To mark UniSA’s 21st anniversary, the Samstag Museum is revisiting its own history in this project that features the work of its alumnus Steve Wigg along with enigmatic artist, writer and curator, Richard Grayson, now living and working in the United Kingdom.
Triumph was a spectacular collaborative project by South Australian artists, Richard Grayson and Steve Wigg, commissioned by the University of South Australia Art Museum in 1996 – it was the first occasion that the artists had worked together.
Richard Grayson and Steven Wigg, Triumph, 1996, installation view, wet unfiltered terracotta clay on wooden armature, 450 x 450 x 170cm, courtesy of Samstag Museum of Art
Sixteen years later, the artists are reprising Triumph in a new site specific installation at the Samstag Museum. This four-metre high re-creation of the famed Napoleonic monument to war’s victories and its honoured dead, the Arc de Triomphe, Paris, will be built from 1.6 tonnes of wet, unfiltered terracotta clay over a wooden armature. During the period of exhibition, the clay shrinks as it dries and will fall from the armature.
Triumph is a celebration that drifts between an intentional monument, such as the Arc de Triomphe, and the unintentional monument, the site of memorable events which serve a commemorative function.
Triumph is a Samstag Museum of Art exhibition.
Richard Grayson and Steven Wigg
Triumph
Samstag Museum of Art (SAM)
April 20 to June 1, 2012
