Project Summary
Celebrated French-Albanian artist Anri Sala created an innovative new installation of sculpture and sound for the 33rd Kaldor Public Art Project, which
was developed over three years ahead of its world-premiere in Sydney. The Last Resort was co-presented with Art & About Sydney.
Sala’s project transformed the Observatory Hill Rotunda, a site with expansive views from the most elevated point in the city. Audiences were
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 animated the relationship between sound, place,
time and history on this evocative site. These themes formed 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 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
This artwork was co-commissioned with international partners Esther Schipper, Berlin, and Marian Goodman Gallery.
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CATALOGUEBack to top

Not Available
Read more about Anri Sala'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.
RESOURCES

BiographyBack to top

Anri Sala
Project SupportersBack to top
Architecture & Construction Partners
PROGRAM PARTNER
PROJECT PATRONS
Geoff Ainsworth AM and Johanna Featherstone
Jillian Broadbent AO and Olev Rahn
Paul and Roslyn Espie
Danny Goldberg OAM and Lisa Goldberg
David Gonski AC and Prof Orli Wargon OAM
Leslie and Ginny Green
Lizanne Knights and Julian Knights AO
Mark and Louise Nelson
Penelope Seidler AM
Peter and Jenny Wohl