Heavy Metal Jam
Session
Heavy Metal Jam Session is a suite of six permanent public sculptures
commissioned for COSTCO Wholesale Australia, situated at the foot of
the Southern Star Observatory Wheel in Docklands, Melbourne. The suite
is a further development of earlier Jam Session assemblage
sculptures made of found plastic domestic and industrial objects.
The types of objects depicted in the suite include a shipping pallet, stools,
chairs, shelves, balls, light fittings, a washing line, a hoop, tables, buckets,
lampshades, washing machine parts, a plant pot, bowls and bins. This diverse
group of generic products, jammed together in the most playful of ways, explicitly
references Costco’s own wholesaling activities.
These sculptures are commonplace items made majestic. The robust physicality
of the heavy steel and bronze forms combined with their glossy, seductive
surfaces create an immediate and powerful impact, even before a passing
pedestrian has registered their familiar component parts. The sculptures
act as dynamic visual anchors against the backdrop of the site’s angular
built forms, and in the midst of the visual noise of day-to-day activity
on the plaza area.
The work also features special lighting, five of the six sculptures are
internally lit.
Materials Painted steel, aluminium and bronze
Heights range from 190cm to 570cm
Photos Alex Lyne
Project Manager Robert Sinclair
Consultancy group Brecknock Consultants
