Continuing with his work that transforms buildings under construction into works of art, New Zealand artist Mike Hewson partnered with Aussie Agatha Gothe-Snape to transform the exterior of the Australian Museum of Contemporary Art itself into a large-scale installation.
The six-storey-tall piece, IT XXXXX XX, is characteristic of Hewson's optical illusion installations, using vinyl appliques for a transparent look in the letters, lending what appears to be a vision of the building behind the scaffold curtain. Fuse this with Gothe-Snape's conceptual take on the structure and institution itself—"IT HOLDS UP"—and there you have it. The installation took 89 days throughout a five-stage process to complete.
"IT HOLDS UP refers to a sense of longevity, durability and timelessness. It is also a statement of optimism - the inverse of Yeats' ominous poetic verse—"…things fall apart, the centre cannot hold." In this time of instant gratification, rapid technological change and economic instability, notions of perpetuity, permanence and duration are perhaps more important than ever, even if they are only held up temporarily."
The piece will hang for the duration of the maintenance on the exterior of the MCA.
RELATED: Optical Illusion Illustration Be Mike Hewson
[via Designboom]
