Grant Lingard

Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1961, d.1995

Drought

  • 1992
  • Wood, glass, plaster
  • Gift of Teri Johnson, 2022
  • 1140 x 610 x 250mm
  • 2022/019.a-yyyy

Classical Italian male sculptures are often missing a crucial part of their anatomy – not because of prudery, but because they were souvenired by admiring tourists. Here, a pile of plaster phalluses sits above a tap; a suitably dry commentary on the unending challenge of quenching sexual desires. Made in Sydney in the shadow of the HIV/AIDS crisis, these totems of liberated sexual expression were also associated with danger. In that context, a pile-up of body parts takes on a much darker symbolism.

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )

Exhibition History