For its 33rd year running, Kaldor Public Art Project is showcasing The Last Resort, a world-premiere installation by internationally celebrated French-Albanian artist Anri Sala. Taking stage on Observatory Hill, the artwork, including free public programs, will run over three weeks from 13 October until 5 November 2017.
Anri Sala’s installation is a compromise of sculpture and sound, and represents the first time the artist has created a major work for an Australian audience.
“I wanted to imagine how a fictional journey through the winds, the waves, and the water currents of the high seas would affect a musical masterpiece of the age of Enlightenment,” Anri Sala said, speaking of The Last Resort.
“What would become of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto if it were to float and drift like a message in a bottle, until it is washed ashore after a long voyage?”
W.A. Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto will be transformed in Sala’s artwork, augmenting and reimagining the canonical piece of music as if. Visitors to the artwork will step beneath a gravity-defying ensemble of custom-built drums, to experience their rhythmic, live response to a contemporary interpretation of Mozart’s concerto.
Influenced by the wind patterns of a historic sea journey, this musical dialogue animates the relationship between sound, place, time and history on this evocative site.
“Anri is the most intellectually engaged artist I have ever met and certainly one of the world’s leading contemporary artists,” John Kaldor, Director of Kaldor Public Art Projects said.
Featured as part of The Last Resort instillation, will be numerous free programs, daily staff-led floor talks, weekend programs, including family workshops, stimulating panel discussions and lunchtime talks for audiences to participate in.
Special guest speakers include Anri Sala, award-winning composer and broadcaster Andrew Ford, acclaimed performer and scholar Neal Peres Da Costa, celebrated artist Daniel Boyd and astronomer Duane Hamacher.
The free programs will examine the project’s timely and compelling themes of migration, journeys, the communicative power of music, and the relationships between sound, place and time.
For full public program details and bookings visit: kaldorartprojects.org.au
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