By Linda Morris
Copyright brisbanetimes
Ancient Feelings was made possible by The Balnaves Foundation, honouring the late Neil Balnaves, the television executive who gave $20 million to arts organisations. Its public sculpture commission is the largest philanthropic gift for programming the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) has ever received.
“My father strongly believed in the power of art to enrich lives,” said son Hamish, chief executive of The Balnaves Foundation. “He was particularly passionate about bold public sculpture and its ability to challenge and ignite conversation.
“It’s always easy to argue for a new machine at a hospital for what it will do and that’s an easy equation. However, I think ultimately the health consequences can be as dire if you have a society which doesn’t value the arts and doesn’t put money towards it. It will have a longer tail and effects won’t be as direct, but it will come back to bite us as a society if we don’t value it and put funds to it.”
The MCA’s Neil Balnaves Tallawoladah Lawn Commission is the latest in a long line of global art projects bringing contemporary art into the public realm including The Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square and the High Line, a green rail trail created on a former New York railroad spur.
In New York’s Times Square in June Price stopped pedestrian traffic with his 3.6 metre-tall bronze sculpture, Grounded in the Stars. Ancient Feelings is the artist’s first public art commission in Australia.
