Sixty years ago, the editors of the satirical OZ magazine caused a public storm when they orchestrated a clever “piss-take” on corporate modernist art and architecture. On the front of its 1964 February edition Richard Neville and two other Sydney “natives” were photographed pretending to relieve themselves in Tom Bass’s copper fountain, recently embedded into the granite facade of the newly opened Sydney offices of P & O ocean liner firm. Bass’s edgy wave-like water fountain enlivened what the magazine editors decried as the building’s “architectural drabness”, and made for a useful urinal.
In the stunt’s aftermath, Neville and his fellow editors were charged with obscenity and fined 20 pounds each. Fast-forward to the opening of the Sydney Metro this week and Bass’s famous Sydney fountain and two works by renowned sculptor Douglas Annand have found new homes near the new underground metro stop at Martin Place. The three heritage pieces sit alongside six major site-specific works commissioned by Sydney Metro and Macquarie Group for the underground station and the office and retail development known as 1 Elizabeth.
Tina Havelock Steven’s Sonic Luminescence in the underground tunnel of Martin Place Metro. Credit: Steven Siewert Together, these represent one of the biggest offerings of public art at a single CBD destination, according to Felicity Fenner, who was Macquarie Group’s curatorial advisor on the project and chairs the City of Sydney’s Publi.