This stainless steel sculpture by Chinese-Australian artist Lindy Lee was installed for the 2018 Adelaide Biennial Divided Worlds and is now part of the Gallery’s permanent collection. Completed in 2017 and standing six metres tall, the artist has referred to Life of Stars as a ‘monumental egg’. Lee wanted it to be ‘larger than life’ but not so large that it drove people away.
The work was made in China and transported in a 7-metre-long crate to Sydney before arriving in Adelaide. It took two cranes and until 4am to install it at the entrance to the Art Gallery of South Australia. Despite the master of the foundry in Shanghai telling Lee that 30,000 was the maximum amount of holes, the final work is perforated with over 80, 000 individual holes. These were marked by hand by Lindy Lee over three weeks in Shanghai during winter.
The resulting concentric circles connect to each other as well as to the audience and are informed by the artist’s 25 years of Zen Buddhist practice. In particular, Life of Stars evokes the story of Indra’s net, a metaphor developed by the Mahayana school of Buddhism, which considers the universe as a vast web of connections and highlights the ‘interpenetration of microcosmos and macrocosmos’. The polished steel sculpture is lit from within. No matter the time of day, Lee’s work is a popular location, among both visitors and locals, for self-reflection, selfies and photographs:
‘During the day, the sculpture will reflect the pageantry of the every day. By night, it will embody the cosmos.’
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