Art Gallery of NSW’s new Sydney Modern wing set for a name change

The Art Gallery of NSW’s $344 million new wing is set to open in five weeks with a new Indigenous name but its largest of nine art commissions behind hoardings.

Community consultation is underway on potential new names for Sydney Modern, as well as the existing sandstone building, in a move that would recognise the site’s rich Indigenous history.

At the same time, the gallery has confirmed that a living artwork and its most ambitious art commission, by Indigenous artist Jonathan Jones, is on a “separate timetable” to the new building and will not be finished in time for the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Work started in February on Jones’s bial gwiyuno (the fire is not yet lighted), a gathering space on the land bridge over the Eastern Distributor, managed and informed by Indigenous culture and practices, and it will now open in mid-2023.

The delay adds to the upset felt by some Indigenous leaders who say Jones’s vision for a “patch of Country” was not sufficiently supported at critical moments of its planning and hobbled from the start by a lack of communication and transparency.

The $14 million commission has been beset by tensions and disputes over its design, costs, the use of cool cultural burns, its footprint and how it interacted with the masterplan for the entire site by international landscape designer Kathryn Gustafson.

Jonathan Jones at Hyde Park Barracks with his 2020 installation featuring emu footprints. Credit: James Horan

According to multiple sources, Jones and AGNSW director Michael Brand fell out during the planning of his art landscape, though neither has confirmed such a rift.

Jones, who is said to have come close to quitting the project, is not commenting. Brand says the artist came up with a “brilliant concept” that was “very complex”, and that nobody has shied away from robust discussions about it.

“Jonathan is an exceptional artist who has dared to think as big as we have with our Sydney Modern Project,” Brand said. “Groundbreaking commissions of this scale and ambition are by their very nature, complex and challenging, especially when they intersect with other architectural and landscape elements.”

Thousands of visitors are expected to flock to see the gallery’s new SANAA-designed building when it opens on December 3, the gallery opening a first-in-line ballot for free, timed entry. Three bronze giant figures by Kiwi artist Francis Upritchard have been installed in the building’s Welcome Plaza.

A vivid floral sculpture by Japan’s Yayoi Kusama now sits atop Sydney Modern’s stepped roof terrace, visible from Woolloomooloo.

Aerial photographs show the spiral superstructure going up for Jones’s living landscape, evocative of the natural topography that First Fleeters might have encountered as they stepped ashore on Gadigal land in Sydney Cove.

Aerial picture of Sydney Modern shows the spiral foundations of the art garden going up on the land bridge over the Eastern Distributor to the rear of Sydney Modern’s Welcome Plaza.

Plantings will reference the gallery’s collection, including early botanical drawings by Joseph Lycett and the contemporary works of Gordon Bennett, and grasses will be seeded seasonally by cool cultural burns.

Hetti Perkins, the gallery’s former head curator of Indigenous art for 13 years, predicts the commission will be one of the most important and unique works to come into the gallery’s collection.

“A key part of it is the activation of the artwork and this ongoing program of talks, of gatherings, not just the cool burns, but commissions related to cultural practices in the landscape – political, environmental, social – building on the existing collection. It doesn’t just sit there and gather dust, it’s an ongoing, living artwork, so different to the way that museums operate. This work will grow and transform.”

Jones was invited to develop his concept five years ago as Gustafson was creating her cohesive landscape plan for the entire site. Perkins says the artist and Kathryn Gustafson had “utterly different ways, of working, thinking, and dealing with the local context”.

“Jonathan came up with this utterly breathtaking idea, this concept in a direct but also a beautifully nuanced way to connect these two buildings, the old and the new, and it’s a revelation in what First Nations means. To his credit, he worked hard with Gustafson’s team in trying to find a harmonious footprint but Gustafson, in my understanding, was very resistant to the idea.”

Asked if this was so, Gustafson said: “Working on significant public infrastructure projects can be challenging but is part of the creative process when you work with a large and expert team of collaborators, including both architects and artists. Realisation of this project will provide greater access to the outstanding cultural experiences the Art Gallery offers visitors in one of the most strikingly beautiful urban locations in the world.”

In 2019 initial detailed costing for Jones’s commission came in much higher than expected and the artist and his fabricator were asked to modify the commission to bring it within a “realisable” budget.

Yayoi Kusama’s Flowers that bloom in the cosmos.Credit: Steven Siewert

Being neither sculpture nor monument, the final $14 million costs relate to the size and setting of the artscape, and the quality and durability of materials needed for a site that would be open day and night to the public. To be built entirely by Australian workers with mainly Australian or local materials, it includes its own sound and light system.

There were further frictions over the proposed use of cool cultural burns core to Jones’s concept with the final detailed design not green-lit by the gallery’s trust until mid-2021. It received planning approval this January, too late for the project to be finished on time.

Perkins, also a member of the gallery’s Indigenous Advisory Group, said the group embarked on a “very difficult process” of mediation but some felt they were not being heard and that the project was being “white anted”.

A Sydney arts bureaucrat with knowledge of the commission’s rocky history characterises it as one caught between the “magnificence” of Jones’s vision and a director’s attempt to manage its costs.

Another conceded protracted negotiations over the commission’s footprint had resulted in a fall-out between Brand and Jones, but that Brand should be given credit for securing funds to see through the commission’s scale and ambition.

A Sydney Indigenous culture leader said: “This project will endure and will see Jonathan Jones deliver the most extraordinary space for cultural practice in Sydney. That resilience is testament to his practice and commitment. But at what cost do we need to fight for that recognition? I question if an international artist would have been treated in the same way as an Indigenous Australian artist.”

They added: “We talk a lot about decolonising museums. What decolonising actually requires is changing a system that hasn’t benefited Aboriginal people to one that does, and that is exactly what Jonathan’s project aims to achieve. And those were the pinch points: the ongoing caring and conservation, embracing new ways of working and thinking off-site in the shape of fire management, practices with tens of thousands of years of caring knowledge and research and experience but still unvalued.”

The design plan for Sydney’s Modern’s art garden.Credit: DCG Design

The gallery says the vision of Sydney Modern recognises the uniqueness of its location on Gadigal Country and the layering of its histories, along with a deep respect for Indigenous histories, learnings and practices.

A key aspect of the gallery’s expansion will be exceptional displays of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, showcased in a dedicated gallery, Yiribana, the first to be encountered by visitors on the entrance level of the new building.

Wiradjuri artist Karla Dicken’s mixed media commission To see or not to see is being installed in the niche above the front door of the original building, left empty by the cancellation of the original 1913 commission by Dora Ohlfsen.

On the issue of potential building names, the gallery said it is undertaking community consultation, and that the timing of any announcement will be determined by the completion of those discussions.

Private donations have been raised to cover the Art Garden’s costs and the first three years of the commission’s public program, including festivals and ceremonies. Fundraising is underway for an endowment so that public programs “can continue in perpetuity”.

One Sydney arts leader gives credit to the gallery for bringing Jones’s project to reality.

“It is incumbent on all institutions to be reflective of how they work with First Nation’s collaborators and these can be opportunities for institutions to revisit their ethical structures in a way that invites true collaboration and structural change,” they said.

“Everything isn’t easy but institutions being open to accountability is necessary. In the case of the commissions for a new institution, there will be difficulties and there will be challenges that don’t have to be mortal. Crises can be a catalyst for transformation. Sometimes the most enduring learnings emerge out of real obstruction and challenges.”

A thoroughly modern, Very Sydney tale: inside Good Weekend today.

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