last year.
Tatzu Nishi will present an artist’s talk on Friday 2 October, 1–2.30pm in the Centenary Auditorium (free but seating will be limited, so get there early). War and peace and in between and 40 Years of Kaldor Public Art Projects: 1969 – 2009 opens on 2 October and will run at the Art Gallery of NSW until 14 February 2010.
Paul Hayes 2009.