Doing It in Public: The Kaldor Projects (ATOM Study Guide)

Doing It in Public: The Kaldor Projects explores the private and public stories of the arts organisation Kaldor Public Art Projects across fifty years and thirty-four projects in public spaces in Australia.

Beginning in 1969 with Wrapped Coast, Hungarian migrant and fabric maker John Kaldor collaborated with European artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude to wrap Sydney's Little Bay coastline, creating the world's largest land art. One million square feet of fabric connected Australia's cultural landscape to an international avant-garde.

Nearly half a century later, Indigenous Australian artist Jonathan Jones created a monumental artwork for Kaldor Public Art Projects, to respond to the lost architecture and culturally significant Aboriginal objects collected in the Garden Palace and lost in the fire that destroyed it in 1882, at The Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, and in so doing exposed its Aboriginal identity.

In between these two stunning cultural bookends – Christo's wrapping of landscape and Jones' unearthing of cultural identity – Kaldor brought celebrity artist Marina Abramović to entice audiences towards an artistic sensibility; Gilbert and George to enliven the AGNSW with The Singing Sculpture; and Jeff Koons to achieve an awesome feat of plant and steel construction with his much-loved Puppy at the MCA in Circular Quay.

Weaving together past and present stories of these ephemeral works, the narrative of the documentary It All Started with a Stale Sandwich unfolds across many of the projects, including the conception of Project 34, Absorption, with American artist Asad Raza; the planning of Project 35, an upcoming major survey of the fifty years of Kaldor Public Art Projects, created by British artist Michael Landy; including a new 'virtual' work by Australian artists Agatha Gothe-Snape and Tea Uglow.

Doing It in Public: The Kaldor Projects revels in the public moments that John Kaldor's art projects created, and shares the delights of his private passion for art.

Curriculum Links

General understandings addressed in the film:

• The artistic process
• The impact of artwork on the viewer
• Art as a means of expression and exploration
• Art practice
• The connection between art, community and identity
• The importance of philanthropy

Summary of links to the National Curriculum:

• Art / Studio Arts (Years 7–12)
• English (Years 7–10)
• Media (Years 7–12)
• Drama (Years 7–12)