From Andrew Frost…
Nike Savvas’s major new piece for the Art Gallery of NSW is Rally, a 60 x 8 metre installation of fluttering coloured plastic strips, and an appropriate return to the gallery for the artist following the popular success of her Atomic: Full of love, full of wonder installation in 2005. In between Savvas has produced a number of major installation works including Liberty and Anarchy, a show at the Leeds Gallery in the UK, two subsequent variations on Atomic in 2004 and 2012, and Epic [2013], a synergistic meeting of artist and brand name, a hanging galaxy of balls installed in the Nike flagship store in San Francisco.
The uniting element in all this has been Savvas’s interest in the visual resonance of colour, and how it can be explored in three dimensional space, often animated by a flow of air pushed along by a battery of floor fans. For the new AGNSW Savvas reinvents Rush, a work installed in Bridge Lane, Sydney in 2010, and substitutes natural air flow once again with fans, and the excited movement of visitors below. Savvas’s work has an undeniable optical dazzle and a simplicity that not only doesn’t lessen its appeal, but perhaps promotes it. For the show the gallery is surrounding the installation in the long entry hall with works from the Australian and international collection connecting abstract painting with Savvas’s work.
Until June 22
Art Gallery of NSW, The Domain
Pic: Nike Savvas Rush 2010 (detail). Photo credit Jamie North.
