Source : the age
When Mike Hewson transformed the subterranean, repurposed oil tank at the Art Gallery of NSW into a wildly inventive art park, he anticipated a few thousand curious kids and a fair amount of critical pushback.
His practice – merging conceptual art with heavy public infrastructure – is famously out there. The Sydney-based artist with a background in structural engineering is probably the first (and last) person to install a smoking road-plate barbecue, a working sauna, a steam room, a Hills Hoist, an infinity loop of monkey bars and a DJ booth inside a major art institution.
“It’s normal to initially get negative commentary because my work breaks the form of what people expect from public spaces,” Hewson says. “But from the start, the response was overwhelmingly positive. I didn’t anticipate just how deeply people would make it their own.”
While some critics have been reluctant to label the installation an art show, much less a successful one, visitors have flocked to The Key’s Under the Mat in record numbers, and by the time the free entry art park closes this Sunday evening, the show will have welcomed more than 620,000 visitors – more patrons than the National Gallery of Victoria’s famed but ticketed Yayoi Kusama retrospective, which welcomed 570,000 people over the 2024-25 summer. It’s a record for The Tank and for the Art Gallery though, being free, it does not add to gallery revenue.
Former AFL star Adam Goodes became a regular, bringing his children for a long string of Fridays. Teenagers gravitated toward the sound system, Wednesday night regulars returned for the sauna and steam room, while parents and grandparents settled into the generous seating areas as kids carted salvaged toys across concrete surfaces. On the barbecue is a lunch of corn cobs and steaks.
“I mean it’s a total contrast to a traditional white cube gallery experience where you must stand,” says the gallery’s chief curator Justin Paton. “There are usually very few seats. The seats are usually hard. You’re not allowed to touch things, you’re not allowed to pause. You are certainly not allowed to cook on the art. You’re not allowed to swing from the art usually.”
Is it a playground or is it art? Paton insists it’s both. And he believes the show can build new audiences for the Art Gallery among a cohort who’d never think to step across its threshold.
“When I look at this space, I think to myself why can’t the world be this interesting all the time. Why can’t our urban planners and city developers embed strange treats and surprises in our lived environment, because there is something that lifts the spirits and brings people together.”
Hewson intentionally left a toy car at the entrance to the Tank Gallery to signal to arriving kids that this was an art park they could own, and it’s since been ridden and repaired and supplemented by a fleet of ride-ons. Easter eggs, tiny toys, semi-precious stones have been souvenired from the raised sculptural floor which operates as a piazza and hides water pipes and a water tank.
“The floor was 80 per cent of the sculptural effort and in a way that was the biggest leap of faith,” Paton says. “The reality of the floor makes people feel like they have arrived somewhere that they can stay in the world. It’s a real place. It’s not a stage set.”
Hewson adds: “It’s a very hardworking space … It’s not a babysitting zone or a commercial bounce park.
“It’s a mash-up of shared spaces. The honesty of the raw materials gives people’s nervous systems a break from fake, synthetic surfaces.”
Across Hewson’s entire practice, navigating structural engineering, strict building codes and complex liability insurance has involved tenacious problem-solving in face of bureaucratic resistance.
“There’s a reason these spaces rarely exist,” says Hewson. “Difficult things are difficult. Pushing against administrative boundaries is exhausting, but the gallery backed the vision all the way. I hope this serves as a benchmark for what public institutions can dare to do.”
As the exhibition draws to a close, the components will be dismantled and placed into storage, ready to be reconfigured for future iterations. The eight signed guest books, with their doodles, will be archived.
The pink slide, Tiny wide slide stack 2024, has been acquired by the Art Gallery of NSW, purchased with funds provided by the Art Gallery Society. The Milk-vat steam tank 2025 (steam room) has been sold to a private buyer. Local councils have expressed interest in acquiring the monkey bars and other structures for parks. Hewson hopes the palm trees, barbecue, sauna, mosaic tiles and benches will find a home.
While some friends still introduce Hewson simply as “the playground guy”, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery last month announced its representation of Hewson, who will present a series of sculptures at September’s Sydney Contemporary in September and will open the gallery’s 2027 program.
Next at the Tank gallery is a show by Takashi Murakami, the contemporary Japanese artist often compared to Andy Warhol.
Want more arts stories?
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
