AGSA Acquires Celebrated And Influential British Artist Chris Ofili Painting, The Swing

In an Australian first, the Art Gallery of South Australia today unveils a major new acquisition, a painting titled The Swing, 2020-23, by one of the most renowned and influential living British painters Chris Ofili thanks to the generosity of the visionary cultural philanthropists James and Diana Ramsay.

All works of art that enter AGSA's collection are 100% supported via philanthropy, gifts, or fundraising. Made possible through the James and Diana Ramsay Fund, this acquisition exemplifies the extraordinary power of private generosity, and is a gift to all South Australians and our visitors.

This ambitious acquisition dramatically expands the Gallery's holdings of Ofili's work given that it was already the first public gallery in Australia to acquire the artist's work in 2008 with a suite of prints, entitled Black Kiss, 2006.

AGSA Director, Rhana Devenport ONZM, is passionate that AGSA is leading the way in amplifying the voices of exceptional artists such as Ofili.  She says, ‘We are honoured that AGSA is the first public gallery in the country to be able to secure a major painting by Ofili, a sensational work that speaks so vividly and powerfully to our British, European and First Nations art collection. Ofili's career rose to prominence in 1998 when he became the winner of the coveted Turner prize, he was further honoured when he represented Britain at the Biennale Arte in Venice in 2003 and his work is currently on view with a vast site-specific painting installation, Requiem, at Tate Britain.' 

‘As for our beloved Circe Invidiosa, 1892, by JW Waterhouse, which is on display nearby, this magnificent painting was acquired the year it was painted. Ofili's work is held in prominent collections internationally, including Tate, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The British Museum, London; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. We are thrilled that audiences across Australia and the globe will be able to visit AGSA to experience this incredible painting' she said.

The Swing is part of a major new series of paintings Ofili completed over six years in Trinidad entitled ‘The Seven Deadly Sins', which premiered in London earlier this year.

Kerry de Lorme, Executive Director, James and Diana Ramsay Foundation said ‘Ofili's intricate and seductive work strengthens and develops AGSA's collection and exemplifies the ambition of James and Diana Ramsay to support major acquisitions that are transformative for the Gallery and its audiences of today and tomorrow.'

AGSA Curator, Contemporary Art, Leigh Robb says, ‘Ofili's masterpiece is a study of lust and desire inspired by key moments in art and music in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Ofili has drawn on Mallarmé's poem Afternoon of a Faun (L'Après-midi d'un faune), and Jean-Honoré Fragonard's 1767 French Rococo painting, The Swing.  He is also influenced by the Caribbean foliage and quality of light where he lives and works.'

Although the time of day is uncertain, this painting is saturated by summertime fertility: pollen-like motes, surrounded by aureoles as though caught in sunlight, float across its surface, filling the air. Flower eaters, figures that recur across this body of work, populate the landscape with molecules and flowers that spout from their mouths.

A female figure swings in an attitude of lazy abandon, while a satyr lounges in the pink foreground. Partly inspired by Mallarmé's symbolist poem The Afternoon of a Faun, in which the central character reflects on his visions of a pair of nymphs, these two figures aren't necessarily of the same spatio-

temporal plane. While the satyr is earth-bound, connected to the flowers that his looping tail resembles, the vaporous nymph almost dissolves into and out of the air through which she moves.

A defining aspect of Ofili's intricate paintings is a dreamlike dance between abstraction and figuration, opacity and translucency and The Swing is a signature example.' said Robb.

The Guardian's review by Adrian Searle described the work as, ‘Full of giddying detail and unfathomable mystery, these large, lxurious and deeply complex paintings are among the most beguiling works the artist has ever made'.

Ofili's work became the wellspring for a new collection display entitled Metamorphosis, presented from 23 November in the Melrose Wing. The display includes three significant acquisitions also made possible through the James and Diana Ramsay Fund. Featuring over 40 works from across AGSA's collection many of which have never been seen before, Metamorphosis looks at themes of transformation and change in nature, the body and the spirit.

Associated works include Untitled (TBOMB), 2020, by Daniel Boyd an Australian Aboriginal (Kudjla/Gangalu) artist of international repute. This is a monumental diptych painting from a series titled Sandpiper Dance, created while the artist spent a year on his mother's family's country overlooking Trinity Bay, south of Cairns.

The surface of this painting is mesmerising, Boyd uses a technique of dotting the canvas with transparent glue which he then paints over, creating a layered lens type effect. He uses the dots as a reference to the cultural lens through which people may see the world, and the fact that all individuals possess their own distinct points of view. The effect of this technique is also a nod to the great masters of impressionism and pointillism.

The painting is presented in conversation with Camille Pissaro's Meadow at Éragny (Prairie à Éragny), 1886. Camille Pissarro is one of the great masters of the French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist movements. His paintings are celebrated for the sensation of air, light and transparency they generate through his careful chromatic analysis.

Giorgio de Chirico's Italian Square (Piazza d'Italia), a superb example of the artist's own artistic invention Metaphysical Art, transcends and transforms the physical landscape. This painting, depicting Turin's Piazza d'Italia, is a paradoxical exploration of space and architecture which is simultaneously real and uncanny.

Metamorphosis is open from 23 November in the Melrose Wing, Ofili's The Swing is the centrepiece along with much loved works including full names Waterhouse Pissarro, Henri Fantin-Latour and Giorgio de Chirico, Michael Zavros alongside new contemporary works of art and design. Plan your next visit to the gallery to experience a new perspective on the world.

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