The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) today unveiled a new site-specific sculpture, Hours in wind (2024) by US-based Aotearoa New Zealand artist Kate Newby (b. 1979, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland). Newby’s work is the seventh Loti Smorgon Sculpture Terrace Commission and will be displayed until Spring 2025.

Kate Newby’s sculptures invite the audience to consider the poetic qualities of everyday materials and their surrounding environment. The artist’s installations, made from found objects, ceramics and glass, and site-specific sculptural interventions, operate between public and private, and interior and exterior space.

For the 2024 Loti Smorgon Sculpture Terrace Commission, Newby has created a body of work that responds to the site of the MCA at Tallawoladah and the surrounding environment of Warrane/Sydney Cove.

Newby’s Hours in wind is a three-part sculpture installation that begins at the Museum’s entrance, proceeds to a space on Level 2 and culminates outside on the Loti Smorgon Sculpture Terrace on Level 4, where the artist has installed an aerial installation comprised of shipping ropes, including some sourced locally from Sydney Ferries, with cast and hand-blown glass made by the artist during a residency at Canberra Glassworks. The installation captures a sense of place and the conditions of the harbour, including unpredictable weather patterns and the daily movement of light.

Newby's sculptures help us notice things we might usually overlook. At the MCA, she has removed an ordinary glass door that leads to a passageway and replaced it with a yellow pane that she made in collaboration with artisans in Chartres, France, home to the gothic Chartres Cathedral. Fabricated using the medieval technique jaune d'argent to achieve the deep golden hue, Newby’s cast glass panel also bears traces of the artist’s hand captured in the casting process, evident in its gently rippled surface.

Newby said, ‘I wanted to work with materials that were all somehow activated by the conditions of the site. So, the glass will refract light and change depending on the time of day or night. The rope will swing in the wind, the bronze will patina and oxidise with the salt air and the rope will cast different shadows depending on the time of day. I liked the idea of a project that would change over time. Working with these materials allows for some transformation. It will feel very different on a cloudy or rainy day, or on a clear night. In a way, the weather conditions are as much a part of the work as the bronze, rope or glass’.

Suzanne Cotter, Director MCA Australia, said, ‘As a platform for the art of our times, MCA Australia finds new ways and opportunities for contemporary artists to present their work. MCA Australia’s Loti Smorgon Sculpture Terrace Commission offers a unique opportunity for artists to respond to the physical, historical and culturally significant site of Tallawoladah and Warrane/Sydney Cove. Kate Newby has responded to our invitation with a visually stunning and deeply resonant work that simultaneously anchors the MCA building and moves with the light, wind and time’.

The Loti Smorgon Sculpture Terrace Commission is named in honour of Mrs Loti Smorgon AO (1918–2013), who, together with her husband Victor Smorgon, donated 149 artworks to the MCA Collection. The creation of a sculpture terrace for the Museum realised a long-held desire by Loti Smorgon to support Australian sculptural works. Hours in wind (2024) is the seventh in a series of site-specific commissions for the Sculpture Terrace which overlooks one of the best views of Sydney Harbour. Past commissions include works by Reko Rennie (2023–2024), Cameron Robbins (2021–2023), Danie Mellor (2019), Caroline Rothwell (2016), Sangeeta Sandrasegar (2014) and Hany Armanious (2012).

The Loti Smorgon Sculpture Terrace Commission is generously supported by Lead Patrons Ginny and Leslie Green, 2024.