New Major Work Gifted to Art Gallery of South Australia

A major new work of art by British artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster has been generously donated to the Art Gallery of South Australia by Australian businessman and philanthropist Tim Fairfax AM. Titled The Gamekeeper's Gibbet the work is the first acquisition by the artists to enter an Australian public collection.

Art Gallery of South Australia, Director, Nick Mitzevich said 'The Gamekeeper's Gibbet is one of the most significant gifts to the Art Gallery Foundation in recent times. We are thrilled with this addition to our international contemporary art collection and grateful to the generosity of Tim Fairfax AM.'

'This contemporary installation talks to the art of the past while introducing audiences to cutting edge 21st century art. The strategy of combining historic and contemporary works of art is a defining feature of the Art Gallery's current approach to collection displays and the unveiling of this acquisition will be experienced alongside historic works from the Gallery's collection,' Mr Mitzevich said.

The Gamekeeper's Gibbet continues Tim Noble and Sue Webster's delight in creating order from chaos, the revered from the discarded and beauty from waste and death. Naturally mummified frogs, squirrels, birds, a mouse and a rat are cast in sterling silver, bound together and gold plated to create seemingly arbitrary forms. Light then transforms the abstract sculptures into the figurative by casting near-flawless shadows of the artists' profiles onto the wall behind.

Tim Noble and Sue Webster emerged from the shocking, ironic and playful milieu of the British art scene in the 1990s and are associated with the post-YBA generation of artists. They take ordinary objects such as discarded waste, scrap metal and taxidermy creatures, to make assemblages and point light at them to create projected shadows which show a great likeness to something identifiable.

Throughout their careers they have played with the idea of how humans perceive abstract images and engender them with meaning. The result is surprising and powerful as it demonstrates how abstract forms can transform into figurative ones.

The Gamekeeper's Gibbet will be on display in Gallery 9 until Sunday 26 January 2014. It forms part of new display Metamorphoses which explores transformations in art across time and place.