One of Christchurch Art Gallery’s major acquisitions in 2007, My Sister, My Self is a dazzling balancing act by one of New Zealand’s most renowned sculptural performers. Like many of Michael Parekowhai’s sculptures, this one pays tribute to something very ordinary – the concrete seals balancing balls on their noses that can be found in suburban New Zealand front yards. On the nose of this seal, Parekowhai has balanced a copy of one of the most famous ‘ordinary’ objects in modern art – a bicycle wheel which the artist Marcel Duchamp attached to a stool in 1913 and later described as a ‘readymade’.

Purchased, 2008
Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Michael Lett
Fibreglass, mild steel, wood, automotive paint
2008/016.a-c
2006

Collection tags

animals, appropriation, balance, black, circles (plane figures), furniture, monochrome, reflections, seals (animals), stools, wheels, white (color)