The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) recently unveiled a new site-specific sculpture Hours in wind, 2024, by US-based Aotearoa artist Kate Newby (b. 1979, Auckland). Newby’s work is the seventh Loti Smorgon Sculpture Terrace Commission and will be on view until Spring 2025.
Kate Newby’s sculptures invite the viewer to consider the poetic qualities of everyday materials and their surrounding environment. The artist’s installations made from found objects, ceramics and glass, and site-specific sculptural interventions operate between public and private, and interior and exterior space.
For the Loti Smorgon Sculpture Terrace Commission in 2024, Newby has created a body of work that responds to the site of the MCA at Tallawoladah and the surrounding environment of Warrane/Sydney Cove.
Newby’s Hours in wind, is a three-part sculpture installation that begins at the Museum’s entrance, proceeds to a hidden space on Level 2 and culminates outside on the Loti Smorgon Sculpture Terrace on Level 4 where Newby has installed an aerial installation comprised of shipping ropes, including some sourced locally from Sydney Ferries, with cast and hand-blown glass made by Newby during a residency at Canberra Glassworks. The installation captures a sense of place and the conditions of the harbour including unpredictable weather patterns and the daily movement of light.
Newby sculptures help us notice things we might usually overlook. At the MCA, she has removed an ordinary glass door that leads to a hidden passageway and replaced it with a yellow pane that she made in collaboration with artisans in Chartres, France home to the gothic Chartres Cathedral. Fabricated using the medieval technique jaune d’argent to achieve the deep golden hue, Newby’s cast glass panel also bears traces of the artist’s hand captured in the casting process, evident in its gentle rippled surface texture.
Kate Newby said about her new commission, “I wanted to work with materials that were all somehow activated by the conditions of the site. So, the glass will refract light and change depending on the time of day or night. The rope will swing in the wind, the bronze will patina and oxidize with the salt air and the rope will cast different shadows depending on the time of day. I liked the idea of a project that would change over time.
Working with these materials allows for some transformation. It will feel very different on a cloudy or rainy day, or on a clear night. In a way, the weather conditions are as much a part of the work as the bronze, rope or glass.”
Suzanne Cotter, Director MCA Australia, said, “As a platform for the art of our times, MCA Australia finds new ways and opportunities for Contemporary artists to present their work.
MCA Australia’s Loti Smorgon Sculpture Terrace Commission offers a unique opportunity for artists to respond to the physical, historical and culturally significant site of Tallawoladah and Warrane/Sydney Cove. Kate Newby has responded to our invitation with a visually stunning and deeply resonate work that simultaneously anchors the MCA building and moves with the light, wind and time.”
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