Project 33 - Anri Sala

Project Summary

Celebrated French-Albanian artist Anri Sala has created an innovative new installation of sculpture and sound for the 33rd Kaldor Public Art Project, which has been developed over three years ahead of its world-premiere in Sydney. The Last Resort is co-presented with Art & About Sydney.

Sala’s project will transform the Observatory Hill Rotunda, a site with expansive views from the most elevated point in the city. Audiences will be invited to step beneath a gravity-defying ensemble of custom-built drums, to experience their rhythmic, live response to a contemporary interpretation of a Mozart Concerto. Set against the sights and sounds of the harbour below, this musical dialogue animates the relationship between sound, place, time and history on this evocative site. These themes will form the basis of a vibrant suite of public programs presented during the project in partnership with the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences.

For The Last Resort Sala has reimagined Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major, a seminal piece from the Western canon and a musical expression of the European Enlightenment. Mozart’s score is upended, as if it were a message in a bottle carried from Europe across the ocean to Australia, affected by wind and waves. This abstraction of the score’s structure expresses the way shifts of location, time and perspective alter meaning.

Sala has achieved international acclaim for his works, which explore themes of loss and language, as well as the relationship between sound, space and architecture. These themes have been expressed through poetic video works, live performance and recordings, sculptures and installation. In recent works Sala has explored the complex interplay between live and recorded musical compositions.

The Last Resort
13 October – 5 November 2017
Observatory Hill, Sydney

10am – 6pm daily
10am – 7:30pm Wednesdays

This artwork has been co-commissioned with international partners Esther Schipper, Berlin, and Marian Goodman Gallery.

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Dates & Times

13 October – 5 November 2017
10am – 6pm daily
10am – 7:30pm Wednesdays

Location

The Rotunda is positioned to the North of the Sydney Observatory building on Observatory Hill, within minutes from the CBD, The Rocks, Barangaroo and Millers Point.

Entry Points

There are three points of entry to Observatory Hill:

Watson Road off Argyle Street, The Rocks
Through the Bridge Stairs off Cumberland Street, The Rocks
Agar Steps, off Kent Street, Millers Point

Public Transport

Observatory Hill is a 10-minute walk from both Wynyard Station (via Kent Street), and Circular Quay (via Argyle Street), and a 5-minute walk from nearby Walsh Bay bus stops. The 311 bus route stops at the foot of Observatory Hill, on the corner of Watson Road and Argyle Street.

Parking

Limited metered parking is available at the top of Watson Road/Upper Fort Street next to the project. Nearby parking stations include Barangaroo Point, Barangaroo Reserve, and Walsh Bay.

Access

Most points of entry to the site are accessed via stairway, except for Watson Road, which features a steep incline. Vehicular access is available to the front entrance of Sydney Observatory and a level pathway around the perimeter wall continues to the Rotunda project site.

Families

Families visiting the project are encouraged to make a day of it. Bring a picnic lunch or collect one from our Picnic Partner, The Lord Nelson Hotel, and we will provide a picnic blanket for your stay. Download the menu.

Find imaginative ways to experience the project with our children’s activity booklet, available to families free-of-charge.

After Work

The project is open until 6pm daily with late Sunset viewings until 7:30pm on Wednesdays. Visit to see the sun go down and use the TimeOut area guide to choose the location for your after-work drinks or dinner.

Weekends

Enjoy the sunshine and views from Observatory Hill Park and hear one of our experienced guides discuss the work at 11am and 3pm daily, or stay for a panel discussion with local artists, experts and knowledge-holders on selected Saturdays onsite. Visit the events page for full program details.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

PANEL DISCUSSION: RESOUNDING – SOUND AND MUSIC IN CONTEMPORARY ART

Responding to Anri Sala's integration of music into his contemporary art practice, Resounding brings together artists and curators to discuss the role of sound and music within contemporary art.

Sunday 29 October, 2pm

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FREE PUBLIC PROGRAMS

View the full list of free public programs taking place alongside Anri Sala’s The Last Resort. Explore art and science in our weekend family programs, join our stimulating panel discussions, or hear insights on art, music, history and science in our series of lunchtime talks.

WHAT'S ON

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Read more on the histories explored in this project, and the artist’s vision and concept, in the exhibition catalogue. With essays by leading local and international thinkers and creative minds, full-colour imagery and fragments of the project score.

Purchase on site at Observatory Hill, Millers Point, when you visit Kaldor Public Art Project 33: Anri Sala, The Last Resort.

RESOURCES

BROCHURE

The event brochure provides a short essay on the project and information on talks, programs and events.

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EDUCATION KIT

This resource is designed to help students and educators understand and engage with the themes and concepts of Kaldor Public Art Project 33: Anri Sala'sThe Last Resort. The kit comprises an overview of the project, Anri Sala's practice, historical and contextual framework, classroom questions and activities, along with a glossary of key terms, and list of references for further reading.

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PROJECT PRESSBack to top

The result is not a cacophony but a collaboration between Mozart and the elements. When the weather is good the music settles into a harmonious pattern, with the drums adding emphasis like distant thunder. Sala refers to the process as a "corruption" of the original score, perhaps inflicted by the distance it has had to travel from the old world to the new.
John McDonald, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 October 2017

In Sala's version of the concerto, recorded by the Munich Chamber Orchestra, light breezes and stiff winds replace adagios and allegros. "There are eight different kinds of winds described in the log and the only time it [the altered score] sounds like Mozart is when there is a good wind," he says. "The music will be buffeted by nature. I wanted to include another will besides the will of the composer, a force majeure, something that overtakes the will of the creator."
Richard Jinman, The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 October 2017

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Anri Sala

Anri Sala’s works of film, sculpture and installation create poetic analogies that reflect on life and culture from different frames of experience. Past works have traversed European contexts, from his hometown, Tirana, Albania, to Germany and France where he has spent much of his adult life. His films balance allegorical and symbolic subjects, presented as simple narratives that often creatively pair image with sound, and explore the choreographic potential of musical instruments and their performers.

Sala has represented France in the Venice Biennale, participated in Documenta 13, Kassel, and has presented solo exhibitions at Centre Pompidou, Paris, and New Museum, New York. He was recently commissioned to create an immersive installation for the Seawall House on Teshima Island, Japan.