Sculpture wins Queensland commission

Associate Professor Michael Parekowhai (Ngati Whakarongo/Pakeha) has been awarded the Premier of Queensland’s Sculpture Commission with his proposed sculpture The World Turns.

The project to be funded by the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation and the Queensland Public Art Fund was the unanimous choice by the selection committee.

The proposed sculpture will feature a life-sized upended elephant, a chair and a native Australian water marsupial known as a kuril. The Kurilpa Point site for the commission translates as kuril’s place.

To be cast in bronze, the three parts of The World Turns continues Parekowhai’s theme of introduced species and culture, while recognising and affirming the kuril as the cultural custodian of the area.

The Director of the Queensland Art Gallery Tony Ellwood who chaired the selection committee said “The World Turns successfully draws connections between the river, the Gallery of Modern Art and the adjacent State Library of Queensland; and is simultaneously contemplative and humorous. The artist’s representation of cultures coming together is at the core of what art galleries aim to do”.

“The award of the Queensland Sculpture commission marks the culmination of a remarkable year for Michael coming as it does after the close of this year’s Venice Biennale (in which he represented New Zealand) and the installation of his Biennale works at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris. His work has long been admired in Brisbane. With his Ten Guitars installation, Michael one of the “stars” of the Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at the Queensland Art Gallery in 1999 and since then the gallery has assembled an unrivalled and enviable collection of his work. The new commission will make a handsome addition and the Elam School of Fine Arts is absolutely thrilled that one of our own, one of Elam’s Internationals, has been selected for this project” says Jonathan Mane-Wheoki, Professor of Fine Arts and Head of Elam.

The Commission marks the fifth anniversary of the opening of the Gallery of Modern Art and 20 years of the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art.