Still Life with Stone and Car

This afternoon I went to a performance of a remarkable Sydney Theatre Company production of The Women of Troy at the Wharf Theatre. Just down Hickson Rd, at the corner of Pottinger St is this sculpture by Jimmie Durham, called Still Life With Stone and Car.

It was created at the forecourt of the Opera House for the 2004 Sydney Biennale, when he dropped the stone onto the car using a crane, and then it was moved to this roundabout in Walsh Bay for an outdoor sculpture display.

The artist, Jimmie Durham, a Cherokee from Arkansas, said of this work:

"Like most of my recent work, this piece is concerned with monuments and monumentality, but also with 'nature'; that implacable hard stuff. In the first instance I am using the stone as a tool; to change the shape of an object. But I also, as usual, want to make stone more light, more moveable, even if it is in a fairly horrible way - like a road accident.. I do not think the piece is humorous; even though it turns out to be. The kind of face painted on the real version will, of course, depend upon the shape of the stone, but it will in any case be placid, and neither 'realistic' nor cartoon-like. To my way of thinking if the stone is simply a stone without a face it becomes a gesture but with the face painted on it, the work develops a strange narrative. "

Read more about the artist and the creation of the piece here.

What do you think of the setting? I think placing it in the centre of a roundabout along a fairly busy, but not too busy, route in an Arts precinct is terrific. It is very accessible and highly visible.

PS - 28 Oct: I have been told that there is a sign nearby (which I missed) telling people that this is an art work, not an actual accident!