The Tate Britain has unveiled its new Duveens Commission, Harrier and Jaguar, by Fiona Banner. Banner's largest work to date, Harrier and Jaguar brings the highly charged physicality of two real fighter jets, both previously in active military service, into the unexpected setting of the neoclassical Duveen Galleries.
Opportunities for artists to undertake ambitious projects like Harrier and Jaguar are harder to come by in New Zealand. Public art galleries occasionally commission large-scale art projects - Peter Robinson's Snow Ball Blind Time (2008) that occupied the entire 574 square meters of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery springs to mind. Scale will also be a feature of some of the works being commissioned for Auckland's waterfront under the City Council's public art programme, notably with Anthony McCall's work in a huge silo at the Tank Farm. But it's hard to beat Alan Gibbs' sculpture park at The Farm on the Kaipara where artists like Anish Kapoor and Richard Serra have been able to work on a monumental scale creating spectacular, site-specific sculptures.
Image: Fiona Banner, Harrier and Jaguar, 2010, Duveen Galleries, Tate Britain
