The National Gallery of Australia teamed up with Sydney philanthrophic organisation The Balnaves Foundation to commission an annual series of intervention art by Australian contemporary artists.
The first works commissioned for the acquisitive exhibition, which will be launched with a party on May 4, were Sarah Contos's suspension work Nikola Teska Sends Theda Bara To Mars (2017-18) and New Zealanders Jess Johnson and Simon Ward's virtual reality interactive world Terminus (2017-18). Both were firsts of their kind: it was the first time a contemporary suspension work was hung in the foyer and the first time a virtual reality world had been created for the national collection.
Sarah Contos with her work Nikola Tesla sends Theda Bara to Mars in the National Gallery of Australia's intervention art series.
Photo: Jamila Toderas
Senior curator of contemporary art Jaklyn Babington said Sydney artist Contos was someone who could work with the challenge posed by the gallery's foyer with its 14-metre height, uneven spacing and pedestrian traffic.
As for Contos's work's title, while a Serbian-American engineer and a silent screen siren might seem to have nothing in common, Contos said the inspiration for the title came from "a great story about Nikola Tesla working on wireless communication.
"He believed he could communicate with life as far as Mars and one of the first images he wanted to send was that of Theda Bara, one of the great silent screen actresses."
