Artist
Artist: Kimio Tsuchiya
Curator
Curator: Sally Couacaud
Date Installed
Installed 2000
Location
Royal Botanic Gardens, 4 Macquarie Street, SYDNEY, 2000
Project
Project: Sydney Sculpture Walk
Tag
Tags: Sandstone, Site-specific
Artist Website

Royal Botanic Gardens, 4 Macquarie Street, SYDNEY, 2000

Artwork Description

This spiral of sandstone blocks embedded into the Tarpeian Way consists of relics from demolished buildings and structures such as the Pyrmont Bridge. Each piece of stone, carved by stone-masons long ago, now darkened with age, testifies to their lost function and to the loss of those old buildings in the collective memory.

Memory is Creation Without End consists of a massive spiral of sandstone blocks embedded into the earth of the Tarpeian Way, adjacent to Macquarie Street. Kimio Tsuchiya has incorporated these relics from demolished buildings and structures such as the Pyrmont Bridge, carved and embellished by stonemasons but now darkened with age and scarred from use. Each piece of stone testifies to their lost function and to their loss of those buildings and structures from the collective memory.

Once quarried for the city’s early sandstone buildings and to provide fill for the creation of Circular Quay, the Tarpeian Way is now but a thin veneer of earth covering the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. Seemingly emerging from yet at the same time sinking back into the ground, the artwork resembles an archaeology of the city.

Memory is Creation Without End symbolises the circular connection of past, present and future. In salvaging and reconfiguring the stones into this spiral unification of sculpture and landscape, the artist endows them with new life, meaning and memory.

Artist

Born in 1955 Fukui, Japan, Tsuchiya studied architecture at the Nihon University and completed a MA in Sculpture from the Chelsea School of Art, London in 1989. Tsuchiya is one of Japan’s most eminent and active artists. He has built an international reputation for a body of work employing a diversity of forms, from used building material and consumer goods to natural objects like driftwood and stones. The use of these salvaged materials invests his work with feelings of loss, remembrance and rebirth.

SYDNEY SCULPTURE WALK PLAQUE

Memory is Creation Without End / Kimio Tsuchiya / This spiral of sandstone blocks embedded into the Tarpeian Way consists of relics from demolished buildings and structures / such as the Pyrmont Bridge. Each piece of stone, carved by stone-masons long ago, now darkened with age, testifies to their / lost function and to the loss of those old buildings in the collective memory./ Once quarried for the city’s early sandstone buildings and to provide fill for the creation of Circular Quay the Tarpeian Way is now / but a thin veneer of earth covering the Sydney Harbour Tunnel. / Memory is Creation without End symbolises the circular connection of past, present and future. In salvaging and reconfiguring the / stones into this spiral unification of sculpture and landscape the artist endows them with new life, meaning and memory. / Installed: April 2000

Sydney Sculpture Walk

The Sydney Sculpture Walk was a major City of Sydney initiative for the 2000 Olympics and the 2001 Centenary of Federation, curated by Sally Coucaud.

Ten artworks were commissioned from leading Australian and international artists to form a circuit through the city from the Domain and Royal Botanic Gardens, through East Circular Quay and the city streets to Martin Place.

Each artwork was site-specific, addressing the historical and cultural aspects of its location and contributing to an appreciation and understanding of the city’s environment, history and character.

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